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[
"Peter Sutcliffe",
"Criticism of West Yorkshire Police",
"what made it difficult",
"It was one of the largest investigations by a British police force and predated the use of computers.",
"What else made it difficult",
"Information on suspects was stored on handwritten index cards. Aside from difficulties in storing and accessing the paperwork",
"What did it do to the floor",
"the floor of the incident room was reinforced to cope with the weight of the paper",
"Why did the officers struggle",
"it was difficult for officers to overcome the information overload of such a large manual system.",
"How many times did the interview Sutcliff",
"Sutcliffe was interviewed nine times, but all information the police had about the case was stored in paper form, making cross-referencing difficult,"
]
| C_d7cd70b384574954891aae48803ec621_1 | what else add paper | 6 | other than the case being stored in paper form what else was added on paper? | Peter Sutcliffe | West Yorkshire Police were criticised for being inadequately prepared for an investigation on this scale. It was one of the largest investigations by a British police force and predated the use of computers. Information on suspects was stored on handwritten index cards. Aside from difficulties in storing and accessing the paperwork (the floor of the incident room was reinforced to cope with the weight of the paper), it was difficult for officers to overcome the information overload of such a large manual system. Sutcliffe was interviewed nine times, but all information the police had about the case was stored in paper form, making cross-referencing difficult, compounded by television appeals for information which generated thousands more documents. Assistant Chief Constable George Oldfield was criticised for being too focused on a hoax confessional tape that seemed to indicate a perpetrator with a Wearside background, and for ignoring advice from survivors of Sutcliffe's attacks, and several eminent specialists including the FBI, plus dialect analysts such as Stanley Ellis and Jack Windsor Lewis, whom he had also consulted throughout the manhunt, that "Wearside Jack" was a blatant hoaxer. The investigation used it as a point of elimination rather than a line of enquiry and allowed Sutcliffe to avoid scrutiny, as he did not fit the profile of the sender of the tape or letters. The "Wearside Jack" hoaxer was given unusual credibility when analysis of saliva on the envelopes he sent showed he had the same blood group as the Yorkshire Ripper had left at crime scenes, a type shared by only 6% of the population. The hoaxer appeared to know details of the murders which had not been released to the press, but which in fact he had acquired from his local newspaper and pub gossip. The official response to the criticisms led to the implementation of the forerunner of the Home Office Large Major Enquiry System, the development of the Major Incident Computer Application (MICA), developed between West Yorkshire Police and ISIS Computer Services. In response to the police reaction to the murders, the Leeds Revolutionary Feminist Group organised a number of 'Reclaim the Night' marches. The group and other feminists had criticised the police for victim-blaming, especially the suggestion that women should remain indoors at night. Eleven marches in various towns across the United Kingdom took place on the night of 12 November 1977. They made the point that women should be able to walk anywhere without restriction and that they should not be blamed for men's violence. In 1988, the mother of Sutcliffe's last victim, Jacqueline Hill, during action for damages on behalf of her daughter's estate, argued in the High Court that the police had failed to use reasonable care in apprehending the murderer of her daughter in Hill v Chief Constable of West Yorkshire. The House of Lords held that the Chief Constable of West Yorkshire did not owe a duty of care to the victim due to the lack of proximity and therefore failing on the second limb of the Caparo test. CANNOTANSWER | compounded by television appeals for information which generated thousands more documents. | Peter William Sutcliffe (2 June 1946 – 13 November 2020), also known as Peter William Coonan, was an English serial killer who was dubbed the Yorkshire Ripper (an allusion to Jack the Ripper) by the press. On 22 May 1981, he was found guilty of murdering 13 women and attempting to murder seven others between 1975 and 1980. He was sentenced to 20 concurrent sentences of life imprisonment, which were converted to a whole life order in 2010. Two of Sutcliffe's murders took place in Manchester; all the others were in West Yorkshire.
Sutcliffe initially attacked women and girls in residential areas, but appears to have shifted his focus to red-light districts because he was attracted by the vulnerability of prostitutes, and perceived ambivalence of police to prostitutes' safety at the time. He had allegedly regularly used the services of prostitutes in Leeds and Bradford. After his arrest in Sheffield by South Yorkshire Police for driving with false number plates in January 1981, Sutcliffe was transferred to West Yorkshire Police, which questioned him about the killings. He confessed to being the perpetrator, saying that the voice of God had sent him on a mission to kill prostitutes. At his trial, Sutcliffe pleaded not guilty to murder on grounds of diminished responsibility, but he was convicted of murder on a majority verdict. Following his conviction, Sutcliffe began using his mother's maiden name of Coonan.
The search for Sutcliffe was one of the largest and most expensive manhunts in British history, and West Yorkshire Police was criticised for its failure to catch him despite having interviewed him nine times in the course of its five-year investigation. Owing to the sensational nature of the case, the police handled an exceptional amount of information, some of it misleading (including the Wearside Jack hoax recorded message and letters purporting to be from the "Ripper"). Following Sutcliffe's conviction, the government ordered a review of the investigation, conducted by the Inspector of Constabulary Lawrence Byford, known as the "Byford Report". The findings were made fully public in 2006, and confirmed the validity of the criticism against the force. The report led to changes to investigative procedures that were adopted across UK police forces. In 2019, The Guardian described the manhunt as "stunningly mishandled".
Sutcliffe was transferred from prison to Broadmoor Hospital in March 1984 after being diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia. The High Court dismissed an appeal by Sutcliffe in 2010, confirming that he would serve a whole life order and never be released from custody. In August 2016, it was ruled that Sutcliffe was mentally fit to be returned to prison, and he was transferred that month to HM Prison Frankland in Durham. He died from COVID-19-related complications in hospital, while in prison custody on 13 November 2020, at the age of 74.
Early life
Peter Sutcliffe was born to a working-class family in Bingley, West Riding of Yorkshire. His parents were John William Sutcliffe and his wife Kathleen Frances (née Coonan), a native of Connemara. Kathleen was a Roman Catholic and John was a member of the choir at the local Anglican church of St Wilfred's; their children were raised in their mother's Catholic faith. Reportedly a loner, Sutcliffe left school aged fifteen and had a series of menial jobs, including two stints as a gravedigger in the 1960s. Between November 1971 and April 1973, he worked at the Baird Television factory on a packaging line. He left this position when he was asked to go on the road as a salesman.
After leaving Baird Television, Sutcliffe worked nightshifts at the Britannia Works of Anderton International from April 1973. In February 1975, he took redundancy and used half of the £400 pay-off to train as a heavy goods vehicle (HGV) driver. On 5 March 1976, Sutcliffe was dismissed for the theft of used tyres. He was unemployed until October 1976, when he found a job as an HGV driver for T. & W.H. Clark (Holdings) Ltd. on the Canal Road Industrial Estate in Bradford.
Sutcliffe, by some reports, hired prostitutes as a young man, and it has been speculated that he had a bad experience during which he was conned out of money by a prostitute and her pimp. Other analyses of his actions have not found evidence that he actually sought the services of prostitutes but note that he nonetheless developed an obsession with them, including "watching them soliciting on the streets of Leeds and Bradford".
Sutcliffe met Sonia Szurma on 14 February 1967; they married on 10 August 1974. Sonia suffered several miscarriages, and they were informed that she would not be able to have children. She resumed a teacher training course, during which time she had an affair with an ice-cream van driver. When Sonia completed the course in 1977 and began teaching, she and Sutcliffe used her salary to buy a house at 6 Garden Lane in Heaton in Bradford, into which they moved on 26 September 1977, and where they were living at the time of Sutcliffe's arrest.
Through his childhood and his early adolescence, Sutcliffe showed no signs of abnormality. But one of his brothers admitted that their father was an abusive alcoholic, stating that their father once smashed a beer glass over Peter's head for sitting in his chair at the Christmas table, after arguing, when the brother was four or five years old. Their father used to whip them with a belt.
Later, in part related to his occupation as a gravedigger, he developed a macabre sense of humour. In his late adolescence, Sutcliffe developed a growing obsession with voyeurism, and spent much time spying on prostitutes and the men seeking their services.
Attacks and murders
Leeds was the hotspot of Ripper activity, with 6 murders and 4 attacks in the city. Sutcliffe's first and last murders also occurred in Leeds.
Sutcliffe's 13 known murder victims were Wilma McCann (Leeds 1975), Emily Jackson (Leeds 1976), Irene Richardson (Leeds 1977), Patricia "Tina" Atkinson (Bradford 1977), Jayne MacDonald (Leeds 1977), Jean Jordan (Manchester 1977), Yvonne Pearson (Bradford 1978), Helen Rytka (Huddersfield 1978), Vera Millward (Manchester 1978), Josephine Whitaker (Halifax 1979), Barbara Leach (Bradford 1979), Marguerite Walls (Leeds 1980) and Jacqueline Hill (Leeds 1980).
He is also known to have attacked 10 other women: a woman of unknown name (Bradford 1969), Anna Rogulskyj (Keighley 1975), Olive Smelt (Halifax 1975), Tracy Browne (Silsden 1975), Marcella Claxton (Leeds 1976), Maureen Long (Bradford 1977) Marilyn Moore (Leeds 1977), Ann Rooney (Leeds 1979) Upadhya Bandara (Leeds 1980), and Theresa Sykes (Huddersfield 1980). Claxton was four months pregnant when she was attacked, and lost the baby she was carrying.
1969
Sutcliffe's first documented assault was of a female prostitute, whom he had met while searching for another woman who had tricked him out of money. He left his friend Trevor Birdsall's minivan and walked up St. Paul's Road in Bradford until he was out of sight. When Sutcliffe returned, he was out of breath, as if he had been running. He told Birdsall to drive off quickly. Sutcliffe said he had followed a prostitute into a garage and hit her over the head with a stone in a sock. According to his statement, Sutcliffe said,
"I got out of the car, went across the road and hit her. The force of the impact tore the toe off the sock and whatever was in it came out. I went back to the car and got in it".
Police visited Sutcliffe's home the next day, as the woman he had attacked had noted Birdsall's vehicle registration plate. He admitted he had hit her, but claimed it was with his hand. The police told him he was "very lucky", as the woman did not want anything more to do with the incident.
1975
Sutcliffe committed his second assault on the night of 5 July 1975 in Keighley. He attacked Anna Rogúlskyj, who was walking alone, striking her unconscious with a ball-peen hammer and slashing her stomach with a knife. Disturbed by a neighbour, he left without killing her. Rogulskyj survived after neurological surgery but she was psychologically traumatised by the attack. She said later:
"I've been afraid to go out much because I feel people are staring and pointing at me. The whole thing is making my life a misery. I sometimes wish I had died in the attack."
On the night of 15 August, Sutcliffe attacked Olive Smelt in Halifax. Employing the same modus operandi, he briefly engaged Smelt with a commonplace pleasantry about the weather before striking hammer blows to her skull from behind. He then disarranged her clothing and slashed her lower back with a knife. Again he was interrupted and left his victim badly injured but alive. Like Rogulskyj, Smelt subsequently suffered severe emotional and mental trauma.
She had told interviewing officer Dept. Supt. Dick Holland (later the Ripper Squad's second in command) that her attacker had a Yorkshire accent, but this information was ignored, as was the fact that neither she nor Rogulskij were in towns with a red light area. On 27 August, Sutcliffe attacked 14-year-old Tracy Browne in Silsden. He struck her from behind and hit her on the head five times while she was walking along a country lane. He ran off when he saw the lights of a passing car, leaving his victim requiring brain surgery. Sutcliffe was not convicted of the attack but confessed to it in 1992.
The first victim to be killed by Sutcliffe was Wilma McCann on 30 October. McCann, from Scott Hall in Leeds, was a mother of four children between the ages of 2 and 7. Sutcliffe struck the back of her skull twice with a hammer, then inflicted "a stab wound to the throat; two stab wounds below the right breast; three stab wounds below the left breast and a series of nine stab wounds around the umbilicus". An extensive inquiry, involving 150 officers of the West Yorkshire Police and 11,000 interviews, failed to find the culprit. In December 2007, McCann's eldest daughter Sonia Newlands killed herself, reportedly after suffering years of anguish and depression over the circumstances of her mother's death, and consequences to her and her siblings.
1976
Sutcliffe committed his next murder in Leeds on 20 January 1976, when he stabbed 42-year-old Emily Jackson 52 times. In dire financial straits, Jackson had been persuaded by her husband to engage in prostitution, using the van of their family roofing business. Sutcliffe picked up Jackson, who was soliciting outside the Gaiety pub on Roundhay Road, then drove about half a mile to some derelict buildings on Enfield Terrace in the Manor Industrial Estate. Sutcliffe hit her on the head with a hammer, dragged her body into a rubbish-strewn yard, then used a sharpened screwdriver to stab her in the neck, chest and abdomen. He stamped on her thigh, leaving behind an impression of his boot.
Sutcliffe attacked 20-year-old Marcella Claxton in Roundhay Park, Leeds, on 9 May. Walking home from a party, she accepted an offer of a lift from Sutcliffe. When she got out of the car to urinate, he hit her from behind with a hammer. Claxton survived and testified against Sutcliffe at his trial. At the time of this attack, Claxton had been four months pregnant and subsequently miscarried her baby. She required multiple, extensive brain operations and suffered from intermittent blackouts and chronic depression.
1977
On 5 February, Sutcliffe attacked Irene Richardson, a Chapeltown prostitute, in Roundhay Park. Richardson was bludgeoned to death with a hammer. Once she was dead, Sutcliffe mutilated her corpse with a knife. Tyre tracks left near the murder scene resulted in a long list of possible suspect vehicles.
Two months later, on 23 April, Sutcliffe killed Patricia "Tina" Atkinson, a prostitute from Bradford, in her flat, where police found a bootprint on the bedclothes. Two months after that, on 26 June, he murdered 16-year-old Jayne MacDonald in Chapeltown. She was not a prostitute and, in the public perception, her murder showed that all women were potential victims. The police described her as the first "innocent" victim. Sutcliffe seriously assaulted Maureen Long in Bradford in July. He was interrupted and fled, leaving her for dead. She was suffering from hypothermia when found and was in hospital for nine weeks. A witness misidentified the make of his car, resulting in more than 300 police officers checking thousands of cars without success.
On 1 October 1977 Sutcliffe murdered Jean Jordan, a prostitute from Manchester. In a confession, Sutcliffe said he had realised the new £5 note he had given her was traceable. After hosting a family party at his new home, he returned to the wasteland behind Manchester's Southern Cemetery, where he had left the body, to retrieve the note but was unable to find it.
On 9 October, Jordan's body was discovered by local dairy worker and future actor Bruce Jones, who had an allotment on land adjoining the site where the body was found and was searching for house bricks when he made the discovery. The £5 note, hidden in a secret compartment in Jordan's handbag, was traced to branches of the Midland Bank in Shipley and Bingley. Police analysis of bank operations allowed them to narrow their field of inquiry to 8,000 employees who could have received it in their wage packet. Over three months the police interviewed 5,000 men, including Sutcliffe. The police found that the alibi given for Sutcliffe's whereabouts was credible; he had indeed spent much of the evening of the killing at a family party. Weeks of intense investigations pertaining to the origins of the £5 note led to nothing, leaving police officers frustrated that they collected an important clue but had been unable to trace the actual firm (or employee within the firm) to which or whom the note had been issued.
On 14 December, Sutcliffe attacked Marilyn Moore, another prostitute from Leeds. She survived and provided police with a description of her attacker. Tyre tracks found at the scene matched those from an earlier attack. Her photofit bore a strong resemblance to Sutcliffe, like other survivors, and she provided a good description of his car, which had been seen in red-light districts. Sutcliffe had been interviewed on this issue.
1978
The police discontinued the search for the person who received the £5 note in January 1978. Although Sutcliffe was interviewed about it, he was not investigated further (he was contacted and disregarded by the Ripper Squad on several further occasions). That month, Sutcliffe killed again. His victim was Yvonne Pearson, a 21-year-old prostitute from Bradford. He repeatedly bludgeoned her about the head with a ball-peen hammer, then jumped on her chest before stuffing horsehair into her mouth from a discarded sofa, under which he hid her body near Lumb Lane.
Ten days later, he killed Helen Rytka, an 18-year-old prostitute from Huddersfield. He struck Rytka on the head five times as she exited his vehicle, before stripping most of the clothes from her body (although her bra and polo-neck jumper were positioned above her breasts) and repeatedly stabbing her in the chest. Her body was found three days later beneath railway arches in Garrards timber-yard to which he had driven her. Sutcliffe said of Rytka while in police custody in 1981: "I had the urge to kill any woman. The urge inside me to kill girls was now practically uncontrollable."
1979
On 4 April 1979, Sutcliffe killed Josephine Whitaker, a 19-year-old building society clerk whom he attacked on Savile Park Moor in Halifax as she was walking home. Despite forensic evidence, police efforts were diverted for several months following receipt of the taped message purporting to be from the murderer taunting Assistant Chief Constable George Oldfield of the West Yorkshire Police, who was leading the investigation. The tape contained a man's voice saying, "I'm Jack. I see you're having no luck catching me. I have the greatest respect for you, George, but Lord, you're no nearer catching me now than four years ago when I started."
Based on the recorded message, police began searching for a man with a Wearside accent, which linguists narrowed down to the Castletown area of Sunderland, Tyne and Wear. The hoaxer, dubbed "Wearside Jack", sent two letters to police and the Daily Mirror in March 1978 boasting of his crimes. The letters, signed "Jack the Ripper", claimed responsibility for the murder of 26-year-old Joan Harrison in Preston in November 1975.
The hoaxer case was re-opened in 2005, and DNA taken from envelopes was entered into the national database, in which it matched that of John Samuel Humble, an unemployed alcoholic and long-time resident of the Ford Estate in Sunderland – a few miles from Castletown – whose DNA had been taken following a drunk and disorderly offence in 2001. On 20 October 2005, Humble was charged with attempting to pervert the course of justice for sending the hoax letters and tape. Humble was remanded in custody and on 21 March 2006 was convicted and sentenced to eight years in prison. Humble died on 30 July 2019, aged 63.
On 1 September, Sutcliffe murdered 20-year-old Barbara Leach, a Bradford University student. Her body was dumped at the rear of 13 Ashgrove under a pile of bricks, close to the university and her lodgings. It was his sixteenth attack. The murder of a woman who was not a prostitute again alarmed the public and prompted an expensive publicity campaign emphasising the Wearside connection. Despite the false lead, Sutcliffe was interviewed on at least two other occasions in 1979. Despite matching several forensic clues and being on the list of 300 names in connection with the £5 note, he was not strongly suspected.
1980
In April 1980, Sutcliffe was arrested for drunk driving. While awaiting trial, he killed two more women. Sutcliffe murdered 47-year-old Marguerite Walls on the night of 20 August 1980, and 20-year-old Jacqueline Hill, a student at Leeds University, on the night of 17 November 1980. Hill's body was found on wasteland near the Arndale Centre. He also attacked three other women, who survived: Uphadya Bandara in Leeds on 24 September 1980; Maureen Lea (known as Mo), an art student attacked in the grounds of Leeds University on 25 October 1980; and 16-year-old Theresa Sykes, attacked in Huddersfield on the night of 5 November 1980. On 25 November 1980, Trevor Birdsall, an associate of Sutcliffe and the unwitting getaway driver as Sutcliffe fled his first documented assault in 1969, reported him to the police as a suspect.
Arrest and trial
On 2 January 1981, Sutcliffe was stopped by the police with 24-year-old prostitute Olivia Reivers in the driveway of Light Trades House in Melbourne Avenue, Broomhill, Sheffield, South Yorkshire. A police check by probationary constable Robert Hydes revealed Sutcliffe's car had false number plates and he was arrested and transferred to Dewsbury Police Station in West Yorkshire. At Dewsbury, he was questioned in relation to the Yorkshire Ripper case as he matched many of the known physical characteristics. The next day police returned to the scene of the arrest and discovered a knife, hammer, and rope he had discarded when he briefly slipped away from the police after telling them he was "bursting for a pee". Sutcliffe hid a second knife in the toilet cistern at the police station when he was permitted to use the toilet. The police obtained a search warrant for his home in Heaton and brought his wife in for questioning.
When Sutcliffe was stripped at the police station he was wearing an inverted V-necked jumper under his trousers. The sleeves had been pulled over his legs and the V-neck exposed his genital area. The fronts of the elbows were padded to protect his knees as, presumably, he knelt over his victims' corpses. The sexual implications of this outfit were considered obvious but it was not known to the public until published by Bilton (2003). After two days of intensive questioning, on the afternoon of 4 January 1981, Sutcliffe suddenly declared he was the Ripper. Over the next day, he calmly described his many attacks. Weeks later he claimed God had told him to murder the women. "The women I killed were filth", he told police. "Bastard prostitutes who were littering the streets. I was just cleaning up the place a bit". Sutcliffe displayed regret only when talking of his youngest murder victim, Jayne MacDonald, and when questioned about the killing of Joan Harrison, he vehemently denied responsibility. Harrison's murder had been linked to the Ripper killings by the "Wearside Jack" claim, but in 2011, DNA evidence revealed the crime had actually been committed by convicted sex offender Christopher Smith, who had died in 2008.
Sutcliffe was charged on 5 January 1981. At his trial, he pleaded not guilty to thirteen charges of murder, but guilty to manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility. The basis of his defence was that he claimed to be the tool of God's will. Sutcliffe said he had heard voices that ordered him to kill prostitutes while working as a gravedigger, which he claimed originated from the headstone of a Polish man, Bronisław Zapolski, and that the voices were that of God.
Sutcliffe pleaded guilty to seven charges of attempted murder. The prosecution intended to accept Sutcliffe's plea after four psychiatrists diagnosed him with paranoid schizophrenia, but the trial judge, Justice Sir Leslie Boreham, demanded an unusually-detailed explanation of the prosecution reasoning. After a two-hour representation by the Attorney-General Sir Michael Havers, a ninety-minute lunch break, and another forty minutes of legal discussion, the judge rejected the diminished responsibility plea and the expert testimonies of the psychiatrists, insisting that the case should be dealt with by a jury. The trial proper was set to commence on 5 May 1981.
The trial lasted two weeks, and despite the efforts of his counsel James Chadwin QC, Sutcliffe was found guilty of murder on all counts and was sentenced to twenty concurrent sentences of life imprisonment. The jury rejected the evidence of four psychiatrists that Sutcliffe had paranoid schizophrenia, possibly influenced by the evidence of a prison officer who heard him say to his wife that if he convinced people he was mad then he might get ten years in a "loony bin".
The trial judge said Sutcliffe was beyond redemption, and hoped he would never leave prison. He recommended a minimum term of thirty years to be served before parole could be considered, meaning Sutcliffe would have been unlikely to be freed until at least 2011. On 16 July 2010, the High Court issued Sutcliffe with a whole life tariff, meaning he was never to be released. After his trial, Sutcliffe admitted two other attacks. It was decided that prosecution for these offences was "not in the public interest". West Yorkshire Police made it clear that the victims wished to remain anonymous.
Criticism of authorities
West Yorkshire Police
West Yorkshire Police was criticised for being inadequately prepared for an investigation on this scale. It was one of the largest investigations by a British police force and predated the use of computers. Information on suspects was stored on handwritten index cards. Aside from difficulties in storing and accessing the paperwork (the floor of the incident room was reinforced to cope with the weight of the paper), it was difficult for officers to overcome the information overload of such a large manual system. Sutcliffe was interviewed nine times, but all information the police had about the case was stored in paper form, making cross-referencing difficult, compounded by television appeals for information which generated thousands more documents. The 1982 Byford Report into the investigation concluded: "The ineffectiveness of the major incident room was a serious handicap to the Ripper investigation. While it should have been the effective nerve centre of the whole police operation, the backlog of unprocessed information resulted in the failure to connect vital pieces of related information. This serious fault in the central index system allowed Peter Sutcliffe to continually slip through the net".
The choice of Oldfield to lead the inquiry was criticised by Byford: "The temptation to appoint a 'senior man' on age or service grounds should be resisted. What is needed is an officer of sound professional competence who will inspire confidence and loyalty". He found wanting Oldfield's focus on the hoax confessional tape that seemed to indicate a perpetrator with a Wearside background, and his ignoring advice from survivors of Sutcliffe's attacks and several eminent specialists, including from the Federal Bureau of Investigation in the US, along with dialect analysts such as Stanley Ellis and Jack Windsor Lewis, whom he had also consulted throughout the manhunt, that "Wearside Jack" was a hoaxer. The investigation used it as a point of elimination rather than a line of enquiry and allowed Sutcliffe to avoid scrutiny, as he did not fit the profile of the sender of the tape or letters. The "Wearside Jack" hoaxer was given unusual credibility when analysis of saliva on the envelopes he sent showed he had the same blood group as that which Sutcliffe had left at crime scenes, a type shared by only 6% of the population. The hoaxer appeared to know details of the murders which had not been released to the press, but which in fact he had acquired from pub gossip and his local newspaper.
In response to the police reaction to the murders, the Leeds Revolutionary Feminist Group organised a number of 'Reclaim the Night' marches. The group and other feminists had criticised the police for victim-blaming, especially for the suggestion that women should remain indoors at night. Eleven marches in various towns across the United Kingdom took place on the night of 12 November 1977. They made the point that women should be able to walk anywhere without restriction and that they should not be blamed for men's violence.
In 1988, the mother of Sutcliffe's last victim, Jacqueline Hill, during an action for damages on behalf of her daughter's estate, argued in the case Hill v Chief Constable of West Yorkshire in the High Court that the police had failed to use reasonable care in apprehending Sutcliffe. The House of Lords held that the Chief Constable of West Yorkshire did not owe a duty of care to the victim due to the lack of proximity, and therefore failing on the second limb of the Caparo test. After Sutcliffe's death in November 2020, West Yorkshire Police issued an apology for the "language, tone, and terminology" used by the force at the time of the criminal investigation, nine months after one of the victims' sons wrote on behalf of several of the victims' families.
Attitude towards prostitutes
The attitude in the West Yorkshire Police at the time reflected Sutcliffe's own misogyny and sexist attitudes, according to multiple sources. Jim Hobson, a senior West Yorkshire detective, told a press conference in October 1979 the perpetrator: "has made it clear that he hates prostitutes. Many people do. We, as a police force, will continue to arrest prostitutes. But the Ripper is now killing innocent girls. That indicates your mental state and that you are in urgent need of medical attention. You have made your point. Give yourself up before another innocent woman dies".Joan Smith wrote in Misogynies (1989, 1993), that "even Sutcliffe, at his trial, did not go quite this far; he did at least claim he was demented at the time".
The Attorney General, Sir Michael Havers QC, at the trial in 1981 said of Sutcliffe's victims in his opening statement: "Some were prostitutes, but perhaps the saddest part of the case is that some were not. The last six attacks were on totally respectable women". This drew condemnation from the English Collective of Prostitutes (ECP), who protested outside the Old Bailey. Nina Lopez, who was one of the ECP protestors in 1981, told The Independent forty years later, Sir Michael's comments were "an indictment of the whole way in which the police and the establishment were dealing with the Yorkshire Ripper case".
Byford report
The Inspector of Constabulary Lawrence Byford's 1981 report of an official inquiry into the Ripper case was not released by the Home Office until 1 June 2006. The sections "Description of suspects, photofits and other assaults" and parts of the section on Sutcliffe's "immediate associates" were not disclosed by the Home Office.
Referring to the period between 1969, when Sutcliffe first came to the attention of police, and 1975, the year of the murder of Wilma McCann, the report states: "There is a curious and unexplained lull in Sutcliffe's criminal activities" and "it is my firm conclusion that between 1969 and 1980 Sutcliffe was probably responsible for many attacks on unaccompanied women, which he has not yet admitted, not only in the West Yorkshire and Manchester areas, but also in other parts of the country". In 1969, Sutcliffe, described in the Byford Report as an "otherwise unremarkable young man", came to the notice of police on two occasions over incidents with prostitutes. Later that year, in September 1969, he was also arrested in Bradford's red light district for being in possession of a hammer, an offensive weapon, but he was charged with "going equipped for stealing" as it was assumed he was a potential burglar. The report said that it was clear Sutcliffe had on at least one occasion attacked a Bradford prostitute with a cosh.
Byford's report states:
Police identified a number of attacks which matched Sutcliffe's modus operandi and tried to question the killer, but he was never charged with other crimes.
The Byford Report's major findings were contained in a summary published by the Home Secretary, William Whitelaw, the first time precise details of the bungled police investigation had been disclosed. Byford described delays in following up vital tip-offs from Trevor Birdsall, an associate of Sutcliffe since 1966. On 25 November 1980, Birdsall sent an anonymous letter to police, the text of which ran as follows:
This letter was marked "Priority No. 1". An index card was created on the basis of the letter and a policewoman found Sutcliffe already had three existing index cards in the records. But "for some inexplicable reason", said the Byford Report, the papers remained in a filing tray in the incident room until the murderer's arrest on 2 January [1981], the following year.
Birdsall visited Bradford police station the day after sending the letter to repeat his misgivings about Sutcliffe. He added that he was with Sutcliffe when he got out of a car to pursue a woman with whom he had had a bar room dispute in Halifax on 16 August 1975. This was the date and place of the Olive Smelt attack. A report compiled on the visit was lost, despite a "comprehensive search" which took place after Sutcliffe's arrest, according to the report. Byford said:
Custody
Prison and Broadmoor Hospital
Following his conviction and incarceration, Sutcliffe chose to use the name Coonan, his mother's maiden name. He began his sentence at HM Prison Parkhurst on 22 May 1981. Despite being found sane at his trial, Sutcliffe was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia. Attempts to send him to a secure psychiatric unit were blocked. While at Parkhurst he was seriously assaulted by James Costello, a 35-year-old career criminal with several convictions for violence. On 10 January 1983, he followed Sutcliffe into the recess of F2, the hospital wing at Parkhurst, and plunged a broken coffee jar twice into the left side of Sutcliffe's face, creating four wounds requiring thirty stitches. In March 1984, Sutcliffe was sent to Broadmoor Hospital, under Section 47 of the Mental Health Act 1983.
Sutcliffe's wife obtained a separation from him around 1989 and a divorce in July 1994. On 23 February 1996, he was attacked in his room in Broadmoor's Henley Ward. Paul Wilson, a convicted robber, asked to borrow a videotape before attempting to strangle Sutcliffe with the cable from a pair of stereo headphones.
After an attack with a pen by fellow inmate Ian Kay on 10 March 1997, Sutcliffe lost the vision in his left eye, and his right eye was severely damaged. Kay admitted trying to kill Sutcliffe and was ordered to be detained in a secure mental hospital without limit of time. In 2003, it was reported that Sutcliffe had developed diabetes.
Sutcliffe's father died in 2004 and was cremated. On 17 January 2005, Sutcliffe was allowed to visit Grange-over-Sands where the ashes had been scattered. The decision to allow the temporary release was initiated by David Blunkett and ratified by Charles Clarke when he became Home Secretary. Sutcliffe was accompanied by four members of the hospital staff. The visit led to front-page tabloid headlines.
On 22 December 2007, Sutcliffe was attacked by fellow inmate Patrick Sureda, who lunged at him with a metal cutlery knife while shouting, "You fucking raping, murdering bastard, I'll blind your fucking other one!" Sutcliffe flung himself backwards and the blade missed his right eye, stabbing him in the cheek.
On 17 February 2009, it was reported that Sutcliffe was "fit to leave Broadmoor". On 23 March 2010, the Secretary of State for Justice, Jack Straw, was questioned by Julie Kirkbride, Conservative Member of Parliament (MP) for Bromsgrove, in the House of Commons seeking reassurance for a constituent, a victim of Sutcliffe, that he would remain in prison. Straw responded that whilst the matter of Sutcliffe's release was a parole board matter, "that all the evidence that I have seen on this case, and it's a great deal, suggests to me that there are no circumstances in which this man will be released".
Appeal
An application by Sutcliffe for a minimum term to be set, offering the possibility of parole after that date if it were thought safe to release him, was heard by the High Court on 16 July 2010. The court decided that Sutcliffe would never be released. Mr Justice Mitting stated:
Psychological reports describing Sutcliffe's mental state were taken into consideration, as was the severity of his crimes. Sutcliffe spent the rest of his life in custody. On 4 August 2010, a spokeswoman for the Judicial Communications Office confirmed that Sutcliffe had initiated an appeal against the decision. The hearing for Sutcliffe's appeal against the ruling began on 30 November 2010 at the Court of Appeal. The appeal was rejected on 14 January 2011. On 9 March 2011, the Court of Appeal rejected Sutcliffe's application for leave to appeal to the Supreme Court.
Later events
In December 2015, Sutcliffe was assessed as being "no longer mentally ill". In August 2016, a medical tribunal ruled that he no longer required clinical treatment for his mental condition, and could be returned to prison. Sutcliffe was reported to have been transferred from Broadmoor to HM Prison Frankland in Durham, County Durham, in August 2016.
In 2017, West Yorkshire Police launched Operation Painthall to determine if Sutcliffe was guilty of unsolved crimes dating back to 1964. This inquiry also looked at the killings of two prostitutes in southern Sweden in 1980. Given that Sutcliffe was a lorry driver, it was theorised that he had been in Denmark and Sweden, making use of the ferry across the Oresund Strait. In December 2017 West Yorkshire Police, in response to a Freedom of Information request, neither confirmed nor denied that Operation Painthall existed. West Yorkshire Police later stated that it was "absolutely certain" that Sutcliffe had never been in Sweden.
Death
Sutcliffe died at University Hospital of North Durham aged 74 on 13 November 2020, having been sent there with COVID-19, after having previously returned to HMP Frankland following treatment for a suspected heart attack at the same hospital two weeks prior. He had a number of underlying health problems, including obesity and diabetes. He reportedly refused treatment. A private funeral ceremony was held, and Sutcliffe's body was cremated.
Media
The song "Night Shift" by English post-punk band Siouxsie and the Banshees on their 1981 album Juju is about Sutcliffe.
On 6 April 1991, Sutcliffe's father, John Sutcliffe, talked about his son on the television discussion programme After Dark.
This Is Personal: The Hunt for the Yorkshire Ripper, a British television crime drama miniseries, first shown on ITV from 26 January to 2 February 2000, is a dramatisation of the real-life investigation into the murders, showing the effect that it had on the health and career of Assistant Chief Constable George Oldfield (Alun Armstrong). The series also starred Richard Ridings and James Laurenson as DSI Dick Holland and Chief Constable Ronald Gregory, respectively. Although broadcast over two weeks, two episodes were shown consecutively each week. The series was nominated for the British Academy Television Award for Best Drama Serial at the 2001 awards.
On 26 August 2016, the police investigation was the subject of BBC Radio 4's The Reunion. Sue MacGregor discussed the investigation with John Domaille, who later became assistant chief constable of West Yorkshire Police; Andy Laptew, who was a junior detective who interviewed Sutcliffe; Elaine Benson, who worked in the incident room and interviewed suspects; David Zackrisson, who investigated the "Wearside Jack" tape and letters in Sunderland; and Christa Ackroyd, a local journalist in Halifax.
A three part series of one hour episodes, The Yorkshire Ripper Files: A very British crime story aired on BBC Four in March 2019. This included interviews with some of the victims, their family, police and journalists who covered the case by filmmaker Liza Williams. In the series she questions whether the attitude of both the police and society towards women prevented Sutcliffe from being caught sooner. On 31 July 2020, the series won the BAFTA prize for Specialist Factual TV programming.
A play written by Olivia Hirst and David Byrne, The Incident Room, premiered at Pleasance as part of the 2019 Edinburgh Festival Fringe. The play focuses on the police force hunting Sutcliffe. The play was produced by New Diorama. The third book (and second episodic television adaptation) in David Peace's Red Riding series is set against the backdrop of the Ripper investigation. In that episode, Sutcliffe is played by Joseph Mawle.
In October 2020, it was announced that ITV will produce a new six-part drama series about the Ripper.
In December 2020, Netflix released a four-part documentary entitled The Ripper, which recounts the police investigation into the murders with interviews from living victims, family members of victims and police officers involved in the investigation.
The 2021 podcast "Crime Analysis" covers Peter Sutcliffe's crimes, focusing on the victims, the investigation and forensics, trial, and aftermath including an interview with the son of victim Wilma McCann.
In November 2021, American heavy metal band Slipknot released a song titled "The Chapeltown Rag", which is inspired by the media reporting on the murders.
In February 2022, Channel 5 released a 60-minute documentary entitled The Ripper Speaks: the Lost Tapes, which recounts interviews and Sutcliffe speaking about life in prison and in Broadmoor Hospital, as well the crimes he had committed but which had not been seen or treated as "a Ripper killing".
See also
Gordon Cummins (Blackout Ripper)
Anthony Hardy (Camden Ripper)
Steve Wright (serial killer) (perpetrator of the Ipswich serial murders)
Alun Kyte (Midlands Ripper)
List of prisoners with whole-life orders
List of serial killers by country
List of serial killers by number of victims
Murders of Jacqueline Ansell-Lamb and Barbara Mayo, unsolved murders that for many years were linked to Sutcliffe
Notes
References
Bibliography
External links
(multiple files)
1946 births
1980s trials
2020 deaths
20th-century English criminals
British people convicted of attempted murder
Chapeltown, Leeds
Crime in Manchester
Crime in West Yorkshire
Criminals from Yorkshire
Deaths from the COVID-19 pandemic in England
English male criminals
English murderers of children
English people convicted of murder
English people of Irish descent
English prisoners sentenced to life imprisonment
English serial killers
Fugitives wanted by the United Kingdom
Male serial killers
Murder in Manchester
Murder in West Yorkshire
People convicted of murder by England and Wales
People detained at Broadmoor Hospital
People from Bingley
People with schizophrenia
Prisoners sentenced to life imprisonment by England and Wales
Prisoners who died in England and Wales detention
Violence against women in England | true | [
"Remarkable (styled as reMarkable) is an E Ink writing tablet for reading documents and textbooks, sketching and note-taking with the goal of a paper-like writing experience. Developed by a Norwegian startup company of the same name, the device is geared towards students, academics, and professionals. \n\nThe reMarkable blends the reading experience of an electronic paper display with the writing experience of a high end tablet computer through its low lag Linux operating system.\n\nHistory\n\nThe company was founded by Magnus Wanberg and started product development in Oslo in early 2014. It has collaborated with Taiwanese company E Ink. Development was started in 2013 and a crowdfunding campaign launched in late 2016. Pre-orders began in 2017.\n\nSecond generation reMarkable 2 was announced on March 17, 2020. It was marketed as the 'World's Thinnest Tablet' (measuring 187 x 246 x 4.7 mm) and sold in batches since mid-2020 for 458 €/US$ including the pen.\n\nOperating system\nReMarkable uses its own operating system, named Codex. Codex is based on Linux and optimized for electronic paper display technology.\n\nReception\nRemarkable RM100, launched in late 2017, has been criticized due to the sluggishness when loading and unloading files. According to Wired, reMarkable 2 \"excels at taking your handwritten notes, but it doesn't do much else well.\" According to the podcast Bad Voltage, the lack of integrations with other software limits the device's usefulness for taking notes for some users, and there is no official third-party app ecosystem, but the ability to add software via unofficial hacks offers interesting possibilities.\n\nSee also \n Comparison of e-readers\n Sony Digital Paper DPTS1\n Boox\n PocketBook International\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links \n Official webpage of reMarkable | The paper tablet\n reMarkableWiki - Everything about the reMarkable Paper Tablet (Community Wiki)\n A curated list of projects related to the reMarkable tablet\n\nDedicated e-book devices\nElectronic paper technology\nLinux-based devices\nElectronics companies established in 2016\nCrowdfunded consumer goods",
"SSS* is a search algorithm, introduced by George Stockman in 1979, that conducts a state space search traversing a game tree in a best-first fashion similar to that of the A* search algorithm.\n\nSSS* is based on the notion of solution trees. Informally, a solution tree can be formed from any arbitrary game tree by pruning the number of branches at each MAX node to one. Such a tree represents a complete strategy for MAX, since it specifies exactly one MAX action for every possible sequence of moves made by the opponent. Given a game tree, SSS* searches through the space of partial solution trees, gradually analyzing larger and larger subtrees, eventually producing a single solution tree with the same root and Minimax value as the original game tree. SSS* never examines a node that alpha-beta pruning would prune, and may prune some branches that alpha-beta would not. Stockman speculated that SSS* may therefore be a better general algorithm than alpha-beta. However, Igor Roizen and Judea Pearl have shown that the savings in the number of positions that SSS* evaluates relative to alpha/beta is limited and generally not enough to compensate for the increase in other resources (e.g., the storing and sorting of a list of nodes made necessary by the best-first nature of the algorithm). However, Aske Plaat, Jonathan Schaeffer, Wim Pijls and Arie de Bruin have shown that a sequence of null-window alpha-beta calls is equivalent to SSS* (i.e., it expands the same nodes in the same order) when alpha-beta is used with a transposition table, as is the case in all game-playing programs for chess, checkers, etc. Now the storing and sorting of the OPEN list were no longer necessary. This allowed the implementation of (an algorithm equivalent to) SSS* in tournament quality game-playing programs. Experiments showed that it did indeed perform better than Alpha-Beta in practice, but that it did not beat NegaScout.\n\nThe reformulation of a best-first algorithm as a sequence of depth-first calls prompted the formulation of a class of null-window alpha-beta algorithms, of which MTD(f) is the best known example.\n\nAlgorithm\nThere is a priority queue OPEN that stores states or the nodes, where - node identificator (Dot-decimal notation is used to identify nodes, is a root), - state of the node (L - the node is live, which means it's not solved yet and S - the node is solved), - value of the solved node. Items in OPEN queue are sorted descending by their value. If more than one node has the same value of , a node left-most in the tree is chosen.\n\n OPEN := { (e, L, inf) }\n while true do // repeat until stopped\n pop an element p=(J, s, h) from the head of the OPEN queue\n if J = e and s = S then\n STOP the algorithm and return h as a result\n else\n apply Gamma operator for p\n\n operator for is defined in the following way:\n\n if s = L then\n if J is a terminal node then\n (1.) add (J, S, min(h, value(J))) to OPEN\n else if J is a MIN node then\n (2.) add (J.1, L, h) to OPEN\n else\n (3.) for j=1..number_of_children(J) add (J.j, L, h) to OPEN\n else\n if J is a MIN node then\n (4.) add (parent(J), S, h) to OPEN\n remove from OPEN all the states that are associated with the children of parent(J)\n else if is_last_child(J) then // if J is the last child of parent(J)\n (5.) add (parent(J), S, h) to OPEN\n else\n (6.) add (parent(J).(k+1), L, h) to OPEN // add state associated with the next child of parent(J) to OPEN\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\nChess Programming Wiki\nGeorge Stockman's website\n\nSearch algorithms\nArticles with example code"
]
|
[
"Peter Sutcliffe",
"Criticism of West Yorkshire Police",
"what made it difficult",
"It was one of the largest investigations by a British police force and predated the use of computers.",
"What else made it difficult",
"Information on suspects was stored on handwritten index cards. Aside from difficulties in storing and accessing the paperwork",
"What did it do to the floor",
"the floor of the incident room was reinforced to cope with the weight of the paper",
"Why did the officers struggle",
"it was difficult for officers to overcome the information overload of such a large manual system.",
"How many times did the interview Sutcliff",
"Sutcliffe was interviewed nine times, but all information the police had about the case was stored in paper form, making cross-referencing difficult,",
"what else add paper",
"compounded by television appeals for information which generated thousands more documents."
]
| C_d7cd70b384574954891aae48803ec621_1 | What did the public do then | 7 | What did the public do when the case was compounded by television appeals for information which generated thousands more documents? | Peter Sutcliffe | West Yorkshire Police were criticised for being inadequately prepared for an investigation on this scale. It was one of the largest investigations by a British police force and predated the use of computers. Information on suspects was stored on handwritten index cards. Aside from difficulties in storing and accessing the paperwork (the floor of the incident room was reinforced to cope with the weight of the paper), it was difficult for officers to overcome the information overload of such a large manual system. Sutcliffe was interviewed nine times, but all information the police had about the case was stored in paper form, making cross-referencing difficult, compounded by television appeals for information which generated thousands more documents. Assistant Chief Constable George Oldfield was criticised for being too focused on a hoax confessional tape that seemed to indicate a perpetrator with a Wearside background, and for ignoring advice from survivors of Sutcliffe's attacks, and several eminent specialists including the FBI, plus dialect analysts such as Stanley Ellis and Jack Windsor Lewis, whom he had also consulted throughout the manhunt, that "Wearside Jack" was a blatant hoaxer. The investigation used it as a point of elimination rather than a line of enquiry and allowed Sutcliffe to avoid scrutiny, as he did not fit the profile of the sender of the tape or letters. The "Wearside Jack" hoaxer was given unusual credibility when analysis of saliva on the envelopes he sent showed he had the same blood group as the Yorkshire Ripper had left at crime scenes, a type shared by only 6% of the population. The hoaxer appeared to know details of the murders which had not been released to the press, but which in fact he had acquired from his local newspaper and pub gossip. The official response to the criticisms led to the implementation of the forerunner of the Home Office Large Major Enquiry System, the development of the Major Incident Computer Application (MICA), developed between West Yorkshire Police and ISIS Computer Services. In response to the police reaction to the murders, the Leeds Revolutionary Feminist Group organised a number of 'Reclaim the Night' marches. The group and other feminists had criticised the police for victim-blaming, especially the suggestion that women should remain indoors at night. Eleven marches in various towns across the United Kingdom took place on the night of 12 November 1977. They made the point that women should be able to walk anywhere without restriction and that they should not be blamed for men's violence. In 1988, the mother of Sutcliffe's last victim, Jacqueline Hill, during action for damages on behalf of her daughter's estate, argued in the High Court that the police had failed to use reasonable care in apprehending the murderer of her daughter in Hill v Chief Constable of West Yorkshire. The House of Lords held that the Chief Constable of West Yorkshire did not owe a duty of care to the victim due to the lack of proximity and therefore failing on the second limb of the Caparo test. CANNOTANSWER | of 'Reclaim the Night' marches. The group and other feminists had criticised the police for victim-blaming, | Peter William Sutcliffe (2 June 1946 – 13 November 2020), also known as Peter William Coonan, was an English serial killer who was dubbed the Yorkshire Ripper (an allusion to Jack the Ripper) by the press. On 22 May 1981, he was found guilty of murdering 13 women and attempting to murder seven others between 1975 and 1980. He was sentenced to 20 concurrent sentences of life imprisonment, which were converted to a whole life order in 2010. Two of Sutcliffe's murders took place in Manchester; all the others were in West Yorkshire.
Sutcliffe initially attacked women and girls in residential areas, but appears to have shifted his focus to red-light districts because he was attracted by the vulnerability of prostitutes, and perceived ambivalence of police to prostitutes' safety at the time. He had allegedly regularly used the services of prostitutes in Leeds and Bradford. After his arrest in Sheffield by South Yorkshire Police for driving with false number plates in January 1981, Sutcliffe was transferred to West Yorkshire Police, which questioned him about the killings. He confessed to being the perpetrator, saying that the voice of God had sent him on a mission to kill prostitutes. At his trial, Sutcliffe pleaded not guilty to murder on grounds of diminished responsibility, but he was convicted of murder on a majority verdict. Following his conviction, Sutcliffe began using his mother's maiden name of Coonan.
The search for Sutcliffe was one of the largest and most expensive manhunts in British history, and West Yorkshire Police was criticised for its failure to catch him despite having interviewed him nine times in the course of its five-year investigation. Owing to the sensational nature of the case, the police handled an exceptional amount of information, some of it misleading (including the Wearside Jack hoax recorded message and letters purporting to be from the "Ripper"). Following Sutcliffe's conviction, the government ordered a review of the investigation, conducted by the Inspector of Constabulary Lawrence Byford, known as the "Byford Report". The findings were made fully public in 2006, and confirmed the validity of the criticism against the force. The report led to changes to investigative procedures that were adopted across UK police forces. In 2019, The Guardian described the manhunt as "stunningly mishandled".
Sutcliffe was transferred from prison to Broadmoor Hospital in March 1984 after being diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia. The High Court dismissed an appeal by Sutcliffe in 2010, confirming that he would serve a whole life order and never be released from custody. In August 2016, it was ruled that Sutcliffe was mentally fit to be returned to prison, and he was transferred that month to HM Prison Frankland in Durham. He died from COVID-19-related complications in hospital, while in prison custody on 13 November 2020, at the age of 74.
Early life
Peter Sutcliffe was born to a working-class family in Bingley, West Riding of Yorkshire. His parents were John William Sutcliffe and his wife Kathleen Frances (née Coonan), a native of Connemara. Kathleen was a Roman Catholic and John was a member of the choir at the local Anglican church of St Wilfred's; their children were raised in their mother's Catholic faith. Reportedly a loner, Sutcliffe left school aged fifteen and had a series of menial jobs, including two stints as a gravedigger in the 1960s. Between November 1971 and April 1973, he worked at the Baird Television factory on a packaging line. He left this position when he was asked to go on the road as a salesman.
After leaving Baird Television, Sutcliffe worked nightshifts at the Britannia Works of Anderton International from April 1973. In February 1975, he took redundancy and used half of the £400 pay-off to train as a heavy goods vehicle (HGV) driver. On 5 March 1976, Sutcliffe was dismissed for the theft of used tyres. He was unemployed until October 1976, when he found a job as an HGV driver for T. & W.H. Clark (Holdings) Ltd. on the Canal Road Industrial Estate in Bradford.
Sutcliffe, by some reports, hired prostitutes as a young man, and it has been speculated that he had a bad experience during which he was conned out of money by a prostitute and her pimp. Other analyses of his actions have not found evidence that he actually sought the services of prostitutes but note that he nonetheless developed an obsession with them, including "watching them soliciting on the streets of Leeds and Bradford".
Sutcliffe met Sonia Szurma on 14 February 1967; they married on 10 August 1974. Sonia suffered several miscarriages, and they were informed that she would not be able to have children. She resumed a teacher training course, during which time she had an affair with an ice-cream van driver. When Sonia completed the course in 1977 and began teaching, she and Sutcliffe used her salary to buy a house at 6 Garden Lane in Heaton in Bradford, into which they moved on 26 September 1977, and where they were living at the time of Sutcliffe's arrest.
Through his childhood and his early adolescence, Sutcliffe showed no signs of abnormality. But one of his brothers admitted that their father was an abusive alcoholic, stating that their father once smashed a beer glass over Peter's head for sitting in his chair at the Christmas table, after arguing, when the brother was four or five years old. Their father used to whip them with a belt.
Later, in part related to his occupation as a gravedigger, he developed a macabre sense of humour. In his late adolescence, Sutcliffe developed a growing obsession with voyeurism, and spent much time spying on prostitutes and the men seeking their services.
Attacks and murders
Leeds was the hotspot of Ripper activity, with 6 murders and 4 attacks in the city. Sutcliffe's first and last murders also occurred in Leeds.
Sutcliffe's 13 known murder victims were Wilma McCann (Leeds 1975), Emily Jackson (Leeds 1976), Irene Richardson (Leeds 1977), Patricia "Tina" Atkinson (Bradford 1977), Jayne MacDonald (Leeds 1977), Jean Jordan (Manchester 1977), Yvonne Pearson (Bradford 1978), Helen Rytka (Huddersfield 1978), Vera Millward (Manchester 1978), Josephine Whitaker (Halifax 1979), Barbara Leach (Bradford 1979), Marguerite Walls (Leeds 1980) and Jacqueline Hill (Leeds 1980).
He is also known to have attacked 10 other women: a woman of unknown name (Bradford 1969), Anna Rogulskyj (Keighley 1975), Olive Smelt (Halifax 1975), Tracy Browne (Silsden 1975), Marcella Claxton (Leeds 1976), Maureen Long (Bradford 1977) Marilyn Moore (Leeds 1977), Ann Rooney (Leeds 1979) Upadhya Bandara (Leeds 1980), and Theresa Sykes (Huddersfield 1980). Claxton was four months pregnant when she was attacked, and lost the baby she was carrying.
1969
Sutcliffe's first documented assault was of a female prostitute, whom he had met while searching for another woman who had tricked him out of money. He left his friend Trevor Birdsall's minivan and walked up St. Paul's Road in Bradford until he was out of sight. When Sutcliffe returned, he was out of breath, as if he had been running. He told Birdsall to drive off quickly. Sutcliffe said he had followed a prostitute into a garage and hit her over the head with a stone in a sock. According to his statement, Sutcliffe said,
"I got out of the car, went across the road and hit her. The force of the impact tore the toe off the sock and whatever was in it came out. I went back to the car and got in it".
Police visited Sutcliffe's home the next day, as the woman he had attacked had noted Birdsall's vehicle registration plate. He admitted he had hit her, but claimed it was with his hand. The police told him he was "very lucky", as the woman did not want anything more to do with the incident.
1975
Sutcliffe committed his second assault on the night of 5 July 1975 in Keighley. He attacked Anna Rogúlskyj, who was walking alone, striking her unconscious with a ball-peen hammer and slashing her stomach with a knife. Disturbed by a neighbour, he left without killing her. Rogulskyj survived after neurological surgery but she was psychologically traumatised by the attack. She said later:
"I've been afraid to go out much because I feel people are staring and pointing at me. The whole thing is making my life a misery. I sometimes wish I had died in the attack."
On the night of 15 August, Sutcliffe attacked Olive Smelt in Halifax. Employing the same modus operandi, he briefly engaged Smelt with a commonplace pleasantry about the weather before striking hammer blows to her skull from behind. He then disarranged her clothing and slashed her lower back with a knife. Again he was interrupted and left his victim badly injured but alive. Like Rogulskyj, Smelt subsequently suffered severe emotional and mental trauma.
She had told interviewing officer Dept. Supt. Dick Holland (later the Ripper Squad's second in command) that her attacker had a Yorkshire accent, but this information was ignored, as was the fact that neither she nor Rogulskij were in towns with a red light area. On 27 August, Sutcliffe attacked 14-year-old Tracy Browne in Silsden. He struck her from behind and hit her on the head five times while she was walking along a country lane. He ran off when he saw the lights of a passing car, leaving his victim requiring brain surgery. Sutcliffe was not convicted of the attack but confessed to it in 1992.
The first victim to be killed by Sutcliffe was Wilma McCann on 30 October. McCann, from Scott Hall in Leeds, was a mother of four children between the ages of 2 and 7. Sutcliffe struck the back of her skull twice with a hammer, then inflicted "a stab wound to the throat; two stab wounds below the right breast; three stab wounds below the left breast and a series of nine stab wounds around the umbilicus". An extensive inquiry, involving 150 officers of the West Yorkshire Police and 11,000 interviews, failed to find the culprit. In December 2007, McCann's eldest daughter Sonia Newlands killed herself, reportedly after suffering years of anguish and depression over the circumstances of her mother's death, and consequences to her and her siblings.
1976
Sutcliffe committed his next murder in Leeds on 20 January 1976, when he stabbed 42-year-old Emily Jackson 52 times. In dire financial straits, Jackson had been persuaded by her husband to engage in prostitution, using the van of their family roofing business. Sutcliffe picked up Jackson, who was soliciting outside the Gaiety pub on Roundhay Road, then drove about half a mile to some derelict buildings on Enfield Terrace in the Manor Industrial Estate. Sutcliffe hit her on the head with a hammer, dragged her body into a rubbish-strewn yard, then used a sharpened screwdriver to stab her in the neck, chest and abdomen. He stamped on her thigh, leaving behind an impression of his boot.
Sutcliffe attacked 20-year-old Marcella Claxton in Roundhay Park, Leeds, on 9 May. Walking home from a party, she accepted an offer of a lift from Sutcliffe. When she got out of the car to urinate, he hit her from behind with a hammer. Claxton survived and testified against Sutcliffe at his trial. At the time of this attack, Claxton had been four months pregnant and subsequently miscarried her baby. She required multiple, extensive brain operations and suffered from intermittent blackouts and chronic depression.
1977
On 5 February, Sutcliffe attacked Irene Richardson, a Chapeltown prostitute, in Roundhay Park. Richardson was bludgeoned to death with a hammer. Once she was dead, Sutcliffe mutilated her corpse with a knife. Tyre tracks left near the murder scene resulted in a long list of possible suspect vehicles.
Two months later, on 23 April, Sutcliffe killed Patricia "Tina" Atkinson, a prostitute from Bradford, in her flat, where police found a bootprint on the bedclothes. Two months after that, on 26 June, he murdered 16-year-old Jayne MacDonald in Chapeltown. She was not a prostitute and, in the public perception, her murder showed that all women were potential victims. The police described her as the first "innocent" victim. Sutcliffe seriously assaulted Maureen Long in Bradford in July. He was interrupted and fled, leaving her for dead. She was suffering from hypothermia when found and was in hospital for nine weeks. A witness misidentified the make of his car, resulting in more than 300 police officers checking thousands of cars without success.
On 1 October 1977 Sutcliffe murdered Jean Jordan, a prostitute from Manchester. In a confession, Sutcliffe said he had realised the new £5 note he had given her was traceable. After hosting a family party at his new home, he returned to the wasteland behind Manchester's Southern Cemetery, where he had left the body, to retrieve the note but was unable to find it.
On 9 October, Jordan's body was discovered by local dairy worker and future actor Bruce Jones, who had an allotment on land adjoining the site where the body was found and was searching for house bricks when he made the discovery. The £5 note, hidden in a secret compartment in Jordan's handbag, was traced to branches of the Midland Bank in Shipley and Bingley. Police analysis of bank operations allowed them to narrow their field of inquiry to 8,000 employees who could have received it in their wage packet. Over three months the police interviewed 5,000 men, including Sutcliffe. The police found that the alibi given for Sutcliffe's whereabouts was credible; he had indeed spent much of the evening of the killing at a family party. Weeks of intense investigations pertaining to the origins of the £5 note led to nothing, leaving police officers frustrated that they collected an important clue but had been unable to trace the actual firm (or employee within the firm) to which or whom the note had been issued.
On 14 December, Sutcliffe attacked Marilyn Moore, another prostitute from Leeds. She survived and provided police with a description of her attacker. Tyre tracks found at the scene matched those from an earlier attack. Her photofit bore a strong resemblance to Sutcliffe, like other survivors, and she provided a good description of his car, which had been seen in red-light districts. Sutcliffe had been interviewed on this issue.
1978
The police discontinued the search for the person who received the £5 note in January 1978. Although Sutcliffe was interviewed about it, he was not investigated further (he was contacted and disregarded by the Ripper Squad on several further occasions). That month, Sutcliffe killed again. His victim was Yvonne Pearson, a 21-year-old prostitute from Bradford. He repeatedly bludgeoned her about the head with a ball-peen hammer, then jumped on her chest before stuffing horsehair into her mouth from a discarded sofa, under which he hid her body near Lumb Lane.
Ten days later, he killed Helen Rytka, an 18-year-old prostitute from Huddersfield. He struck Rytka on the head five times as she exited his vehicle, before stripping most of the clothes from her body (although her bra and polo-neck jumper were positioned above her breasts) and repeatedly stabbing her in the chest. Her body was found three days later beneath railway arches in Garrards timber-yard to which he had driven her. Sutcliffe said of Rytka while in police custody in 1981: "I had the urge to kill any woman. The urge inside me to kill girls was now practically uncontrollable."
1979
On 4 April 1979, Sutcliffe killed Josephine Whitaker, a 19-year-old building society clerk whom he attacked on Savile Park Moor in Halifax as she was walking home. Despite forensic evidence, police efforts were diverted for several months following receipt of the taped message purporting to be from the murderer taunting Assistant Chief Constable George Oldfield of the West Yorkshire Police, who was leading the investigation. The tape contained a man's voice saying, "I'm Jack. I see you're having no luck catching me. I have the greatest respect for you, George, but Lord, you're no nearer catching me now than four years ago when I started."
Based on the recorded message, police began searching for a man with a Wearside accent, which linguists narrowed down to the Castletown area of Sunderland, Tyne and Wear. The hoaxer, dubbed "Wearside Jack", sent two letters to police and the Daily Mirror in March 1978 boasting of his crimes. The letters, signed "Jack the Ripper", claimed responsibility for the murder of 26-year-old Joan Harrison in Preston in November 1975.
The hoaxer case was re-opened in 2005, and DNA taken from envelopes was entered into the national database, in which it matched that of John Samuel Humble, an unemployed alcoholic and long-time resident of the Ford Estate in Sunderland – a few miles from Castletown – whose DNA had been taken following a drunk and disorderly offence in 2001. On 20 October 2005, Humble was charged with attempting to pervert the course of justice for sending the hoax letters and tape. Humble was remanded in custody and on 21 March 2006 was convicted and sentenced to eight years in prison. Humble died on 30 July 2019, aged 63.
On 1 September, Sutcliffe murdered 20-year-old Barbara Leach, a Bradford University student. Her body was dumped at the rear of 13 Ashgrove under a pile of bricks, close to the university and her lodgings. It was his sixteenth attack. The murder of a woman who was not a prostitute again alarmed the public and prompted an expensive publicity campaign emphasising the Wearside connection. Despite the false lead, Sutcliffe was interviewed on at least two other occasions in 1979. Despite matching several forensic clues and being on the list of 300 names in connection with the £5 note, he was not strongly suspected.
1980
In April 1980, Sutcliffe was arrested for drunk driving. While awaiting trial, he killed two more women. Sutcliffe murdered 47-year-old Marguerite Walls on the night of 20 August 1980, and 20-year-old Jacqueline Hill, a student at Leeds University, on the night of 17 November 1980. Hill's body was found on wasteland near the Arndale Centre. He also attacked three other women, who survived: Uphadya Bandara in Leeds on 24 September 1980; Maureen Lea (known as Mo), an art student attacked in the grounds of Leeds University on 25 October 1980; and 16-year-old Theresa Sykes, attacked in Huddersfield on the night of 5 November 1980. On 25 November 1980, Trevor Birdsall, an associate of Sutcliffe and the unwitting getaway driver as Sutcliffe fled his first documented assault in 1969, reported him to the police as a suspect.
Arrest and trial
On 2 January 1981, Sutcliffe was stopped by the police with 24-year-old prostitute Olivia Reivers in the driveway of Light Trades House in Melbourne Avenue, Broomhill, Sheffield, South Yorkshire. A police check by probationary constable Robert Hydes revealed Sutcliffe's car had false number plates and he was arrested and transferred to Dewsbury Police Station in West Yorkshire. At Dewsbury, he was questioned in relation to the Yorkshire Ripper case as he matched many of the known physical characteristics. The next day police returned to the scene of the arrest and discovered a knife, hammer, and rope he had discarded when he briefly slipped away from the police after telling them he was "bursting for a pee". Sutcliffe hid a second knife in the toilet cistern at the police station when he was permitted to use the toilet. The police obtained a search warrant for his home in Heaton and brought his wife in for questioning.
When Sutcliffe was stripped at the police station he was wearing an inverted V-necked jumper under his trousers. The sleeves had been pulled over his legs and the V-neck exposed his genital area. The fronts of the elbows were padded to protect his knees as, presumably, he knelt over his victims' corpses. The sexual implications of this outfit were considered obvious but it was not known to the public until published by Bilton (2003). After two days of intensive questioning, on the afternoon of 4 January 1981, Sutcliffe suddenly declared he was the Ripper. Over the next day, he calmly described his many attacks. Weeks later he claimed God had told him to murder the women. "The women I killed were filth", he told police. "Bastard prostitutes who were littering the streets. I was just cleaning up the place a bit". Sutcliffe displayed regret only when talking of his youngest murder victim, Jayne MacDonald, and when questioned about the killing of Joan Harrison, he vehemently denied responsibility. Harrison's murder had been linked to the Ripper killings by the "Wearside Jack" claim, but in 2011, DNA evidence revealed the crime had actually been committed by convicted sex offender Christopher Smith, who had died in 2008.
Sutcliffe was charged on 5 January 1981. At his trial, he pleaded not guilty to thirteen charges of murder, but guilty to manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility. The basis of his defence was that he claimed to be the tool of God's will. Sutcliffe said he had heard voices that ordered him to kill prostitutes while working as a gravedigger, which he claimed originated from the headstone of a Polish man, Bronisław Zapolski, and that the voices were that of God.
Sutcliffe pleaded guilty to seven charges of attempted murder. The prosecution intended to accept Sutcliffe's plea after four psychiatrists diagnosed him with paranoid schizophrenia, but the trial judge, Justice Sir Leslie Boreham, demanded an unusually-detailed explanation of the prosecution reasoning. After a two-hour representation by the Attorney-General Sir Michael Havers, a ninety-minute lunch break, and another forty minutes of legal discussion, the judge rejected the diminished responsibility plea and the expert testimonies of the psychiatrists, insisting that the case should be dealt with by a jury. The trial proper was set to commence on 5 May 1981.
The trial lasted two weeks, and despite the efforts of his counsel James Chadwin QC, Sutcliffe was found guilty of murder on all counts and was sentenced to twenty concurrent sentences of life imprisonment. The jury rejected the evidence of four psychiatrists that Sutcliffe had paranoid schizophrenia, possibly influenced by the evidence of a prison officer who heard him say to his wife that if he convinced people he was mad then he might get ten years in a "loony bin".
The trial judge said Sutcliffe was beyond redemption, and hoped he would never leave prison. He recommended a minimum term of thirty years to be served before parole could be considered, meaning Sutcliffe would have been unlikely to be freed until at least 2011. On 16 July 2010, the High Court issued Sutcliffe with a whole life tariff, meaning he was never to be released. After his trial, Sutcliffe admitted two other attacks. It was decided that prosecution for these offences was "not in the public interest". West Yorkshire Police made it clear that the victims wished to remain anonymous.
Criticism of authorities
West Yorkshire Police
West Yorkshire Police was criticised for being inadequately prepared for an investigation on this scale. It was one of the largest investigations by a British police force and predated the use of computers. Information on suspects was stored on handwritten index cards. Aside from difficulties in storing and accessing the paperwork (the floor of the incident room was reinforced to cope with the weight of the paper), it was difficult for officers to overcome the information overload of such a large manual system. Sutcliffe was interviewed nine times, but all information the police had about the case was stored in paper form, making cross-referencing difficult, compounded by television appeals for information which generated thousands more documents. The 1982 Byford Report into the investigation concluded: "The ineffectiveness of the major incident room was a serious handicap to the Ripper investigation. While it should have been the effective nerve centre of the whole police operation, the backlog of unprocessed information resulted in the failure to connect vital pieces of related information. This serious fault in the central index system allowed Peter Sutcliffe to continually slip through the net".
The choice of Oldfield to lead the inquiry was criticised by Byford: "The temptation to appoint a 'senior man' on age or service grounds should be resisted. What is needed is an officer of sound professional competence who will inspire confidence and loyalty". He found wanting Oldfield's focus on the hoax confessional tape that seemed to indicate a perpetrator with a Wearside background, and his ignoring advice from survivors of Sutcliffe's attacks and several eminent specialists, including from the Federal Bureau of Investigation in the US, along with dialect analysts such as Stanley Ellis and Jack Windsor Lewis, whom he had also consulted throughout the manhunt, that "Wearside Jack" was a hoaxer. The investigation used it as a point of elimination rather than a line of enquiry and allowed Sutcliffe to avoid scrutiny, as he did not fit the profile of the sender of the tape or letters. The "Wearside Jack" hoaxer was given unusual credibility when analysis of saliva on the envelopes he sent showed he had the same blood group as that which Sutcliffe had left at crime scenes, a type shared by only 6% of the population. The hoaxer appeared to know details of the murders which had not been released to the press, but which in fact he had acquired from pub gossip and his local newspaper.
In response to the police reaction to the murders, the Leeds Revolutionary Feminist Group organised a number of 'Reclaim the Night' marches. The group and other feminists had criticised the police for victim-blaming, especially for the suggestion that women should remain indoors at night. Eleven marches in various towns across the United Kingdom took place on the night of 12 November 1977. They made the point that women should be able to walk anywhere without restriction and that they should not be blamed for men's violence.
In 1988, the mother of Sutcliffe's last victim, Jacqueline Hill, during an action for damages on behalf of her daughter's estate, argued in the case Hill v Chief Constable of West Yorkshire in the High Court that the police had failed to use reasonable care in apprehending Sutcliffe. The House of Lords held that the Chief Constable of West Yorkshire did not owe a duty of care to the victim due to the lack of proximity, and therefore failing on the second limb of the Caparo test. After Sutcliffe's death in November 2020, West Yorkshire Police issued an apology for the "language, tone, and terminology" used by the force at the time of the criminal investigation, nine months after one of the victims' sons wrote on behalf of several of the victims' families.
Attitude towards prostitutes
The attitude in the West Yorkshire Police at the time reflected Sutcliffe's own misogyny and sexist attitudes, according to multiple sources. Jim Hobson, a senior West Yorkshire detective, told a press conference in October 1979 the perpetrator: "has made it clear that he hates prostitutes. Many people do. We, as a police force, will continue to arrest prostitutes. But the Ripper is now killing innocent girls. That indicates your mental state and that you are in urgent need of medical attention. You have made your point. Give yourself up before another innocent woman dies".Joan Smith wrote in Misogynies (1989, 1993), that "even Sutcliffe, at his trial, did not go quite this far; he did at least claim he was demented at the time".
The Attorney General, Sir Michael Havers QC, at the trial in 1981 said of Sutcliffe's victims in his opening statement: "Some were prostitutes, but perhaps the saddest part of the case is that some were not. The last six attacks were on totally respectable women". This drew condemnation from the English Collective of Prostitutes (ECP), who protested outside the Old Bailey. Nina Lopez, who was one of the ECP protestors in 1981, told The Independent forty years later, Sir Michael's comments were "an indictment of the whole way in which the police and the establishment were dealing with the Yorkshire Ripper case".
Byford report
The Inspector of Constabulary Lawrence Byford's 1981 report of an official inquiry into the Ripper case was not released by the Home Office until 1 June 2006. The sections "Description of suspects, photofits and other assaults" and parts of the section on Sutcliffe's "immediate associates" were not disclosed by the Home Office.
Referring to the period between 1969, when Sutcliffe first came to the attention of police, and 1975, the year of the murder of Wilma McCann, the report states: "There is a curious and unexplained lull in Sutcliffe's criminal activities" and "it is my firm conclusion that between 1969 and 1980 Sutcliffe was probably responsible for many attacks on unaccompanied women, which he has not yet admitted, not only in the West Yorkshire and Manchester areas, but also in other parts of the country". In 1969, Sutcliffe, described in the Byford Report as an "otherwise unremarkable young man", came to the notice of police on two occasions over incidents with prostitutes. Later that year, in September 1969, he was also arrested in Bradford's red light district for being in possession of a hammer, an offensive weapon, but he was charged with "going equipped for stealing" as it was assumed he was a potential burglar. The report said that it was clear Sutcliffe had on at least one occasion attacked a Bradford prostitute with a cosh.
Byford's report states:
Police identified a number of attacks which matched Sutcliffe's modus operandi and tried to question the killer, but he was never charged with other crimes.
The Byford Report's major findings were contained in a summary published by the Home Secretary, William Whitelaw, the first time precise details of the bungled police investigation had been disclosed. Byford described delays in following up vital tip-offs from Trevor Birdsall, an associate of Sutcliffe since 1966. On 25 November 1980, Birdsall sent an anonymous letter to police, the text of which ran as follows:
This letter was marked "Priority No. 1". An index card was created on the basis of the letter and a policewoman found Sutcliffe already had three existing index cards in the records. But "for some inexplicable reason", said the Byford Report, the papers remained in a filing tray in the incident room until the murderer's arrest on 2 January [1981], the following year.
Birdsall visited Bradford police station the day after sending the letter to repeat his misgivings about Sutcliffe. He added that he was with Sutcliffe when he got out of a car to pursue a woman with whom he had had a bar room dispute in Halifax on 16 August 1975. This was the date and place of the Olive Smelt attack. A report compiled on the visit was lost, despite a "comprehensive search" which took place after Sutcliffe's arrest, according to the report. Byford said:
Custody
Prison and Broadmoor Hospital
Following his conviction and incarceration, Sutcliffe chose to use the name Coonan, his mother's maiden name. He began his sentence at HM Prison Parkhurst on 22 May 1981. Despite being found sane at his trial, Sutcliffe was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia. Attempts to send him to a secure psychiatric unit were blocked. While at Parkhurst he was seriously assaulted by James Costello, a 35-year-old career criminal with several convictions for violence. On 10 January 1983, he followed Sutcliffe into the recess of F2, the hospital wing at Parkhurst, and plunged a broken coffee jar twice into the left side of Sutcliffe's face, creating four wounds requiring thirty stitches. In March 1984, Sutcliffe was sent to Broadmoor Hospital, under Section 47 of the Mental Health Act 1983.
Sutcliffe's wife obtained a separation from him around 1989 and a divorce in July 1994. On 23 February 1996, he was attacked in his room in Broadmoor's Henley Ward. Paul Wilson, a convicted robber, asked to borrow a videotape before attempting to strangle Sutcliffe with the cable from a pair of stereo headphones.
After an attack with a pen by fellow inmate Ian Kay on 10 March 1997, Sutcliffe lost the vision in his left eye, and his right eye was severely damaged. Kay admitted trying to kill Sutcliffe and was ordered to be detained in a secure mental hospital without limit of time. In 2003, it was reported that Sutcliffe had developed diabetes.
Sutcliffe's father died in 2004 and was cremated. On 17 January 2005, Sutcliffe was allowed to visit Grange-over-Sands where the ashes had been scattered. The decision to allow the temporary release was initiated by David Blunkett and ratified by Charles Clarke when he became Home Secretary. Sutcliffe was accompanied by four members of the hospital staff. The visit led to front-page tabloid headlines.
On 22 December 2007, Sutcliffe was attacked by fellow inmate Patrick Sureda, who lunged at him with a metal cutlery knife while shouting, "You fucking raping, murdering bastard, I'll blind your fucking other one!" Sutcliffe flung himself backwards and the blade missed his right eye, stabbing him in the cheek.
On 17 February 2009, it was reported that Sutcliffe was "fit to leave Broadmoor". On 23 March 2010, the Secretary of State for Justice, Jack Straw, was questioned by Julie Kirkbride, Conservative Member of Parliament (MP) for Bromsgrove, in the House of Commons seeking reassurance for a constituent, a victim of Sutcliffe, that he would remain in prison. Straw responded that whilst the matter of Sutcliffe's release was a parole board matter, "that all the evidence that I have seen on this case, and it's a great deal, suggests to me that there are no circumstances in which this man will be released".
Appeal
An application by Sutcliffe for a minimum term to be set, offering the possibility of parole after that date if it were thought safe to release him, was heard by the High Court on 16 July 2010. The court decided that Sutcliffe would never be released. Mr Justice Mitting stated:
Psychological reports describing Sutcliffe's mental state were taken into consideration, as was the severity of his crimes. Sutcliffe spent the rest of his life in custody. On 4 August 2010, a spokeswoman for the Judicial Communications Office confirmed that Sutcliffe had initiated an appeal against the decision. The hearing for Sutcliffe's appeal against the ruling began on 30 November 2010 at the Court of Appeal. The appeal was rejected on 14 January 2011. On 9 March 2011, the Court of Appeal rejected Sutcliffe's application for leave to appeal to the Supreme Court.
Later events
In December 2015, Sutcliffe was assessed as being "no longer mentally ill". In August 2016, a medical tribunal ruled that he no longer required clinical treatment for his mental condition, and could be returned to prison. Sutcliffe was reported to have been transferred from Broadmoor to HM Prison Frankland in Durham, County Durham, in August 2016.
In 2017, West Yorkshire Police launched Operation Painthall to determine if Sutcliffe was guilty of unsolved crimes dating back to 1964. This inquiry also looked at the killings of two prostitutes in southern Sweden in 1980. Given that Sutcliffe was a lorry driver, it was theorised that he had been in Denmark and Sweden, making use of the ferry across the Oresund Strait. In December 2017 West Yorkshire Police, in response to a Freedom of Information request, neither confirmed nor denied that Operation Painthall existed. West Yorkshire Police later stated that it was "absolutely certain" that Sutcliffe had never been in Sweden.
Death
Sutcliffe died at University Hospital of North Durham aged 74 on 13 November 2020, having been sent there with COVID-19, after having previously returned to HMP Frankland following treatment for a suspected heart attack at the same hospital two weeks prior. He had a number of underlying health problems, including obesity and diabetes. He reportedly refused treatment. A private funeral ceremony was held, and Sutcliffe's body was cremated.
Media
The song "Night Shift" by English post-punk band Siouxsie and the Banshees on their 1981 album Juju is about Sutcliffe.
On 6 April 1991, Sutcliffe's father, John Sutcliffe, talked about his son on the television discussion programme After Dark.
This Is Personal: The Hunt for the Yorkshire Ripper, a British television crime drama miniseries, first shown on ITV from 26 January to 2 February 2000, is a dramatisation of the real-life investigation into the murders, showing the effect that it had on the health and career of Assistant Chief Constable George Oldfield (Alun Armstrong). The series also starred Richard Ridings and James Laurenson as DSI Dick Holland and Chief Constable Ronald Gregory, respectively. Although broadcast over two weeks, two episodes were shown consecutively each week. The series was nominated for the British Academy Television Award for Best Drama Serial at the 2001 awards.
On 26 August 2016, the police investigation was the subject of BBC Radio 4's The Reunion. Sue MacGregor discussed the investigation with John Domaille, who later became assistant chief constable of West Yorkshire Police; Andy Laptew, who was a junior detective who interviewed Sutcliffe; Elaine Benson, who worked in the incident room and interviewed suspects; David Zackrisson, who investigated the "Wearside Jack" tape and letters in Sunderland; and Christa Ackroyd, a local journalist in Halifax.
A three part series of one hour episodes, The Yorkshire Ripper Files: A very British crime story aired on BBC Four in March 2019. This included interviews with some of the victims, their family, police and journalists who covered the case by filmmaker Liza Williams. In the series she questions whether the attitude of both the police and society towards women prevented Sutcliffe from being caught sooner. On 31 July 2020, the series won the BAFTA prize for Specialist Factual TV programming.
A play written by Olivia Hirst and David Byrne, The Incident Room, premiered at Pleasance as part of the 2019 Edinburgh Festival Fringe. The play focuses on the police force hunting Sutcliffe. The play was produced by New Diorama. The third book (and second episodic television adaptation) in David Peace's Red Riding series is set against the backdrop of the Ripper investigation. In that episode, Sutcliffe is played by Joseph Mawle.
In October 2020, it was announced that ITV will produce a new six-part drama series about the Ripper.
In December 2020, Netflix released a four-part documentary entitled The Ripper, which recounts the police investigation into the murders with interviews from living victims, family members of victims and police officers involved in the investigation.
The 2021 podcast "Crime Analysis" covers Peter Sutcliffe's crimes, focusing on the victims, the investigation and forensics, trial, and aftermath including an interview with the son of victim Wilma McCann.
In November 2021, American heavy metal band Slipknot released a song titled "The Chapeltown Rag", which is inspired by the media reporting on the murders.
In February 2022, Channel 5 released a 60-minute documentary entitled The Ripper Speaks: the Lost Tapes, which recounts interviews and Sutcliffe speaking about life in prison and in Broadmoor Hospital, as well the crimes he had committed but which had not been seen or treated as "a Ripper killing".
See also
Gordon Cummins (Blackout Ripper)
Anthony Hardy (Camden Ripper)
Steve Wright (serial killer) (perpetrator of the Ipswich serial murders)
Alun Kyte (Midlands Ripper)
List of prisoners with whole-life orders
List of serial killers by country
List of serial killers by number of victims
Murders of Jacqueline Ansell-Lamb and Barbara Mayo, unsolved murders that for many years were linked to Sutcliffe
Notes
References
Bibliography
External links
(multiple files)
1946 births
1980s trials
2020 deaths
20th-century English criminals
British people convicted of attempted murder
Chapeltown, Leeds
Crime in Manchester
Crime in West Yorkshire
Criminals from Yorkshire
Deaths from the COVID-19 pandemic in England
English male criminals
English murderers of children
English people convicted of murder
English people of Irish descent
English prisoners sentenced to life imprisonment
English serial killers
Fugitives wanted by the United Kingdom
Male serial killers
Murder in Manchester
Murder in West Yorkshire
People convicted of murder by England and Wales
People detained at Broadmoor Hospital
People from Bingley
People with schizophrenia
Prisoners sentenced to life imprisonment by England and Wales
Prisoners who died in England and Wales detention
Violence against women in England | true | [
"\"What Did I Do to You?\" is a song recorded by British singer Lisa Stansfield for her 1989 album, Affection. It was written by Stansfield, Ian Devaney and Andy Morris, and produced by Devaney and Morris. The song was released as the fourth European single on 30 April 1990. It included three previously unreleased songs written by Stansfield, Devaney and Morris: \"My Apple Heart,\" \"Lay Me Down\" and \"Something's Happenin'.\" \"What Did I Do to You?\" was remixed by Mark Saunders and by the Grammy Award-winning American house music DJ and producer, David Morales. The single became a top forty hit in the European countries reaching number eighteen in Finland, number twenty in Ireland and number twenty-five in the United Kingdom. \"What Did I Do to You?\" was also released in Japan.\n\nIn 2014, the remixes of \"What Did I Do to You?\" were included on the deluxe 2CD + DVD re-release of Affection and on People Hold On ... The Remix Anthology. They were also featured on The Collection 1989–2003 box set (2014), including previously unreleased Red Zone Mix by David Morales.\n\nCritical reception\nThe song received positive reviews from music critics. Matthew Hocter from Albumism viewed it as a \"upbeat offering\". David Giles from Music Week said it is \"beautifully performed\" by Stansfield. A reviewer from Reading Eagle wrote that \"What Did I Do to You?\" \"would be right at home on the \"Saturday Night Fever\" soundtrack.\"\n\nMusic video\nA music video was produced to promote the single, directed by Philip Richardson, who had previously directed the videos for \"All Around the World\" and \"Live Together\". It features Stansfield with her kiss curls, dressed in a white outfit and performing with her band on a stage in front of a jumping audience. The video was later published on Stansfield's official YouTube channel in November 2009. It has amassed more than 1,6 million views as of October 2021.\n\nTrack listings\n\n European/UK 7\" single\n\"What Did I Do to You?\" (Mark Saunders Remix Edit) – 4:20\n\"Something's Happenin'\" – 3:59\n\n European/UK/Japanese CD single\n\"What Did I Do to You?\" (Mark Saunders Remix Edit) – 4:20\n\"My Apple Heart\" – 5:19\n\"Lay Me Down\" – 4:17\n\"Something's Happenin'\" – 3:59\n\n UK 10\" single\n\"What Did I Do to You?\" (Mark Saunders Remix) – 5:52\n\"My Apple Heart\" – 5:19\n\"Lay Me Down\" – 4:17\n\"Something's Happenin'\" – 3:59\n\n European/UK 12\" single\n\"What Did I Do to You?\" (Morales Mix) – 7:59\n\"My Apple Heart\" – 4:22\n\"Lay Me Down\" – 3:19\n\"Something's Happenin'\" – 3:15\n\n UK 12\" promotional single\n\"What Did I Do to You?\" (Morales Mix) – 7:59\n\"What Did I Do to You?\" (Anti Poll Tax Dub) – 6:31\n\n Other remixes\n\"What Did I Do to You?\" (Red Zone Mix) – 7:45\n\nCharts\n\nReferences\n\nLisa Stansfield songs\n1990 singles\nSongs written by Lisa Stansfield\n1989 songs\nArista Records singles\nSongs written by Ian Devaney\nSongs written by Andy Morris (musician)",
"What the fuck may refer to:\n\n an expression (also abbreviated WTF), see \n What the Fuck, a 2005 album by Acumen Nation\n \"What the Fuck...\", a 1994 song by Brand Nubian song from Everything is Everything\n \"What the Fuck\", a 2007 song by Carbon/Silicon from their album The Last Post\n \"What the Fuck\", a 2013 song by fun from their extended play Before Shane Went to Bangkok: Live in the USA\n WTFPL (Do What the Fuck You Want To Public License)\n\nSee also\n What the Bleep Do We Know!?, sometimes stylised as \"What tнē #$*! D̄ө ωΣ (k)πow!?\" and \"What the #$*! Do We Know!?\", a 2004 film purporting to link spirituality and quantum mechanics.\n Star 69 (What the F**k), a 2001 song by Fatboy Slim\n WTF (disambiguation)\n\nEnglish phrases"
]
|
[
"Peter Sutcliffe",
"Criticism of West Yorkshire Police",
"what made it difficult",
"It was one of the largest investigations by a British police force and predated the use of computers.",
"What else made it difficult",
"Information on suspects was stored on handwritten index cards. Aside from difficulties in storing and accessing the paperwork",
"What did it do to the floor",
"the floor of the incident room was reinforced to cope with the weight of the paper",
"Why did the officers struggle",
"it was difficult for officers to overcome the information overload of such a large manual system.",
"How many times did the interview Sutcliff",
"Sutcliffe was interviewed nine times, but all information the police had about the case was stored in paper form, making cross-referencing difficult,",
"what else add paper",
"compounded by television appeals for information which generated thousands more documents.",
"What did the public do then",
"of 'Reclaim the Night' marches. The group and other feminists had criticised the police for victim-blaming,"
]
| C_d7cd70b384574954891aae48803ec621_1 | What did the police do | 8 | What did the police do when the group and other feminists had criticised the police for victim-blaming | Peter Sutcliffe | West Yorkshire Police were criticised for being inadequately prepared for an investigation on this scale. It was one of the largest investigations by a British police force and predated the use of computers. Information on suspects was stored on handwritten index cards. Aside from difficulties in storing and accessing the paperwork (the floor of the incident room was reinforced to cope with the weight of the paper), it was difficult for officers to overcome the information overload of such a large manual system. Sutcliffe was interviewed nine times, but all information the police had about the case was stored in paper form, making cross-referencing difficult, compounded by television appeals for information which generated thousands more documents. Assistant Chief Constable George Oldfield was criticised for being too focused on a hoax confessional tape that seemed to indicate a perpetrator with a Wearside background, and for ignoring advice from survivors of Sutcliffe's attacks, and several eminent specialists including the FBI, plus dialect analysts such as Stanley Ellis and Jack Windsor Lewis, whom he had also consulted throughout the manhunt, that "Wearside Jack" was a blatant hoaxer. The investigation used it as a point of elimination rather than a line of enquiry and allowed Sutcliffe to avoid scrutiny, as he did not fit the profile of the sender of the tape or letters. The "Wearside Jack" hoaxer was given unusual credibility when analysis of saliva on the envelopes he sent showed he had the same blood group as the Yorkshire Ripper had left at crime scenes, a type shared by only 6% of the population. The hoaxer appeared to know details of the murders which had not been released to the press, but which in fact he had acquired from his local newspaper and pub gossip. The official response to the criticisms led to the implementation of the forerunner of the Home Office Large Major Enquiry System, the development of the Major Incident Computer Application (MICA), developed between West Yorkshire Police and ISIS Computer Services. In response to the police reaction to the murders, the Leeds Revolutionary Feminist Group organised a number of 'Reclaim the Night' marches. The group and other feminists had criticised the police for victim-blaming, especially the suggestion that women should remain indoors at night. Eleven marches in various towns across the United Kingdom took place on the night of 12 November 1977. They made the point that women should be able to walk anywhere without restriction and that they should not be blamed for men's violence. In 1988, the mother of Sutcliffe's last victim, Jacqueline Hill, during action for damages on behalf of her daughter's estate, argued in the High Court that the police had failed to use reasonable care in apprehending the murderer of her daughter in Hill v Chief Constable of West Yorkshire. The House of Lords held that the Chief Constable of West Yorkshire did not owe a duty of care to the victim due to the lack of proximity and therefore failing on the second limb of the Caparo test. CANNOTANSWER | Eleven marches in various towns across the United Kingdom took place on the night of 12 November 1977. | Peter William Sutcliffe (2 June 1946 – 13 November 2020), also known as Peter William Coonan, was an English serial killer who was dubbed the Yorkshire Ripper (an allusion to Jack the Ripper) by the press. On 22 May 1981, he was found guilty of murdering 13 women and attempting to murder seven others between 1975 and 1980. He was sentenced to 20 concurrent sentences of life imprisonment, which were converted to a whole life order in 2010. Two of Sutcliffe's murders took place in Manchester; all the others were in West Yorkshire.
Sutcliffe initially attacked women and girls in residential areas, but appears to have shifted his focus to red-light districts because he was attracted by the vulnerability of prostitutes, and perceived ambivalence of police to prostitutes' safety at the time. He had allegedly regularly used the services of prostitutes in Leeds and Bradford. After his arrest in Sheffield by South Yorkshire Police for driving with false number plates in January 1981, Sutcliffe was transferred to West Yorkshire Police, which questioned him about the killings. He confessed to being the perpetrator, saying that the voice of God had sent him on a mission to kill prostitutes. At his trial, Sutcliffe pleaded not guilty to murder on grounds of diminished responsibility, but he was convicted of murder on a majority verdict. Following his conviction, Sutcliffe began using his mother's maiden name of Coonan.
The search for Sutcliffe was one of the largest and most expensive manhunts in British history, and West Yorkshire Police was criticised for its failure to catch him despite having interviewed him nine times in the course of its five-year investigation. Owing to the sensational nature of the case, the police handled an exceptional amount of information, some of it misleading (including the Wearside Jack hoax recorded message and letters purporting to be from the "Ripper"). Following Sutcliffe's conviction, the government ordered a review of the investigation, conducted by the Inspector of Constabulary Lawrence Byford, known as the "Byford Report". The findings were made fully public in 2006, and confirmed the validity of the criticism against the force. The report led to changes to investigative procedures that were adopted across UK police forces. In 2019, The Guardian described the manhunt as "stunningly mishandled".
Sutcliffe was transferred from prison to Broadmoor Hospital in March 1984 after being diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia. The High Court dismissed an appeal by Sutcliffe in 2010, confirming that he would serve a whole life order and never be released from custody. In August 2016, it was ruled that Sutcliffe was mentally fit to be returned to prison, and he was transferred that month to HM Prison Frankland in Durham. He died from COVID-19-related complications in hospital, while in prison custody on 13 November 2020, at the age of 74.
Early life
Peter Sutcliffe was born to a working-class family in Bingley, West Riding of Yorkshire. His parents were John William Sutcliffe and his wife Kathleen Frances (née Coonan), a native of Connemara. Kathleen was a Roman Catholic and John was a member of the choir at the local Anglican church of St Wilfred's; their children were raised in their mother's Catholic faith. Reportedly a loner, Sutcliffe left school aged fifteen and had a series of menial jobs, including two stints as a gravedigger in the 1960s. Between November 1971 and April 1973, he worked at the Baird Television factory on a packaging line. He left this position when he was asked to go on the road as a salesman.
After leaving Baird Television, Sutcliffe worked nightshifts at the Britannia Works of Anderton International from April 1973. In February 1975, he took redundancy and used half of the £400 pay-off to train as a heavy goods vehicle (HGV) driver. On 5 March 1976, Sutcliffe was dismissed for the theft of used tyres. He was unemployed until October 1976, when he found a job as an HGV driver for T. & W.H. Clark (Holdings) Ltd. on the Canal Road Industrial Estate in Bradford.
Sutcliffe, by some reports, hired prostitutes as a young man, and it has been speculated that he had a bad experience during which he was conned out of money by a prostitute and her pimp. Other analyses of his actions have not found evidence that he actually sought the services of prostitutes but note that he nonetheless developed an obsession with them, including "watching them soliciting on the streets of Leeds and Bradford".
Sutcliffe met Sonia Szurma on 14 February 1967; they married on 10 August 1974. Sonia suffered several miscarriages, and they were informed that she would not be able to have children. She resumed a teacher training course, during which time she had an affair with an ice-cream van driver. When Sonia completed the course in 1977 and began teaching, she and Sutcliffe used her salary to buy a house at 6 Garden Lane in Heaton in Bradford, into which they moved on 26 September 1977, and where they were living at the time of Sutcliffe's arrest.
Through his childhood and his early adolescence, Sutcliffe showed no signs of abnormality. But one of his brothers admitted that their father was an abusive alcoholic, stating that their father once smashed a beer glass over Peter's head for sitting in his chair at the Christmas table, after arguing, when the brother was four or five years old. Their father used to whip them with a belt.
Later, in part related to his occupation as a gravedigger, he developed a macabre sense of humour. In his late adolescence, Sutcliffe developed a growing obsession with voyeurism, and spent much time spying on prostitutes and the men seeking their services.
Attacks and murders
Leeds was the hotspot of Ripper activity, with 6 murders and 4 attacks in the city. Sutcliffe's first and last murders also occurred in Leeds.
Sutcliffe's 13 known murder victims were Wilma McCann (Leeds 1975), Emily Jackson (Leeds 1976), Irene Richardson (Leeds 1977), Patricia "Tina" Atkinson (Bradford 1977), Jayne MacDonald (Leeds 1977), Jean Jordan (Manchester 1977), Yvonne Pearson (Bradford 1978), Helen Rytka (Huddersfield 1978), Vera Millward (Manchester 1978), Josephine Whitaker (Halifax 1979), Barbara Leach (Bradford 1979), Marguerite Walls (Leeds 1980) and Jacqueline Hill (Leeds 1980).
He is also known to have attacked 10 other women: a woman of unknown name (Bradford 1969), Anna Rogulskyj (Keighley 1975), Olive Smelt (Halifax 1975), Tracy Browne (Silsden 1975), Marcella Claxton (Leeds 1976), Maureen Long (Bradford 1977) Marilyn Moore (Leeds 1977), Ann Rooney (Leeds 1979) Upadhya Bandara (Leeds 1980), and Theresa Sykes (Huddersfield 1980). Claxton was four months pregnant when she was attacked, and lost the baby she was carrying.
1969
Sutcliffe's first documented assault was of a female prostitute, whom he had met while searching for another woman who had tricked him out of money. He left his friend Trevor Birdsall's minivan and walked up St. Paul's Road in Bradford until he was out of sight. When Sutcliffe returned, he was out of breath, as if he had been running. He told Birdsall to drive off quickly. Sutcliffe said he had followed a prostitute into a garage and hit her over the head with a stone in a sock. According to his statement, Sutcliffe said,
"I got out of the car, went across the road and hit her. The force of the impact tore the toe off the sock and whatever was in it came out. I went back to the car and got in it".
Police visited Sutcliffe's home the next day, as the woman he had attacked had noted Birdsall's vehicle registration plate. He admitted he had hit her, but claimed it was with his hand. The police told him he was "very lucky", as the woman did not want anything more to do with the incident.
1975
Sutcliffe committed his second assault on the night of 5 July 1975 in Keighley. He attacked Anna Rogúlskyj, who was walking alone, striking her unconscious with a ball-peen hammer and slashing her stomach with a knife. Disturbed by a neighbour, he left without killing her. Rogulskyj survived after neurological surgery but she was psychologically traumatised by the attack. She said later:
"I've been afraid to go out much because I feel people are staring and pointing at me. The whole thing is making my life a misery. I sometimes wish I had died in the attack."
On the night of 15 August, Sutcliffe attacked Olive Smelt in Halifax. Employing the same modus operandi, he briefly engaged Smelt with a commonplace pleasantry about the weather before striking hammer blows to her skull from behind. He then disarranged her clothing and slashed her lower back with a knife. Again he was interrupted and left his victim badly injured but alive. Like Rogulskyj, Smelt subsequently suffered severe emotional and mental trauma.
She had told interviewing officer Dept. Supt. Dick Holland (later the Ripper Squad's second in command) that her attacker had a Yorkshire accent, but this information was ignored, as was the fact that neither she nor Rogulskij were in towns with a red light area. On 27 August, Sutcliffe attacked 14-year-old Tracy Browne in Silsden. He struck her from behind and hit her on the head five times while she was walking along a country lane. He ran off when he saw the lights of a passing car, leaving his victim requiring brain surgery. Sutcliffe was not convicted of the attack but confessed to it in 1992.
The first victim to be killed by Sutcliffe was Wilma McCann on 30 October. McCann, from Scott Hall in Leeds, was a mother of four children between the ages of 2 and 7. Sutcliffe struck the back of her skull twice with a hammer, then inflicted "a stab wound to the throat; two stab wounds below the right breast; three stab wounds below the left breast and a series of nine stab wounds around the umbilicus". An extensive inquiry, involving 150 officers of the West Yorkshire Police and 11,000 interviews, failed to find the culprit. In December 2007, McCann's eldest daughter Sonia Newlands killed herself, reportedly after suffering years of anguish and depression over the circumstances of her mother's death, and consequences to her and her siblings.
1976
Sutcliffe committed his next murder in Leeds on 20 January 1976, when he stabbed 42-year-old Emily Jackson 52 times. In dire financial straits, Jackson had been persuaded by her husband to engage in prostitution, using the van of their family roofing business. Sutcliffe picked up Jackson, who was soliciting outside the Gaiety pub on Roundhay Road, then drove about half a mile to some derelict buildings on Enfield Terrace in the Manor Industrial Estate. Sutcliffe hit her on the head with a hammer, dragged her body into a rubbish-strewn yard, then used a sharpened screwdriver to stab her in the neck, chest and abdomen. He stamped on her thigh, leaving behind an impression of his boot.
Sutcliffe attacked 20-year-old Marcella Claxton in Roundhay Park, Leeds, on 9 May. Walking home from a party, she accepted an offer of a lift from Sutcliffe. When she got out of the car to urinate, he hit her from behind with a hammer. Claxton survived and testified against Sutcliffe at his trial. At the time of this attack, Claxton had been four months pregnant and subsequently miscarried her baby. She required multiple, extensive brain operations and suffered from intermittent blackouts and chronic depression.
1977
On 5 February, Sutcliffe attacked Irene Richardson, a Chapeltown prostitute, in Roundhay Park. Richardson was bludgeoned to death with a hammer. Once she was dead, Sutcliffe mutilated her corpse with a knife. Tyre tracks left near the murder scene resulted in a long list of possible suspect vehicles.
Two months later, on 23 April, Sutcliffe killed Patricia "Tina" Atkinson, a prostitute from Bradford, in her flat, where police found a bootprint on the bedclothes. Two months after that, on 26 June, he murdered 16-year-old Jayne MacDonald in Chapeltown. She was not a prostitute and, in the public perception, her murder showed that all women were potential victims. The police described her as the first "innocent" victim. Sutcliffe seriously assaulted Maureen Long in Bradford in July. He was interrupted and fled, leaving her for dead. She was suffering from hypothermia when found and was in hospital for nine weeks. A witness misidentified the make of his car, resulting in more than 300 police officers checking thousands of cars without success.
On 1 October 1977 Sutcliffe murdered Jean Jordan, a prostitute from Manchester. In a confession, Sutcliffe said he had realised the new £5 note he had given her was traceable. After hosting a family party at his new home, he returned to the wasteland behind Manchester's Southern Cemetery, where he had left the body, to retrieve the note but was unable to find it.
On 9 October, Jordan's body was discovered by local dairy worker and future actor Bruce Jones, who had an allotment on land adjoining the site where the body was found and was searching for house bricks when he made the discovery. The £5 note, hidden in a secret compartment in Jordan's handbag, was traced to branches of the Midland Bank in Shipley and Bingley. Police analysis of bank operations allowed them to narrow their field of inquiry to 8,000 employees who could have received it in their wage packet. Over three months the police interviewed 5,000 men, including Sutcliffe. The police found that the alibi given for Sutcliffe's whereabouts was credible; he had indeed spent much of the evening of the killing at a family party. Weeks of intense investigations pertaining to the origins of the £5 note led to nothing, leaving police officers frustrated that they collected an important clue but had been unable to trace the actual firm (or employee within the firm) to which or whom the note had been issued.
On 14 December, Sutcliffe attacked Marilyn Moore, another prostitute from Leeds. She survived and provided police with a description of her attacker. Tyre tracks found at the scene matched those from an earlier attack. Her photofit bore a strong resemblance to Sutcliffe, like other survivors, and she provided a good description of his car, which had been seen in red-light districts. Sutcliffe had been interviewed on this issue.
1978
The police discontinued the search for the person who received the £5 note in January 1978. Although Sutcliffe was interviewed about it, he was not investigated further (he was contacted and disregarded by the Ripper Squad on several further occasions). That month, Sutcliffe killed again. His victim was Yvonne Pearson, a 21-year-old prostitute from Bradford. He repeatedly bludgeoned her about the head with a ball-peen hammer, then jumped on her chest before stuffing horsehair into her mouth from a discarded sofa, under which he hid her body near Lumb Lane.
Ten days later, he killed Helen Rytka, an 18-year-old prostitute from Huddersfield. He struck Rytka on the head five times as she exited his vehicle, before stripping most of the clothes from her body (although her bra and polo-neck jumper were positioned above her breasts) and repeatedly stabbing her in the chest. Her body was found three days later beneath railway arches in Garrards timber-yard to which he had driven her. Sutcliffe said of Rytka while in police custody in 1981: "I had the urge to kill any woman. The urge inside me to kill girls was now practically uncontrollable."
1979
On 4 April 1979, Sutcliffe killed Josephine Whitaker, a 19-year-old building society clerk whom he attacked on Savile Park Moor in Halifax as she was walking home. Despite forensic evidence, police efforts were diverted for several months following receipt of the taped message purporting to be from the murderer taunting Assistant Chief Constable George Oldfield of the West Yorkshire Police, who was leading the investigation. The tape contained a man's voice saying, "I'm Jack. I see you're having no luck catching me. I have the greatest respect for you, George, but Lord, you're no nearer catching me now than four years ago when I started."
Based on the recorded message, police began searching for a man with a Wearside accent, which linguists narrowed down to the Castletown area of Sunderland, Tyne and Wear. The hoaxer, dubbed "Wearside Jack", sent two letters to police and the Daily Mirror in March 1978 boasting of his crimes. The letters, signed "Jack the Ripper", claimed responsibility for the murder of 26-year-old Joan Harrison in Preston in November 1975.
The hoaxer case was re-opened in 2005, and DNA taken from envelopes was entered into the national database, in which it matched that of John Samuel Humble, an unemployed alcoholic and long-time resident of the Ford Estate in Sunderland – a few miles from Castletown – whose DNA had been taken following a drunk and disorderly offence in 2001. On 20 October 2005, Humble was charged with attempting to pervert the course of justice for sending the hoax letters and tape. Humble was remanded in custody and on 21 March 2006 was convicted and sentenced to eight years in prison. Humble died on 30 July 2019, aged 63.
On 1 September, Sutcliffe murdered 20-year-old Barbara Leach, a Bradford University student. Her body was dumped at the rear of 13 Ashgrove under a pile of bricks, close to the university and her lodgings. It was his sixteenth attack. The murder of a woman who was not a prostitute again alarmed the public and prompted an expensive publicity campaign emphasising the Wearside connection. Despite the false lead, Sutcliffe was interviewed on at least two other occasions in 1979. Despite matching several forensic clues and being on the list of 300 names in connection with the £5 note, he was not strongly suspected.
1980
In April 1980, Sutcliffe was arrested for drunk driving. While awaiting trial, he killed two more women. Sutcliffe murdered 47-year-old Marguerite Walls on the night of 20 August 1980, and 20-year-old Jacqueline Hill, a student at Leeds University, on the night of 17 November 1980. Hill's body was found on wasteland near the Arndale Centre. He also attacked three other women, who survived: Uphadya Bandara in Leeds on 24 September 1980; Maureen Lea (known as Mo), an art student attacked in the grounds of Leeds University on 25 October 1980; and 16-year-old Theresa Sykes, attacked in Huddersfield on the night of 5 November 1980. On 25 November 1980, Trevor Birdsall, an associate of Sutcliffe and the unwitting getaway driver as Sutcliffe fled his first documented assault in 1969, reported him to the police as a suspect.
Arrest and trial
On 2 January 1981, Sutcliffe was stopped by the police with 24-year-old prostitute Olivia Reivers in the driveway of Light Trades House in Melbourne Avenue, Broomhill, Sheffield, South Yorkshire. A police check by probationary constable Robert Hydes revealed Sutcliffe's car had false number plates and he was arrested and transferred to Dewsbury Police Station in West Yorkshire. At Dewsbury, he was questioned in relation to the Yorkshire Ripper case as he matched many of the known physical characteristics. The next day police returned to the scene of the arrest and discovered a knife, hammer, and rope he had discarded when he briefly slipped away from the police after telling them he was "bursting for a pee". Sutcliffe hid a second knife in the toilet cistern at the police station when he was permitted to use the toilet. The police obtained a search warrant for his home in Heaton and brought his wife in for questioning.
When Sutcliffe was stripped at the police station he was wearing an inverted V-necked jumper under his trousers. The sleeves had been pulled over his legs and the V-neck exposed his genital area. The fronts of the elbows were padded to protect his knees as, presumably, he knelt over his victims' corpses. The sexual implications of this outfit were considered obvious but it was not known to the public until published by Bilton (2003). After two days of intensive questioning, on the afternoon of 4 January 1981, Sutcliffe suddenly declared he was the Ripper. Over the next day, he calmly described his many attacks. Weeks later he claimed God had told him to murder the women. "The women I killed were filth", he told police. "Bastard prostitutes who were littering the streets. I was just cleaning up the place a bit". Sutcliffe displayed regret only when talking of his youngest murder victim, Jayne MacDonald, and when questioned about the killing of Joan Harrison, he vehemently denied responsibility. Harrison's murder had been linked to the Ripper killings by the "Wearside Jack" claim, but in 2011, DNA evidence revealed the crime had actually been committed by convicted sex offender Christopher Smith, who had died in 2008.
Sutcliffe was charged on 5 January 1981. At his trial, he pleaded not guilty to thirteen charges of murder, but guilty to manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility. The basis of his defence was that he claimed to be the tool of God's will. Sutcliffe said he had heard voices that ordered him to kill prostitutes while working as a gravedigger, which he claimed originated from the headstone of a Polish man, Bronisław Zapolski, and that the voices were that of God.
Sutcliffe pleaded guilty to seven charges of attempted murder. The prosecution intended to accept Sutcliffe's plea after four psychiatrists diagnosed him with paranoid schizophrenia, but the trial judge, Justice Sir Leslie Boreham, demanded an unusually-detailed explanation of the prosecution reasoning. After a two-hour representation by the Attorney-General Sir Michael Havers, a ninety-minute lunch break, and another forty minutes of legal discussion, the judge rejected the diminished responsibility plea and the expert testimonies of the psychiatrists, insisting that the case should be dealt with by a jury. The trial proper was set to commence on 5 May 1981.
The trial lasted two weeks, and despite the efforts of his counsel James Chadwin QC, Sutcliffe was found guilty of murder on all counts and was sentenced to twenty concurrent sentences of life imprisonment. The jury rejected the evidence of four psychiatrists that Sutcliffe had paranoid schizophrenia, possibly influenced by the evidence of a prison officer who heard him say to his wife that if he convinced people he was mad then he might get ten years in a "loony bin".
The trial judge said Sutcliffe was beyond redemption, and hoped he would never leave prison. He recommended a minimum term of thirty years to be served before parole could be considered, meaning Sutcliffe would have been unlikely to be freed until at least 2011. On 16 July 2010, the High Court issued Sutcliffe with a whole life tariff, meaning he was never to be released. After his trial, Sutcliffe admitted two other attacks. It was decided that prosecution for these offences was "not in the public interest". West Yorkshire Police made it clear that the victims wished to remain anonymous.
Criticism of authorities
West Yorkshire Police
West Yorkshire Police was criticised for being inadequately prepared for an investigation on this scale. It was one of the largest investigations by a British police force and predated the use of computers. Information on suspects was stored on handwritten index cards. Aside from difficulties in storing and accessing the paperwork (the floor of the incident room was reinforced to cope with the weight of the paper), it was difficult for officers to overcome the information overload of such a large manual system. Sutcliffe was interviewed nine times, but all information the police had about the case was stored in paper form, making cross-referencing difficult, compounded by television appeals for information which generated thousands more documents. The 1982 Byford Report into the investigation concluded: "The ineffectiveness of the major incident room was a serious handicap to the Ripper investigation. While it should have been the effective nerve centre of the whole police operation, the backlog of unprocessed information resulted in the failure to connect vital pieces of related information. This serious fault in the central index system allowed Peter Sutcliffe to continually slip through the net".
The choice of Oldfield to lead the inquiry was criticised by Byford: "The temptation to appoint a 'senior man' on age or service grounds should be resisted. What is needed is an officer of sound professional competence who will inspire confidence and loyalty". He found wanting Oldfield's focus on the hoax confessional tape that seemed to indicate a perpetrator with a Wearside background, and his ignoring advice from survivors of Sutcliffe's attacks and several eminent specialists, including from the Federal Bureau of Investigation in the US, along with dialect analysts such as Stanley Ellis and Jack Windsor Lewis, whom he had also consulted throughout the manhunt, that "Wearside Jack" was a hoaxer. The investigation used it as a point of elimination rather than a line of enquiry and allowed Sutcliffe to avoid scrutiny, as he did not fit the profile of the sender of the tape or letters. The "Wearside Jack" hoaxer was given unusual credibility when analysis of saliva on the envelopes he sent showed he had the same blood group as that which Sutcliffe had left at crime scenes, a type shared by only 6% of the population. The hoaxer appeared to know details of the murders which had not been released to the press, but which in fact he had acquired from pub gossip and his local newspaper.
In response to the police reaction to the murders, the Leeds Revolutionary Feminist Group organised a number of 'Reclaim the Night' marches. The group and other feminists had criticised the police for victim-blaming, especially for the suggestion that women should remain indoors at night. Eleven marches in various towns across the United Kingdom took place on the night of 12 November 1977. They made the point that women should be able to walk anywhere without restriction and that they should not be blamed for men's violence.
In 1988, the mother of Sutcliffe's last victim, Jacqueline Hill, during an action for damages on behalf of her daughter's estate, argued in the case Hill v Chief Constable of West Yorkshire in the High Court that the police had failed to use reasonable care in apprehending Sutcliffe. The House of Lords held that the Chief Constable of West Yorkshire did not owe a duty of care to the victim due to the lack of proximity, and therefore failing on the second limb of the Caparo test. After Sutcliffe's death in November 2020, West Yorkshire Police issued an apology for the "language, tone, and terminology" used by the force at the time of the criminal investigation, nine months after one of the victims' sons wrote on behalf of several of the victims' families.
Attitude towards prostitutes
The attitude in the West Yorkshire Police at the time reflected Sutcliffe's own misogyny and sexist attitudes, according to multiple sources. Jim Hobson, a senior West Yorkshire detective, told a press conference in October 1979 the perpetrator: "has made it clear that he hates prostitutes. Many people do. We, as a police force, will continue to arrest prostitutes. But the Ripper is now killing innocent girls. That indicates your mental state and that you are in urgent need of medical attention. You have made your point. Give yourself up before another innocent woman dies".Joan Smith wrote in Misogynies (1989, 1993), that "even Sutcliffe, at his trial, did not go quite this far; he did at least claim he was demented at the time".
The Attorney General, Sir Michael Havers QC, at the trial in 1981 said of Sutcliffe's victims in his opening statement: "Some were prostitutes, but perhaps the saddest part of the case is that some were not. The last six attacks were on totally respectable women". This drew condemnation from the English Collective of Prostitutes (ECP), who protested outside the Old Bailey. Nina Lopez, who was one of the ECP protestors in 1981, told The Independent forty years later, Sir Michael's comments were "an indictment of the whole way in which the police and the establishment were dealing with the Yorkshire Ripper case".
Byford report
The Inspector of Constabulary Lawrence Byford's 1981 report of an official inquiry into the Ripper case was not released by the Home Office until 1 June 2006. The sections "Description of suspects, photofits and other assaults" and parts of the section on Sutcliffe's "immediate associates" were not disclosed by the Home Office.
Referring to the period between 1969, when Sutcliffe first came to the attention of police, and 1975, the year of the murder of Wilma McCann, the report states: "There is a curious and unexplained lull in Sutcliffe's criminal activities" and "it is my firm conclusion that between 1969 and 1980 Sutcliffe was probably responsible for many attacks on unaccompanied women, which he has not yet admitted, not only in the West Yorkshire and Manchester areas, but also in other parts of the country". In 1969, Sutcliffe, described in the Byford Report as an "otherwise unremarkable young man", came to the notice of police on two occasions over incidents with prostitutes. Later that year, in September 1969, he was also arrested in Bradford's red light district for being in possession of a hammer, an offensive weapon, but he was charged with "going equipped for stealing" as it was assumed he was a potential burglar. The report said that it was clear Sutcliffe had on at least one occasion attacked a Bradford prostitute with a cosh.
Byford's report states:
Police identified a number of attacks which matched Sutcliffe's modus operandi and tried to question the killer, but he was never charged with other crimes.
The Byford Report's major findings were contained in a summary published by the Home Secretary, William Whitelaw, the first time precise details of the bungled police investigation had been disclosed. Byford described delays in following up vital tip-offs from Trevor Birdsall, an associate of Sutcliffe since 1966. On 25 November 1980, Birdsall sent an anonymous letter to police, the text of which ran as follows:
This letter was marked "Priority No. 1". An index card was created on the basis of the letter and a policewoman found Sutcliffe already had three existing index cards in the records. But "for some inexplicable reason", said the Byford Report, the papers remained in a filing tray in the incident room until the murderer's arrest on 2 January [1981], the following year.
Birdsall visited Bradford police station the day after sending the letter to repeat his misgivings about Sutcliffe. He added that he was with Sutcliffe when he got out of a car to pursue a woman with whom he had had a bar room dispute in Halifax on 16 August 1975. This was the date and place of the Olive Smelt attack. A report compiled on the visit was lost, despite a "comprehensive search" which took place after Sutcliffe's arrest, according to the report. Byford said:
Custody
Prison and Broadmoor Hospital
Following his conviction and incarceration, Sutcliffe chose to use the name Coonan, his mother's maiden name. He began his sentence at HM Prison Parkhurst on 22 May 1981. Despite being found sane at his trial, Sutcliffe was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia. Attempts to send him to a secure psychiatric unit were blocked. While at Parkhurst he was seriously assaulted by James Costello, a 35-year-old career criminal with several convictions for violence. On 10 January 1983, he followed Sutcliffe into the recess of F2, the hospital wing at Parkhurst, and plunged a broken coffee jar twice into the left side of Sutcliffe's face, creating four wounds requiring thirty stitches. In March 1984, Sutcliffe was sent to Broadmoor Hospital, under Section 47 of the Mental Health Act 1983.
Sutcliffe's wife obtained a separation from him around 1989 and a divorce in July 1994. On 23 February 1996, he was attacked in his room in Broadmoor's Henley Ward. Paul Wilson, a convicted robber, asked to borrow a videotape before attempting to strangle Sutcliffe with the cable from a pair of stereo headphones.
After an attack with a pen by fellow inmate Ian Kay on 10 March 1997, Sutcliffe lost the vision in his left eye, and his right eye was severely damaged. Kay admitted trying to kill Sutcliffe and was ordered to be detained in a secure mental hospital without limit of time. In 2003, it was reported that Sutcliffe had developed diabetes.
Sutcliffe's father died in 2004 and was cremated. On 17 January 2005, Sutcliffe was allowed to visit Grange-over-Sands where the ashes had been scattered. The decision to allow the temporary release was initiated by David Blunkett and ratified by Charles Clarke when he became Home Secretary. Sutcliffe was accompanied by four members of the hospital staff. The visit led to front-page tabloid headlines.
On 22 December 2007, Sutcliffe was attacked by fellow inmate Patrick Sureda, who lunged at him with a metal cutlery knife while shouting, "You fucking raping, murdering bastard, I'll blind your fucking other one!" Sutcliffe flung himself backwards and the blade missed his right eye, stabbing him in the cheek.
On 17 February 2009, it was reported that Sutcliffe was "fit to leave Broadmoor". On 23 March 2010, the Secretary of State for Justice, Jack Straw, was questioned by Julie Kirkbride, Conservative Member of Parliament (MP) for Bromsgrove, in the House of Commons seeking reassurance for a constituent, a victim of Sutcliffe, that he would remain in prison. Straw responded that whilst the matter of Sutcliffe's release was a parole board matter, "that all the evidence that I have seen on this case, and it's a great deal, suggests to me that there are no circumstances in which this man will be released".
Appeal
An application by Sutcliffe for a minimum term to be set, offering the possibility of parole after that date if it were thought safe to release him, was heard by the High Court on 16 July 2010. The court decided that Sutcliffe would never be released. Mr Justice Mitting stated:
Psychological reports describing Sutcliffe's mental state were taken into consideration, as was the severity of his crimes. Sutcliffe spent the rest of his life in custody. On 4 August 2010, a spokeswoman for the Judicial Communications Office confirmed that Sutcliffe had initiated an appeal against the decision. The hearing for Sutcliffe's appeal against the ruling began on 30 November 2010 at the Court of Appeal. The appeal was rejected on 14 January 2011. On 9 March 2011, the Court of Appeal rejected Sutcliffe's application for leave to appeal to the Supreme Court.
Later events
In December 2015, Sutcliffe was assessed as being "no longer mentally ill". In August 2016, a medical tribunal ruled that he no longer required clinical treatment for his mental condition, and could be returned to prison. Sutcliffe was reported to have been transferred from Broadmoor to HM Prison Frankland in Durham, County Durham, in August 2016.
In 2017, West Yorkshire Police launched Operation Painthall to determine if Sutcliffe was guilty of unsolved crimes dating back to 1964. This inquiry also looked at the killings of two prostitutes in southern Sweden in 1980. Given that Sutcliffe was a lorry driver, it was theorised that he had been in Denmark and Sweden, making use of the ferry across the Oresund Strait. In December 2017 West Yorkshire Police, in response to a Freedom of Information request, neither confirmed nor denied that Operation Painthall existed. West Yorkshire Police later stated that it was "absolutely certain" that Sutcliffe had never been in Sweden.
Death
Sutcliffe died at University Hospital of North Durham aged 74 on 13 November 2020, having been sent there with COVID-19, after having previously returned to HMP Frankland following treatment for a suspected heart attack at the same hospital two weeks prior. He had a number of underlying health problems, including obesity and diabetes. He reportedly refused treatment. A private funeral ceremony was held, and Sutcliffe's body was cremated.
Media
The song "Night Shift" by English post-punk band Siouxsie and the Banshees on their 1981 album Juju is about Sutcliffe.
On 6 April 1991, Sutcliffe's father, John Sutcliffe, talked about his son on the television discussion programme After Dark.
This Is Personal: The Hunt for the Yorkshire Ripper, a British television crime drama miniseries, first shown on ITV from 26 January to 2 February 2000, is a dramatisation of the real-life investigation into the murders, showing the effect that it had on the health and career of Assistant Chief Constable George Oldfield (Alun Armstrong). The series also starred Richard Ridings and James Laurenson as DSI Dick Holland and Chief Constable Ronald Gregory, respectively. Although broadcast over two weeks, two episodes were shown consecutively each week. The series was nominated for the British Academy Television Award for Best Drama Serial at the 2001 awards.
On 26 August 2016, the police investigation was the subject of BBC Radio 4's The Reunion. Sue MacGregor discussed the investigation with John Domaille, who later became assistant chief constable of West Yorkshire Police; Andy Laptew, who was a junior detective who interviewed Sutcliffe; Elaine Benson, who worked in the incident room and interviewed suspects; David Zackrisson, who investigated the "Wearside Jack" tape and letters in Sunderland; and Christa Ackroyd, a local journalist in Halifax.
A three part series of one hour episodes, The Yorkshire Ripper Files: A very British crime story aired on BBC Four in March 2019. This included interviews with some of the victims, their family, police and journalists who covered the case by filmmaker Liza Williams. In the series she questions whether the attitude of both the police and society towards women prevented Sutcliffe from being caught sooner. On 31 July 2020, the series won the BAFTA prize for Specialist Factual TV programming.
A play written by Olivia Hirst and David Byrne, The Incident Room, premiered at Pleasance as part of the 2019 Edinburgh Festival Fringe. The play focuses on the police force hunting Sutcliffe. The play was produced by New Diorama. The third book (and second episodic television adaptation) in David Peace's Red Riding series is set against the backdrop of the Ripper investigation. In that episode, Sutcliffe is played by Joseph Mawle.
In October 2020, it was announced that ITV will produce a new six-part drama series about the Ripper.
In December 2020, Netflix released a four-part documentary entitled The Ripper, which recounts the police investigation into the murders with interviews from living victims, family members of victims and police officers involved in the investigation.
The 2021 podcast "Crime Analysis" covers Peter Sutcliffe's crimes, focusing on the victims, the investigation and forensics, trial, and aftermath including an interview with the son of victim Wilma McCann.
In November 2021, American heavy metal band Slipknot released a song titled "The Chapeltown Rag", which is inspired by the media reporting on the murders.
In February 2022, Channel 5 released a 60-minute documentary entitled The Ripper Speaks: the Lost Tapes, which recounts interviews and Sutcliffe speaking about life in prison and in Broadmoor Hospital, as well the crimes he had committed but which had not been seen or treated as "a Ripper killing".
See also
Gordon Cummins (Blackout Ripper)
Anthony Hardy (Camden Ripper)
Steve Wright (serial killer) (perpetrator of the Ipswich serial murders)
Alun Kyte (Midlands Ripper)
List of prisoners with whole-life orders
List of serial killers by country
List of serial killers by number of victims
Murders of Jacqueline Ansell-Lamb and Barbara Mayo, unsolved murders that for many years were linked to Sutcliffe
Notes
References
Bibliography
External links
(multiple files)
1946 births
1980s trials
2020 deaths
20th-century English criminals
British people convicted of attempted murder
Chapeltown, Leeds
Crime in Manchester
Crime in West Yorkshire
Criminals from Yorkshire
Deaths from the COVID-19 pandemic in England
English male criminals
English murderers of children
English people convicted of murder
English people of Irish descent
English prisoners sentenced to life imprisonment
English serial killers
Fugitives wanted by the United Kingdom
Male serial killers
Murder in Manchester
Murder in West Yorkshire
People convicted of murder by England and Wales
People detained at Broadmoor Hospital
People from Bingley
People with schizophrenia
Prisoners sentenced to life imprisonment by England and Wales
Prisoners who died in England and Wales detention
Violence against women in England | true | [
"\"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)",
"Sir Craig Thomas Mackey, (born 26 August 1962) is a former British police officer who served as Deputy Commissioner of London's Metropolitan Police Service from 2012 until his retirement in 2018. He previously held senior roles as Chief Constable of Cumbria Constabulary, in addition to chief officer posts in Wiltshire Constabulary, Gloucestershire Constabulary, and a specialist staff officer role in Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary (HMIC).\n\nEarly life and education\nMackey was born on 26 August 1962 in Ibadan, Nigeria. Having studied with the Open University, he has a Bachelor of Science (BSc) degree and postgraduate diplomas in economics and criminal justice.\n\nPolice career\nMackey joined Wiltshire Constabulary in 1984. In 2001, he transferred to Gloucestershire Constabulary to become its Assistant Chief Constable - he later went on to be its Deputy Chief Constable. In September 2007, Mackey joined Cumbria Constabulary as its Chief Constable, a post he remained in until his appointment as the Metropolitan Police Deputy Commissioner in 2012. Mackey served as the Acting Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police between 22 February and 10 April 2017.\n\nOn 22 March 2017, while acting as Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, Mackey was on a routine visit to the Palace of Westminster. He was there during the 2017 Westminster attack and was described as a \"significant witness\". As a result of this, it was claimed he could not issue any public statements, including any responses to negative commentary regarding his conduct. Much of that negative commentary compared Mackey’s actions unfavourably with those of the armed protection officer who shot Khalid Masood (the attacker) dead. Gaby Hinsliff in The Guardian wrote: “A Met chief stayed in his car during an attack. That’s not leadership.” Her article stated that “………. what apparently most enrages those officers now condemning Mackey is a sense that their own leaders wouldn’t do what is asked of them every day, and that perhaps speaks to a more deep-rooted sense of betrayal going back years. It’s horribly unfair to call Craig Mackey a coward, particularly from the safety of civilian armchairs. He made what was in all probability the cowardly decision. But it does not, somehow, look like the decision of a leader. In fact it stinks of the 'do as I say, not as I do' double standards of today's politically sensitive police service management.” \n\nSubsequently, at the inquest into the death of Masood, the chief coroner of England and Wales, Mark Lucraft QC, described Mackey’s actions as “sensible and proper and intended to protect others in the car”. Lucraft said Mackey did not flee the scene. “You may well think that it was important for the most senior police officer in the country to be at New Scotland Yard, where he could take command and control of what, at that time, could potentially have been part of a much larger attack.”\n\nMackey retired from the police service in December 2018. On 5 October 2018, Sir Stephen House was announced by the Government as Sir Craig's successor as Deputy Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police Service.\n\nHonours\nMackey was awarded the Queen's Police Medal for Distinguished Service in the 2009 New Year Honours and appointed a Knight Bachelor in the 2018 New Year Honours for services to Policing.\n\n100px100px\n\nReferences\n\nLiving people\nDeputy Commissioners of Police of the Metropolis\nRecipients of the Queen's Police Medal\nBritish Merchant Navy personnel\nBritish Chief Constables\nPeople from Cumbria\n1962 births\nAlumni of the Open University"
]
|
[
"Ozzie Smith",
"1987-90"
]
| C_c480d60d41bc4e0fa4efe80d33514300_0 | what was significant about this time period? | 1 | what was significant for Ozzie Smith about the time period 1987-80? | Ozzie Smith | After hitting in either the second or eighth spot in the batting order for most of his time in St. Louis, Herzog made Smith the number-two hitter full-time during the 1987 season. Over the course of the year, Smith accrued a .303 batting average, 43 stolen bases, 75 RBIs, 104 runs scored, and 40 doubles, good enough to earn him the Silver Slugger Award at shortstop. In addition to winning the Gold Glove Award at shortstop for the eighth consecutive time, Smith posted a career-high on-base percentage of .392. Smith was also the leading vote-getter in the 1987 All-Star Game. The Cardinals earned a postseason berth with 95 wins, and subsequently faced the San Francisco Giants in the 1987 National League Championship Series. Smith contributed a triple during the series, and the Cardinals won the contest in seven games. The 1987 World Series matched the Cardinals against the American League champion Minnesota Twins. The home team won every game of the contest, as Minnesota won the series. In 28 at-bats during the Series, Smith scored three runs and had two RBIs. Smith finished second in MVP balloting to Andre Dawson, who had played on the last-place Chicago Cubs, largely because Smith and teammate Jack Clark split the first-place vote. Following the 1987 season, Smith was awarded the largest contract in the National League at $2,340,000. While the team did not see the postseason for the remainder of the decade, Smith continued to rack up All-Star appearances and Gold Gloves. Combined with the attention he received from his contract, Smith continued to be a national figure. Known as a savvy dresser, he made the April 1988 cover of GQ magazine. Smith was witness to change within the Cardinal organization when owner Gussie Busch died in 1989 and Herzog quit as manager during the 1990 season. CANNOTANSWER | Herzog made Smith the number-two hitter full-time during the 1987 season. | Osborne Earl "Ozzie" Smith (born December 26, 1954) is an American former professional baseball player. Nicknamed "The Wizard of Oz", Smith played shortstop for the San Diego Padres and St. Louis Cardinals in Major League Baseball, winning the National League Gold Glove Award for defensive play at shortstop for 13 consecutive seasons. A 15-time All-Star, Smith accumulated 2,460 hits and 580 stolen bases during his career, and won the National League Silver Slugger Award as the best hitter at shortstop in 1987. He was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in his first year of eligibility in 2002. He was also elected to the St. Louis Cardinals Hall of Fame in the inaugural class of 2014.
Smith was born in Mobile, Alabama, but his family moved to Watts, Los Angeles, when he was six years old. While participating in childhood athletic activities, Smith developed quick reflexes; he went on to play baseball in high school and college, at Los Angeles' Locke High School and Cal Poly-San Luis Obispo respectively. Drafted as an amateur player by the Padres, Smith made his major league debut in 1978. He quickly established himself as an outstanding fielder, and later became known for performing backflips on special occasions while taking his position at the beginning of a game. Smith won his first Gold Glove Award in 1980 and made his first All-Star Game appearance in 1981. When conflict with Padres' ownership developed, he was traded to the Cardinals for shortstop Garry Templeton in 1982.
Upon joining the Cardinals, Smith helped the team win the 1982 World Series. Three years later, his game-winning home run during Game 5 of the 1985 National League Championship Series prompted broadcaster Jack Buck's "Go crazy, folks!" play-by-play call. Despite a rotator cuff injury during the 1985 season, Smith posted career highs in multiple offensive categories in 1987. Smith continued to earn Gold Gloves and All-Star appearances on an annual basis until 1993. During the 1995 season, Smith had shoulder surgery and was out nearly three months. After tension with his new manager Tony La Russa developed in 1996, Smith retired at season's end, and his uniform number (No. 1) was subsequently retired by the Cardinals. Smith served as host of the television show This Week in Baseball from 1997 to 1998.
Early life
Smith was born in Mobile, Alabama, the second of Clovi and Marvella Smith's six children (five boys and one girl). While the family lived in Mobile, his father worked as a sandblaster at Brookley Air Force Base. When Smith was six his family moved to the Watts section of Los Angeles. His father became a delivery truck driver for Safeway stores, while his mother became an aide at a nursing home. His mother was an influential part of his life who stressed the importance of education and encouraged him to pursue his dreams.
Smith played a variety of sports in his youth, though considered baseball to be his favorite. He developed quick reflexes through various athletic and leisure activity, such as bouncing a ball off the concrete steps in front of his house, moving in closer to reduce reaction time with each throw. When not at the local YMCA or playing sports, Smith sometimes went with friends to the neighborhood lumberyard, springboarding off inner tubes and doing flips into sawdust piles (a precursor to his famous backflips). In 1965, at age 10, he endured the Watts Riots with his family, recalling that, "We had to sleep on the floor because of all the sniping and looting going on."
While Smith was attending junior high school, his parents divorced. Continuing to pursue his interest in baseball, he would ride the bus for nearly an hour to reach Dodger Stadium, cheering for the Los Angeles Dodgers at about 25 games a year. Upon becoming a student at Locke High School, Smith played on the basketball and baseball teams. Smith was a teammate of future National Basketball Association player Marques Johnson on the basketball team, and a teammate of future fellow Hall-of-Fame player Eddie Murray on the baseball side. After high school Smith attended Cal Poly San Luis Obispo in 1974 on a partial academic scholarship, and managed to walk-on to the baseball team. In addition to his academic education, he learned to switch-hit from Cal Poly coach Berdy Harr. When Cal Poly's starting shortstop broke his leg midway through the 1974 season, Smith subsequently took over the starting role. Later named an All-American athlete, he established school records in career at bats (754) and career stolen bases (110) before graduating in 1977.
Professional baseball career
San Diego Padres
Smith was playing semi-professional baseball in Clarinda, Iowa, when in June 1976 he was selected in the seventh round of the amateur entry draft by the Detroit Tigers. The parties could not agree on a contract; Smith wanted a $10,000 ($ today) signing bonus, while the Tigers offered $8,500 ($ today). Smith returned to Cal Poly for his senior year, then in the 1977 draft was selected in the fourth round by the San Diego Padres, ultimately agreeing to a contract that included a $5,000 signing bonus ($ today). Smith spent his first year of professional baseball during 1977 with the Class A Walla Walla Padres of the Northwest League.
Smith began 1978 as a non-roster invitee to the San Diego Padres' spring training camp in Yuma, Arizona. Smith credited Padres manager Alvin Dark for giving him confidence by telling reporters the shortstop job was Smith's until he proved he can't handle it. Even though Dark was fired in the middle of training camp, Smith made his Major League Baseball (MLB) debut on April 7, 1978.
It did not take long for Smith to earn recognition in the major leagues, making what some consider his greatest fielding play only 10 games into his rookie season. The Padres played host to the Atlanta Braves on April 20, 1978, and with two out in the top of the fourth inning, Atlanta's Jeff Burroughs hit a ground ball up the middle. Smith described the play by saying, "He hit a ball back up the middle that everybody thought was going into center field. I instinctively broke to my left and dove behind second. As I was in the air, the ball took a bad hop and caromed behind me, but I was able to catch it with my bare hand. I hit the ground, bounced back up, and threw Burroughs out at first."
During a roadtrip to Houston, later in the season, Smith met a part-time usherette at the Astrodome named Denise while making his way to the team bus outside the stadium. The couple developed a relationship that was sometimes long-distance in nature, and eventually decided to marry. It was also during the 1978 season where Smith introduced a signature move. Padres promotion director Andy Strasberg knew Smith could perform backflips, though only did them during practice before fans entered the stadium. Strasberg asked Smith to do a backflip for fans during Fan Appreciation Day on October 1, the Padres' last home game of the season. After conferring with veteran teammate Gene Tenace, Smith went ahead with the backflip, and it proved to be wildly popular. Smith finished the 1978 season with a .258 batting average and .970 fielding percentage, placing him second in the National League Rookie of the Year voting to Bob Horner.
After working with a hitting instructor during the offseason, Smith failed to record a base hit in his first 32 at-bats of the 1979 season. Among players with enough at-bats to qualify for the 1979 National League Triple Crown, Smith finished the season last in batting average (.211), home runs (0), and RBI (27). Off the field, conflict developed between Padres' ownership and the combination of Smith and his agent, Ed Gottlieb. The parties entered into a contract dispute before the 1980 season, and when negotiations lasted into spring training, the Padres renewed Smith's contract at his 1979 salary of $72,500 Smith's agent told the Padres the shortstop would forgo the season to race in the Tour de France, despite the fact Smith admitted to The Break Room on 96.5 WCMF in Rochester, New York, he had never heard of the Tour. Angered by the Padres' attitude during those contract talks, Gottlieb took out a help-wanted ad in the San Diego Union, part of which read, "Padre baseball player wants part-time employment to supplement income." When Joan Kroc, wife of Padres owner Ray Kroc, publicly offered Smith a job as an assistant gardener on her estate, Smith and Gottlieb's relationship with the organization deteriorated further.
Meanwhile, Smith was winning recognition for his accomplishments on the field. In 1980, he set the single-season record for most assists by a shortstop (621), and began his string of 13 consecutive Gold Glove awards. Smith's fielding play prompted the Yuma Daily Sun to use the nickname "The Wizard of Oz" in a March 1981 feature article about Smith. While "The Wizard of Oz" nickname was an allusion to the 1939 motion picture of the same name, Smith also came to be known as simply "The Wizard" during his playing career, as Smith's Baseball Hall of Fame plaque would later attest. In 1981, Smith made his first All-Star Game appearance as a reserve player.
Trade
While Smith was having problems with the Padres' owners, the St. Louis Cardinals also found themselves unhappy with their shortstop, Garry Templeton. Templeton's relationship with Cardinal Nation had become increasingly strained and finally came to a head during a game at Busch Stadium on August 26, 1981, when (after being heckled for not running out a ground ball) he made obscene gestures at fans, and had to be physically pulled off the field by manager Whitey Herzog.
Given the task of overhauling the Cardinals by owner Gussie Busch (and specifically to unload Templeton), Herzog was looking to trade Templeton when he was approached by Padres General Manager Jack McKeon at the 1981 baseball winter meetings. While McKeon had previously told Herzog that Smith was untouchable in any trade, the Padres were now so angry at Smith's agent Gottlieb that McKeon was willing to deal. McKeon and Herzog agreed in principle to a six-player trade, with Templeton for Smith as the centerpiece. It was then that Padres manager Dick Williams informed Herzog a no-trade clause had been included in Smith's 1981 contract. Upon learning of the trade, Smith's initial reaction was to invoke the clause and stay in San Diego, but he was still interested to hear what the Cardinals had to say. While the deal for the players beside Templeton and Smith went through, Herzog flew to San Diego to meet with Smith and Gottlieb over the Christmas holiday. Smith later recalled that, "Whitey told me that with me playing shortstop for the St. Louis Cardinals, we could win the pennant. He made me feel wanted, which was a feeling I was quickly losing from the Padres. The mere fact that Whitey would come all the way out there to talk to us was more than enough to convince me that St. Louis was the place I wanted to be."
St. Louis Cardinals
1982–1984
On December 10, 1981, the Padres traded him along with a player to be named later and Steve Mura to the Cardinals for a player to be named later, Sixto Lezcano and Garry Templeton. The teams completed the trade on February 19, 1982, with the Padres sending Al Olmsted to the Cardinals, and St. Louis sending Luis DeLeon to the Padres. Herzog believed Smith could improve his offensive production by hitting more ground balls, and subsequently created a motivational tool designed to help Smith concentrate on that task. Approaching Smith one day during spring training, Herzog said, "Every time you hit a fly ball, you owe me a buck. Every time you hit a ground ball, I owe you a buck. We'll keep that going all year." Smith agreed to the wager, and by the end of the season had won close to $300 from Herzog. As the 1982 season got underway, Herzog's newly assembled team won 12 games in a row during the month of April, and finished the season atop the National League East division. Herzog would later say of Smith's contributions that, "If he saved two runs a game on defense, which he did many a night, it seemed to me that was just as valuable to the team as a player who drove in two runs a game on offense."
Smith became a father for the first time during the 1982 season with the birth of his son O.J., today known as Nikko, on April 28. Smith also developed a lasting friendship with teammate Willie McGee during the season, and Smith said he likes to think he "helped Willie get over some of the rough spots of adjusting to the major leagues". Smith later participated in the postseason for the first time when the Cardinals faced the Atlanta Braves in the best-of-five 1982 National League Championship Series (NLCS). Smith drove in the series' first run by hitting a sacrifice fly which scored McGee in Game 1, ultimately going five for nine in St. Louis' three-game series sweep.
Just as Herzog had predicted when he told Smith the Cardinals would win the pennant with him on the team, Smith found himself as the team's starting shortstop in the best-of-seven 1982 World Series against the Milwaukee Brewers. During the contest Smith scored three runs, had five hits, and did not commit an error in the field. When St. Louis was trailing 3–1 with one out in the sixth inning of Game 7, Smith started a rally with a base hit to left field, eventually scoring the first of the team's three runs that inning. The Cardinals scored two more runs in the 8th inning for a 6–3 win and the championship.
After the World Series championship, Smith and the Cardinals agreed on a new contract in January 1983 that paid Smith $1 million per year. Smith was voted in as the National League's starting shortstop in the All-Star Game for the first time in 1983, and at season's end won a fourth consecutive Gold Glove Award. During July of the 1984 season, Smith went on the disabled list with a broken wrist after being hit by a pitch during a game against the Padres. Smith's return to the lineup a month later was not enough to propel the Cardinals to a postseason berth.
1985–1986
In 1985, Smith amassed a .276 batting average, 31 stolen bases, and 591 assists in the field. The Cardinals as a team won 101 games during the season and earned another postseason berth. Facing the Los Angeles Dodgers in the now best-of-seven NLCS, a split of the first four games set the stage for Game 5 at Busch Stadium. With the score tied at two runs apiece in the bottom of the ninth inning, Dodgers manager Tommy Lasorda called upon closer Tom Niedenfuer to pitch. Smith batted left-handed against Niedenfuer with one out. Smith, who had never hit a home run in his previous 2,967 left-handed major league at-bats, pulled an inside fastball down the right-field line for a walk-off home run, ending Game 5 in a 3–2 Cardinals victory. Smith said, "I was trying to get an extra-base hit and get into scoring position. Fortunately, I was able to get the ball up." The home run not only prompted broadcaster Jack Buck's "Go crazy folks" play-by-play call, but was also later voted the greatest moment in Busch Stadium history by Cardinals fans.
After Smith's teammate Jack Clark hit a late-inning home run of his own in Game 6 to defeat the Dodgers, the Cardinals moved on to face the Kansas City Royals in the 1985 World Series. Once again sportswriters were quick to draw attention to Smith's outstanding defensive play instead of his 2 for 23 effort at the plate. After the Cardinals took a three-games-to-two advantage, a controversial Game 6 call by umpire Don Denkinger overshadowed the remainder of the Series (which the Royals won in seven games).
What was not publicly known during the regular season and playoffs was that Smith had torn his rotator cuff after suffering an impingement in his right shoulder during the July 11–14 homestand against the Padres. After suffering the impingement diving back into first base on a pickoff throw, Smith altered his throwing motion to such a degree that the rotator cuff tear subsequently developed. The 5'10" (1.78 m), 180-pound (82 kg) Smith opted to forgo surgery and instead built up his arm strength via weightlifting, playing through whatever pain he encountered. Said Smith, "I didn't tell anybody about the injury, because I wanted to keep playing and didn't want anybody thinking they could run on me or take advantage of the injury. I tried to do almost everything, except throw a baseball, left-handed: opening a door, turning on the radio—everything. It didn't get any better, but it was good enough that I didn't have to have surgery."
Because of his injury, Smith let his then four-year-old son Nikko perform his traditional Opening Day backflip before the Cardinals' first home game of the 1986 season. Smith made an "eye-popping" play later that season on August 4, during a game against the Philadelphia Phillies at Busch Stadium. In the top of the ninth inning, Phillies pinch-hitter Von Hayes hit a short fly ball to left field, which was pursued by both Smith and left fielder Curt Ford. Running with his back to home plate, Smith dove forward, simultaneously catching the ball while parallel to the ground and flying over the diving Ford, avoiding a collision by inches.
1987–1990
After hitting in either the second or eighth spot in the batting order for most of his time in St. Louis, Herzog made Smith the number-two hitter full-time during the 1987 season. Over the course of the year, Smith accrued a .303 batting average, 43 stolen bases, 75 RBIs, 104 runs scored, and 40 doubles, good enough to earn him the Silver Slugger Award at shortstop. In addition to winning the Gold Glove Award at shortstop for the eighth consecutive time, Smith posted a career-high on-base percentage of .392. Smith was also the leading vote-getter in the 1987 All-Star Game. The Cardinals earned a postseason berth with 95 wins, and subsequently faced the San Francisco Giants in the 1987 National League Championship Series. Smith contributed a triple during the series, and the Cardinals won the contest in seven games.
The 1987 World Series matched the Cardinals against the American League champion Minnesota Twins. The home team won every game of the contest, as Minnesota won the series. In 28 at-bats during the Series, Smith scored three runs and had two RBIs. Smith finished second in MVP balloting to Andre Dawson, who had played on the last-place Chicago Cubs, largely because Smith and teammate Jack Clark split the first-place vote. Following the 1987 season, Smith was awarded the largest contract in the National League at $2.34 million.
While the team did not see the postseason for the remainder of the decade, Smith continued to rack up All-Star appearances and Gold Gloves. Combined with the attention he received from his contract, Smith continued to be a national figure. Known as a savvy dresser, he made the April 1988 cover of GQ magazine. Smith was witness to change within the Cardinal organization when owner Gussie Busch died in 1989 and Herzog quit as manager during the 1990 season.
1990–1995
Joe Torre became Smith's new manager in 1990, but the team did not reach the postseason during Torre's nearly five-year tenure. While the Cardinals celebrated their 100th anniversary in 1992, Smith marked milestones of his own, stealing his 500th career base on April 26, then notching a triple on May 26 in front of the home crowd for his 2,000th hit. St. Louis had a one-game lead in the National League East division on June 1, 1992, but injuries took their toll on the team, including Smith's two-week illness in late July after contracting chicken pox for the first time. As a testament to his national visibility during this time, Smith appeared in a 1992 episode of The Simpsons titled "Homer at the Bat". Smith became a free agent for the first time in his career on November 2, 1992, only to sign a new contract with the Cardinals on December 6.
Smith won his final Gold Glove in 1992, and his 13 consecutive Gold Gloves at shortstop in the National League has yet to be matched. The 1993 season marked the only time between 1981 and 1996 where Smith failed to make the All-Star team, and Smith finished the 1993 season with a .288 batting average and .974 fielding percentage. He appeared in 98 games during the strike-shortened 1994 season, and later missed nearly three months of the 1995 season after shoulder surgery on May 31. Smith was recognized for his community service efforts with the 1994 Branch Rickey Award and the 1995 Roberto Clemente Award. In February 1994, Smith took on the role of honorary chairman and official spokesman for the Missouri Governor's Council on Physical Fitness and Health.
1996
As Smith entered the 1996 season, he finalized a divorce from his wife Denise during the first half of the year. Meanwhile, manager Tony La Russa began his first season with the Cardinals in tandem with a new ownership group. After General Manager Walt Jocketty acquired shortstop Royce Clayton during the offseason, La Russa emphasized an open competition for the spot that would give the Cardinals the best chance to win. When spring training concluded, Smith had amassed a .288 batting average and zero errors in the field, and Clayton batted .190 with eight errors. Smith believed he had earned the position with his spring training performance, but La Russa disagreed, and awarded Clayton the majority of playing time in the platoon situation that developed, where Smith typically saw action every third game. La Russa said, "I think it's fair to say he misunderstood how he compared to Royce in spring training ... When I and the coaches evaluated the play in spring training—the whole game—Royce started very slowly offensively and you could see him start to get better. By what he was able to do defensively and on the bases, Royce deserved to play the majority of the games."
Smith missed the first month of the season with a hamstring injury, and continued to harbor ill feelings toward La Russa that had developed after spring training ended. In a closed-door meeting in mid-May, La Russa asked Smith if he would like to be traded. Instead, Smith and his agent negotiated a compromise with Cardinals management, agreeing to a buyout of special provisions in his contract in conjunction with Smith announcing his retirement. The agreement prompted a press conference at Busch Stadium on June 19, 1996, during which Smith announced he would retire from baseball at season's end.
As Smith made his final tour of the National League, he was honored by many teams, and received a standing ovation at the 1996 All-Star Game in Philadelphia. Between June 19 and September 1, Smith's batting average increased from .239 to .286. On September 2 Smith tied a career high by scoring four runs, one of which was a home run, and another on a close play at home plate in the bottom of the 10th inning against division leader Houston. The victory moved the Cardinals to within a half game of Houston in the National League Central Division, and the Cardinals went on to win the division by six games. The Cardinals held a special ceremony at Busch Stadium on September 28, 1996, before a game against the Cincinnati Reds, honoring Smith by retiring his uniform number. Noted for his ritual backflip before Opening Days, All-Star Games, and postseason games, Smith chose this occasion to perform it for one of the last times.
In the postseason, the Cardinals first faced the San Diego Padres in the 1996 National League Division Series. After sitting out Game 1, Smith got the start in Game 2 at Busch Stadium, helping his team go up two games in the series by notching a run, a hit and two walks at the plate, along with an assist and a putout in the field. The Cardinals then swept the series by winning Game 3 in San Diego.
The Cardinals faced the Atlanta Braves in the 1996 National League Championship Series. Smith started Game 1 and subsequently registered three putouts and one assist in the field, but went hitless in four at-bats in the Cardinals' 4–2 loss. The Cardinals then won Games 2, 3, and 4, contests in which Smith did not appear. Upon receiving the start in Game 5, Smith nearly duplicated his Game 1 performance with four putouts, one assist, and no hits in four at-bats as part of another Cardinals defeat. The Cardinals also failed to win Game 6 or Game 7 in Atlanta, ending their season. When the Cardinals were trailing by 10 runs during Game 7 on October 17, Smith flied out to right field while pinch-hitting in the sixth inning, marking the end of his playing career.
Smith finished his career with distinctions ranging from the accumulation of more than 27.5 million votes in All-Star balloting, to holding the record for the most MLB at-bats without hitting a grand slam.
Post-playing career
Upon retirement, Smith took over from Mel Allen as the host of the television series This Week in Baseball (TWIB) in 1997. Smith also became color commentator for the local broadcast of Cardinals games on KPLR-TV from 1997 to 1999. When his stint on This Week in Baseball concluded, Smith then moved on to do work for CNN-SI beginning in 1999. After La Russa retired as manager of the Cardinals in 2011, Smith became active in the organization again, starting with his stint as a special instructor for the team's 2012 spring training camp.
On January 8, 2002 Smith learned via a phone call he had been elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame on his first ballot by receiving 91.7% of the votes cast. As it happened, the Olympic torch was passing through St. Louis on its way to Salt Lake City for the 2002 Winter Olympics, and Smith served as a torchbearer in a ceremony with St. Louis Rams' quarterback Kurt Warner that evening. Smith was inducted into the Hall of Fame during ceremonies on July 28, 2002. During his speech, he compared his baseball experiences with the characters from the novel The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, after which his son Dustin presented his Hall of Fame plaque. Days later on August 11, Smith was back at Busch Memorial Stadium for the unveiling of a statue in his likeness made by sculptor Harry Weber. Weber chose to emphasize Smith's defensive skills by showing Smith stretched horizontal to the ground while fielding a baseball. At the ceremony Weber told Smith, "You spent half of your career up in the air. That makes it difficult for a sculptor to do something with it."
Smith has also been an entrepreneur in a variety of business ventures. Smith opened "Ozzie's" restaurant and sports bar in 1988, started a youth sports academy in 1990, became an investor in a grocery store chain in 1999, and partnered with David Slay to open a restaurant in the early 2000s. Of those businesses the youth academy remains in operation, with the restaurant having closed in 2010 after changing ownership and locations once. Aside from appearing in numerous radio and television commercials in the St. Louis area since retiring from baseball, Smith authored a children's book in 2006 and launched his own brand of salad dressing in 2008.
Besides the National Baseball Hall of Fame, Smith has also been inducted or honored in other halls of fame and recognitions. In 1999, he ranked number 87 on The Sporting News''' list of the 100 Greatest Baseball Players, and finished third in voting at shortstop for the Major League Baseball All-Century Team. He was honored with induction into the Missouri Sports Hall of Fame, Alabama Sports Hall of Fame and the St. Louis Walk of Fame, and received an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degree from Cal Poly. In January 2014, the Cardinals announced Smith among 22 former players and personnel to be inducted into the St. Louis Cardinals Hall of Fame Museum for the inaugural class of 2014.
Career MLB statistics
Hitting
Fielding
Personal life
Smith is the father to three children from his marriage to former wife Denise; sons Nikko and Dustin, and daughter Taryn. Nikko cracked the top ten finalists of the 2005 edition of American Idol.Wald, Jaina. "When it's 'Idol' time at Ozzie's, folks go crazy for Nikko". St. Louis Post-Dispatch. April 6, 2005. E3. Retrieved on 2008-03-19. In 2012, Smith made news headlines again, when he sold all of his Gold Gloves at auction together for more than $500,000.
Smith still lives in and remains a visible figure around St. Louis, making varied appearances like playing the role of the Wizard in the St. Louis Municipal Opera's summer 2001 production of The Wizard of Oz''. He is the host of Cardinals Insider, a weekly news magazine televsion show about the club. Since 2016, he has opened five regenerative medicine clinics around Missouri.
See also
List of Major League Baseball career stolen bases leaders
List of Major League Baseball career games played leaders
List of Major League Baseball career doubles leaders
List of Major League Baseball career runs scored leaders
List of Major League Baseball career hits leaders
List of St. Louis Cardinals team records
References
Further reading
External links
Ozzie Smith at SABR (Baseball BioProject)
Ozzie Smith at St. Louis Walk of Fame
Interview with Ozzie Smith on KUT's "In Black America" radio series, September 8, 1988 at the American Archive of Public Broadcasting
1954 births
Living people
African-American baseball players
Baseball players from Alabama
Cal Poly Mustangs baseball players
Gold Glove Award winners
Major League Baseball broadcasters
Major League Baseball players with retired numbers
Major League Baseball shortstops
National Baseball Hall of Fame inductees
National League All-Stars
Baseball players from Los Angeles
Sportspeople from Mobile, Alabama
San Diego Padres players
St. Louis Cardinals announcers
St. Louis Cardinals players
Walla Walla Padres players
National League Championship Series MVPs
Silver Slugger Award winners
People from Watts, Los Angeles
21st-century African-American people
20th-century African-American sportspeople | true | [
"The year 1821 in archaeology involved some significant events.\n\nExplorations\n October - John Gardner Wilkinson begins a twelve-year stay in Egypt, surveying historical sites.\n\nExcavations\n\nPublications\n\nFinds\n'Gallagh Man', an Iron Age bog body, is found in County Galway, Ireland.\n\nAwards\n\nMiscellaneous\n\"Egyptian Hall\" in London displays artifacts from Ancient Egypt brought to the United Kingdom by Giovanni Battista Belzoni.\nWhile not specifically the year 1821, this time period is when one of the most significant categorical discoveries of archaeology was named. Christian Thomsen, a Danish archaeologist, developed the three age system to date objects in museums. These three ages were the \"Stone Age,\" \"Bronze Age,\" and \"Iron Age.\" \nWhile not specifically the year 1821, this time period is when one of the most significant findings regarding time and dating archaeological findings was discovered. Boucher de Perthes established a much deeper sense of time than what James Usher had previously established. Perthes determined that the world was significantly older than 4004 BC and thus gave archaeology a deeper, more realistic time frame to work with.\n\nBirths\n\nDeaths\n\nSee also\nAncient Egypt / Egyptology\n\nReferences\n\nArchaeology\nArchaeology by year\nArchaeology\nArchaeology",
"The Japanese Letter-Writing Era was a key point in the later parts of Tokugawa Japan. It included writing letters that described personal emotions. These were usually written in vivid detail.\n\nDescriptions \nWithin the letters of this period, descriptions of feelings and emotions were key. Emotions presented included: loneliness, sadness, disappointment, astonishment, joy and much more. Sometimes letters written in the period expressed thoughts on current social events. This provided much information towards many during the time.\n\nWhat Brought the Letter-Writing Period \nFrom about the middle of the Tokugawa period, more of the commoner's children were being taught to read and write. Japan started to change from this point of time, and fewer people were becoming illiterate. This brought higher chances of people writing things such as letters.\n\nMore people were starting to travel far away from home. These were to carry out certain duties. Because of this letters became a more key source of communication.\n\nAnother thing that brought the letter-writing period, was the establishment of the Hikyaku Postal Service. This service first opened in the Kantō area in 1729 and grew more as time neared the end of the 18th century. This growth was most likely what caused an increase in letters as a form of communication.\n\nKey Letter-Writers \n\nKey letter-writers during this period include people such as Yoshida Shoin. He had a collection of 245 letters. Some were very long and this interest began when he was about 21 in 1850. He got this interest from when he travelled beyond the boundary of his feudal domain to Kyushu. Kyushu was renown in Japan for being a great place of Chinese and Western studies. Yoshida Shoin was put to execution on October 27, 1859, so he wrote farewell letters to family and friends of his.\n\nYoshida Shoin's contributions to the letter-writing era were what brought the era to its peak.\n\nReferences \n\nEdo period"
]
|
[
"Ozzie Smith",
"1987-90",
"what was significant about this time period?",
"Herzog made Smith the number-two hitter full-time during the 1987 season."
]
| C_c480d60d41bc4e0fa4efe80d33514300_0 | what team did he play for in 87 | 2 | what team did Ozzie Smith play for in 87? | Ozzie Smith | After hitting in either the second or eighth spot in the batting order for most of his time in St. Louis, Herzog made Smith the number-two hitter full-time during the 1987 season. Over the course of the year, Smith accrued a .303 batting average, 43 stolen bases, 75 RBIs, 104 runs scored, and 40 doubles, good enough to earn him the Silver Slugger Award at shortstop. In addition to winning the Gold Glove Award at shortstop for the eighth consecutive time, Smith posted a career-high on-base percentage of .392. Smith was also the leading vote-getter in the 1987 All-Star Game. The Cardinals earned a postseason berth with 95 wins, and subsequently faced the San Francisco Giants in the 1987 National League Championship Series. Smith contributed a triple during the series, and the Cardinals won the contest in seven games. The 1987 World Series matched the Cardinals against the American League champion Minnesota Twins. The home team won every game of the contest, as Minnesota won the series. In 28 at-bats during the Series, Smith scored three runs and had two RBIs. Smith finished second in MVP balloting to Andre Dawson, who had played on the last-place Chicago Cubs, largely because Smith and teammate Jack Clark split the first-place vote. Following the 1987 season, Smith was awarded the largest contract in the National League at $2,340,000. While the team did not see the postseason for the remainder of the decade, Smith continued to rack up All-Star appearances and Gold Gloves. Combined with the attention he received from his contract, Smith continued to be a national figure. Known as a savvy dresser, he made the April 1988 cover of GQ magazine. Smith was witness to change within the Cardinal organization when owner Gussie Busch died in 1989 and Herzog quit as manager during the 1990 season. CANNOTANSWER | The Cardinals | Osborne Earl "Ozzie" Smith (born December 26, 1954) is an American former professional baseball player. Nicknamed "The Wizard of Oz", Smith played shortstop for the San Diego Padres and St. Louis Cardinals in Major League Baseball, winning the National League Gold Glove Award for defensive play at shortstop for 13 consecutive seasons. A 15-time All-Star, Smith accumulated 2,460 hits and 580 stolen bases during his career, and won the National League Silver Slugger Award as the best hitter at shortstop in 1987. He was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in his first year of eligibility in 2002. He was also elected to the St. Louis Cardinals Hall of Fame in the inaugural class of 2014.
Smith was born in Mobile, Alabama, but his family moved to Watts, Los Angeles, when he was six years old. While participating in childhood athletic activities, Smith developed quick reflexes; he went on to play baseball in high school and college, at Los Angeles' Locke High School and Cal Poly-San Luis Obispo respectively. Drafted as an amateur player by the Padres, Smith made his major league debut in 1978. He quickly established himself as an outstanding fielder, and later became known for performing backflips on special occasions while taking his position at the beginning of a game. Smith won his first Gold Glove Award in 1980 and made his first All-Star Game appearance in 1981. When conflict with Padres' ownership developed, he was traded to the Cardinals for shortstop Garry Templeton in 1982.
Upon joining the Cardinals, Smith helped the team win the 1982 World Series. Three years later, his game-winning home run during Game 5 of the 1985 National League Championship Series prompted broadcaster Jack Buck's "Go crazy, folks!" play-by-play call. Despite a rotator cuff injury during the 1985 season, Smith posted career highs in multiple offensive categories in 1987. Smith continued to earn Gold Gloves and All-Star appearances on an annual basis until 1993. During the 1995 season, Smith had shoulder surgery and was out nearly three months. After tension with his new manager Tony La Russa developed in 1996, Smith retired at season's end, and his uniform number (No. 1) was subsequently retired by the Cardinals. Smith served as host of the television show This Week in Baseball from 1997 to 1998.
Early life
Smith was born in Mobile, Alabama, the second of Clovi and Marvella Smith's six children (five boys and one girl). While the family lived in Mobile, his father worked as a sandblaster at Brookley Air Force Base. When Smith was six his family moved to the Watts section of Los Angeles. His father became a delivery truck driver for Safeway stores, while his mother became an aide at a nursing home. His mother was an influential part of his life who stressed the importance of education and encouraged him to pursue his dreams.
Smith played a variety of sports in his youth, though considered baseball to be his favorite. He developed quick reflexes through various athletic and leisure activity, such as bouncing a ball off the concrete steps in front of his house, moving in closer to reduce reaction time with each throw. When not at the local YMCA or playing sports, Smith sometimes went with friends to the neighborhood lumberyard, springboarding off inner tubes and doing flips into sawdust piles (a precursor to his famous backflips). In 1965, at age 10, he endured the Watts Riots with his family, recalling that, "We had to sleep on the floor because of all the sniping and looting going on."
While Smith was attending junior high school, his parents divorced. Continuing to pursue his interest in baseball, he would ride the bus for nearly an hour to reach Dodger Stadium, cheering for the Los Angeles Dodgers at about 25 games a year. Upon becoming a student at Locke High School, Smith played on the basketball and baseball teams. Smith was a teammate of future National Basketball Association player Marques Johnson on the basketball team, and a teammate of future fellow Hall-of-Fame player Eddie Murray on the baseball side. After high school Smith attended Cal Poly San Luis Obispo in 1974 on a partial academic scholarship, and managed to walk-on to the baseball team. In addition to his academic education, he learned to switch-hit from Cal Poly coach Berdy Harr. When Cal Poly's starting shortstop broke his leg midway through the 1974 season, Smith subsequently took over the starting role. Later named an All-American athlete, he established school records in career at bats (754) and career stolen bases (110) before graduating in 1977.
Professional baseball career
San Diego Padres
Smith was playing semi-professional baseball in Clarinda, Iowa, when in June 1976 he was selected in the seventh round of the amateur entry draft by the Detroit Tigers. The parties could not agree on a contract; Smith wanted a $10,000 ($ today) signing bonus, while the Tigers offered $8,500 ($ today). Smith returned to Cal Poly for his senior year, then in the 1977 draft was selected in the fourth round by the San Diego Padres, ultimately agreeing to a contract that included a $5,000 signing bonus ($ today). Smith spent his first year of professional baseball during 1977 with the Class A Walla Walla Padres of the Northwest League.
Smith began 1978 as a non-roster invitee to the San Diego Padres' spring training camp in Yuma, Arizona. Smith credited Padres manager Alvin Dark for giving him confidence by telling reporters the shortstop job was Smith's until he proved he can't handle it. Even though Dark was fired in the middle of training camp, Smith made his Major League Baseball (MLB) debut on April 7, 1978.
It did not take long for Smith to earn recognition in the major leagues, making what some consider his greatest fielding play only 10 games into his rookie season. The Padres played host to the Atlanta Braves on April 20, 1978, and with two out in the top of the fourth inning, Atlanta's Jeff Burroughs hit a ground ball up the middle. Smith described the play by saying, "He hit a ball back up the middle that everybody thought was going into center field. I instinctively broke to my left and dove behind second. As I was in the air, the ball took a bad hop and caromed behind me, but I was able to catch it with my bare hand. I hit the ground, bounced back up, and threw Burroughs out at first."
During a roadtrip to Houston, later in the season, Smith met a part-time usherette at the Astrodome named Denise while making his way to the team bus outside the stadium. The couple developed a relationship that was sometimes long-distance in nature, and eventually decided to marry. It was also during the 1978 season where Smith introduced a signature move. Padres promotion director Andy Strasberg knew Smith could perform backflips, though only did them during practice before fans entered the stadium. Strasberg asked Smith to do a backflip for fans during Fan Appreciation Day on October 1, the Padres' last home game of the season. After conferring with veteran teammate Gene Tenace, Smith went ahead with the backflip, and it proved to be wildly popular. Smith finished the 1978 season with a .258 batting average and .970 fielding percentage, placing him second in the National League Rookie of the Year voting to Bob Horner.
After working with a hitting instructor during the offseason, Smith failed to record a base hit in his first 32 at-bats of the 1979 season. Among players with enough at-bats to qualify for the 1979 National League Triple Crown, Smith finished the season last in batting average (.211), home runs (0), and RBI (27). Off the field, conflict developed between Padres' ownership and the combination of Smith and his agent, Ed Gottlieb. The parties entered into a contract dispute before the 1980 season, and when negotiations lasted into spring training, the Padres renewed Smith's contract at his 1979 salary of $72,500 Smith's agent told the Padres the shortstop would forgo the season to race in the Tour de France, despite the fact Smith admitted to The Break Room on 96.5 WCMF in Rochester, New York, he had never heard of the Tour. Angered by the Padres' attitude during those contract talks, Gottlieb took out a help-wanted ad in the San Diego Union, part of which read, "Padre baseball player wants part-time employment to supplement income." When Joan Kroc, wife of Padres owner Ray Kroc, publicly offered Smith a job as an assistant gardener on her estate, Smith and Gottlieb's relationship with the organization deteriorated further.
Meanwhile, Smith was winning recognition for his accomplishments on the field. In 1980, he set the single-season record for most assists by a shortstop (621), and began his string of 13 consecutive Gold Glove awards. Smith's fielding play prompted the Yuma Daily Sun to use the nickname "The Wizard of Oz" in a March 1981 feature article about Smith. While "The Wizard of Oz" nickname was an allusion to the 1939 motion picture of the same name, Smith also came to be known as simply "The Wizard" during his playing career, as Smith's Baseball Hall of Fame plaque would later attest. In 1981, Smith made his first All-Star Game appearance as a reserve player.
Trade
While Smith was having problems with the Padres' owners, the St. Louis Cardinals also found themselves unhappy with their shortstop, Garry Templeton. Templeton's relationship with Cardinal Nation had become increasingly strained and finally came to a head during a game at Busch Stadium on August 26, 1981, when (after being heckled for not running out a ground ball) he made obscene gestures at fans, and had to be physically pulled off the field by manager Whitey Herzog.
Given the task of overhauling the Cardinals by owner Gussie Busch (and specifically to unload Templeton), Herzog was looking to trade Templeton when he was approached by Padres General Manager Jack McKeon at the 1981 baseball winter meetings. While McKeon had previously told Herzog that Smith was untouchable in any trade, the Padres were now so angry at Smith's agent Gottlieb that McKeon was willing to deal. McKeon and Herzog agreed in principle to a six-player trade, with Templeton for Smith as the centerpiece. It was then that Padres manager Dick Williams informed Herzog a no-trade clause had been included in Smith's 1981 contract. Upon learning of the trade, Smith's initial reaction was to invoke the clause and stay in San Diego, but he was still interested to hear what the Cardinals had to say. While the deal for the players beside Templeton and Smith went through, Herzog flew to San Diego to meet with Smith and Gottlieb over the Christmas holiday. Smith later recalled that, "Whitey told me that with me playing shortstop for the St. Louis Cardinals, we could win the pennant. He made me feel wanted, which was a feeling I was quickly losing from the Padres. The mere fact that Whitey would come all the way out there to talk to us was more than enough to convince me that St. Louis was the place I wanted to be."
St. Louis Cardinals
1982–1984
On December 10, 1981, the Padres traded him along with a player to be named later and Steve Mura to the Cardinals for a player to be named later, Sixto Lezcano and Garry Templeton. The teams completed the trade on February 19, 1982, with the Padres sending Al Olmsted to the Cardinals, and St. Louis sending Luis DeLeon to the Padres. Herzog believed Smith could improve his offensive production by hitting more ground balls, and subsequently created a motivational tool designed to help Smith concentrate on that task. Approaching Smith one day during spring training, Herzog said, "Every time you hit a fly ball, you owe me a buck. Every time you hit a ground ball, I owe you a buck. We'll keep that going all year." Smith agreed to the wager, and by the end of the season had won close to $300 from Herzog. As the 1982 season got underway, Herzog's newly assembled team won 12 games in a row during the month of April, and finished the season atop the National League East division. Herzog would later say of Smith's contributions that, "If he saved two runs a game on defense, which he did many a night, it seemed to me that was just as valuable to the team as a player who drove in two runs a game on offense."
Smith became a father for the first time during the 1982 season with the birth of his son O.J., today known as Nikko, on April 28. Smith also developed a lasting friendship with teammate Willie McGee during the season, and Smith said he likes to think he "helped Willie get over some of the rough spots of adjusting to the major leagues". Smith later participated in the postseason for the first time when the Cardinals faced the Atlanta Braves in the best-of-five 1982 National League Championship Series (NLCS). Smith drove in the series' first run by hitting a sacrifice fly which scored McGee in Game 1, ultimately going five for nine in St. Louis' three-game series sweep.
Just as Herzog had predicted when he told Smith the Cardinals would win the pennant with him on the team, Smith found himself as the team's starting shortstop in the best-of-seven 1982 World Series against the Milwaukee Brewers. During the contest Smith scored three runs, had five hits, and did not commit an error in the field. When St. Louis was trailing 3–1 with one out in the sixth inning of Game 7, Smith started a rally with a base hit to left field, eventually scoring the first of the team's three runs that inning. The Cardinals scored two more runs in the 8th inning for a 6–3 win and the championship.
After the World Series championship, Smith and the Cardinals agreed on a new contract in January 1983 that paid Smith $1 million per year. Smith was voted in as the National League's starting shortstop in the All-Star Game for the first time in 1983, and at season's end won a fourth consecutive Gold Glove Award. During July of the 1984 season, Smith went on the disabled list with a broken wrist after being hit by a pitch during a game against the Padres. Smith's return to the lineup a month later was not enough to propel the Cardinals to a postseason berth.
1985–1986
In 1985, Smith amassed a .276 batting average, 31 stolen bases, and 591 assists in the field. The Cardinals as a team won 101 games during the season and earned another postseason berth. Facing the Los Angeles Dodgers in the now best-of-seven NLCS, a split of the first four games set the stage for Game 5 at Busch Stadium. With the score tied at two runs apiece in the bottom of the ninth inning, Dodgers manager Tommy Lasorda called upon closer Tom Niedenfuer to pitch. Smith batted left-handed against Niedenfuer with one out. Smith, who had never hit a home run in his previous 2,967 left-handed major league at-bats, pulled an inside fastball down the right-field line for a walk-off home run, ending Game 5 in a 3–2 Cardinals victory. Smith said, "I was trying to get an extra-base hit and get into scoring position. Fortunately, I was able to get the ball up." The home run not only prompted broadcaster Jack Buck's "Go crazy folks" play-by-play call, but was also later voted the greatest moment in Busch Stadium history by Cardinals fans.
After Smith's teammate Jack Clark hit a late-inning home run of his own in Game 6 to defeat the Dodgers, the Cardinals moved on to face the Kansas City Royals in the 1985 World Series. Once again sportswriters were quick to draw attention to Smith's outstanding defensive play instead of his 2 for 23 effort at the plate. After the Cardinals took a three-games-to-two advantage, a controversial Game 6 call by umpire Don Denkinger overshadowed the remainder of the Series (which the Royals won in seven games).
What was not publicly known during the regular season and playoffs was that Smith had torn his rotator cuff after suffering an impingement in his right shoulder during the July 11–14 homestand against the Padres. After suffering the impingement diving back into first base on a pickoff throw, Smith altered his throwing motion to such a degree that the rotator cuff tear subsequently developed. The 5'10" (1.78 m), 180-pound (82 kg) Smith opted to forgo surgery and instead built up his arm strength via weightlifting, playing through whatever pain he encountered. Said Smith, "I didn't tell anybody about the injury, because I wanted to keep playing and didn't want anybody thinking they could run on me or take advantage of the injury. I tried to do almost everything, except throw a baseball, left-handed: opening a door, turning on the radio—everything. It didn't get any better, but it was good enough that I didn't have to have surgery."
Because of his injury, Smith let his then four-year-old son Nikko perform his traditional Opening Day backflip before the Cardinals' first home game of the 1986 season. Smith made an "eye-popping" play later that season on August 4, during a game against the Philadelphia Phillies at Busch Stadium. In the top of the ninth inning, Phillies pinch-hitter Von Hayes hit a short fly ball to left field, which was pursued by both Smith and left fielder Curt Ford. Running with his back to home plate, Smith dove forward, simultaneously catching the ball while parallel to the ground and flying over the diving Ford, avoiding a collision by inches.
1987–1990
After hitting in either the second or eighth spot in the batting order for most of his time in St. Louis, Herzog made Smith the number-two hitter full-time during the 1987 season. Over the course of the year, Smith accrued a .303 batting average, 43 stolen bases, 75 RBIs, 104 runs scored, and 40 doubles, good enough to earn him the Silver Slugger Award at shortstop. In addition to winning the Gold Glove Award at shortstop for the eighth consecutive time, Smith posted a career-high on-base percentage of .392. Smith was also the leading vote-getter in the 1987 All-Star Game. The Cardinals earned a postseason berth with 95 wins, and subsequently faced the San Francisco Giants in the 1987 National League Championship Series. Smith contributed a triple during the series, and the Cardinals won the contest in seven games.
The 1987 World Series matched the Cardinals against the American League champion Minnesota Twins. The home team won every game of the contest, as Minnesota won the series. In 28 at-bats during the Series, Smith scored three runs and had two RBIs. Smith finished second in MVP balloting to Andre Dawson, who had played on the last-place Chicago Cubs, largely because Smith and teammate Jack Clark split the first-place vote. Following the 1987 season, Smith was awarded the largest contract in the National League at $2.34 million.
While the team did not see the postseason for the remainder of the decade, Smith continued to rack up All-Star appearances and Gold Gloves. Combined with the attention he received from his contract, Smith continued to be a national figure. Known as a savvy dresser, he made the April 1988 cover of GQ magazine. Smith was witness to change within the Cardinal organization when owner Gussie Busch died in 1989 and Herzog quit as manager during the 1990 season.
1990–1995
Joe Torre became Smith's new manager in 1990, but the team did not reach the postseason during Torre's nearly five-year tenure. While the Cardinals celebrated their 100th anniversary in 1992, Smith marked milestones of his own, stealing his 500th career base on April 26, then notching a triple on May 26 in front of the home crowd for his 2,000th hit. St. Louis had a one-game lead in the National League East division on June 1, 1992, but injuries took their toll on the team, including Smith's two-week illness in late July after contracting chicken pox for the first time. As a testament to his national visibility during this time, Smith appeared in a 1992 episode of The Simpsons titled "Homer at the Bat". Smith became a free agent for the first time in his career on November 2, 1992, only to sign a new contract with the Cardinals on December 6.
Smith won his final Gold Glove in 1992, and his 13 consecutive Gold Gloves at shortstop in the National League has yet to be matched. The 1993 season marked the only time between 1981 and 1996 where Smith failed to make the All-Star team, and Smith finished the 1993 season with a .288 batting average and .974 fielding percentage. He appeared in 98 games during the strike-shortened 1994 season, and later missed nearly three months of the 1995 season after shoulder surgery on May 31. Smith was recognized for his community service efforts with the 1994 Branch Rickey Award and the 1995 Roberto Clemente Award. In February 1994, Smith took on the role of honorary chairman and official spokesman for the Missouri Governor's Council on Physical Fitness and Health.
1996
As Smith entered the 1996 season, he finalized a divorce from his wife Denise during the first half of the year. Meanwhile, manager Tony La Russa began his first season with the Cardinals in tandem with a new ownership group. After General Manager Walt Jocketty acquired shortstop Royce Clayton during the offseason, La Russa emphasized an open competition for the spot that would give the Cardinals the best chance to win. When spring training concluded, Smith had amassed a .288 batting average and zero errors in the field, and Clayton batted .190 with eight errors. Smith believed he had earned the position with his spring training performance, but La Russa disagreed, and awarded Clayton the majority of playing time in the platoon situation that developed, where Smith typically saw action every third game. La Russa said, "I think it's fair to say he misunderstood how he compared to Royce in spring training ... When I and the coaches evaluated the play in spring training—the whole game—Royce started very slowly offensively and you could see him start to get better. By what he was able to do defensively and on the bases, Royce deserved to play the majority of the games."
Smith missed the first month of the season with a hamstring injury, and continued to harbor ill feelings toward La Russa that had developed after spring training ended. In a closed-door meeting in mid-May, La Russa asked Smith if he would like to be traded. Instead, Smith and his agent negotiated a compromise with Cardinals management, agreeing to a buyout of special provisions in his contract in conjunction with Smith announcing his retirement. The agreement prompted a press conference at Busch Stadium on June 19, 1996, during which Smith announced he would retire from baseball at season's end.
As Smith made his final tour of the National League, he was honored by many teams, and received a standing ovation at the 1996 All-Star Game in Philadelphia. Between June 19 and September 1, Smith's batting average increased from .239 to .286. On September 2 Smith tied a career high by scoring four runs, one of which was a home run, and another on a close play at home plate in the bottom of the 10th inning against division leader Houston. The victory moved the Cardinals to within a half game of Houston in the National League Central Division, and the Cardinals went on to win the division by six games. The Cardinals held a special ceremony at Busch Stadium on September 28, 1996, before a game against the Cincinnati Reds, honoring Smith by retiring his uniform number. Noted for his ritual backflip before Opening Days, All-Star Games, and postseason games, Smith chose this occasion to perform it for one of the last times.
In the postseason, the Cardinals first faced the San Diego Padres in the 1996 National League Division Series. After sitting out Game 1, Smith got the start in Game 2 at Busch Stadium, helping his team go up two games in the series by notching a run, a hit and two walks at the plate, along with an assist and a putout in the field. The Cardinals then swept the series by winning Game 3 in San Diego.
The Cardinals faced the Atlanta Braves in the 1996 National League Championship Series. Smith started Game 1 and subsequently registered three putouts and one assist in the field, but went hitless in four at-bats in the Cardinals' 4–2 loss. The Cardinals then won Games 2, 3, and 4, contests in which Smith did not appear. Upon receiving the start in Game 5, Smith nearly duplicated his Game 1 performance with four putouts, one assist, and no hits in four at-bats as part of another Cardinals defeat. The Cardinals also failed to win Game 6 or Game 7 in Atlanta, ending their season. When the Cardinals were trailing by 10 runs during Game 7 on October 17, Smith flied out to right field while pinch-hitting in the sixth inning, marking the end of his playing career.
Smith finished his career with distinctions ranging from the accumulation of more than 27.5 million votes in All-Star balloting, to holding the record for the most MLB at-bats without hitting a grand slam.
Post-playing career
Upon retirement, Smith took over from Mel Allen as the host of the television series This Week in Baseball (TWIB) in 1997. Smith also became color commentator for the local broadcast of Cardinals games on KPLR-TV from 1997 to 1999. When his stint on This Week in Baseball concluded, Smith then moved on to do work for CNN-SI beginning in 1999. After La Russa retired as manager of the Cardinals in 2011, Smith became active in the organization again, starting with his stint as a special instructor for the team's 2012 spring training camp.
On January 8, 2002 Smith learned via a phone call he had been elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame on his first ballot by receiving 91.7% of the votes cast. As it happened, the Olympic torch was passing through St. Louis on its way to Salt Lake City for the 2002 Winter Olympics, and Smith served as a torchbearer in a ceremony with St. Louis Rams' quarterback Kurt Warner that evening. Smith was inducted into the Hall of Fame during ceremonies on July 28, 2002. During his speech, he compared his baseball experiences with the characters from the novel The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, after which his son Dustin presented his Hall of Fame plaque. Days later on August 11, Smith was back at Busch Memorial Stadium for the unveiling of a statue in his likeness made by sculptor Harry Weber. Weber chose to emphasize Smith's defensive skills by showing Smith stretched horizontal to the ground while fielding a baseball. At the ceremony Weber told Smith, "You spent half of your career up in the air. That makes it difficult for a sculptor to do something with it."
Smith has also been an entrepreneur in a variety of business ventures. Smith opened "Ozzie's" restaurant and sports bar in 1988, started a youth sports academy in 1990, became an investor in a grocery store chain in 1999, and partnered with David Slay to open a restaurant in the early 2000s. Of those businesses the youth academy remains in operation, with the restaurant having closed in 2010 after changing ownership and locations once. Aside from appearing in numerous radio and television commercials in the St. Louis area since retiring from baseball, Smith authored a children's book in 2006 and launched his own brand of salad dressing in 2008.
Besides the National Baseball Hall of Fame, Smith has also been inducted or honored in other halls of fame and recognitions. In 1999, he ranked number 87 on The Sporting News''' list of the 100 Greatest Baseball Players, and finished third in voting at shortstop for the Major League Baseball All-Century Team. He was honored with induction into the Missouri Sports Hall of Fame, Alabama Sports Hall of Fame and the St. Louis Walk of Fame, and received an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degree from Cal Poly. In January 2014, the Cardinals announced Smith among 22 former players and personnel to be inducted into the St. Louis Cardinals Hall of Fame Museum for the inaugural class of 2014.
Career MLB statistics
Hitting
Fielding
Personal life
Smith is the father to three children from his marriage to former wife Denise; sons Nikko and Dustin, and daughter Taryn. Nikko cracked the top ten finalists of the 2005 edition of American Idol.Wald, Jaina. "When it's 'Idol' time at Ozzie's, folks go crazy for Nikko". St. Louis Post-Dispatch. April 6, 2005. E3. Retrieved on 2008-03-19. In 2012, Smith made news headlines again, when he sold all of his Gold Gloves at auction together for more than $500,000.
Smith still lives in and remains a visible figure around St. Louis, making varied appearances like playing the role of the Wizard in the St. Louis Municipal Opera's summer 2001 production of The Wizard of Oz''. He is the host of Cardinals Insider, a weekly news magazine televsion show about the club. Since 2016, he has opened five regenerative medicine clinics around Missouri.
See also
List of Major League Baseball career stolen bases leaders
List of Major League Baseball career games played leaders
List of Major League Baseball career doubles leaders
List of Major League Baseball career runs scored leaders
List of Major League Baseball career hits leaders
List of St. Louis Cardinals team records
References
Further reading
External links
Ozzie Smith at SABR (Baseball BioProject)
Ozzie Smith at St. Louis Walk of Fame
Interview with Ozzie Smith on KUT's "In Black America" radio series, September 8, 1988 at the American Archive of Public Broadcasting
1954 births
Living people
African-American baseball players
Baseball players from Alabama
Cal Poly Mustangs baseball players
Gold Glove Award winners
Major League Baseball broadcasters
Major League Baseball players with retired numbers
Major League Baseball shortstops
National Baseball Hall of Fame inductees
National League All-Stars
Baseball players from Los Angeles
Sportspeople from Mobile, Alabama
San Diego Padres players
St. Louis Cardinals announcers
St. Louis Cardinals players
Walla Walla Padres players
National League Championship Series MVPs
Silver Slugger Award winners
People from Watts, Los Angeles
21st-century African-American people
20th-century African-American sportspeople | true | [
"John Stirk (born 5 September 1955) is an English former footballer. His primary position was as a right back. During his career he played for Ipswich Town, Watford, Chesterfield and North Shields. He also made two appearances for England at youth level.\n\nCareer \n\nBorn in Consett, Stirk played youth football for local non-league team Consett A.F.C. He joined Ipswich Town on schoolboy terms in 1971, and after making two appearances for the England youth team, turned professional in 1973. During his time at Ipswich he was largely a reserve. He made his first-team debut on 5 November 1977, in a Football League First Division match against Manchester City at Portman Road. His manager at the time was Bobby Robson, who later went on to manage the England national football team. Ipswich won the FA Cup in 1978, in what proved to be Stirk's final season at the club. However, Stirk himself did not play in the final, nor did he play in any of the rounds en route to the final.\n\nAnother future England manager, Watford's Graham Taylor, signed Stirk for a transfer fee of £30,000 at the end of the 1977–78 season. Stirk went on to play every Watford league game in the 1978–79 season, as Watford gained promotion to the Second Division. However, Stirk did not play for Watford in the Second Division. Two months before the end of the 1979–80 season, Stirk was sold to Third Division side Chesterfield, at a profit to Watford of £10,000. After making 56 league appearances over two and a half seasons, Stirk left Chesterfield in 1983 moving on to Blyth Spartans then Tow Law Town, and finished his career at non-league North Shields.\n\nReferences \n\n1955 births\nLiving people\nConsett A.F.C. players\nIpswich Town F.C. players\nWatford F.C. players\nChesterfield F.C. players\nEnglish Football League players\nNorth Shields F.C. players\nSportspeople from Consett\nAssociation football fullbacks\nEnglish footballers",
"is a former Japanese football player. He played for Japan national team.\n\nClub career\nYamaguchi was born in Oita Prefecture on August 1, 1959. After graduating from high school, he joined Mitsubishi Motors in 1978. However he did not play in the game, as he was the team's reserve goalkeeper behind Japan national team player Mitsuhisa Taguchi. He retired in 1984. Eventually he could not play in the game.\n\nNational team career\nIn August 1979, Yamaguchi was selected Japan U-20 national team for 1979 World Youth Championship. However, he did not compete, as he was the team's reserve goalkeeper behind Yasuhito Suzuki. In February 1981, although he did not play at his club, he was selected Japan national team because Japan's manager Saburo Kawabuchi actively appointed young players. On February 19, Yamaguchi debuted for Japan national team against Singapore.\n\nClub statistics\n\nNational team statistics\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n \n \n Japan National Football Team Database\n\n1959 births\nLiving people\nAssociation football people from Ōita Prefecture\nJapanese footballers\nJapan international footballers\nJapan Soccer League players\nUrawa Red Diamonds players\nAssociation football goalkeepers"
]
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"Ozzie Smith",
"1987-90",
"what was significant about this time period?",
"Herzog made Smith the number-two hitter full-time during the 1987 season.",
"what team did he play for in 87",
"The Cardinals"
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| C_c480d60d41bc4e0fa4efe80d33514300_0 | did he have any accomplishments in 87 | 3 | did Ozzie Smith have any accomplishments in 87? | Ozzie Smith | After hitting in either the second or eighth spot in the batting order for most of his time in St. Louis, Herzog made Smith the number-two hitter full-time during the 1987 season. Over the course of the year, Smith accrued a .303 batting average, 43 stolen bases, 75 RBIs, 104 runs scored, and 40 doubles, good enough to earn him the Silver Slugger Award at shortstop. In addition to winning the Gold Glove Award at shortstop for the eighth consecutive time, Smith posted a career-high on-base percentage of .392. Smith was also the leading vote-getter in the 1987 All-Star Game. The Cardinals earned a postseason berth with 95 wins, and subsequently faced the San Francisco Giants in the 1987 National League Championship Series. Smith contributed a triple during the series, and the Cardinals won the contest in seven games. The 1987 World Series matched the Cardinals against the American League champion Minnesota Twins. The home team won every game of the contest, as Minnesota won the series. In 28 at-bats during the Series, Smith scored three runs and had two RBIs. Smith finished second in MVP balloting to Andre Dawson, who had played on the last-place Chicago Cubs, largely because Smith and teammate Jack Clark split the first-place vote. Following the 1987 season, Smith was awarded the largest contract in the National League at $2,340,000. While the team did not see the postseason for the remainder of the decade, Smith continued to rack up All-Star appearances and Gold Gloves. Combined with the attention he received from his contract, Smith continued to be a national figure. Known as a savvy dresser, he made the April 1988 cover of GQ magazine. Smith was witness to change within the Cardinal organization when owner Gussie Busch died in 1989 and Herzog quit as manager during the 1990 season. CANNOTANSWER | Smith accrued a .303 batting average, 43 stolen bases, 75 RBIs, 104 runs scored, and 40 doubles, | Osborne Earl "Ozzie" Smith (born December 26, 1954) is an American former professional baseball player. Nicknamed "The Wizard of Oz", Smith played shortstop for the San Diego Padres and St. Louis Cardinals in Major League Baseball, winning the National League Gold Glove Award for defensive play at shortstop for 13 consecutive seasons. A 15-time All-Star, Smith accumulated 2,460 hits and 580 stolen bases during his career, and won the National League Silver Slugger Award as the best hitter at shortstop in 1987. He was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in his first year of eligibility in 2002. He was also elected to the St. Louis Cardinals Hall of Fame in the inaugural class of 2014.
Smith was born in Mobile, Alabama, but his family moved to Watts, Los Angeles, when he was six years old. While participating in childhood athletic activities, Smith developed quick reflexes; he went on to play baseball in high school and college, at Los Angeles' Locke High School and Cal Poly-San Luis Obispo respectively. Drafted as an amateur player by the Padres, Smith made his major league debut in 1978. He quickly established himself as an outstanding fielder, and later became known for performing backflips on special occasions while taking his position at the beginning of a game. Smith won his first Gold Glove Award in 1980 and made his first All-Star Game appearance in 1981. When conflict with Padres' ownership developed, he was traded to the Cardinals for shortstop Garry Templeton in 1982.
Upon joining the Cardinals, Smith helped the team win the 1982 World Series. Three years later, his game-winning home run during Game 5 of the 1985 National League Championship Series prompted broadcaster Jack Buck's "Go crazy, folks!" play-by-play call. Despite a rotator cuff injury during the 1985 season, Smith posted career highs in multiple offensive categories in 1987. Smith continued to earn Gold Gloves and All-Star appearances on an annual basis until 1993. During the 1995 season, Smith had shoulder surgery and was out nearly three months. After tension with his new manager Tony La Russa developed in 1996, Smith retired at season's end, and his uniform number (No. 1) was subsequently retired by the Cardinals. Smith served as host of the television show This Week in Baseball from 1997 to 1998.
Early life
Smith was born in Mobile, Alabama, the second of Clovi and Marvella Smith's six children (five boys and one girl). While the family lived in Mobile, his father worked as a sandblaster at Brookley Air Force Base. When Smith was six his family moved to the Watts section of Los Angeles. His father became a delivery truck driver for Safeway stores, while his mother became an aide at a nursing home. His mother was an influential part of his life who stressed the importance of education and encouraged him to pursue his dreams.
Smith played a variety of sports in his youth, though considered baseball to be his favorite. He developed quick reflexes through various athletic and leisure activity, such as bouncing a ball off the concrete steps in front of his house, moving in closer to reduce reaction time with each throw. When not at the local YMCA or playing sports, Smith sometimes went with friends to the neighborhood lumberyard, springboarding off inner tubes and doing flips into sawdust piles (a precursor to his famous backflips). In 1965, at age 10, he endured the Watts Riots with his family, recalling that, "We had to sleep on the floor because of all the sniping and looting going on."
While Smith was attending junior high school, his parents divorced. Continuing to pursue his interest in baseball, he would ride the bus for nearly an hour to reach Dodger Stadium, cheering for the Los Angeles Dodgers at about 25 games a year. Upon becoming a student at Locke High School, Smith played on the basketball and baseball teams. Smith was a teammate of future National Basketball Association player Marques Johnson on the basketball team, and a teammate of future fellow Hall-of-Fame player Eddie Murray on the baseball side. After high school Smith attended Cal Poly San Luis Obispo in 1974 on a partial academic scholarship, and managed to walk-on to the baseball team. In addition to his academic education, he learned to switch-hit from Cal Poly coach Berdy Harr. When Cal Poly's starting shortstop broke his leg midway through the 1974 season, Smith subsequently took over the starting role. Later named an All-American athlete, he established school records in career at bats (754) and career stolen bases (110) before graduating in 1977.
Professional baseball career
San Diego Padres
Smith was playing semi-professional baseball in Clarinda, Iowa, when in June 1976 he was selected in the seventh round of the amateur entry draft by the Detroit Tigers. The parties could not agree on a contract; Smith wanted a $10,000 ($ today) signing bonus, while the Tigers offered $8,500 ($ today). Smith returned to Cal Poly for his senior year, then in the 1977 draft was selected in the fourth round by the San Diego Padres, ultimately agreeing to a contract that included a $5,000 signing bonus ($ today). Smith spent his first year of professional baseball during 1977 with the Class A Walla Walla Padres of the Northwest League.
Smith began 1978 as a non-roster invitee to the San Diego Padres' spring training camp in Yuma, Arizona. Smith credited Padres manager Alvin Dark for giving him confidence by telling reporters the shortstop job was Smith's until he proved he can't handle it. Even though Dark was fired in the middle of training camp, Smith made his Major League Baseball (MLB) debut on April 7, 1978.
It did not take long for Smith to earn recognition in the major leagues, making what some consider his greatest fielding play only 10 games into his rookie season. The Padres played host to the Atlanta Braves on April 20, 1978, and with two out in the top of the fourth inning, Atlanta's Jeff Burroughs hit a ground ball up the middle. Smith described the play by saying, "He hit a ball back up the middle that everybody thought was going into center field. I instinctively broke to my left and dove behind second. As I was in the air, the ball took a bad hop and caromed behind me, but I was able to catch it with my bare hand. I hit the ground, bounced back up, and threw Burroughs out at first."
During a roadtrip to Houston, later in the season, Smith met a part-time usherette at the Astrodome named Denise while making his way to the team bus outside the stadium. The couple developed a relationship that was sometimes long-distance in nature, and eventually decided to marry. It was also during the 1978 season where Smith introduced a signature move. Padres promotion director Andy Strasberg knew Smith could perform backflips, though only did them during practice before fans entered the stadium. Strasberg asked Smith to do a backflip for fans during Fan Appreciation Day on October 1, the Padres' last home game of the season. After conferring with veteran teammate Gene Tenace, Smith went ahead with the backflip, and it proved to be wildly popular. Smith finished the 1978 season with a .258 batting average and .970 fielding percentage, placing him second in the National League Rookie of the Year voting to Bob Horner.
After working with a hitting instructor during the offseason, Smith failed to record a base hit in his first 32 at-bats of the 1979 season. Among players with enough at-bats to qualify for the 1979 National League Triple Crown, Smith finished the season last in batting average (.211), home runs (0), and RBI (27). Off the field, conflict developed between Padres' ownership and the combination of Smith and his agent, Ed Gottlieb. The parties entered into a contract dispute before the 1980 season, and when negotiations lasted into spring training, the Padres renewed Smith's contract at his 1979 salary of $72,500 Smith's agent told the Padres the shortstop would forgo the season to race in the Tour de France, despite the fact Smith admitted to The Break Room on 96.5 WCMF in Rochester, New York, he had never heard of the Tour. Angered by the Padres' attitude during those contract talks, Gottlieb took out a help-wanted ad in the San Diego Union, part of which read, "Padre baseball player wants part-time employment to supplement income." When Joan Kroc, wife of Padres owner Ray Kroc, publicly offered Smith a job as an assistant gardener on her estate, Smith and Gottlieb's relationship with the organization deteriorated further.
Meanwhile, Smith was winning recognition for his accomplishments on the field. In 1980, he set the single-season record for most assists by a shortstop (621), and began his string of 13 consecutive Gold Glove awards. Smith's fielding play prompted the Yuma Daily Sun to use the nickname "The Wizard of Oz" in a March 1981 feature article about Smith. While "The Wizard of Oz" nickname was an allusion to the 1939 motion picture of the same name, Smith also came to be known as simply "The Wizard" during his playing career, as Smith's Baseball Hall of Fame plaque would later attest. In 1981, Smith made his first All-Star Game appearance as a reserve player.
Trade
While Smith was having problems with the Padres' owners, the St. Louis Cardinals also found themselves unhappy with their shortstop, Garry Templeton. Templeton's relationship with Cardinal Nation had become increasingly strained and finally came to a head during a game at Busch Stadium on August 26, 1981, when (after being heckled for not running out a ground ball) he made obscene gestures at fans, and had to be physically pulled off the field by manager Whitey Herzog.
Given the task of overhauling the Cardinals by owner Gussie Busch (and specifically to unload Templeton), Herzog was looking to trade Templeton when he was approached by Padres General Manager Jack McKeon at the 1981 baseball winter meetings. While McKeon had previously told Herzog that Smith was untouchable in any trade, the Padres were now so angry at Smith's agent Gottlieb that McKeon was willing to deal. McKeon and Herzog agreed in principle to a six-player trade, with Templeton for Smith as the centerpiece. It was then that Padres manager Dick Williams informed Herzog a no-trade clause had been included in Smith's 1981 contract. Upon learning of the trade, Smith's initial reaction was to invoke the clause and stay in San Diego, but he was still interested to hear what the Cardinals had to say. While the deal for the players beside Templeton and Smith went through, Herzog flew to San Diego to meet with Smith and Gottlieb over the Christmas holiday. Smith later recalled that, "Whitey told me that with me playing shortstop for the St. Louis Cardinals, we could win the pennant. He made me feel wanted, which was a feeling I was quickly losing from the Padres. The mere fact that Whitey would come all the way out there to talk to us was more than enough to convince me that St. Louis was the place I wanted to be."
St. Louis Cardinals
1982–1984
On December 10, 1981, the Padres traded him along with a player to be named later and Steve Mura to the Cardinals for a player to be named later, Sixto Lezcano and Garry Templeton. The teams completed the trade on February 19, 1982, with the Padres sending Al Olmsted to the Cardinals, and St. Louis sending Luis DeLeon to the Padres. Herzog believed Smith could improve his offensive production by hitting more ground balls, and subsequently created a motivational tool designed to help Smith concentrate on that task. Approaching Smith one day during spring training, Herzog said, "Every time you hit a fly ball, you owe me a buck. Every time you hit a ground ball, I owe you a buck. We'll keep that going all year." Smith agreed to the wager, and by the end of the season had won close to $300 from Herzog. As the 1982 season got underway, Herzog's newly assembled team won 12 games in a row during the month of April, and finished the season atop the National League East division. Herzog would later say of Smith's contributions that, "If he saved two runs a game on defense, which he did many a night, it seemed to me that was just as valuable to the team as a player who drove in two runs a game on offense."
Smith became a father for the first time during the 1982 season with the birth of his son O.J., today known as Nikko, on April 28. Smith also developed a lasting friendship with teammate Willie McGee during the season, and Smith said he likes to think he "helped Willie get over some of the rough spots of adjusting to the major leagues". Smith later participated in the postseason for the first time when the Cardinals faced the Atlanta Braves in the best-of-five 1982 National League Championship Series (NLCS). Smith drove in the series' first run by hitting a sacrifice fly which scored McGee in Game 1, ultimately going five for nine in St. Louis' three-game series sweep.
Just as Herzog had predicted when he told Smith the Cardinals would win the pennant with him on the team, Smith found himself as the team's starting shortstop in the best-of-seven 1982 World Series against the Milwaukee Brewers. During the contest Smith scored three runs, had five hits, and did not commit an error in the field. When St. Louis was trailing 3–1 with one out in the sixth inning of Game 7, Smith started a rally with a base hit to left field, eventually scoring the first of the team's three runs that inning. The Cardinals scored two more runs in the 8th inning for a 6–3 win and the championship.
After the World Series championship, Smith and the Cardinals agreed on a new contract in January 1983 that paid Smith $1 million per year. Smith was voted in as the National League's starting shortstop in the All-Star Game for the first time in 1983, and at season's end won a fourth consecutive Gold Glove Award. During July of the 1984 season, Smith went on the disabled list with a broken wrist after being hit by a pitch during a game against the Padres. Smith's return to the lineup a month later was not enough to propel the Cardinals to a postseason berth.
1985–1986
In 1985, Smith amassed a .276 batting average, 31 stolen bases, and 591 assists in the field. The Cardinals as a team won 101 games during the season and earned another postseason berth. Facing the Los Angeles Dodgers in the now best-of-seven NLCS, a split of the first four games set the stage for Game 5 at Busch Stadium. With the score tied at two runs apiece in the bottom of the ninth inning, Dodgers manager Tommy Lasorda called upon closer Tom Niedenfuer to pitch. Smith batted left-handed against Niedenfuer with one out. Smith, who had never hit a home run in his previous 2,967 left-handed major league at-bats, pulled an inside fastball down the right-field line for a walk-off home run, ending Game 5 in a 3–2 Cardinals victory. Smith said, "I was trying to get an extra-base hit and get into scoring position. Fortunately, I was able to get the ball up." The home run not only prompted broadcaster Jack Buck's "Go crazy folks" play-by-play call, but was also later voted the greatest moment in Busch Stadium history by Cardinals fans.
After Smith's teammate Jack Clark hit a late-inning home run of his own in Game 6 to defeat the Dodgers, the Cardinals moved on to face the Kansas City Royals in the 1985 World Series. Once again sportswriters were quick to draw attention to Smith's outstanding defensive play instead of his 2 for 23 effort at the plate. After the Cardinals took a three-games-to-two advantage, a controversial Game 6 call by umpire Don Denkinger overshadowed the remainder of the Series (which the Royals won in seven games).
What was not publicly known during the regular season and playoffs was that Smith had torn his rotator cuff after suffering an impingement in his right shoulder during the July 11–14 homestand against the Padres. After suffering the impingement diving back into first base on a pickoff throw, Smith altered his throwing motion to such a degree that the rotator cuff tear subsequently developed. The 5'10" (1.78 m), 180-pound (82 kg) Smith opted to forgo surgery and instead built up his arm strength via weightlifting, playing through whatever pain he encountered. Said Smith, "I didn't tell anybody about the injury, because I wanted to keep playing and didn't want anybody thinking they could run on me or take advantage of the injury. I tried to do almost everything, except throw a baseball, left-handed: opening a door, turning on the radio—everything. It didn't get any better, but it was good enough that I didn't have to have surgery."
Because of his injury, Smith let his then four-year-old son Nikko perform his traditional Opening Day backflip before the Cardinals' first home game of the 1986 season. Smith made an "eye-popping" play later that season on August 4, during a game against the Philadelphia Phillies at Busch Stadium. In the top of the ninth inning, Phillies pinch-hitter Von Hayes hit a short fly ball to left field, which was pursued by both Smith and left fielder Curt Ford. Running with his back to home plate, Smith dove forward, simultaneously catching the ball while parallel to the ground and flying over the diving Ford, avoiding a collision by inches.
1987–1990
After hitting in either the second or eighth spot in the batting order for most of his time in St. Louis, Herzog made Smith the number-two hitter full-time during the 1987 season. Over the course of the year, Smith accrued a .303 batting average, 43 stolen bases, 75 RBIs, 104 runs scored, and 40 doubles, good enough to earn him the Silver Slugger Award at shortstop. In addition to winning the Gold Glove Award at shortstop for the eighth consecutive time, Smith posted a career-high on-base percentage of .392. Smith was also the leading vote-getter in the 1987 All-Star Game. The Cardinals earned a postseason berth with 95 wins, and subsequently faced the San Francisco Giants in the 1987 National League Championship Series. Smith contributed a triple during the series, and the Cardinals won the contest in seven games.
The 1987 World Series matched the Cardinals against the American League champion Minnesota Twins. The home team won every game of the contest, as Minnesota won the series. In 28 at-bats during the Series, Smith scored three runs and had two RBIs. Smith finished second in MVP balloting to Andre Dawson, who had played on the last-place Chicago Cubs, largely because Smith and teammate Jack Clark split the first-place vote. Following the 1987 season, Smith was awarded the largest contract in the National League at $2.34 million.
While the team did not see the postseason for the remainder of the decade, Smith continued to rack up All-Star appearances and Gold Gloves. Combined with the attention he received from his contract, Smith continued to be a national figure. Known as a savvy dresser, he made the April 1988 cover of GQ magazine. Smith was witness to change within the Cardinal organization when owner Gussie Busch died in 1989 and Herzog quit as manager during the 1990 season.
1990–1995
Joe Torre became Smith's new manager in 1990, but the team did not reach the postseason during Torre's nearly five-year tenure. While the Cardinals celebrated their 100th anniversary in 1992, Smith marked milestones of his own, stealing his 500th career base on April 26, then notching a triple on May 26 in front of the home crowd for his 2,000th hit. St. Louis had a one-game lead in the National League East division on June 1, 1992, but injuries took their toll on the team, including Smith's two-week illness in late July after contracting chicken pox for the first time. As a testament to his national visibility during this time, Smith appeared in a 1992 episode of The Simpsons titled "Homer at the Bat". Smith became a free agent for the first time in his career on November 2, 1992, only to sign a new contract with the Cardinals on December 6.
Smith won his final Gold Glove in 1992, and his 13 consecutive Gold Gloves at shortstop in the National League has yet to be matched. The 1993 season marked the only time between 1981 and 1996 where Smith failed to make the All-Star team, and Smith finished the 1993 season with a .288 batting average and .974 fielding percentage. He appeared in 98 games during the strike-shortened 1994 season, and later missed nearly three months of the 1995 season after shoulder surgery on May 31. Smith was recognized for his community service efforts with the 1994 Branch Rickey Award and the 1995 Roberto Clemente Award. In February 1994, Smith took on the role of honorary chairman and official spokesman for the Missouri Governor's Council on Physical Fitness and Health.
1996
As Smith entered the 1996 season, he finalized a divorce from his wife Denise during the first half of the year. Meanwhile, manager Tony La Russa began his first season with the Cardinals in tandem with a new ownership group. After General Manager Walt Jocketty acquired shortstop Royce Clayton during the offseason, La Russa emphasized an open competition for the spot that would give the Cardinals the best chance to win. When spring training concluded, Smith had amassed a .288 batting average and zero errors in the field, and Clayton batted .190 with eight errors. Smith believed he had earned the position with his spring training performance, but La Russa disagreed, and awarded Clayton the majority of playing time in the platoon situation that developed, where Smith typically saw action every third game. La Russa said, "I think it's fair to say he misunderstood how he compared to Royce in spring training ... When I and the coaches evaluated the play in spring training—the whole game—Royce started very slowly offensively and you could see him start to get better. By what he was able to do defensively and on the bases, Royce deserved to play the majority of the games."
Smith missed the first month of the season with a hamstring injury, and continued to harbor ill feelings toward La Russa that had developed after spring training ended. In a closed-door meeting in mid-May, La Russa asked Smith if he would like to be traded. Instead, Smith and his agent negotiated a compromise with Cardinals management, agreeing to a buyout of special provisions in his contract in conjunction with Smith announcing his retirement. The agreement prompted a press conference at Busch Stadium on June 19, 1996, during which Smith announced he would retire from baseball at season's end.
As Smith made his final tour of the National League, he was honored by many teams, and received a standing ovation at the 1996 All-Star Game in Philadelphia. Between June 19 and September 1, Smith's batting average increased from .239 to .286. On September 2 Smith tied a career high by scoring four runs, one of which was a home run, and another on a close play at home plate in the bottom of the 10th inning against division leader Houston. The victory moved the Cardinals to within a half game of Houston in the National League Central Division, and the Cardinals went on to win the division by six games. The Cardinals held a special ceremony at Busch Stadium on September 28, 1996, before a game against the Cincinnati Reds, honoring Smith by retiring his uniform number. Noted for his ritual backflip before Opening Days, All-Star Games, and postseason games, Smith chose this occasion to perform it for one of the last times.
In the postseason, the Cardinals first faced the San Diego Padres in the 1996 National League Division Series. After sitting out Game 1, Smith got the start in Game 2 at Busch Stadium, helping his team go up two games in the series by notching a run, a hit and two walks at the plate, along with an assist and a putout in the field. The Cardinals then swept the series by winning Game 3 in San Diego.
The Cardinals faced the Atlanta Braves in the 1996 National League Championship Series. Smith started Game 1 and subsequently registered three putouts and one assist in the field, but went hitless in four at-bats in the Cardinals' 4–2 loss. The Cardinals then won Games 2, 3, and 4, contests in which Smith did not appear. Upon receiving the start in Game 5, Smith nearly duplicated his Game 1 performance with four putouts, one assist, and no hits in four at-bats as part of another Cardinals defeat. The Cardinals also failed to win Game 6 or Game 7 in Atlanta, ending their season. When the Cardinals were trailing by 10 runs during Game 7 on October 17, Smith flied out to right field while pinch-hitting in the sixth inning, marking the end of his playing career.
Smith finished his career with distinctions ranging from the accumulation of more than 27.5 million votes in All-Star balloting, to holding the record for the most MLB at-bats without hitting a grand slam.
Post-playing career
Upon retirement, Smith took over from Mel Allen as the host of the television series This Week in Baseball (TWIB) in 1997. Smith also became color commentator for the local broadcast of Cardinals games on KPLR-TV from 1997 to 1999. When his stint on This Week in Baseball concluded, Smith then moved on to do work for CNN-SI beginning in 1999. After La Russa retired as manager of the Cardinals in 2011, Smith became active in the organization again, starting with his stint as a special instructor for the team's 2012 spring training camp.
On January 8, 2002 Smith learned via a phone call he had been elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame on his first ballot by receiving 91.7% of the votes cast. As it happened, the Olympic torch was passing through St. Louis on its way to Salt Lake City for the 2002 Winter Olympics, and Smith served as a torchbearer in a ceremony with St. Louis Rams' quarterback Kurt Warner that evening. Smith was inducted into the Hall of Fame during ceremonies on July 28, 2002. During his speech, he compared his baseball experiences with the characters from the novel The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, after which his son Dustin presented his Hall of Fame plaque. Days later on August 11, Smith was back at Busch Memorial Stadium for the unveiling of a statue in his likeness made by sculptor Harry Weber. Weber chose to emphasize Smith's defensive skills by showing Smith stretched horizontal to the ground while fielding a baseball. At the ceremony Weber told Smith, "You spent half of your career up in the air. That makes it difficult for a sculptor to do something with it."
Smith has also been an entrepreneur in a variety of business ventures. Smith opened "Ozzie's" restaurant and sports bar in 1988, started a youth sports academy in 1990, became an investor in a grocery store chain in 1999, and partnered with David Slay to open a restaurant in the early 2000s. Of those businesses the youth academy remains in operation, with the restaurant having closed in 2010 after changing ownership and locations once. Aside from appearing in numerous radio and television commercials in the St. Louis area since retiring from baseball, Smith authored a children's book in 2006 and launched his own brand of salad dressing in 2008.
Besides the National Baseball Hall of Fame, Smith has also been inducted or honored in other halls of fame and recognitions. In 1999, he ranked number 87 on The Sporting News''' list of the 100 Greatest Baseball Players, and finished third in voting at shortstop for the Major League Baseball All-Century Team. He was honored with induction into the Missouri Sports Hall of Fame, Alabama Sports Hall of Fame and the St. Louis Walk of Fame, and received an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degree from Cal Poly. In January 2014, the Cardinals announced Smith among 22 former players and personnel to be inducted into the St. Louis Cardinals Hall of Fame Museum for the inaugural class of 2014.
Career MLB statistics
Hitting
Fielding
Personal life
Smith is the father to three children from his marriage to former wife Denise; sons Nikko and Dustin, and daughter Taryn. Nikko cracked the top ten finalists of the 2005 edition of American Idol.Wald, Jaina. "When it's 'Idol' time at Ozzie's, folks go crazy for Nikko". St. Louis Post-Dispatch. April 6, 2005. E3. Retrieved on 2008-03-19. In 2012, Smith made news headlines again, when he sold all of his Gold Gloves at auction together for more than $500,000.
Smith still lives in and remains a visible figure around St. Louis, making varied appearances like playing the role of the Wizard in the St. Louis Municipal Opera's summer 2001 production of The Wizard of Oz''. He is the host of Cardinals Insider, a weekly news magazine televsion show about the club. Since 2016, he has opened five regenerative medicine clinics around Missouri.
See also
List of Major League Baseball career stolen bases leaders
List of Major League Baseball career games played leaders
List of Major League Baseball career doubles leaders
List of Major League Baseball career runs scored leaders
List of Major League Baseball career hits leaders
List of St. Louis Cardinals team records
References
Further reading
External links
Ozzie Smith at SABR (Baseball BioProject)
Ozzie Smith at St. Louis Walk of Fame
Interview with Ozzie Smith on KUT's "In Black America" radio series, September 8, 1988 at the American Archive of Public Broadcasting
1954 births
Living people
African-American baseball players
Baseball players from Alabama
Cal Poly Mustangs baseball players
Gold Glove Award winners
Major League Baseball broadcasters
Major League Baseball players with retired numbers
Major League Baseball shortstops
National Baseball Hall of Fame inductees
National League All-Stars
Baseball players from Los Angeles
Sportspeople from Mobile, Alabama
San Diego Padres players
St. Louis Cardinals announcers
St. Louis Cardinals players
Walla Walla Padres players
National League Championship Series MVPs
Silver Slugger Award winners
People from Watts, Los Angeles
21st-century African-American people
20th-century African-American sportspeople | true | [
"The Anoa'i family, originating from American Samoa, is a family of professional wrestlers. Family members have comprised several tag teams and stables within a variety of promotions. Famous members of the family include Rosey, WWE Hall of Famer Rikishi, Umaga, WWE Hall of Famer Yokozuna, Roman Reigns, The Usos, and WWE Hall of Fame brothers Afa and Sika Anoa'i, the Wild Samoans. Peter Maivia and grandson The Rock are considered honorary members. WWE Hall of Famer & former wrestler Jimmy Snuka also married into the family through his first wife, Sharon Georgi. Snuka's daughter, Tamina Snuka, is considered as part of the family as well, and WWE Superstar Naomi married into the family by marrying Jimmy Uso.\n\nReverend Amituana'i Anoa'i and Peter Maivia were blood brothers, a connection that continued with Afa and Sika, who regard Peter as their uncle. Peter married Ofelia \"Lia\" Fuataga, who already had a daughter named Ata, whom he adopted and raised as his own. Ata married wrestler Rocky Johnson, and the couple became the parents of Dwayne Johnson, who wrestled as \"Rocky Maivia\" and \"The Rock\" before establishing himself as an actor. Peter's first cousin Joseph Fanene was the father of Savelina Fanene, who was formerly known in WWE as Nia Jax.\n\nAnoa'i Family tree\n\nOther members \nHollywood stuntman Tanoai Reed (known as Toa on the new American Gladiators) is the great nephew of wrestling promoter Lia Maivia (Peter Maivia's wife), while professional wrestler Lina Fanene (Nia Jax) is Dwayne Johnson's cousin. Sean Maluta, nephew of Afa Anoa'i, was a participant in WWE's first Cruiserweight Classic tournament.\n\nTag teams and stables\n\nThe Wild Samoans\n\nThe Headshrinkers\n\n3-Minute Warning\n\nSamoan Gangstas \n\nSamoan Gangstas was a tag team in the independent promotion World Xtreme Wrestling (WXW). The tag team consisted of members from the Anoa'i family.\n\nSamoan Gangstas was a tag team made up of brothers from another mothers Matt E. Smalls and Sweet Sammy Silk (Matt and Samu Anoa'i). Their tag team was formed in 1997 in WXW, the promotion of one half of The Wild Samoans, Samu's father and Matt's uncle Afa Anoa'i. The duo received success in WXW in the tag team division. On June 24, they won their first WXW Tag Team Championship by beating Love Connection (Sweet Daddy Jay Love and Georgie Love). However, they were temporarily suspended and the title was declared vacant. Matt was repackaged as Matty Smalls. They returned in the summer of 1997 and defeated Siberian Express (The Mad Russian and Russian Eliminator), on September 17 to win their second WXW Tag Team Championship.\n\nProblems began between Smalls and Smooth. The two partners began feuding with each other and could not focus properly on their tag title. On March 27, 1998, Smooth defeated Smalls in a Loser Leaves Town match. As a result of losing this match, Smalls was forced to leave the promotion. He left WXW while Smooth focused on a singles career. After a short while, Smalls returned to WXW and the two partners reunited again as Samoan Gangstas and began teaming in the tag team division. They feuded with several tag teams in WXW and focused to regain the WXW Tag Team Championship. However, due to their family disputes and problems with each other, they did not take part in the tournament for the vacated tag title, and instead feuded with each other. Samoan Gangstas feuded with each other after their splitting until Smalls left WXW and began wrestling as Kimo. He began teaming with Ekmo (Eddie Fatu) as The Island Boyz and the duo worked in Frontier Martial-Arts Wrestling (FMW) before signing with World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) and working in its developmental territories.\n\nThe Sons of Samoa \nThe Sons of Samoa are a tag team currently wrestling in the Puerto Rican wrestling promotion World Wrestling Council and WXW. The team consists of Afa Jr. and L.A. Smooth.\n\nThe team was formed at WXW in 1998, briefly as a stable with Samu. The team reformed in April 2009 at a WXW show with Afa Jr. and L.A. Smooth. In 2013, they began wrestling at the WWC promotion in Puerto Rico. At Euphoria 2013, they lost to Thunder and Lightning. They won the WWC World Tag Team Championship from Thunder and Lightning on February 9, before losing the titles back to Thunder and Lightning on March 30 at Camino a la Gloria. However, they won the titles on June 29, 2013, at Summer Madness.\n\nThe Usos \n\nThe Usos (born August 22, 1985) are a Samoan American professional wrestling tag team consisting of twin brothers Jimmy Uso and Jey Uso, who appear in WWE where they are former two-time WWE Tag Team Champions. They are also former five-time WWE SmackDown Tag Team Champions. The pair were previously managed by Tamina Snuka and are one-time FCW Florida Tag Team Champions.\n\nThe Bloodline \n\nThe Bloodline is a professional wrestling stable currently performing in WWE on the SmackDown brand. The group is led by Roman Reigns, who is the current WWE Universal Champion, and is also composed of The Usos, and Paul Heyman, who acts as Reigns' on-screen \"special counsel\".\n\nChampionship and accomplishments \n Afa Anoa'i\nChampionships and accomplishments\n Sika Anoa'i\nChampionships and accomplishments\n Lloyd Anoa'i\nChampionships and accomplishments\n Rikishi\n Championships and accomplishments\n Sam Fatu\n Championships and accomplishments\n Umaga\n Championships and accomplishments\n Yokozuna\n Championships and accomplishments\n Rosey\n Championships and accomplishments\n Roman Reigns\n Championships and accomplishments\n The Usos\n Championships and accomplishments\n Dwayne Johnson\n Championships and accomplishments\n Peter Maivia\n Championships and accomplishments\n Jacob Fatu\n Championships and accomplishments\n Lance Anoa'i\n Championships and accomplishments\nNia Jax\n Championships and accomplishments\n\nSee also \nList of family relations in professional wrestling\n\nReferences\n\nFurther reading\n\nExternal links \n Samoan Dynasty\n\n \nProfessional wrestling families\nAmerican families",
"The lexical aspect or Aktionsart (, plural Aktionsarten ) of a verb is part of the way in which that verb is structured in relation to time. For example, the English verbs arrive and run differ in their lexical aspect since the former describes an event which has a natural endpoint while the latter does not. Lexical aspect differs from grammatical aspect in that it is an inherent semantic property of a predicate, while grammatical aspect is a syntactic or morphological property. Although lexical aspect need not be marked morphologically, it has downstream grammatical effects, for instance that arrive can be modified by \"in an hour\" while run cannot.\n\nTheories of aspectual class\nAlthough all theories of lexical aspect recognize that verbs divide into different classes, the details of the classification differ. An early attempt is that of Vendler (1957), which recognizes four classes (\"activity\", \"accomplishment\", \"achievement\" or \"state\"). There have been numerous modifications of Vendler's system, notably Comrie's (1976) introduction of a \"durative\" versus \"punctual\" contrast, as well as Moens & Steedman's (1988) notion of an \"event nucleus\".\n\nVendler's (1957) classification\nZeno Vendler (1957) classified verbs into four categories on whether they express \"activity\", \"accomplishment\", \"achievement\" or \"state\". Activities and accomplishments are distinguished from achievements and states in that the first two allow the use of continuous and progressive aspects. Activities and accomplishments are distinguished from each other by boundedness. Activities do not have a terminal point (a point before which the activity has taken place and after which cannot continue: \"John drew a circle\"), but accomplishments have one. Of achievements and states, achievements are instantaneous, but states are durative. Achievements and accomplishments are distinguished from one another in that achievements take place immediately (such as in \"recognise\" or \"find\"), but accomplishments approach an endpoint incrementally (as in \"paint a picture\" or \"build a house\").\n\nComrie's (1976) classification\nIn his discussion of lexical aspect, Bernard Comrie (1976) included the category semelfactive or punctual events such as \"sneeze\". His divisions of the categories were as follows: states, activities, and accomplishments are durative, but semelfactives and achievements are punctual. Of the durative verbs, states are unique as they involve no change, and activities are atelic (that is, have no \"terminal point\") whereas accomplishments are telic. Of the punctual verbs, semelfactives are atelic, and achievements are telic. The following table shows examples of lexical aspect in English that involve change (an example of a state is 'know').\n\nMoens and Steedman's (1988) classification\nAnother classification is proposed by Moens and Steedman, based on the idea of the event nucleus\n\nSyntactic analyses of event structure \nAspectual classes can be analyzed as differing in their event structure, and this has led to the development of syntactic analyses of event structure, with each aspectual class treated as having a distinct syntactic structure.\n\nSee also\n Predicate\n Syntax‐semantics interface\n\nReferences\n\nGrammar\nTime in linguistics\nSyntax–semantics interface\n\nfr:Aspect lexical"
]
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"what was significant about this time period?",
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"what team did he play for in 87",
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"Smith accrued a .303 batting average, 43 stolen bases, 75 RBIs, 104 runs scored, and 40 doubles,"
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| C_c480d60d41bc4e0fa4efe80d33514300_0 | what was his best year? | 4 | what was Ozzie Smith's best year? | Ozzie Smith | After hitting in either the second or eighth spot in the batting order for most of his time in St. Louis, Herzog made Smith the number-two hitter full-time during the 1987 season. Over the course of the year, Smith accrued a .303 batting average, 43 stolen bases, 75 RBIs, 104 runs scored, and 40 doubles, good enough to earn him the Silver Slugger Award at shortstop. In addition to winning the Gold Glove Award at shortstop for the eighth consecutive time, Smith posted a career-high on-base percentage of .392. Smith was also the leading vote-getter in the 1987 All-Star Game. The Cardinals earned a postseason berth with 95 wins, and subsequently faced the San Francisco Giants in the 1987 National League Championship Series. Smith contributed a triple during the series, and the Cardinals won the contest in seven games. The 1987 World Series matched the Cardinals against the American League champion Minnesota Twins. The home team won every game of the contest, as Minnesota won the series. In 28 at-bats during the Series, Smith scored three runs and had two RBIs. Smith finished second in MVP balloting to Andre Dawson, who had played on the last-place Chicago Cubs, largely because Smith and teammate Jack Clark split the first-place vote. Following the 1987 season, Smith was awarded the largest contract in the National League at $2,340,000. While the team did not see the postseason for the remainder of the decade, Smith continued to rack up All-Star appearances and Gold Gloves. Combined with the attention he received from his contract, Smith continued to be a national figure. Known as a savvy dresser, he made the April 1988 cover of GQ magazine. Smith was witness to change within the Cardinal organization when owner Gussie Busch died in 1989 and Herzog quit as manager during the 1990 season. CANNOTANSWER | 1987 | Osborne Earl "Ozzie" Smith (born December 26, 1954) is an American former professional baseball player. Nicknamed "The Wizard of Oz", Smith played shortstop for the San Diego Padres and St. Louis Cardinals in Major League Baseball, winning the National League Gold Glove Award for defensive play at shortstop for 13 consecutive seasons. A 15-time All-Star, Smith accumulated 2,460 hits and 580 stolen bases during his career, and won the National League Silver Slugger Award as the best hitter at shortstop in 1987. He was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in his first year of eligibility in 2002. He was also elected to the St. Louis Cardinals Hall of Fame in the inaugural class of 2014.
Smith was born in Mobile, Alabama, but his family moved to Watts, Los Angeles, when he was six years old. While participating in childhood athletic activities, Smith developed quick reflexes; he went on to play baseball in high school and college, at Los Angeles' Locke High School and Cal Poly-San Luis Obispo respectively. Drafted as an amateur player by the Padres, Smith made his major league debut in 1978. He quickly established himself as an outstanding fielder, and later became known for performing backflips on special occasions while taking his position at the beginning of a game. Smith won his first Gold Glove Award in 1980 and made his first All-Star Game appearance in 1981. When conflict with Padres' ownership developed, he was traded to the Cardinals for shortstop Garry Templeton in 1982.
Upon joining the Cardinals, Smith helped the team win the 1982 World Series. Three years later, his game-winning home run during Game 5 of the 1985 National League Championship Series prompted broadcaster Jack Buck's "Go crazy, folks!" play-by-play call. Despite a rotator cuff injury during the 1985 season, Smith posted career highs in multiple offensive categories in 1987. Smith continued to earn Gold Gloves and All-Star appearances on an annual basis until 1993. During the 1995 season, Smith had shoulder surgery and was out nearly three months. After tension with his new manager Tony La Russa developed in 1996, Smith retired at season's end, and his uniform number (No. 1) was subsequently retired by the Cardinals. Smith served as host of the television show This Week in Baseball from 1997 to 1998.
Early life
Smith was born in Mobile, Alabama, the second of Clovi and Marvella Smith's six children (five boys and one girl). While the family lived in Mobile, his father worked as a sandblaster at Brookley Air Force Base. When Smith was six his family moved to the Watts section of Los Angeles. His father became a delivery truck driver for Safeway stores, while his mother became an aide at a nursing home. His mother was an influential part of his life who stressed the importance of education and encouraged him to pursue his dreams.
Smith played a variety of sports in his youth, though considered baseball to be his favorite. He developed quick reflexes through various athletic and leisure activity, such as bouncing a ball off the concrete steps in front of his house, moving in closer to reduce reaction time with each throw. When not at the local YMCA or playing sports, Smith sometimes went with friends to the neighborhood lumberyard, springboarding off inner tubes and doing flips into sawdust piles (a precursor to his famous backflips). In 1965, at age 10, he endured the Watts Riots with his family, recalling that, "We had to sleep on the floor because of all the sniping and looting going on."
While Smith was attending junior high school, his parents divorced. Continuing to pursue his interest in baseball, he would ride the bus for nearly an hour to reach Dodger Stadium, cheering for the Los Angeles Dodgers at about 25 games a year. Upon becoming a student at Locke High School, Smith played on the basketball and baseball teams. Smith was a teammate of future National Basketball Association player Marques Johnson on the basketball team, and a teammate of future fellow Hall-of-Fame player Eddie Murray on the baseball side. After high school Smith attended Cal Poly San Luis Obispo in 1974 on a partial academic scholarship, and managed to walk-on to the baseball team. In addition to his academic education, he learned to switch-hit from Cal Poly coach Berdy Harr. When Cal Poly's starting shortstop broke his leg midway through the 1974 season, Smith subsequently took over the starting role. Later named an All-American athlete, he established school records in career at bats (754) and career stolen bases (110) before graduating in 1977.
Professional baseball career
San Diego Padres
Smith was playing semi-professional baseball in Clarinda, Iowa, when in June 1976 he was selected in the seventh round of the amateur entry draft by the Detroit Tigers. The parties could not agree on a contract; Smith wanted a $10,000 ($ today) signing bonus, while the Tigers offered $8,500 ($ today). Smith returned to Cal Poly for his senior year, then in the 1977 draft was selected in the fourth round by the San Diego Padres, ultimately agreeing to a contract that included a $5,000 signing bonus ($ today). Smith spent his first year of professional baseball during 1977 with the Class A Walla Walla Padres of the Northwest League.
Smith began 1978 as a non-roster invitee to the San Diego Padres' spring training camp in Yuma, Arizona. Smith credited Padres manager Alvin Dark for giving him confidence by telling reporters the shortstop job was Smith's until he proved he can't handle it. Even though Dark was fired in the middle of training camp, Smith made his Major League Baseball (MLB) debut on April 7, 1978.
It did not take long for Smith to earn recognition in the major leagues, making what some consider his greatest fielding play only 10 games into his rookie season. The Padres played host to the Atlanta Braves on April 20, 1978, and with two out in the top of the fourth inning, Atlanta's Jeff Burroughs hit a ground ball up the middle. Smith described the play by saying, "He hit a ball back up the middle that everybody thought was going into center field. I instinctively broke to my left and dove behind second. As I was in the air, the ball took a bad hop and caromed behind me, but I was able to catch it with my bare hand. I hit the ground, bounced back up, and threw Burroughs out at first."
During a roadtrip to Houston, later in the season, Smith met a part-time usherette at the Astrodome named Denise while making his way to the team bus outside the stadium. The couple developed a relationship that was sometimes long-distance in nature, and eventually decided to marry. It was also during the 1978 season where Smith introduced a signature move. Padres promotion director Andy Strasberg knew Smith could perform backflips, though only did them during practice before fans entered the stadium. Strasberg asked Smith to do a backflip for fans during Fan Appreciation Day on October 1, the Padres' last home game of the season. After conferring with veteran teammate Gene Tenace, Smith went ahead with the backflip, and it proved to be wildly popular. Smith finished the 1978 season with a .258 batting average and .970 fielding percentage, placing him second in the National League Rookie of the Year voting to Bob Horner.
After working with a hitting instructor during the offseason, Smith failed to record a base hit in his first 32 at-bats of the 1979 season. Among players with enough at-bats to qualify for the 1979 National League Triple Crown, Smith finished the season last in batting average (.211), home runs (0), and RBI (27). Off the field, conflict developed between Padres' ownership and the combination of Smith and his agent, Ed Gottlieb. The parties entered into a contract dispute before the 1980 season, and when negotiations lasted into spring training, the Padres renewed Smith's contract at his 1979 salary of $72,500 Smith's agent told the Padres the shortstop would forgo the season to race in the Tour de France, despite the fact Smith admitted to The Break Room on 96.5 WCMF in Rochester, New York, he had never heard of the Tour. Angered by the Padres' attitude during those contract talks, Gottlieb took out a help-wanted ad in the San Diego Union, part of which read, "Padre baseball player wants part-time employment to supplement income." When Joan Kroc, wife of Padres owner Ray Kroc, publicly offered Smith a job as an assistant gardener on her estate, Smith and Gottlieb's relationship with the organization deteriorated further.
Meanwhile, Smith was winning recognition for his accomplishments on the field. In 1980, he set the single-season record for most assists by a shortstop (621), and began his string of 13 consecutive Gold Glove awards. Smith's fielding play prompted the Yuma Daily Sun to use the nickname "The Wizard of Oz" in a March 1981 feature article about Smith. While "The Wizard of Oz" nickname was an allusion to the 1939 motion picture of the same name, Smith also came to be known as simply "The Wizard" during his playing career, as Smith's Baseball Hall of Fame plaque would later attest. In 1981, Smith made his first All-Star Game appearance as a reserve player.
Trade
While Smith was having problems with the Padres' owners, the St. Louis Cardinals also found themselves unhappy with their shortstop, Garry Templeton. Templeton's relationship with Cardinal Nation had become increasingly strained and finally came to a head during a game at Busch Stadium on August 26, 1981, when (after being heckled for not running out a ground ball) he made obscene gestures at fans, and had to be physically pulled off the field by manager Whitey Herzog.
Given the task of overhauling the Cardinals by owner Gussie Busch (and specifically to unload Templeton), Herzog was looking to trade Templeton when he was approached by Padres General Manager Jack McKeon at the 1981 baseball winter meetings. While McKeon had previously told Herzog that Smith was untouchable in any trade, the Padres were now so angry at Smith's agent Gottlieb that McKeon was willing to deal. McKeon and Herzog agreed in principle to a six-player trade, with Templeton for Smith as the centerpiece. It was then that Padres manager Dick Williams informed Herzog a no-trade clause had been included in Smith's 1981 contract. Upon learning of the trade, Smith's initial reaction was to invoke the clause and stay in San Diego, but he was still interested to hear what the Cardinals had to say. While the deal for the players beside Templeton and Smith went through, Herzog flew to San Diego to meet with Smith and Gottlieb over the Christmas holiday. Smith later recalled that, "Whitey told me that with me playing shortstop for the St. Louis Cardinals, we could win the pennant. He made me feel wanted, which was a feeling I was quickly losing from the Padres. The mere fact that Whitey would come all the way out there to talk to us was more than enough to convince me that St. Louis was the place I wanted to be."
St. Louis Cardinals
1982–1984
On December 10, 1981, the Padres traded him along with a player to be named later and Steve Mura to the Cardinals for a player to be named later, Sixto Lezcano and Garry Templeton. The teams completed the trade on February 19, 1982, with the Padres sending Al Olmsted to the Cardinals, and St. Louis sending Luis DeLeon to the Padres. Herzog believed Smith could improve his offensive production by hitting more ground balls, and subsequently created a motivational tool designed to help Smith concentrate on that task. Approaching Smith one day during spring training, Herzog said, "Every time you hit a fly ball, you owe me a buck. Every time you hit a ground ball, I owe you a buck. We'll keep that going all year." Smith agreed to the wager, and by the end of the season had won close to $300 from Herzog. As the 1982 season got underway, Herzog's newly assembled team won 12 games in a row during the month of April, and finished the season atop the National League East division. Herzog would later say of Smith's contributions that, "If he saved two runs a game on defense, which he did many a night, it seemed to me that was just as valuable to the team as a player who drove in two runs a game on offense."
Smith became a father for the first time during the 1982 season with the birth of his son O.J., today known as Nikko, on April 28. Smith also developed a lasting friendship with teammate Willie McGee during the season, and Smith said he likes to think he "helped Willie get over some of the rough spots of adjusting to the major leagues". Smith later participated in the postseason for the first time when the Cardinals faced the Atlanta Braves in the best-of-five 1982 National League Championship Series (NLCS). Smith drove in the series' first run by hitting a sacrifice fly which scored McGee in Game 1, ultimately going five for nine in St. Louis' three-game series sweep.
Just as Herzog had predicted when he told Smith the Cardinals would win the pennant with him on the team, Smith found himself as the team's starting shortstop in the best-of-seven 1982 World Series against the Milwaukee Brewers. During the contest Smith scored three runs, had five hits, and did not commit an error in the field. When St. Louis was trailing 3–1 with one out in the sixth inning of Game 7, Smith started a rally with a base hit to left field, eventually scoring the first of the team's three runs that inning. The Cardinals scored two more runs in the 8th inning for a 6–3 win and the championship.
After the World Series championship, Smith and the Cardinals agreed on a new contract in January 1983 that paid Smith $1 million per year. Smith was voted in as the National League's starting shortstop in the All-Star Game for the first time in 1983, and at season's end won a fourth consecutive Gold Glove Award. During July of the 1984 season, Smith went on the disabled list with a broken wrist after being hit by a pitch during a game against the Padres. Smith's return to the lineup a month later was not enough to propel the Cardinals to a postseason berth.
1985–1986
In 1985, Smith amassed a .276 batting average, 31 stolen bases, and 591 assists in the field. The Cardinals as a team won 101 games during the season and earned another postseason berth. Facing the Los Angeles Dodgers in the now best-of-seven NLCS, a split of the first four games set the stage for Game 5 at Busch Stadium. With the score tied at two runs apiece in the bottom of the ninth inning, Dodgers manager Tommy Lasorda called upon closer Tom Niedenfuer to pitch. Smith batted left-handed against Niedenfuer with one out. Smith, who had never hit a home run in his previous 2,967 left-handed major league at-bats, pulled an inside fastball down the right-field line for a walk-off home run, ending Game 5 in a 3–2 Cardinals victory. Smith said, "I was trying to get an extra-base hit and get into scoring position. Fortunately, I was able to get the ball up." The home run not only prompted broadcaster Jack Buck's "Go crazy folks" play-by-play call, but was also later voted the greatest moment in Busch Stadium history by Cardinals fans.
After Smith's teammate Jack Clark hit a late-inning home run of his own in Game 6 to defeat the Dodgers, the Cardinals moved on to face the Kansas City Royals in the 1985 World Series. Once again sportswriters were quick to draw attention to Smith's outstanding defensive play instead of his 2 for 23 effort at the plate. After the Cardinals took a three-games-to-two advantage, a controversial Game 6 call by umpire Don Denkinger overshadowed the remainder of the Series (which the Royals won in seven games).
What was not publicly known during the regular season and playoffs was that Smith had torn his rotator cuff after suffering an impingement in his right shoulder during the July 11–14 homestand against the Padres. After suffering the impingement diving back into first base on a pickoff throw, Smith altered his throwing motion to such a degree that the rotator cuff tear subsequently developed. The 5'10" (1.78 m), 180-pound (82 kg) Smith opted to forgo surgery and instead built up his arm strength via weightlifting, playing through whatever pain he encountered. Said Smith, "I didn't tell anybody about the injury, because I wanted to keep playing and didn't want anybody thinking they could run on me or take advantage of the injury. I tried to do almost everything, except throw a baseball, left-handed: opening a door, turning on the radio—everything. It didn't get any better, but it was good enough that I didn't have to have surgery."
Because of his injury, Smith let his then four-year-old son Nikko perform his traditional Opening Day backflip before the Cardinals' first home game of the 1986 season. Smith made an "eye-popping" play later that season on August 4, during a game against the Philadelphia Phillies at Busch Stadium. In the top of the ninth inning, Phillies pinch-hitter Von Hayes hit a short fly ball to left field, which was pursued by both Smith and left fielder Curt Ford. Running with his back to home plate, Smith dove forward, simultaneously catching the ball while parallel to the ground and flying over the diving Ford, avoiding a collision by inches.
1987–1990
After hitting in either the second or eighth spot in the batting order for most of his time in St. Louis, Herzog made Smith the number-two hitter full-time during the 1987 season. Over the course of the year, Smith accrued a .303 batting average, 43 stolen bases, 75 RBIs, 104 runs scored, and 40 doubles, good enough to earn him the Silver Slugger Award at shortstop. In addition to winning the Gold Glove Award at shortstop for the eighth consecutive time, Smith posted a career-high on-base percentage of .392. Smith was also the leading vote-getter in the 1987 All-Star Game. The Cardinals earned a postseason berth with 95 wins, and subsequently faced the San Francisco Giants in the 1987 National League Championship Series. Smith contributed a triple during the series, and the Cardinals won the contest in seven games.
The 1987 World Series matched the Cardinals against the American League champion Minnesota Twins. The home team won every game of the contest, as Minnesota won the series. In 28 at-bats during the Series, Smith scored three runs and had two RBIs. Smith finished second in MVP balloting to Andre Dawson, who had played on the last-place Chicago Cubs, largely because Smith and teammate Jack Clark split the first-place vote. Following the 1987 season, Smith was awarded the largest contract in the National League at $2.34 million.
While the team did not see the postseason for the remainder of the decade, Smith continued to rack up All-Star appearances and Gold Gloves. Combined with the attention he received from his contract, Smith continued to be a national figure. Known as a savvy dresser, he made the April 1988 cover of GQ magazine. Smith was witness to change within the Cardinal organization when owner Gussie Busch died in 1989 and Herzog quit as manager during the 1990 season.
1990–1995
Joe Torre became Smith's new manager in 1990, but the team did not reach the postseason during Torre's nearly five-year tenure. While the Cardinals celebrated their 100th anniversary in 1992, Smith marked milestones of his own, stealing his 500th career base on April 26, then notching a triple on May 26 in front of the home crowd for his 2,000th hit. St. Louis had a one-game lead in the National League East division on June 1, 1992, but injuries took their toll on the team, including Smith's two-week illness in late July after contracting chicken pox for the first time. As a testament to his national visibility during this time, Smith appeared in a 1992 episode of The Simpsons titled "Homer at the Bat". Smith became a free agent for the first time in his career on November 2, 1992, only to sign a new contract with the Cardinals on December 6.
Smith won his final Gold Glove in 1992, and his 13 consecutive Gold Gloves at shortstop in the National League has yet to be matched. The 1993 season marked the only time between 1981 and 1996 where Smith failed to make the All-Star team, and Smith finished the 1993 season with a .288 batting average and .974 fielding percentage. He appeared in 98 games during the strike-shortened 1994 season, and later missed nearly three months of the 1995 season after shoulder surgery on May 31. Smith was recognized for his community service efforts with the 1994 Branch Rickey Award and the 1995 Roberto Clemente Award. In February 1994, Smith took on the role of honorary chairman and official spokesman for the Missouri Governor's Council on Physical Fitness and Health.
1996
As Smith entered the 1996 season, he finalized a divorce from his wife Denise during the first half of the year. Meanwhile, manager Tony La Russa began his first season with the Cardinals in tandem with a new ownership group. After General Manager Walt Jocketty acquired shortstop Royce Clayton during the offseason, La Russa emphasized an open competition for the spot that would give the Cardinals the best chance to win. When spring training concluded, Smith had amassed a .288 batting average and zero errors in the field, and Clayton batted .190 with eight errors. Smith believed he had earned the position with his spring training performance, but La Russa disagreed, and awarded Clayton the majority of playing time in the platoon situation that developed, where Smith typically saw action every third game. La Russa said, "I think it's fair to say he misunderstood how he compared to Royce in spring training ... When I and the coaches evaluated the play in spring training—the whole game—Royce started very slowly offensively and you could see him start to get better. By what he was able to do defensively and on the bases, Royce deserved to play the majority of the games."
Smith missed the first month of the season with a hamstring injury, and continued to harbor ill feelings toward La Russa that had developed after spring training ended. In a closed-door meeting in mid-May, La Russa asked Smith if he would like to be traded. Instead, Smith and his agent negotiated a compromise with Cardinals management, agreeing to a buyout of special provisions in his contract in conjunction with Smith announcing his retirement. The agreement prompted a press conference at Busch Stadium on June 19, 1996, during which Smith announced he would retire from baseball at season's end.
As Smith made his final tour of the National League, he was honored by many teams, and received a standing ovation at the 1996 All-Star Game in Philadelphia. Between June 19 and September 1, Smith's batting average increased from .239 to .286. On September 2 Smith tied a career high by scoring four runs, one of which was a home run, and another on a close play at home plate in the bottom of the 10th inning against division leader Houston. The victory moved the Cardinals to within a half game of Houston in the National League Central Division, and the Cardinals went on to win the division by six games. The Cardinals held a special ceremony at Busch Stadium on September 28, 1996, before a game against the Cincinnati Reds, honoring Smith by retiring his uniform number. Noted for his ritual backflip before Opening Days, All-Star Games, and postseason games, Smith chose this occasion to perform it for one of the last times.
In the postseason, the Cardinals first faced the San Diego Padres in the 1996 National League Division Series. After sitting out Game 1, Smith got the start in Game 2 at Busch Stadium, helping his team go up two games in the series by notching a run, a hit and two walks at the plate, along with an assist and a putout in the field. The Cardinals then swept the series by winning Game 3 in San Diego.
The Cardinals faced the Atlanta Braves in the 1996 National League Championship Series. Smith started Game 1 and subsequently registered three putouts and one assist in the field, but went hitless in four at-bats in the Cardinals' 4–2 loss. The Cardinals then won Games 2, 3, and 4, contests in which Smith did not appear. Upon receiving the start in Game 5, Smith nearly duplicated his Game 1 performance with four putouts, one assist, and no hits in four at-bats as part of another Cardinals defeat. The Cardinals also failed to win Game 6 or Game 7 in Atlanta, ending their season. When the Cardinals were trailing by 10 runs during Game 7 on October 17, Smith flied out to right field while pinch-hitting in the sixth inning, marking the end of his playing career.
Smith finished his career with distinctions ranging from the accumulation of more than 27.5 million votes in All-Star balloting, to holding the record for the most MLB at-bats without hitting a grand slam.
Post-playing career
Upon retirement, Smith took over from Mel Allen as the host of the television series This Week in Baseball (TWIB) in 1997. Smith also became color commentator for the local broadcast of Cardinals games on KPLR-TV from 1997 to 1999. When his stint on This Week in Baseball concluded, Smith then moved on to do work for CNN-SI beginning in 1999. After La Russa retired as manager of the Cardinals in 2011, Smith became active in the organization again, starting with his stint as a special instructor for the team's 2012 spring training camp.
On January 8, 2002 Smith learned via a phone call he had been elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame on his first ballot by receiving 91.7% of the votes cast. As it happened, the Olympic torch was passing through St. Louis on its way to Salt Lake City for the 2002 Winter Olympics, and Smith served as a torchbearer in a ceremony with St. Louis Rams' quarterback Kurt Warner that evening. Smith was inducted into the Hall of Fame during ceremonies on July 28, 2002. During his speech, he compared his baseball experiences with the characters from the novel The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, after which his son Dustin presented his Hall of Fame plaque. Days later on August 11, Smith was back at Busch Memorial Stadium for the unveiling of a statue in his likeness made by sculptor Harry Weber. Weber chose to emphasize Smith's defensive skills by showing Smith stretched horizontal to the ground while fielding a baseball. At the ceremony Weber told Smith, "You spent half of your career up in the air. That makes it difficult for a sculptor to do something with it."
Smith has also been an entrepreneur in a variety of business ventures. Smith opened "Ozzie's" restaurant and sports bar in 1988, started a youth sports academy in 1990, became an investor in a grocery store chain in 1999, and partnered with David Slay to open a restaurant in the early 2000s. Of those businesses the youth academy remains in operation, with the restaurant having closed in 2010 after changing ownership and locations once. Aside from appearing in numerous radio and television commercials in the St. Louis area since retiring from baseball, Smith authored a children's book in 2006 and launched his own brand of salad dressing in 2008.
Besides the National Baseball Hall of Fame, Smith has also been inducted or honored in other halls of fame and recognitions. In 1999, he ranked number 87 on The Sporting News''' list of the 100 Greatest Baseball Players, and finished third in voting at shortstop for the Major League Baseball All-Century Team. He was honored with induction into the Missouri Sports Hall of Fame, Alabama Sports Hall of Fame and the St. Louis Walk of Fame, and received an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degree from Cal Poly. In January 2014, the Cardinals announced Smith among 22 former players and personnel to be inducted into the St. Louis Cardinals Hall of Fame Museum for the inaugural class of 2014.
Career MLB statistics
Hitting
Fielding
Personal life
Smith is the father to three children from his marriage to former wife Denise; sons Nikko and Dustin, and daughter Taryn. Nikko cracked the top ten finalists of the 2005 edition of American Idol.Wald, Jaina. "When it's 'Idol' time at Ozzie's, folks go crazy for Nikko". St. Louis Post-Dispatch. April 6, 2005. E3. Retrieved on 2008-03-19. In 2012, Smith made news headlines again, when he sold all of his Gold Gloves at auction together for more than $500,000.
Smith still lives in and remains a visible figure around St. Louis, making varied appearances like playing the role of the Wizard in the St. Louis Municipal Opera's summer 2001 production of The Wizard of Oz''. He is the host of Cardinals Insider, a weekly news magazine televsion show about the club. Since 2016, he has opened five regenerative medicine clinics around Missouri.
See also
List of Major League Baseball career stolen bases leaders
List of Major League Baseball career games played leaders
List of Major League Baseball career doubles leaders
List of Major League Baseball career runs scored leaders
List of Major League Baseball career hits leaders
List of St. Louis Cardinals team records
References
Further reading
External links
Ozzie Smith at SABR (Baseball BioProject)
Ozzie Smith at St. Louis Walk of Fame
Interview with Ozzie Smith on KUT's "In Black America" radio series, September 8, 1988 at the American Archive of Public Broadcasting
1954 births
Living people
African-American baseball players
Baseball players from Alabama
Cal Poly Mustangs baseball players
Gold Glove Award winners
Major League Baseball broadcasters
Major League Baseball players with retired numbers
Major League Baseball shortstops
National Baseball Hall of Fame inductees
National League All-Stars
Baseball players from Los Angeles
Sportspeople from Mobile, Alabama
San Diego Padres players
St. Louis Cardinals announcers
St. Louis Cardinals players
Walla Walla Padres players
National League Championship Series MVPs
Silver Slugger Award winners
People from Watts, Los Angeles
21st-century African-American people
20th-century African-American sportspeople | true | [
"\"I Cried\" is a popular song written by Michael Elias and Billy Duke.\n\nThe best-selling version was done by Patti Page, reaching number 13 on the Billboard chart in 1954. It was released by Mercury Records as catalog number 70416. The song was a two-sided hit, with the flip side \"What a Dream\" doing even better on the chart. It entered the chart on September 1, 1954, and stayed on for three weeks, peaking at number 26 on the Billboard Best Seller chart. Another version, by Tommy Leonetti, reached number 30 the same year. The song reached number 18 on the Cash Box best-selling record chart in that year.\n\nThe song was covered by Eddie Holman in his 1970 album, I Love You.\n\nReferences\n\n1954 songs",
"Tom McNeal (born Santa Ana, California November 1947) is an American novelist and short story writer.\n\nBiography\nTom McNeal was educated at the University of California and Stanford University, where he was a Stegner Fellow and Jones Lecturer. He spent parts of boyhood summers at the Nebraska farm where his mother was born and raised, and later taught school in the nearby town that was the inspiration for his first novel, Goodnight, Nebraska, which won the James A. Michener Prize and the California Book Award. To Be Sung Underwater, his second novel, is set in both in California and Nebraska, and was named one of the 5 Best Novels of the Year by USA Today. His short fiction has been included in Best American Short Stories, The O. Henry Prize Collection and The Pushcart Prize Collection, and \"What Happened to Tully,\" which first appeared in The Atlantic Monthly, was made into the movie Tully. Additionally, with his wife, Laura Rhoton McNeal, he has co-authored four YA novels (Crooked; Zipped; Crushed; The Decoding of Lana Morris), all published by Knopf. Far Far Away, his newest book for younger readers, was published in 2013 and was a National Book Award Finalist, Edgar Award Finalist, winner of the California Book Award, winner of the Southern California Independent Booksellers Award, a Publishers Weekly Best Book of the Year, a School Library Journal Best Book of the Year, a Horn Book Fanfare Best book of the Year, and an ALA-YALSA Top Ten Best Fiction for Young Adults.\n\nTom lives in Coronado, California with his wife Laura, their sons Sam and Hank and the family mini-dachshund Link.\n\nNovels and short stories \n Far Far Away Knopf 2013 \n To Be Sung Underwater Hachette 2011 \n California's Best: Two Centuries of Great Writing from the Golden State 2009 Edited by Peter Fish, Far Country Press \n The Decoding of Lana Morris (with co-author Laura McNeal) Knopf 2007 \n Crushed (with Laura McNeal) Knopf 2005 \n \"Watermelon Days\" Zoetrope: All Story \n Best American Short Stories 2002 (\"Watermelon Days\") Mariner Books \n Zipped (with Laura McNeal) Knopf 2000 \n Goodnight, Nebraska Random House 1998 \n Crooked (with Laura McNeal) Knopf 1998 \n \"What Happened to Tully\" Prize Stories 1992: The O. Henry Awards Anchor Press \n The Dog Who Lost His Bob (with Laura McNeal) Albert Whitman 1996 \n\nInternet page: https://web.archive.org/web/20140910195613/http://mcnealbooks.com/home.aspx\n\nReferences\n\nLiving people\n1947 births\nAmerican male writers\nStegner Fellows"
]
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[
"Ozzie Smith",
"1987-90",
"what was significant about this time period?",
"Herzog made Smith the number-two hitter full-time during the 1987 season.",
"what team did he play for in 87",
"The Cardinals",
"did he have any accomplishments in 87",
"Smith accrued a .303 batting average, 43 stolen bases, 75 RBIs, 104 runs scored, and 40 doubles,",
"what was his best year?",
"1987"
]
| C_c480d60d41bc4e0fa4efe80d33514300_0 | what happened after the 87 season? | 5 | what happened after the 87 season for Ozzie Smith? | Ozzie Smith | After hitting in either the second or eighth spot in the batting order for most of his time in St. Louis, Herzog made Smith the number-two hitter full-time during the 1987 season. Over the course of the year, Smith accrued a .303 batting average, 43 stolen bases, 75 RBIs, 104 runs scored, and 40 doubles, good enough to earn him the Silver Slugger Award at shortstop. In addition to winning the Gold Glove Award at shortstop for the eighth consecutive time, Smith posted a career-high on-base percentage of .392. Smith was also the leading vote-getter in the 1987 All-Star Game. The Cardinals earned a postseason berth with 95 wins, and subsequently faced the San Francisco Giants in the 1987 National League Championship Series. Smith contributed a triple during the series, and the Cardinals won the contest in seven games. The 1987 World Series matched the Cardinals against the American League champion Minnesota Twins. The home team won every game of the contest, as Minnesota won the series. In 28 at-bats during the Series, Smith scored three runs and had two RBIs. Smith finished second in MVP balloting to Andre Dawson, who had played on the last-place Chicago Cubs, largely because Smith and teammate Jack Clark split the first-place vote. Following the 1987 season, Smith was awarded the largest contract in the National League at $2,340,000. While the team did not see the postseason for the remainder of the decade, Smith continued to rack up All-Star appearances and Gold Gloves. Combined with the attention he received from his contract, Smith continued to be a national figure. Known as a savvy dresser, he made the April 1988 cover of GQ magazine. Smith was witness to change within the Cardinal organization when owner Gussie Busch died in 1989 and Herzog quit as manager during the 1990 season. CANNOTANSWER | Following the 1987 season, Smith was awarded the largest contract in the National League at $2,340,000. | Osborne Earl "Ozzie" Smith (born December 26, 1954) is an American former professional baseball player. Nicknamed "The Wizard of Oz", Smith played shortstop for the San Diego Padres and St. Louis Cardinals in Major League Baseball, winning the National League Gold Glove Award for defensive play at shortstop for 13 consecutive seasons. A 15-time All-Star, Smith accumulated 2,460 hits and 580 stolen bases during his career, and won the National League Silver Slugger Award as the best hitter at shortstop in 1987. He was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in his first year of eligibility in 2002. He was also elected to the St. Louis Cardinals Hall of Fame in the inaugural class of 2014.
Smith was born in Mobile, Alabama, but his family moved to Watts, Los Angeles, when he was six years old. While participating in childhood athletic activities, Smith developed quick reflexes; he went on to play baseball in high school and college, at Los Angeles' Locke High School and Cal Poly-San Luis Obispo respectively. Drafted as an amateur player by the Padres, Smith made his major league debut in 1978. He quickly established himself as an outstanding fielder, and later became known for performing backflips on special occasions while taking his position at the beginning of a game. Smith won his first Gold Glove Award in 1980 and made his first All-Star Game appearance in 1981. When conflict with Padres' ownership developed, he was traded to the Cardinals for shortstop Garry Templeton in 1982.
Upon joining the Cardinals, Smith helped the team win the 1982 World Series. Three years later, his game-winning home run during Game 5 of the 1985 National League Championship Series prompted broadcaster Jack Buck's "Go crazy, folks!" play-by-play call. Despite a rotator cuff injury during the 1985 season, Smith posted career highs in multiple offensive categories in 1987. Smith continued to earn Gold Gloves and All-Star appearances on an annual basis until 1993. During the 1995 season, Smith had shoulder surgery and was out nearly three months. After tension with his new manager Tony La Russa developed in 1996, Smith retired at season's end, and his uniform number (No. 1) was subsequently retired by the Cardinals. Smith served as host of the television show This Week in Baseball from 1997 to 1998.
Early life
Smith was born in Mobile, Alabama, the second of Clovi and Marvella Smith's six children (five boys and one girl). While the family lived in Mobile, his father worked as a sandblaster at Brookley Air Force Base. When Smith was six his family moved to the Watts section of Los Angeles. His father became a delivery truck driver for Safeway stores, while his mother became an aide at a nursing home. His mother was an influential part of his life who stressed the importance of education and encouraged him to pursue his dreams.
Smith played a variety of sports in his youth, though considered baseball to be his favorite. He developed quick reflexes through various athletic and leisure activity, such as bouncing a ball off the concrete steps in front of his house, moving in closer to reduce reaction time with each throw. When not at the local YMCA or playing sports, Smith sometimes went with friends to the neighborhood lumberyard, springboarding off inner tubes and doing flips into sawdust piles (a precursor to his famous backflips). In 1965, at age 10, he endured the Watts Riots with his family, recalling that, "We had to sleep on the floor because of all the sniping and looting going on."
While Smith was attending junior high school, his parents divorced. Continuing to pursue his interest in baseball, he would ride the bus for nearly an hour to reach Dodger Stadium, cheering for the Los Angeles Dodgers at about 25 games a year. Upon becoming a student at Locke High School, Smith played on the basketball and baseball teams. Smith was a teammate of future National Basketball Association player Marques Johnson on the basketball team, and a teammate of future fellow Hall-of-Fame player Eddie Murray on the baseball side. After high school Smith attended Cal Poly San Luis Obispo in 1974 on a partial academic scholarship, and managed to walk-on to the baseball team. In addition to his academic education, he learned to switch-hit from Cal Poly coach Berdy Harr. When Cal Poly's starting shortstop broke his leg midway through the 1974 season, Smith subsequently took over the starting role. Later named an All-American athlete, he established school records in career at bats (754) and career stolen bases (110) before graduating in 1977.
Professional baseball career
San Diego Padres
Smith was playing semi-professional baseball in Clarinda, Iowa, when in June 1976 he was selected in the seventh round of the amateur entry draft by the Detroit Tigers. The parties could not agree on a contract; Smith wanted a $10,000 ($ today) signing bonus, while the Tigers offered $8,500 ($ today). Smith returned to Cal Poly for his senior year, then in the 1977 draft was selected in the fourth round by the San Diego Padres, ultimately agreeing to a contract that included a $5,000 signing bonus ($ today). Smith spent his first year of professional baseball during 1977 with the Class A Walla Walla Padres of the Northwest League.
Smith began 1978 as a non-roster invitee to the San Diego Padres' spring training camp in Yuma, Arizona. Smith credited Padres manager Alvin Dark for giving him confidence by telling reporters the shortstop job was Smith's until he proved he can't handle it. Even though Dark was fired in the middle of training camp, Smith made his Major League Baseball (MLB) debut on April 7, 1978.
It did not take long for Smith to earn recognition in the major leagues, making what some consider his greatest fielding play only 10 games into his rookie season. The Padres played host to the Atlanta Braves on April 20, 1978, and with two out in the top of the fourth inning, Atlanta's Jeff Burroughs hit a ground ball up the middle. Smith described the play by saying, "He hit a ball back up the middle that everybody thought was going into center field. I instinctively broke to my left and dove behind second. As I was in the air, the ball took a bad hop and caromed behind me, but I was able to catch it with my bare hand. I hit the ground, bounced back up, and threw Burroughs out at first."
During a roadtrip to Houston, later in the season, Smith met a part-time usherette at the Astrodome named Denise while making his way to the team bus outside the stadium. The couple developed a relationship that was sometimes long-distance in nature, and eventually decided to marry. It was also during the 1978 season where Smith introduced a signature move. Padres promotion director Andy Strasberg knew Smith could perform backflips, though only did them during practice before fans entered the stadium. Strasberg asked Smith to do a backflip for fans during Fan Appreciation Day on October 1, the Padres' last home game of the season. After conferring with veteran teammate Gene Tenace, Smith went ahead with the backflip, and it proved to be wildly popular. Smith finished the 1978 season with a .258 batting average and .970 fielding percentage, placing him second in the National League Rookie of the Year voting to Bob Horner.
After working with a hitting instructor during the offseason, Smith failed to record a base hit in his first 32 at-bats of the 1979 season. Among players with enough at-bats to qualify for the 1979 National League Triple Crown, Smith finished the season last in batting average (.211), home runs (0), and RBI (27). Off the field, conflict developed between Padres' ownership and the combination of Smith and his agent, Ed Gottlieb. The parties entered into a contract dispute before the 1980 season, and when negotiations lasted into spring training, the Padres renewed Smith's contract at his 1979 salary of $72,500 Smith's agent told the Padres the shortstop would forgo the season to race in the Tour de France, despite the fact Smith admitted to The Break Room on 96.5 WCMF in Rochester, New York, he had never heard of the Tour. Angered by the Padres' attitude during those contract talks, Gottlieb took out a help-wanted ad in the San Diego Union, part of which read, "Padre baseball player wants part-time employment to supplement income." When Joan Kroc, wife of Padres owner Ray Kroc, publicly offered Smith a job as an assistant gardener on her estate, Smith and Gottlieb's relationship with the organization deteriorated further.
Meanwhile, Smith was winning recognition for his accomplishments on the field. In 1980, he set the single-season record for most assists by a shortstop (621), and began his string of 13 consecutive Gold Glove awards. Smith's fielding play prompted the Yuma Daily Sun to use the nickname "The Wizard of Oz" in a March 1981 feature article about Smith. While "The Wizard of Oz" nickname was an allusion to the 1939 motion picture of the same name, Smith also came to be known as simply "The Wizard" during his playing career, as Smith's Baseball Hall of Fame plaque would later attest. In 1981, Smith made his first All-Star Game appearance as a reserve player.
Trade
While Smith was having problems with the Padres' owners, the St. Louis Cardinals also found themselves unhappy with their shortstop, Garry Templeton. Templeton's relationship with Cardinal Nation had become increasingly strained and finally came to a head during a game at Busch Stadium on August 26, 1981, when (after being heckled for not running out a ground ball) he made obscene gestures at fans, and had to be physically pulled off the field by manager Whitey Herzog.
Given the task of overhauling the Cardinals by owner Gussie Busch (and specifically to unload Templeton), Herzog was looking to trade Templeton when he was approached by Padres General Manager Jack McKeon at the 1981 baseball winter meetings. While McKeon had previously told Herzog that Smith was untouchable in any trade, the Padres were now so angry at Smith's agent Gottlieb that McKeon was willing to deal. McKeon and Herzog agreed in principle to a six-player trade, with Templeton for Smith as the centerpiece. It was then that Padres manager Dick Williams informed Herzog a no-trade clause had been included in Smith's 1981 contract. Upon learning of the trade, Smith's initial reaction was to invoke the clause and stay in San Diego, but he was still interested to hear what the Cardinals had to say. While the deal for the players beside Templeton and Smith went through, Herzog flew to San Diego to meet with Smith and Gottlieb over the Christmas holiday. Smith later recalled that, "Whitey told me that with me playing shortstop for the St. Louis Cardinals, we could win the pennant. He made me feel wanted, which was a feeling I was quickly losing from the Padres. The mere fact that Whitey would come all the way out there to talk to us was more than enough to convince me that St. Louis was the place I wanted to be."
St. Louis Cardinals
1982–1984
On December 10, 1981, the Padres traded him along with a player to be named later and Steve Mura to the Cardinals for a player to be named later, Sixto Lezcano and Garry Templeton. The teams completed the trade on February 19, 1982, with the Padres sending Al Olmsted to the Cardinals, and St. Louis sending Luis DeLeon to the Padres. Herzog believed Smith could improve his offensive production by hitting more ground balls, and subsequently created a motivational tool designed to help Smith concentrate on that task. Approaching Smith one day during spring training, Herzog said, "Every time you hit a fly ball, you owe me a buck. Every time you hit a ground ball, I owe you a buck. We'll keep that going all year." Smith agreed to the wager, and by the end of the season had won close to $300 from Herzog. As the 1982 season got underway, Herzog's newly assembled team won 12 games in a row during the month of April, and finished the season atop the National League East division. Herzog would later say of Smith's contributions that, "If he saved two runs a game on defense, which he did many a night, it seemed to me that was just as valuable to the team as a player who drove in two runs a game on offense."
Smith became a father for the first time during the 1982 season with the birth of his son O.J., today known as Nikko, on April 28. Smith also developed a lasting friendship with teammate Willie McGee during the season, and Smith said he likes to think he "helped Willie get over some of the rough spots of adjusting to the major leagues". Smith later participated in the postseason for the first time when the Cardinals faced the Atlanta Braves in the best-of-five 1982 National League Championship Series (NLCS). Smith drove in the series' first run by hitting a sacrifice fly which scored McGee in Game 1, ultimately going five for nine in St. Louis' three-game series sweep.
Just as Herzog had predicted when he told Smith the Cardinals would win the pennant with him on the team, Smith found himself as the team's starting shortstop in the best-of-seven 1982 World Series against the Milwaukee Brewers. During the contest Smith scored three runs, had five hits, and did not commit an error in the field. When St. Louis was trailing 3–1 with one out in the sixth inning of Game 7, Smith started a rally with a base hit to left field, eventually scoring the first of the team's three runs that inning. The Cardinals scored two more runs in the 8th inning for a 6–3 win and the championship.
After the World Series championship, Smith and the Cardinals agreed on a new contract in January 1983 that paid Smith $1 million per year. Smith was voted in as the National League's starting shortstop in the All-Star Game for the first time in 1983, and at season's end won a fourth consecutive Gold Glove Award. During July of the 1984 season, Smith went on the disabled list with a broken wrist after being hit by a pitch during a game against the Padres. Smith's return to the lineup a month later was not enough to propel the Cardinals to a postseason berth.
1985–1986
In 1985, Smith amassed a .276 batting average, 31 stolen bases, and 591 assists in the field. The Cardinals as a team won 101 games during the season and earned another postseason berth. Facing the Los Angeles Dodgers in the now best-of-seven NLCS, a split of the first four games set the stage for Game 5 at Busch Stadium. With the score tied at two runs apiece in the bottom of the ninth inning, Dodgers manager Tommy Lasorda called upon closer Tom Niedenfuer to pitch. Smith batted left-handed against Niedenfuer with one out. Smith, who had never hit a home run in his previous 2,967 left-handed major league at-bats, pulled an inside fastball down the right-field line for a walk-off home run, ending Game 5 in a 3–2 Cardinals victory. Smith said, "I was trying to get an extra-base hit and get into scoring position. Fortunately, I was able to get the ball up." The home run not only prompted broadcaster Jack Buck's "Go crazy folks" play-by-play call, but was also later voted the greatest moment in Busch Stadium history by Cardinals fans.
After Smith's teammate Jack Clark hit a late-inning home run of his own in Game 6 to defeat the Dodgers, the Cardinals moved on to face the Kansas City Royals in the 1985 World Series. Once again sportswriters were quick to draw attention to Smith's outstanding defensive play instead of his 2 for 23 effort at the plate. After the Cardinals took a three-games-to-two advantage, a controversial Game 6 call by umpire Don Denkinger overshadowed the remainder of the Series (which the Royals won in seven games).
What was not publicly known during the regular season and playoffs was that Smith had torn his rotator cuff after suffering an impingement in his right shoulder during the July 11–14 homestand against the Padres. After suffering the impingement diving back into first base on a pickoff throw, Smith altered his throwing motion to such a degree that the rotator cuff tear subsequently developed. The 5'10" (1.78 m), 180-pound (82 kg) Smith opted to forgo surgery and instead built up his arm strength via weightlifting, playing through whatever pain he encountered. Said Smith, "I didn't tell anybody about the injury, because I wanted to keep playing and didn't want anybody thinking they could run on me or take advantage of the injury. I tried to do almost everything, except throw a baseball, left-handed: opening a door, turning on the radio—everything. It didn't get any better, but it was good enough that I didn't have to have surgery."
Because of his injury, Smith let his then four-year-old son Nikko perform his traditional Opening Day backflip before the Cardinals' first home game of the 1986 season. Smith made an "eye-popping" play later that season on August 4, during a game against the Philadelphia Phillies at Busch Stadium. In the top of the ninth inning, Phillies pinch-hitter Von Hayes hit a short fly ball to left field, which was pursued by both Smith and left fielder Curt Ford. Running with his back to home plate, Smith dove forward, simultaneously catching the ball while parallel to the ground and flying over the diving Ford, avoiding a collision by inches.
1987–1990
After hitting in either the second or eighth spot in the batting order for most of his time in St. Louis, Herzog made Smith the number-two hitter full-time during the 1987 season. Over the course of the year, Smith accrued a .303 batting average, 43 stolen bases, 75 RBIs, 104 runs scored, and 40 doubles, good enough to earn him the Silver Slugger Award at shortstop. In addition to winning the Gold Glove Award at shortstop for the eighth consecutive time, Smith posted a career-high on-base percentage of .392. Smith was also the leading vote-getter in the 1987 All-Star Game. The Cardinals earned a postseason berth with 95 wins, and subsequently faced the San Francisco Giants in the 1987 National League Championship Series. Smith contributed a triple during the series, and the Cardinals won the contest in seven games.
The 1987 World Series matched the Cardinals against the American League champion Minnesota Twins. The home team won every game of the contest, as Minnesota won the series. In 28 at-bats during the Series, Smith scored three runs and had two RBIs. Smith finished second in MVP balloting to Andre Dawson, who had played on the last-place Chicago Cubs, largely because Smith and teammate Jack Clark split the first-place vote. Following the 1987 season, Smith was awarded the largest contract in the National League at $2.34 million.
While the team did not see the postseason for the remainder of the decade, Smith continued to rack up All-Star appearances and Gold Gloves. Combined with the attention he received from his contract, Smith continued to be a national figure. Known as a savvy dresser, he made the April 1988 cover of GQ magazine. Smith was witness to change within the Cardinal organization when owner Gussie Busch died in 1989 and Herzog quit as manager during the 1990 season.
1990–1995
Joe Torre became Smith's new manager in 1990, but the team did not reach the postseason during Torre's nearly five-year tenure. While the Cardinals celebrated their 100th anniversary in 1992, Smith marked milestones of his own, stealing his 500th career base on April 26, then notching a triple on May 26 in front of the home crowd for his 2,000th hit. St. Louis had a one-game lead in the National League East division on June 1, 1992, but injuries took their toll on the team, including Smith's two-week illness in late July after contracting chicken pox for the first time. As a testament to his national visibility during this time, Smith appeared in a 1992 episode of The Simpsons titled "Homer at the Bat". Smith became a free agent for the first time in his career on November 2, 1992, only to sign a new contract with the Cardinals on December 6.
Smith won his final Gold Glove in 1992, and his 13 consecutive Gold Gloves at shortstop in the National League has yet to be matched. The 1993 season marked the only time between 1981 and 1996 where Smith failed to make the All-Star team, and Smith finished the 1993 season with a .288 batting average and .974 fielding percentage. He appeared in 98 games during the strike-shortened 1994 season, and later missed nearly three months of the 1995 season after shoulder surgery on May 31. Smith was recognized for his community service efforts with the 1994 Branch Rickey Award and the 1995 Roberto Clemente Award. In February 1994, Smith took on the role of honorary chairman and official spokesman for the Missouri Governor's Council on Physical Fitness and Health.
1996
As Smith entered the 1996 season, he finalized a divorce from his wife Denise during the first half of the year. Meanwhile, manager Tony La Russa began his first season with the Cardinals in tandem with a new ownership group. After General Manager Walt Jocketty acquired shortstop Royce Clayton during the offseason, La Russa emphasized an open competition for the spot that would give the Cardinals the best chance to win. When spring training concluded, Smith had amassed a .288 batting average and zero errors in the field, and Clayton batted .190 with eight errors. Smith believed he had earned the position with his spring training performance, but La Russa disagreed, and awarded Clayton the majority of playing time in the platoon situation that developed, where Smith typically saw action every third game. La Russa said, "I think it's fair to say he misunderstood how he compared to Royce in spring training ... When I and the coaches evaluated the play in spring training—the whole game—Royce started very slowly offensively and you could see him start to get better. By what he was able to do defensively and on the bases, Royce deserved to play the majority of the games."
Smith missed the first month of the season with a hamstring injury, and continued to harbor ill feelings toward La Russa that had developed after spring training ended. In a closed-door meeting in mid-May, La Russa asked Smith if he would like to be traded. Instead, Smith and his agent negotiated a compromise with Cardinals management, agreeing to a buyout of special provisions in his contract in conjunction with Smith announcing his retirement. The agreement prompted a press conference at Busch Stadium on June 19, 1996, during which Smith announced he would retire from baseball at season's end.
As Smith made his final tour of the National League, he was honored by many teams, and received a standing ovation at the 1996 All-Star Game in Philadelphia. Between June 19 and September 1, Smith's batting average increased from .239 to .286. On September 2 Smith tied a career high by scoring four runs, one of which was a home run, and another on a close play at home plate in the bottom of the 10th inning against division leader Houston. The victory moved the Cardinals to within a half game of Houston in the National League Central Division, and the Cardinals went on to win the division by six games. The Cardinals held a special ceremony at Busch Stadium on September 28, 1996, before a game against the Cincinnati Reds, honoring Smith by retiring his uniform number. Noted for his ritual backflip before Opening Days, All-Star Games, and postseason games, Smith chose this occasion to perform it for one of the last times.
In the postseason, the Cardinals first faced the San Diego Padres in the 1996 National League Division Series. After sitting out Game 1, Smith got the start in Game 2 at Busch Stadium, helping his team go up two games in the series by notching a run, a hit and two walks at the plate, along with an assist and a putout in the field. The Cardinals then swept the series by winning Game 3 in San Diego.
The Cardinals faced the Atlanta Braves in the 1996 National League Championship Series. Smith started Game 1 and subsequently registered three putouts and one assist in the field, but went hitless in four at-bats in the Cardinals' 4–2 loss. The Cardinals then won Games 2, 3, and 4, contests in which Smith did not appear. Upon receiving the start in Game 5, Smith nearly duplicated his Game 1 performance with four putouts, one assist, and no hits in four at-bats as part of another Cardinals defeat. The Cardinals also failed to win Game 6 or Game 7 in Atlanta, ending their season. When the Cardinals were trailing by 10 runs during Game 7 on October 17, Smith flied out to right field while pinch-hitting in the sixth inning, marking the end of his playing career.
Smith finished his career with distinctions ranging from the accumulation of more than 27.5 million votes in All-Star balloting, to holding the record for the most MLB at-bats without hitting a grand slam.
Post-playing career
Upon retirement, Smith took over from Mel Allen as the host of the television series This Week in Baseball (TWIB) in 1997. Smith also became color commentator for the local broadcast of Cardinals games on KPLR-TV from 1997 to 1999. When his stint on This Week in Baseball concluded, Smith then moved on to do work for CNN-SI beginning in 1999. After La Russa retired as manager of the Cardinals in 2011, Smith became active in the organization again, starting with his stint as a special instructor for the team's 2012 spring training camp.
On January 8, 2002 Smith learned via a phone call he had been elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame on his first ballot by receiving 91.7% of the votes cast. As it happened, the Olympic torch was passing through St. Louis on its way to Salt Lake City for the 2002 Winter Olympics, and Smith served as a torchbearer in a ceremony with St. Louis Rams' quarterback Kurt Warner that evening. Smith was inducted into the Hall of Fame during ceremonies on July 28, 2002. During his speech, he compared his baseball experiences with the characters from the novel The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, after which his son Dustin presented his Hall of Fame plaque. Days later on August 11, Smith was back at Busch Memorial Stadium for the unveiling of a statue in his likeness made by sculptor Harry Weber. Weber chose to emphasize Smith's defensive skills by showing Smith stretched horizontal to the ground while fielding a baseball. At the ceremony Weber told Smith, "You spent half of your career up in the air. That makes it difficult for a sculptor to do something with it."
Smith has also been an entrepreneur in a variety of business ventures. Smith opened "Ozzie's" restaurant and sports bar in 1988, started a youth sports academy in 1990, became an investor in a grocery store chain in 1999, and partnered with David Slay to open a restaurant in the early 2000s. Of those businesses the youth academy remains in operation, with the restaurant having closed in 2010 after changing ownership and locations once. Aside from appearing in numerous radio and television commercials in the St. Louis area since retiring from baseball, Smith authored a children's book in 2006 and launched his own brand of salad dressing in 2008.
Besides the National Baseball Hall of Fame, Smith has also been inducted or honored in other halls of fame and recognitions. In 1999, he ranked number 87 on The Sporting News''' list of the 100 Greatest Baseball Players, and finished third in voting at shortstop for the Major League Baseball All-Century Team. He was honored with induction into the Missouri Sports Hall of Fame, Alabama Sports Hall of Fame and the St. Louis Walk of Fame, and received an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degree from Cal Poly. In January 2014, the Cardinals announced Smith among 22 former players and personnel to be inducted into the St. Louis Cardinals Hall of Fame Museum for the inaugural class of 2014.
Career MLB statistics
Hitting
Fielding
Personal life
Smith is the father to three children from his marriage to former wife Denise; sons Nikko and Dustin, and daughter Taryn. Nikko cracked the top ten finalists of the 2005 edition of American Idol.Wald, Jaina. "When it's 'Idol' time at Ozzie's, folks go crazy for Nikko". St. Louis Post-Dispatch. April 6, 2005. E3. Retrieved on 2008-03-19. In 2012, Smith made news headlines again, when he sold all of his Gold Gloves at auction together for more than $500,000.
Smith still lives in and remains a visible figure around St. Louis, making varied appearances like playing the role of the Wizard in the St. Louis Municipal Opera's summer 2001 production of The Wizard of Oz''. He is the host of Cardinals Insider, a weekly news magazine televsion show about the club. Since 2016, he has opened five regenerative medicine clinics around Missouri.
See also
List of Major League Baseball career stolen bases leaders
List of Major League Baseball career games played leaders
List of Major League Baseball career doubles leaders
List of Major League Baseball career runs scored leaders
List of Major League Baseball career hits leaders
List of St. Louis Cardinals team records
References
Further reading
External links
Ozzie Smith at SABR (Baseball BioProject)
Ozzie Smith at St. Louis Walk of Fame
Interview with Ozzie Smith on KUT's "In Black America" radio series, September 8, 1988 at the American Archive of Public Broadcasting
1954 births
Living people
African-American baseball players
Baseball players from Alabama
Cal Poly Mustangs baseball players
Gold Glove Award winners
Major League Baseball broadcasters
Major League Baseball players with retired numbers
Major League Baseball shortstops
National Baseball Hall of Fame inductees
National League All-Stars
Baseball players from Los Angeles
Sportspeople from Mobile, Alabama
San Diego Padres players
St. Louis Cardinals announcers
St. Louis Cardinals players
Walla Walla Padres players
National League Championship Series MVPs
Silver Slugger Award winners
People from Watts, Los Angeles
21st-century African-American people
20th-century African-American sportspeople | false | [
"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 Ever Happened to Baby Jane? may refer to:\n\nWhat Ever Happened to Baby Jane? (novel), a 1960 suspense novel by Henry Farrell\n What Ever Happened to Baby Jane (film), a 1962 American psychological thriller, based on the novel.\n What Ever Happened to..., a 1991 ABC television film, based on the novel"
]
|
[
"Ozzie Smith",
"1987-90",
"what was significant about this time period?",
"Herzog made Smith the number-two hitter full-time during the 1987 season.",
"what team did he play for in 87",
"The Cardinals",
"did he have any accomplishments in 87",
"Smith accrued a .303 batting average, 43 stolen bases, 75 RBIs, 104 runs scored, and 40 doubles,",
"what was his best year?",
"1987",
"what happened after the 87 season?",
"Following the 1987 season, Smith was awarded the largest contract in the National League at $2,340,000."
]
| C_c480d60d41bc4e0fa4efe80d33514300_0 | did he have any failures? | 6 | did Ozzie Smith have any failures? | Ozzie Smith | After hitting in either the second or eighth spot in the batting order for most of his time in St. Louis, Herzog made Smith the number-two hitter full-time during the 1987 season. Over the course of the year, Smith accrued a .303 batting average, 43 stolen bases, 75 RBIs, 104 runs scored, and 40 doubles, good enough to earn him the Silver Slugger Award at shortstop. In addition to winning the Gold Glove Award at shortstop for the eighth consecutive time, Smith posted a career-high on-base percentage of .392. Smith was also the leading vote-getter in the 1987 All-Star Game. The Cardinals earned a postseason berth with 95 wins, and subsequently faced the San Francisco Giants in the 1987 National League Championship Series. Smith contributed a triple during the series, and the Cardinals won the contest in seven games. The 1987 World Series matched the Cardinals against the American League champion Minnesota Twins. The home team won every game of the contest, as Minnesota won the series. In 28 at-bats during the Series, Smith scored three runs and had two RBIs. Smith finished second in MVP balloting to Andre Dawson, who had played on the last-place Chicago Cubs, largely because Smith and teammate Jack Clark split the first-place vote. Following the 1987 season, Smith was awarded the largest contract in the National League at $2,340,000. While the team did not see the postseason for the remainder of the decade, Smith continued to rack up All-Star appearances and Gold Gloves. Combined with the attention he received from his contract, Smith continued to be a national figure. Known as a savvy dresser, he made the April 1988 cover of GQ magazine. Smith was witness to change within the Cardinal organization when owner Gussie Busch died in 1989 and Herzog quit as manager during the 1990 season. CANNOTANSWER | CANNOTANSWER | Osborne Earl "Ozzie" Smith (born December 26, 1954) is an American former professional baseball player. Nicknamed "The Wizard of Oz", Smith played shortstop for the San Diego Padres and St. Louis Cardinals in Major League Baseball, winning the National League Gold Glove Award for defensive play at shortstop for 13 consecutive seasons. A 15-time All-Star, Smith accumulated 2,460 hits and 580 stolen bases during his career, and won the National League Silver Slugger Award as the best hitter at shortstop in 1987. He was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in his first year of eligibility in 2002. He was also elected to the St. Louis Cardinals Hall of Fame in the inaugural class of 2014.
Smith was born in Mobile, Alabama, but his family moved to Watts, Los Angeles, when he was six years old. While participating in childhood athletic activities, Smith developed quick reflexes; he went on to play baseball in high school and college, at Los Angeles' Locke High School and Cal Poly-San Luis Obispo respectively. Drafted as an amateur player by the Padres, Smith made his major league debut in 1978. He quickly established himself as an outstanding fielder, and later became known for performing backflips on special occasions while taking his position at the beginning of a game. Smith won his first Gold Glove Award in 1980 and made his first All-Star Game appearance in 1981. When conflict with Padres' ownership developed, he was traded to the Cardinals for shortstop Garry Templeton in 1982.
Upon joining the Cardinals, Smith helped the team win the 1982 World Series. Three years later, his game-winning home run during Game 5 of the 1985 National League Championship Series prompted broadcaster Jack Buck's "Go crazy, folks!" play-by-play call. Despite a rotator cuff injury during the 1985 season, Smith posted career highs in multiple offensive categories in 1987. Smith continued to earn Gold Gloves and All-Star appearances on an annual basis until 1993. During the 1995 season, Smith had shoulder surgery and was out nearly three months. After tension with his new manager Tony La Russa developed in 1996, Smith retired at season's end, and his uniform number (No. 1) was subsequently retired by the Cardinals. Smith served as host of the television show This Week in Baseball from 1997 to 1998.
Early life
Smith was born in Mobile, Alabama, the second of Clovi and Marvella Smith's six children (five boys and one girl). While the family lived in Mobile, his father worked as a sandblaster at Brookley Air Force Base. When Smith was six his family moved to the Watts section of Los Angeles. His father became a delivery truck driver for Safeway stores, while his mother became an aide at a nursing home. His mother was an influential part of his life who stressed the importance of education and encouraged him to pursue his dreams.
Smith played a variety of sports in his youth, though considered baseball to be his favorite. He developed quick reflexes through various athletic and leisure activity, such as bouncing a ball off the concrete steps in front of his house, moving in closer to reduce reaction time with each throw. When not at the local YMCA or playing sports, Smith sometimes went with friends to the neighborhood lumberyard, springboarding off inner tubes and doing flips into sawdust piles (a precursor to his famous backflips). In 1965, at age 10, he endured the Watts Riots with his family, recalling that, "We had to sleep on the floor because of all the sniping and looting going on."
While Smith was attending junior high school, his parents divorced. Continuing to pursue his interest in baseball, he would ride the bus for nearly an hour to reach Dodger Stadium, cheering for the Los Angeles Dodgers at about 25 games a year. Upon becoming a student at Locke High School, Smith played on the basketball and baseball teams. Smith was a teammate of future National Basketball Association player Marques Johnson on the basketball team, and a teammate of future fellow Hall-of-Fame player Eddie Murray on the baseball side. After high school Smith attended Cal Poly San Luis Obispo in 1974 on a partial academic scholarship, and managed to walk-on to the baseball team. In addition to his academic education, he learned to switch-hit from Cal Poly coach Berdy Harr. When Cal Poly's starting shortstop broke his leg midway through the 1974 season, Smith subsequently took over the starting role. Later named an All-American athlete, he established school records in career at bats (754) and career stolen bases (110) before graduating in 1977.
Professional baseball career
San Diego Padres
Smith was playing semi-professional baseball in Clarinda, Iowa, when in June 1976 he was selected in the seventh round of the amateur entry draft by the Detroit Tigers. The parties could not agree on a contract; Smith wanted a $10,000 ($ today) signing bonus, while the Tigers offered $8,500 ($ today). Smith returned to Cal Poly for his senior year, then in the 1977 draft was selected in the fourth round by the San Diego Padres, ultimately agreeing to a contract that included a $5,000 signing bonus ($ today). Smith spent his first year of professional baseball during 1977 with the Class A Walla Walla Padres of the Northwest League.
Smith began 1978 as a non-roster invitee to the San Diego Padres' spring training camp in Yuma, Arizona. Smith credited Padres manager Alvin Dark for giving him confidence by telling reporters the shortstop job was Smith's until he proved he can't handle it. Even though Dark was fired in the middle of training camp, Smith made his Major League Baseball (MLB) debut on April 7, 1978.
It did not take long for Smith to earn recognition in the major leagues, making what some consider his greatest fielding play only 10 games into his rookie season. The Padres played host to the Atlanta Braves on April 20, 1978, and with two out in the top of the fourth inning, Atlanta's Jeff Burroughs hit a ground ball up the middle. Smith described the play by saying, "He hit a ball back up the middle that everybody thought was going into center field. I instinctively broke to my left and dove behind second. As I was in the air, the ball took a bad hop and caromed behind me, but I was able to catch it with my bare hand. I hit the ground, bounced back up, and threw Burroughs out at first."
During a roadtrip to Houston, later in the season, Smith met a part-time usherette at the Astrodome named Denise while making his way to the team bus outside the stadium. The couple developed a relationship that was sometimes long-distance in nature, and eventually decided to marry. It was also during the 1978 season where Smith introduced a signature move. Padres promotion director Andy Strasberg knew Smith could perform backflips, though only did them during practice before fans entered the stadium. Strasberg asked Smith to do a backflip for fans during Fan Appreciation Day on October 1, the Padres' last home game of the season. After conferring with veteran teammate Gene Tenace, Smith went ahead with the backflip, and it proved to be wildly popular. Smith finished the 1978 season with a .258 batting average and .970 fielding percentage, placing him second in the National League Rookie of the Year voting to Bob Horner.
After working with a hitting instructor during the offseason, Smith failed to record a base hit in his first 32 at-bats of the 1979 season. Among players with enough at-bats to qualify for the 1979 National League Triple Crown, Smith finished the season last in batting average (.211), home runs (0), and RBI (27). Off the field, conflict developed between Padres' ownership and the combination of Smith and his agent, Ed Gottlieb. The parties entered into a contract dispute before the 1980 season, and when negotiations lasted into spring training, the Padres renewed Smith's contract at his 1979 salary of $72,500 Smith's agent told the Padres the shortstop would forgo the season to race in the Tour de France, despite the fact Smith admitted to The Break Room on 96.5 WCMF in Rochester, New York, he had never heard of the Tour. Angered by the Padres' attitude during those contract talks, Gottlieb took out a help-wanted ad in the San Diego Union, part of which read, "Padre baseball player wants part-time employment to supplement income." When Joan Kroc, wife of Padres owner Ray Kroc, publicly offered Smith a job as an assistant gardener on her estate, Smith and Gottlieb's relationship with the organization deteriorated further.
Meanwhile, Smith was winning recognition for his accomplishments on the field. In 1980, he set the single-season record for most assists by a shortstop (621), and began his string of 13 consecutive Gold Glove awards. Smith's fielding play prompted the Yuma Daily Sun to use the nickname "The Wizard of Oz" in a March 1981 feature article about Smith. While "The Wizard of Oz" nickname was an allusion to the 1939 motion picture of the same name, Smith also came to be known as simply "The Wizard" during his playing career, as Smith's Baseball Hall of Fame plaque would later attest. In 1981, Smith made his first All-Star Game appearance as a reserve player.
Trade
While Smith was having problems with the Padres' owners, the St. Louis Cardinals also found themselves unhappy with their shortstop, Garry Templeton. Templeton's relationship with Cardinal Nation had become increasingly strained and finally came to a head during a game at Busch Stadium on August 26, 1981, when (after being heckled for not running out a ground ball) he made obscene gestures at fans, and had to be physically pulled off the field by manager Whitey Herzog.
Given the task of overhauling the Cardinals by owner Gussie Busch (and specifically to unload Templeton), Herzog was looking to trade Templeton when he was approached by Padres General Manager Jack McKeon at the 1981 baseball winter meetings. While McKeon had previously told Herzog that Smith was untouchable in any trade, the Padres were now so angry at Smith's agent Gottlieb that McKeon was willing to deal. McKeon and Herzog agreed in principle to a six-player trade, with Templeton for Smith as the centerpiece. It was then that Padres manager Dick Williams informed Herzog a no-trade clause had been included in Smith's 1981 contract. Upon learning of the trade, Smith's initial reaction was to invoke the clause and stay in San Diego, but he was still interested to hear what the Cardinals had to say. While the deal for the players beside Templeton and Smith went through, Herzog flew to San Diego to meet with Smith and Gottlieb over the Christmas holiday. Smith later recalled that, "Whitey told me that with me playing shortstop for the St. Louis Cardinals, we could win the pennant. He made me feel wanted, which was a feeling I was quickly losing from the Padres. The mere fact that Whitey would come all the way out there to talk to us was more than enough to convince me that St. Louis was the place I wanted to be."
St. Louis Cardinals
1982–1984
On December 10, 1981, the Padres traded him along with a player to be named later and Steve Mura to the Cardinals for a player to be named later, Sixto Lezcano and Garry Templeton. The teams completed the trade on February 19, 1982, with the Padres sending Al Olmsted to the Cardinals, and St. Louis sending Luis DeLeon to the Padres. Herzog believed Smith could improve his offensive production by hitting more ground balls, and subsequently created a motivational tool designed to help Smith concentrate on that task. Approaching Smith one day during spring training, Herzog said, "Every time you hit a fly ball, you owe me a buck. Every time you hit a ground ball, I owe you a buck. We'll keep that going all year." Smith agreed to the wager, and by the end of the season had won close to $300 from Herzog. As the 1982 season got underway, Herzog's newly assembled team won 12 games in a row during the month of April, and finished the season atop the National League East division. Herzog would later say of Smith's contributions that, "If he saved two runs a game on defense, which he did many a night, it seemed to me that was just as valuable to the team as a player who drove in two runs a game on offense."
Smith became a father for the first time during the 1982 season with the birth of his son O.J., today known as Nikko, on April 28. Smith also developed a lasting friendship with teammate Willie McGee during the season, and Smith said he likes to think he "helped Willie get over some of the rough spots of adjusting to the major leagues". Smith later participated in the postseason for the first time when the Cardinals faced the Atlanta Braves in the best-of-five 1982 National League Championship Series (NLCS). Smith drove in the series' first run by hitting a sacrifice fly which scored McGee in Game 1, ultimately going five for nine in St. Louis' three-game series sweep.
Just as Herzog had predicted when he told Smith the Cardinals would win the pennant with him on the team, Smith found himself as the team's starting shortstop in the best-of-seven 1982 World Series against the Milwaukee Brewers. During the contest Smith scored three runs, had five hits, and did not commit an error in the field. When St. Louis was trailing 3–1 with one out in the sixth inning of Game 7, Smith started a rally with a base hit to left field, eventually scoring the first of the team's three runs that inning. The Cardinals scored two more runs in the 8th inning for a 6–3 win and the championship.
After the World Series championship, Smith and the Cardinals agreed on a new contract in January 1983 that paid Smith $1 million per year. Smith was voted in as the National League's starting shortstop in the All-Star Game for the first time in 1983, and at season's end won a fourth consecutive Gold Glove Award. During July of the 1984 season, Smith went on the disabled list with a broken wrist after being hit by a pitch during a game against the Padres. Smith's return to the lineup a month later was not enough to propel the Cardinals to a postseason berth.
1985–1986
In 1985, Smith amassed a .276 batting average, 31 stolen bases, and 591 assists in the field. The Cardinals as a team won 101 games during the season and earned another postseason berth. Facing the Los Angeles Dodgers in the now best-of-seven NLCS, a split of the first four games set the stage for Game 5 at Busch Stadium. With the score tied at two runs apiece in the bottom of the ninth inning, Dodgers manager Tommy Lasorda called upon closer Tom Niedenfuer to pitch. Smith batted left-handed against Niedenfuer with one out. Smith, who had never hit a home run in his previous 2,967 left-handed major league at-bats, pulled an inside fastball down the right-field line for a walk-off home run, ending Game 5 in a 3–2 Cardinals victory. Smith said, "I was trying to get an extra-base hit and get into scoring position. Fortunately, I was able to get the ball up." The home run not only prompted broadcaster Jack Buck's "Go crazy folks" play-by-play call, but was also later voted the greatest moment in Busch Stadium history by Cardinals fans.
After Smith's teammate Jack Clark hit a late-inning home run of his own in Game 6 to defeat the Dodgers, the Cardinals moved on to face the Kansas City Royals in the 1985 World Series. Once again sportswriters were quick to draw attention to Smith's outstanding defensive play instead of his 2 for 23 effort at the plate. After the Cardinals took a three-games-to-two advantage, a controversial Game 6 call by umpire Don Denkinger overshadowed the remainder of the Series (which the Royals won in seven games).
What was not publicly known during the regular season and playoffs was that Smith had torn his rotator cuff after suffering an impingement in his right shoulder during the July 11–14 homestand against the Padres. After suffering the impingement diving back into first base on a pickoff throw, Smith altered his throwing motion to such a degree that the rotator cuff tear subsequently developed. The 5'10" (1.78 m), 180-pound (82 kg) Smith opted to forgo surgery and instead built up his arm strength via weightlifting, playing through whatever pain he encountered. Said Smith, "I didn't tell anybody about the injury, because I wanted to keep playing and didn't want anybody thinking they could run on me or take advantage of the injury. I tried to do almost everything, except throw a baseball, left-handed: opening a door, turning on the radio—everything. It didn't get any better, but it was good enough that I didn't have to have surgery."
Because of his injury, Smith let his then four-year-old son Nikko perform his traditional Opening Day backflip before the Cardinals' first home game of the 1986 season. Smith made an "eye-popping" play later that season on August 4, during a game against the Philadelphia Phillies at Busch Stadium. In the top of the ninth inning, Phillies pinch-hitter Von Hayes hit a short fly ball to left field, which was pursued by both Smith and left fielder Curt Ford. Running with his back to home plate, Smith dove forward, simultaneously catching the ball while parallel to the ground and flying over the diving Ford, avoiding a collision by inches.
1987–1990
After hitting in either the second or eighth spot in the batting order for most of his time in St. Louis, Herzog made Smith the number-two hitter full-time during the 1987 season. Over the course of the year, Smith accrued a .303 batting average, 43 stolen bases, 75 RBIs, 104 runs scored, and 40 doubles, good enough to earn him the Silver Slugger Award at shortstop. In addition to winning the Gold Glove Award at shortstop for the eighth consecutive time, Smith posted a career-high on-base percentage of .392. Smith was also the leading vote-getter in the 1987 All-Star Game. The Cardinals earned a postseason berth with 95 wins, and subsequently faced the San Francisco Giants in the 1987 National League Championship Series. Smith contributed a triple during the series, and the Cardinals won the contest in seven games.
The 1987 World Series matched the Cardinals against the American League champion Minnesota Twins. The home team won every game of the contest, as Minnesota won the series. In 28 at-bats during the Series, Smith scored three runs and had two RBIs. Smith finished second in MVP balloting to Andre Dawson, who had played on the last-place Chicago Cubs, largely because Smith and teammate Jack Clark split the first-place vote. Following the 1987 season, Smith was awarded the largest contract in the National League at $2.34 million.
While the team did not see the postseason for the remainder of the decade, Smith continued to rack up All-Star appearances and Gold Gloves. Combined with the attention he received from his contract, Smith continued to be a national figure. Known as a savvy dresser, he made the April 1988 cover of GQ magazine. Smith was witness to change within the Cardinal organization when owner Gussie Busch died in 1989 and Herzog quit as manager during the 1990 season.
1990–1995
Joe Torre became Smith's new manager in 1990, but the team did not reach the postseason during Torre's nearly five-year tenure. While the Cardinals celebrated their 100th anniversary in 1992, Smith marked milestones of his own, stealing his 500th career base on April 26, then notching a triple on May 26 in front of the home crowd for his 2,000th hit. St. Louis had a one-game lead in the National League East division on June 1, 1992, but injuries took their toll on the team, including Smith's two-week illness in late July after contracting chicken pox for the first time. As a testament to his national visibility during this time, Smith appeared in a 1992 episode of The Simpsons titled "Homer at the Bat". Smith became a free agent for the first time in his career on November 2, 1992, only to sign a new contract with the Cardinals on December 6.
Smith won his final Gold Glove in 1992, and his 13 consecutive Gold Gloves at shortstop in the National League has yet to be matched. The 1993 season marked the only time between 1981 and 1996 where Smith failed to make the All-Star team, and Smith finished the 1993 season with a .288 batting average and .974 fielding percentage. He appeared in 98 games during the strike-shortened 1994 season, and later missed nearly three months of the 1995 season after shoulder surgery on May 31. Smith was recognized for his community service efforts with the 1994 Branch Rickey Award and the 1995 Roberto Clemente Award. In February 1994, Smith took on the role of honorary chairman and official spokesman for the Missouri Governor's Council on Physical Fitness and Health.
1996
As Smith entered the 1996 season, he finalized a divorce from his wife Denise during the first half of the year. Meanwhile, manager Tony La Russa began his first season with the Cardinals in tandem with a new ownership group. After General Manager Walt Jocketty acquired shortstop Royce Clayton during the offseason, La Russa emphasized an open competition for the spot that would give the Cardinals the best chance to win. When spring training concluded, Smith had amassed a .288 batting average and zero errors in the field, and Clayton batted .190 with eight errors. Smith believed he had earned the position with his spring training performance, but La Russa disagreed, and awarded Clayton the majority of playing time in the platoon situation that developed, where Smith typically saw action every third game. La Russa said, "I think it's fair to say he misunderstood how he compared to Royce in spring training ... When I and the coaches evaluated the play in spring training—the whole game—Royce started very slowly offensively and you could see him start to get better. By what he was able to do defensively and on the bases, Royce deserved to play the majority of the games."
Smith missed the first month of the season with a hamstring injury, and continued to harbor ill feelings toward La Russa that had developed after spring training ended. In a closed-door meeting in mid-May, La Russa asked Smith if he would like to be traded. Instead, Smith and his agent negotiated a compromise with Cardinals management, agreeing to a buyout of special provisions in his contract in conjunction with Smith announcing his retirement. The agreement prompted a press conference at Busch Stadium on June 19, 1996, during which Smith announced he would retire from baseball at season's end.
As Smith made his final tour of the National League, he was honored by many teams, and received a standing ovation at the 1996 All-Star Game in Philadelphia. Between June 19 and September 1, Smith's batting average increased from .239 to .286. On September 2 Smith tied a career high by scoring four runs, one of which was a home run, and another on a close play at home plate in the bottom of the 10th inning against division leader Houston. The victory moved the Cardinals to within a half game of Houston in the National League Central Division, and the Cardinals went on to win the division by six games. The Cardinals held a special ceremony at Busch Stadium on September 28, 1996, before a game against the Cincinnati Reds, honoring Smith by retiring his uniform number. Noted for his ritual backflip before Opening Days, All-Star Games, and postseason games, Smith chose this occasion to perform it for one of the last times.
In the postseason, the Cardinals first faced the San Diego Padres in the 1996 National League Division Series. After sitting out Game 1, Smith got the start in Game 2 at Busch Stadium, helping his team go up two games in the series by notching a run, a hit and two walks at the plate, along with an assist and a putout in the field. The Cardinals then swept the series by winning Game 3 in San Diego.
The Cardinals faced the Atlanta Braves in the 1996 National League Championship Series. Smith started Game 1 and subsequently registered three putouts and one assist in the field, but went hitless in four at-bats in the Cardinals' 4–2 loss. The Cardinals then won Games 2, 3, and 4, contests in which Smith did not appear. Upon receiving the start in Game 5, Smith nearly duplicated his Game 1 performance with four putouts, one assist, and no hits in four at-bats as part of another Cardinals defeat. The Cardinals also failed to win Game 6 or Game 7 in Atlanta, ending their season. When the Cardinals were trailing by 10 runs during Game 7 on October 17, Smith flied out to right field while pinch-hitting in the sixth inning, marking the end of his playing career.
Smith finished his career with distinctions ranging from the accumulation of more than 27.5 million votes in All-Star balloting, to holding the record for the most MLB at-bats without hitting a grand slam.
Post-playing career
Upon retirement, Smith took over from Mel Allen as the host of the television series This Week in Baseball (TWIB) in 1997. Smith also became color commentator for the local broadcast of Cardinals games on KPLR-TV from 1997 to 1999. When his stint on This Week in Baseball concluded, Smith then moved on to do work for CNN-SI beginning in 1999. After La Russa retired as manager of the Cardinals in 2011, Smith became active in the organization again, starting with his stint as a special instructor for the team's 2012 spring training camp.
On January 8, 2002 Smith learned via a phone call he had been elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame on his first ballot by receiving 91.7% of the votes cast. As it happened, the Olympic torch was passing through St. Louis on its way to Salt Lake City for the 2002 Winter Olympics, and Smith served as a torchbearer in a ceremony with St. Louis Rams' quarterback Kurt Warner that evening. Smith was inducted into the Hall of Fame during ceremonies on July 28, 2002. During his speech, he compared his baseball experiences with the characters from the novel The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, after which his son Dustin presented his Hall of Fame plaque. Days later on August 11, Smith was back at Busch Memorial Stadium for the unveiling of a statue in his likeness made by sculptor Harry Weber. Weber chose to emphasize Smith's defensive skills by showing Smith stretched horizontal to the ground while fielding a baseball. At the ceremony Weber told Smith, "You spent half of your career up in the air. That makes it difficult for a sculptor to do something with it."
Smith has also been an entrepreneur in a variety of business ventures. Smith opened "Ozzie's" restaurant and sports bar in 1988, started a youth sports academy in 1990, became an investor in a grocery store chain in 1999, and partnered with David Slay to open a restaurant in the early 2000s. Of those businesses the youth academy remains in operation, with the restaurant having closed in 2010 after changing ownership and locations once. Aside from appearing in numerous radio and television commercials in the St. Louis area since retiring from baseball, Smith authored a children's book in 2006 and launched his own brand of salad dressing in 2008.
Besides the National Baseball Hall of Fame, Smith has also been inducted or honored in other halls of fame and recognitions. In 1999, he ranked number 87 on The Sporting News''' list of the 100 Greatest Baseball Players, and finished third in voting at shortstop for the Major League Baseball All-Century Team. He was honored with induction into the Missouri Sports Hall of Fame, Alabama Sports Hall of Fame and the St. Louis Walk of Fame, and received an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degree from Cal Poly. In January 2014, the Cardinals announced Smith among 22 former players and personnel to be inducted into the St. Louis Cardinals Hall of Fame Museum for the inaugural class of 2014.
Career MLB statistics
Hitting
Fielding
Personal life
Smith is the father to three children from his marriage to former wife Denise; sons Nikko and Dustin, and daughter Taryn. Nikko cracked the top ten finalists of the 2005 edition of American Idol.Wald, Jaina. "When it's 'Idol' time at Ozzie's, folks go crazy for Nikko". St. Louis Post-Dispatch. April 6, 2005. E3. Retrieved on 2008-03-19. In 2012, Smith made news headlines again, when he sold all of his Gold Gloves at auction together for more than $500,000.
Smith still lives in and remains a visible figure around St. Louis, making varied appearances like playing the role of the Wizard in the St. Louis Municipal Opera's summer 2001 production of The Wizard of Oz''. He is the host of Cardinals Insider, a weekly news magazine televsion show about the club. Since 2016, he has opened five regenerative medicine clinics around Missouri.
See also
List of Major League Baseball career stolen bases leaders
List of Major League Baseball career games played leaders
List of Major League Baseball career doubles leaders
List of Major League Baseball career runs scored leaders
List of Major League Baseball career hits leaders
List of St. Louis Cardinals team records
References
Further reading
External links
Ozzie Smith at SABR (Baseball BioProject)
Ozzie Smith at St. Louis Walk of Fame
Interview with Ozzie Smith on KUT's "In Black America" radio series, September 8, 1988 at the American Archive of Public Broadcasting
1954 births
Living people
African-American baseball players
Baseball players from Alabama
Cal Poly Mustangs baseball players
Gold Glove Award winners
Major League Baseball broadcasters
Major League Baseball players with retired numbers
Major League Baseball shortstops
National Baseball Hall of Fame inductees
National League All-Stars
Baseball players from Los Angeles
Sportspeople from Mobile, Alabama
San Diego Padres players
St. Louis Cardinals announcers
St. Louis Cardinals players
Walla Walla Padres players
National League Championship Series MVPs
Silver Slugger Award winners
People from Watts, Los Angeles
21st-century African-American people
20th-century African-American sportspeople | false | [
"This list is concerned with severe and abnormal power outages which caused major power failures due to damage to a single thermal power station itself or its connections which take a significant amount of time - months or years to repair.\n\nWhilst any electric grid is vulnerable to instability after the loss of a large generating source or transmission line, this can generally be dealt with without serious inconvenience to customers. However some power stations can be exceptionally large in respect to connected grid capacity so that any failure for these proportionally large stations can be more problematic than the failure of a typically sized station.\n\nList of failures\n\nSee also\n Dam failure\n List of power outages\n Hydroelectricity\n List of hydroelectric power station failures\n Thermal power station\n\nReferences\n\nThermal power station failures",
"\n\nAbout the failures \nSince March 2006, SpaceX has had 5 complete failures, 4 partial failures, and 1 partial success, for a total of 10 failed launches. Since they have had 157 launches, that gives them a success rate of 93.6%. This make SpaceX rockets some of the most reliable rockets, despite these failures.\n\nLaunch attempts\n\nFalcon 9\n\nStarship\n\nVideos\n\nNotes\n\nReferences \n\nLists of rocket launches"
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"Herzog made Smith the number-two hitter full-time during the 1987 season.",
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"Smith accrued a .303 batting average, 43 stolen bases, 75 RBIs, 104 runs scored, and 40 doubles,",
"what was his best year?",
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| C_c480d60d41bc4e0fa4efe80d33514300_0 | what position did he play? | 7 | what position did Ozzie Smith play? | Ozzie Smith | After hitting in either the second or eighth spot in the batting order for most of his time in St. Louis, Herzog made Smith the number-two hitter full-time during the 1987 season. Over the course of the year, Smith accrued a .303 batting average, 43 stolen bases, 75 RBIs, 104 runs scored, and 40 doubles, good enough to earn him the Silver Slugger Award at shortstop. In addition to winning the Gold Glove Award at shortstop for the eighth consecutive time, Smith posted a career-high on-base percentage of .392. Smith was also the leading vote-getter in the 1987 All-Star Game. The Cardinals earned a postseason berth with 95 wins, and subsequently faced the San Francisco Giants in the 1987 National League Championship Series. Smith contributed a triple during the series, and the Cardinals won the contest in seven games. The 1987 World Series matched the Cardinals against the American League champion Minnesota Twins. The home team won every game of the contest, as Minnesota won the series. In 28 at-bats during the Series, Smith scored three runs and had two RBIs. Smith finished second in MVP balloting to Andre Dawson, who had played on the last-place Chicago Cubs, largely because Smith and teammate Jack Clark split the first-place vote. Following the 1987 season, Smith was awarded the largest contract in the National League at $2,340,000. While the team did not see the postseason for the remainder of the decade, Smith continued to rack up All-Star appearances and Gold Gloves. Combined with the attention he received from his contract, Smith continued to be a national figure. Known as a savvy dresser, he made the April 1988 cover of GQ magazine. Smith was witness to change within the Cardinal organization when owner Gussie Busch died in 1989 and Herzog quit as manager during the 1990 season. CANNOTANSWER | earn him the Silver Slugger Award at shortstop. | Osborne Earl "Ozzie" Smith (born December 26, 1954) is an American former professional baseball player. Nicknamed "The Wizard of Oz", Smith played shortstop for the San Diego Padres and St. Louis Cardinals in Major League Baseball, winning the National League Gold Glove Award for defensive play at shortstop for 13 consecutive seasons. A 15-time All-Star, Smith accumulated 2,460 hits and 580 stolen bases during his career, and won the National League Silver Slugger Award as the best hitter at shortstop in 1987. He was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in his first year of eligibility in 2002. He was also elected to the St. Louis Cardinals Hall of Fame in the inaugural class of 2014.
Smith was born in Mobile, Alabama, but his family moved to Watts, Los Angeles, when he was six years old. While participating in childhood athletic activities, Smith developed quick reflexes; he went on to play baseball in high school and college, at Los Angeles' Locke High School and Cal Poly-San Luis Obispo respectively. Drafted as an amateur player by the Padres, Smith made his major league debut in 1978. He quickly established himself as an outstanding fielder, and later became known for performing backflips on special occasions while taking his position at the beginning of a game. Smith won his first Gold Glove Award in 1980 and made his first All-Star Game appearance in 1981. When conflict with Padres' ownership developed, he was traded to the Cardinals for shortstop Garry Templeton in 1982.
Upon joining the Cardinals, Smith helped the team win the 1982 World Series. Three years later, his game-winning home run during Game 5 of the 1985 National League Championship Series prompted broadcaster Jack Buck's "Go crazy, folks!" play-by-play call. Despite a rotator cuff injury during the 1985 season, Smith posted career highs in multiple offensive categories in 1987. Smith continued to earn Gold Gloves and All-Star appearances on an annual basis until 1993. During the 1995 season, Smith had shoulder surgery and was out nearly three months. After tension with his new manager Tony La Russa developed in 1996, Smith retired at season's end, and his uniform number (No. 1) was subsequently retired by the Cardinals. Smith served as host of the television show This Week in Baseball from 1997 to 1998.
Early life
Smith was born in Mobile, Alabama, the second of Clovi and Marvella Smith's six children (five boys and one girl). While the family lived in Mobile, his father worked as a sandblaster at Brookley Air Force Base. When Smith was six his family moved to the Watts section of Los Angeles. His father became a delivery truck driver for Safeway stores, while his mother became an aide at a nursing home. His mother was an influential part of his life who stressed the importance of education and encouraged him to pursue his dreams.
Smith played a variety of sports in his youth, though considered baseball to be his favorite. He developed quick reflexes through various athletic and leisure activity, such as bouncing a ball off the concrete steps in front of his house, moving in closer to reduce reaction time with each throw. When not at the local YMCA or playing sports, Smith sometimes went with friends to the neighborhood lumberyard, springboarding off inner tubes and doing flips into sawdust piles (a precursor to his famous backflips). In 1965, at age 10, he endured the Watts Riots with his family, recalling that, "We had to sleep on the floor because of all the sniping and looting going on."
While Smith was attending junior high school, his parents divorced. Continuing to pursue his interest in baseball, he would ride the bus for nearly an hour to reach Dodger Stadium, cheering for the Los Angeles Dodgers at about 25 games a year. Upon becoming a student at Locke High School, Smith played on the basketball and baseball teams. Smith was a teammate of future National Basketball Association player Marques Johnson on the basketball team, and a teammate of future fellow Hall-of-Fame player Eddie Murray on the baseball side. After high school Smith attended Cal Poly San Luis Obispo in 1974 on a partial academic scholarship, and managed to walk-on to the baseball team. In addition to his academic education, he learned to switch-hit from Cal Poly coach Berdy Harr. When Cal Poly's starting shortstop broke his leg midway through the 1974 season, Smith subsequently took over the starting role. Later named an All-American athlete, he established school records in career at bats (754) and career stolen bases (110) before graduating in 1977.
Professional baseball career
San Diego Padres
Smith was playing semi-professional baseball in Clarinda, Iowa, when in June 1976 he was selected in the seventh round of the amateur entry draft by the Detroit Tigers. The parties could not agree on a contract; Smith wanted a $10,000 ($ today) signing bonus, while the Tigers offered $8,500 ($ today). Smith returned to Cal Poly for his senior year, then in the 1977 draft was selected in the fourth round by the San Diego Padres, ultimately agreeing to a contract that included a $5,000 signing bonus ($ today). Smith spent his first year of professional baseball during 1977 with the Class A Walla Walla Padres of the Northwest League.
Smith began 1978 as a non-roster invitee to the San Diego Padres' spring training camp in Yuma, Arizona. Smith credited Padres manager Alvin Dark for giving him confidence by telling reporters the shortstop job was Smith's until he proved he can't handle it. Even though Dark was fired in the middle of training camp, Smith made his Major League Baseball (MLB) debut on April 7, 1978.
It did not take long for Smith to earn recognition in the major leagues, making what some consider his greatest fielding play only 10 games into his rookie season. The Padres played host to the Atlanta Braves on April 20, 1978, and with two out in the top of the fourth inning, Atlanta's Jeff Burroughs hit a ground ball up the middle. Smith described the play by saying, "He hit a ball back up the middle that everybody thought was going into center field. I instinctively broke to my left and dove behind second. As I was in the air, the ball took a bad hop and caromed behind me, but I was able to catch it with my bare hand. I hit the ground, bounced back up, and threw Burroughs out at first."
During a roadtrip to Houston, later in the season, Smith met a part-time usherette at the Astrodome named Denise while making his way to the team bus outside the stadium. The couple developed a relationship that was sometimes long-distance in nature, and eventually decided to marry. It was also during the 1978 season where Smith introduced a signature move. Padres promotion director Andy Strasberg knew Smith could perform backflips, though only did them during practice before fans entered the stadium. Strasberg asked Smith to do a backflip for fans during Fan Appreciation Day on October 1, the Padres' last home game of the season. After conferring with veteran teammate Gene Tenace, Smith went ahead with the backflip, and it proved to be wildly popular. Smith finished the 1978 season with a .258 batting average and .970 fielding percentage, placing him second in the National League Rookie of the Year voting to Bob Horner.
After working with a hitting instructor during the offseason, Smith failed to record a base hit in his first 32 at-bats of the 1979 season. Among players with enough at-bats to qualify for the 1979 National League Triple Crown, Smith finished the season last in batting average (.211), home runs (0), and RBI (27). Off the field, conflict developed between Padres' ownership and the combination of Smith and his agent, Ed Gottlieb. The parties entered into a contract dispute before the 1980 season, and when negotiations lasted into spring training, the Padres renewed Smith's contract at his 1979 salary of $72,500 Smith's agent told the Padres the shortstop would forgo the season to race in the Tour de France, despite the fact Smith admitted to The Break Room on 96.5 WCMF in Rochester, New York, he had never heard of the Tour. Angered by the Padres' attitude during those contract talks, Gottlieb took out a help-wanted ad in the San Diego Union, part of which read, "Padre baseball player wants part-time employment to supplement income." When Joan Kroc, wife of Padres owner Ray Kroc, publicly offered Smith a job as an assistant gardener on her estate, Smith and Gottlieb's relationship with the organization deteriorated further.
Meanwhile, Smith was winning recognition for his accomplishments on the field. In 1980, he set the single-season record for most assists by a shortstop (621), and began his string of 13 consecutive Gold Glove awards. Smith's fielding play prompted the Yuma Daily Sun to use the nickname "The Wizard of Oz" in a March 1981 feature article about Smith. While "The Wizard of Oz" nickname was an allusion to the 1939 motion picture of the same name, Smith also came to be known as simply "The Wizard" during his playing career, as Smith's Baseball Hall of Fame plaque would later attest. In 1981, Smith made his first All-Star Game appearance as a reserve player.
Trade
While Smith was having problems with the Padres' owners, the St. Louis Cardinals also found themselves unhappy with their shortstop, Garry Templeton. Templeton's relationship with Cardinal Nation had become increasingly strained and finally came to a head during a game at Busch Stadium on August 26, 1981, when (after being heckled for not running out a ground ball) he made obscene gestures at fans, and had to be physically pulled off the field by manager Whitey Herzog.
Given the task of overhauling the Cardinals by owner Gussie Busch (and specifically to unload Templeton), Herzog was looking to trade Templeton when he was approached by Padres General Manager Jack McKeon at the 1981 baseball winter meetings. While McKeon had previously told Herzog that Smith was untouchable in any trade, the Padres were now so angry at Smith's agent Gottlieb that McKeon was willing to deal. McKeon and Herzog agreed in principle to a six-player trade, with Templeton for Smith as the centerpiece. It was then that Padres manager Dick Williams informed Herzog a no-trade clause had been included in Smith's 1981 contract. Upon learning of the trade, Smith's initial reaction was to invoke the clause and stay in San Diego, but he was still interested to hear what the Cardinals had to say. While the deal for the players beside Templeton and Smith went through, Herzog flew to San Diego to meet with Smith and Gottlieb over the Christmas holiday. Smith later recalled that, "Whitey told me that with me playing shortstop for the St. Louis Cardinals, we could win the pennant. He made me feel wanted, which was a feeling I was quickly losing from the Padres. The mere fact that Whitey would come all the way out there to talk to us was more than enough to convince me that St. Louis was the place I wanted to be."
St. Louis Cardinals
1982–1984
On December 10, 1981, the Padres traded him along with a player to be named later and Steve Mura to the Cardinals for a player to be named later, Sixto Lezcano and Garry Templeton. The teams completed the trade on February 19, 1982, with the Padres sending Al Olmsted to the Cardinals, and St. Louis sending Luis DeLeon to the Padres. Herzog believed Smith could improve his offensive production by hitting more ground balls, and subsequently created a motivational tool designed to help Smith concentrate on that task. Approaching Smith one day during spring training, Herzog said, "Every time you hit a fly ball, you owe me a buck. Every time you hit a ground ball, I owe you a buck. We'll keep that going all year." Smith agreed to the wager, and by the end of the season had won close to $300 from Herzog. As the 1982 season got underway, Herzog's newly assembled team won 12 games in a row during the month of April, and finished the season atop the National League East division. Herzog would later say of Smith's contributions that, "If he saved two runs a game on defense, which he did many a night, it seemed to me that was just as valuable to the team as a player who drove in two runs a game on offense."
Smith became a father for the first time during the 1982 season with the birth of his son O.J., today known as Nikko, on April 28. Smith also developed a lasting friendship with teammate Willie McGee during the season, and Smith said he likes to think he "helped Willie get over some of the rough spots of adjusting to the major leagues". Smith later participated in the postseason for the first time when the Cardinals faced the Atlanta Braves in the best-of-five 1982 National League Championship Series (NLCS). Smith drove in the series' first run by hitting a sacrifice fly which scored McGee in Game 1, ultimately going five for nine in St. Louis' three-game series sweep.
Just as Herzog had predicted when he told Smith the Cardinals would win the pennant with him on the team, Smith found himself as the team's starting shortstop in the best-of-seven 1982 World Series against the Milwaukee Brewers. During the contest Smith scored three runs, had five hits, and did not commit an error in the field. When St. Louis was trailing 3–1 with one out in the sixth inning of Game 7, Smith started a rally with a base hit to left field, eventually scoring the first of the team's three runs that inning. The Cardinals scored two more runs in the 8th inning for a 6–3 win and the championship.
After the World Series championship, Smith and the Cardinals agreed on a new contract in January 1983 that paid Smith $1 million per year. Smith was voted in as the National League's starting shortstop in the All-Star Game for the first time in 1983, and at season's end won a fourth consecutive Gold Glove Award. During July of the 1984 season, Smith went on the disabled list with a broken wrist after being hit by a pitch during a game against the Padres. Smith's return to the lineup a month later was not enough to propel the Cardinals to a postseason berth.
1985–1986
In 1985, Smith amassed a .276 batting average, 31 stolen bases, and 591 assists in the field. The Cardinals as a team won 101 games during the season and earned another postseason berth. Facing the Los Angeles Dodgers in the now best-of-seven NLCS, a split of the first four games set the stage for Game 5 at Busch Stadium. With the score tied at two runs apiece in the bottom of the ninth inning, Dodgers manager Tommy Lasorda called upon closer Tom Niedenfuer to pitch. Smith batted left-handed against Niedenfuer with one out. Smith, who had never hit a home run in his previous 2,967 left-handed major league at-bats, pulled an inside fastball down the right-field line for a walk-off home run, ending Game 5 in a 3–2 Cardinals victory. Smith said, "I was trying to get an extra-base hit and get into scoring position. Fortunately, I was able to get the ball up." The home run not only prompted broadcaster Jack Buck's "Go crazy folks" play-by-play call, but was also later voted the greatest moment in Busch Stadium history by Cardinals fans.
After Smith's teammate Jack Clark hit a late-inning home run of his own in Game 6 to defeat the Dodgers, the Cardinals moved on to face the Kansas City Royals in the 1985 World Series. Once again sportswriters were quick to draw attention to Smith's outstanding defensive play instead of his 2 for 23 effort at the plate. After the Cardinals took a three-games-to-two advantage, a controversial Game 6 call by umpire Don Denkinger overshadowed the remainder of the Series (which the Royals won in seven games).
What was not publicly known during the regular season and playoffs was that Smith had torn his rotator cuff after suffering an impingement in his right shoulder during the July 11–14 homestand against the Padres. After suffering the impingement diving back into first base on a pickoff throw, Smith altered his throwing motion to such a degree that the rotator cuff tear subsequently developed. The 5'10" (1.78 m), 180-pound (82 kg) Smith opted to forgo surgery and instead built up his arm strength via weightlifting, playing through whatever pain he encountered. Said Smith, "I didn't tell anybody about the injury, because I wanted to keep playing and didn't want anybody thinking they could run on me or take advantage of the injury. I tried to do almost everything, except throw a baseball, left-handed: opening a door, turning on the radio—everything. It didn't get any better, but it was good enough that I didn't have to have surgery."
Because of his injury, Smith let his then four-year-old son Nikko perform his traditional Opening Day backflip before the Cardinals' first home game of the 1986 season. Smith made an "eye-popping" play later that season on August 4, during a game against the Philadelphia Phillies at Busch Stadium. In the top of the ninth inning, Phillies pinch-hitter Von Hayes hit a short fly ball to left field, which was pursued by both Smith and left fielder Curt Ford. Running with his back to home plate, Smith dove forward, simultaneously catching the ball while parallel to the ground and flying over the diving Ford, avoiding a collision by inches.
1987–1990
After hitting in either the second or eighth spot in the batting order for most of his time in St. Louis, Herzog made Smith the number-two hitter full-time during the 1987 season. Over the course of the year, Smith accrued a .303 batting average, 43 stolen bases, 75 RBIs, 104 runs scored, and 40 doubles, good enough to earn him the Silver Slugger Award at shortstop. In addition to winning the Gold Glove Award at shortstop for the eighth consecutive time, Smith posted a career-high on-base percentage of .392. Smith was also the leading vote-getter in the 1987 All-Star Game. The Cardinals earned a postseason berth with 95 wins, and subsequently faced the San Francisco Giants in the 1987 National League Championship Series. Smith contributed a triple during the series, and the Cardinals won the contest in seven games.
The 1987 World Series matched the Cardinals against the American League champion Minnesota Twins. The home team won every game of the contest, as Minnesota won the series. In 28 at-bats during the Series, Smith scored three runs and had two RBIs. Smith finished second in MVP balloting to Andre Dawson, who had played on the last-place Chicago Cubs, largely because Smith and teammate Jack Clark split the first-place vote. Following the 1987 season, Smith was awarded the largest contract in the National League at $2.34 million.
While the team did not see the postseason for the remainder of the decade, Smith continued to rack up All-Star appearances and Gold Gloves. Combined with the attention he received from his contract, Smith continued to be a national figure. Known as a savvy dresser, he made the April 1988 cover of GQ magazine. Smith was witness to change within the Cardinal organization when owner Gussie Busch died in 1989 and Herzog quit as manager during the 1990 season.
1990–1995
Joe Torre became Smith's new manager in 1990, but the team did not reach the postseason during Torre's nearly five-year tenure. While the Cardinals celebrated their 100th anniversary in 1992, Smith marked milestones of his own, stealing his 500th career base on April 26, then notching a triple on May 26 in front of the home crowd for his 2,000th hit. St. Louis had a one-game lead in the National League East division on June 1, 1992, but injuries took their toll on the team, including Smith's two-week illness in late July after contracting chicken pox for the first time. As a testament to his national visibility during this time, Smith appeared in a 1992 episode of The Simpsons titled "Homer at the Bat". Smith became a free agent for the first time in his career on November 2, 1992, only to sign a new contract with the Cardinals on December 6.
Smith won his final Gold Glove in 1992, and his 13 consecutive Gold Gloves at shortstop in the National League has yet to be matched. The 1993 season marked the only time between 1981 and 1996 where Smith failed to make the All-Star team, and Smith finished the 1993 season with a .288 batting average and .974 fielding percentage. He appeared in 98 games during the strike-shortened 1994 season, and later missed nearly three months of the 1995 season after shoulder surgery on May 31. Smith was recognized for his community service efforts with the 1994 Branch Rickey Award and the 1995 Roberto Clemente Award. In February 1994, Smith took on the role of honorary chairman and official spokesman for the Missouri Governor's Council on Physical Fitness and Health.
1996
As Smith entered the 1996 season, he finalized a divorce from his wife Denise during the first half of the year. Meanwhile, manager Tony La Russa began his first season with the Cardinals in tandem with a new ownership group. After General Manager Walt Jocketty acquired shortstop Royce Clayton during the offseason, La Russa emphasized an open competition for the spot that would give the Cardinals the best chance to win. When spring training concluded, Smith had amassed a .288 batting average and zero errors in the field, and Clayton batted .190 with eight errors. Smith believed he had earned the position with his spring training performance, but La Russa disagreed, and awarded Clayton the majority of playing time in the platoon situation that developed, where Smith typically saw action every third game. La Russa said, "I think it's fair to say he misunderstood how he compared to Royce in spring training ... When I and the coaches evaluated the play in spring training—the whole game—Royce started very slowly offensively and you could see him start to get better. By what he was able to do defensively and on the bases, Royce deserved to play the majority of the games."
Smith missed the first month of the season with a hamstring injury, and continued to harbor ill feelings toward La Russa that had developed after spring training ended. In a closed-door meeting in mid-May, La Russa asked Smith if he would like to be traded. Instead, Smith and his agent negotiated a compromise with Cardinals management, agreeing to a buyout of special provisions in his contract in conjunction with Smith announcing his retirement. The agreement prompted a press conference at Busch Stadium on June 19, 1996, during which Smith announced he would retire from baseball at season's end.
As Smith made his final tour of the National League, he was honored by many teams, and received a standing ovation at the 1996 All-Star Game in Philadelphia. Between June 19 and September 1, Smith's batting average increased from .239 to .286. On September 2 Smith tied a career high by scoring four runs, one of which was a home run, and another on a close play at home plate in the bottom of the 10th inning against division leader Houston. The victory moved the Cardinals to within a half game of Houston in the National League Central Division, and the Cardinals went on to win the division by six games. The Cardinals held a special ceremony at Busch Stadium on September 28, 1996, before a game against the Cincinnati Reds, honoring Smith by retiring his uniform number. Noted for his ritual backflip before Opening Days, All-Star Games, and postseason games, Smith chose this occasion to perform it for one of the last times.
In the postseason, the Cardinals first faced the San Diego Padres in the 1996 National League Division Series. After sitting out Game 1, Smith got the start in Game 2 at Busch Stadium, helping his team go up two games in the series by notching a run, a hit and two walks at the plate, along with an assist and a putout in the field. The Cardinals then swept the series by winning Game 3 in San Diego.
The Cardinals faced the Atlanta Braves in the 1996 National League Championship Series. Smith started Game 1 and subsequently registered three putouts and one assist in the field, but went hitless in four at-bats in the Cardinals' 4–2 loss. The Cardinals then won Games 2, 3, and 4, contests in which Smith did not appear. Upon receiving the start in Game 5, Smith nearly duplicated his Game 1 performance with four putouts, one assist, and no hits in four at-bats as part of another Cardinals defeat. The Cardinals also failed to win Game 6 or Game 7 in Atlanta, ending their season. When the Cardinals were trailing by 10 runs during Game 7 on October 17, Smith flied out to right field while pinch-hitting in the sixth inning, marking the end of his playing career.
Smith finished his career with distinctions ranging from the accumulation of more than 27.5 million votes in All-Star balloting, to holding the record for the most MLB at-bats without hitting a grand slam.
Post-playing career
Upon retirement, Smith took over from Mel Allen as the host of the television series This Week in Baseball (TWIB) in 1997. Smith also became color commentator for the local broadcast of Cardinals games on KPLR-TV from 1997 to 1999. When his stint on This Week in Baseball concluded, Smith then moved on to do work for CNN-SI beginning in 1999. After La Russa retired as manager of the Cardinals in 2011, Smith became active in the organization again, starting with his stint as a special instructor for the team's 2012 spring training camp.
On January 8, 2002 Smith learned via a phone call he had been elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame on his first ballot by receiving 91.7% of the votes cast. As it happened, the Olympic torch was passing through St. Louis on its way to Salt Lake City for the 2002 Winter Olympics, and Smith served as a torchbearer in a ceremony with St. Louis Rams' quarterback Kurt Warner that evening. Smith was inducted into the Hall of Fame during ceremonies on July 28, 2002. During his speech, he compared his baseball experiences with the characters from the novel The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, after which his son Dustin presented his Hall of Fame plaque. Days later on August 11, Smith was back at Busch Memorial Stadium for the unveiling of a statue in his likeness made by sculptor Harry Weber. Weber chose to emphasize Smith's defensive skills by showing Smith stretched horizontal to the ground while fielding a baseball. At the ceremony Weber told Smith, "You spent half of your career up in the air. That makes it difficult for a sculptor to do something with it."
Smith has also been an entrepreneur in a variety of business ventures. Smith opened "Ozzie's" restaurant and sports bar in 1988, started a youth sports academy in 1990, became an investor in a grocery store chain in 1999, and partnered with David Slay to open a restaurant in the early 2000s. Of those businesses the youth academy remains in operation, with the restaurant having closed in 2010 after changing ownership and locations once. Aside from appearing in numerous radio and television commercials in the St. Louis area since retiring from baseball, Smith authored a children's book in 2006 and launched his own brand of salad dressing in 2008.
Besides the National Baseball Hall of Fame, Smith has also been inducted or honored in other halls of fame and recognitions. In 1999, he ranked number 87 on The Sporting News''' list of the 100 Greatest Baseball Players, and finished third in voting at shortstop for the Major League Baseball All-Century Team. He was honored with induction into the Missouri Sports Hall of Fame, Alabama Sports Hall of Fame and the St. Louis Walk of Fame, and received an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degree from Cal Poly. In January 2014, the Cardinals announced Smith among 22 former players and personnel to be inducted into the St. Louis Cardinals Hall of Fame Museum for the inaugural class of 2014.
Career MLB statistics
Hitting
Fielding
Personal life
Smith is the father to three children from his marriage to former wife Denise; sons Nikko and Dustin, and daughter Taryn. Nikko cracked the top ten finalists of the 2005 edition of American Idol.Wald, Jaina. "When it's 'Idol' time at Ozzie's, folks go crazy for Nikko". St. Louis Post-Dispatch. April 6, 2005. E3. Retrieved on 2008-03-19. In 2012, Smith made news headlines again, when he sold all of his Gold Gloves at auction together for more than $500,000.
Smith still lives in and remains a visible figure around St. Louis, making varied appearances like playing the role of the Wizard in the St. Louis Municipal Opera's summer 2001 production of The Wizard of Oz''. He is the host of Cardinals Insider, a weekly news magazine televsion show about the club. Since 2016, he has opened five regenerative medicine clinics around Missouri.
See also
List of Major League Baseball career stolen bases leaders
List of Major League Baseball career games played leaders
List of Major League Baseball career doubles leaders
List of Major League Baseball career runs scored leaders
List of Major League Baseball career hits leaders
List of St. Louis Cardinals team records
References
Further reading
External links
Ozzie Smith at SABR (Baseball BioProject)
Ozzie Smith at St. Louis Walk of Fame
Interview with Ozzie Smith on KUT's "In Black America" radio series, September 8, 1988 at the American Archive of Public Broadcasting
1954 births
Living people
African-American baseball players
Baseball players from Alabama
Cal Poly Mustangs baseball players
Gold Glove Award winners
Major League Baseball broadcasters
Major League Baseball players with retired numbers
Major League Baseball shortstops
National Baseball Hall of Fame inductees
National League All-Stars
Baseball players from Los Angeles
Sportspeople from Mobile, Alabama
San Diego Padres players
St. Louis Cardinals announcers
St. Louis Cardinals players
Walla Walla Padres players
National League Championship Series MVPs
Silver Slugger Award winners
People from Watts, Los Angeles
21st-century African-American people
20th-century African-American sportspeople | true | [
"is a former Japanese football player.\n\nPlaying career\nIwamaru was born in Fujioka on December 4, 1981. After graduating from high school, he joined the J1 League club Vissel Kobe in 2000. However he did not play as much as Makoto Kakegawa until 2003. In 2004, he played more often, after Kakegawa got hurt. In September 2004, he moved to Júbilo Iwata. In late 2004, he played often, after regular goalkeeper Yohei Sato got hurt. In 2005, he moved to the newly promoted J2 League club, Thespa Kusatsu (later Thespakusatsu Gunma), based in his home region. He competed with Nobuyuki Kojima for the position and played often. \n\nIn 2006, he moved to the newly promoted J1 club, Avispa Fukuoka. However he did not play as much as Yuichi Mizutani. In 2007, he moved to the newly promoted J1 club, Yokohama FC. However he did not play as much as Takanori Sugeno and the club was relegated to J2 within a year. Although he did not play as much as Kenji Koyama in 2008, he played often in 2009. He did not play at all in 2010. \n\nIn 2011, he moved to the J2 club Roasso Kumamoto. He did not play as much as Yuta Minami. In 2013, he moved to the newly promoted J2 club, V-Varen Nagasaki. Although he played in the first three matches, he did play at all after the fourth match, when Junki Kanayama played in his place. In 2014, he moved to the J2 club Thespakusatsu Gunma based in his local region. However he did not play at all, and retired at the end of the 2014 season.\n\nClub statistics\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links \n\n \n\n1981 births\nLiving people\nAssociation football people from Gunma Prefecture\nJapanese footballers\nJ1 League players\nJ2 League players\nVissel Kobe players\nJúbilo Iwata players\nThespakusatsu Gunma players\nAvispa Fukuoka players\nYokohama FC players\nRoasso Kumamoto players\nV-Varen Nagasaki players\nAssociation football goalkeepers",
"John Stirk (born 5 September 1955) is an English former footballer. His primary position was as a right back. During his career he played for Ipswich Town, Watford, Chesterfield and North Shields. He also made two appearances for England at youth level.\n\nCareer \n\nBorn in Consett, Stirk played youth football for local non-league team Consett A.F.C. He joined Ipswich Town on schoolboy terms in 1971, and after making two appearances for the England youth team, turned professional in 1973. During his time at Ipswich he was largely a reserve. He made his first-team debut on 5 November 1977, in a Football League First Division match against Manchester City at Portman Road. His manager at the time was Bobby Robson, who later went on to manage the England national football team. Ipswich won the FA Cup in 1978, in what proved to be Stirk's final season at the club. However, Stirk himself did not play in the final, nor did he play in any of the rounds en route to the final.\n\nAnother future England manager, Watford's Graham Taylor, signed Stirk for a transfer fee of £30,000 at the end of the 1977–78 season. Stirk went on to play every Watford league game in the 1978–79 season, as Watford gained promotion to the Second Division. However, Stirk did not play for Watford in the Second Division. Two months before the end of the 1979–80 season, Stirk was sold to Third Division side Chesterfield, at a profit to Watford of £10,000. After making 56 league appearances over two and a half seasons, Stirk left Chesterfield in 1983 moving on to Blyth Spartans then Tow Law Town, and finished his career at non-league North Shields.\n\nReferences \n\n1955 births\nLiving people\nConsett A.F.C. players\nIpswich Town F.C. players\nWatford F.C. players\nChesterfield F.C. players\nEnglish Football League players\nNorth Shields F.C. players\nSportspeople from Consett\nAssociation football fullbacks\nEnglish footballers"
]
|
[
"Ozzie Smith",
"1987-90",
"what was significant about this time period?",
"Herzog made Smith the number-two hitter full-time during the 1987 season.",
"what team did he play for in 87",
"The Cardinals",
"did he have any accomplishments in 87",
"Smith accrued a .303 batting average, 43 stolen bases, 75 RBIs, 104 runs scored, and 40 doubles,",
"what was his best year?",
"1987",
"what happened after the 87 season?",
"Following the 1987 season, Smith was awarded the largest contract in the National League at $2,340,000.",
"did he have any failures?",
"I don't know.",
"what position did he play?",
"earn him the Silver Slugger Award at shortstop."
]
| C_c480d60d41bc4e0fa4efe80d33514300_0 | any other awards? | 8 | any other awards recived by Ozzie Smith besides the Silver Slugger Award? | Ozzie Smith | After hitting in either the second or eighth spot in the batting order for most of his time in St. Louis, Herzog made Smith the number-two hitter full-time during the 1987 season. Over the course of the year, Smith accrued a .303 batting average, 43 stolen bases, 75 RBIs, 104 runs scored, and 40 doubles, good enough to earn him the Silver Slugger Award at shortstop. In addition to winning the Gold Glove Award at shortstop for the eighth consecutive time, Smith posted a career-high on-base percentage of .392. Smith was also the leading vote-getter in the 1987 All-Star Game. The Cardinals earned a postseason berth with 95 wins, and subsequently faced the San Francisco Giants in the 1987 National League Championship Series. Smith contributed a triple during the series, and the Cardinals won the contest in seven games. The 1987 World Series matched the Cardinals against the American League champion Minnesota Twins. The home team won every game of the contest, as Minnesota won the series. In 28 at-bats during the Series, Smith scored three runs and had two RBIs. Smith finished second in MVP balloting to Andre Dawson, who had played on the last-place Chicago Cubs, largely because Smith and teammate Jack Clark split the first-place vote. Following the 1987 season, Smith was awarded the largest contract in the National League at $2,340,000. While the team did not see the postseason for the remainder of the decade, Smith continued to rack up All-Star appearances and Gold Gloves. Combined with the attention he received from his contract, Smith continued to be a national figure. Known as a savvy dresser, he made the April 1988 cover of GQ magazine. Smith was witness to change within the Cardinal organization when owner Gussie Busch died in 1989 and Herzog quit as manager during the 1990 season. CANNOTANSWER | the Silver Slugger Award at shortstop. In addition to winning the Gold Glove Award at shortstop for the eighth consecutive time, | Osborne Earl "Ozzie" Smith (born December 26, 1954) is an American former professional baseball player. Nicknamed "The Wizard of Oz", Smith played shortstop for the San Diego Padres and St. Louis Cardinals in Major League Baseball, winning the National League Gold Glove Award for defensive play at shortstop for 13 consecutive seasons. A 15-time All-Star, Smith accumulated 2,460 hits and 580 stolen bases during his career, and won the National League Silver Slugger Award as the best hitter at shortstop in 1987. He was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in his first year of eligibility in 2002. He was also elected to the St. Louis Cardinals Hall of Fame in the inaugural class of 2014.
Smith was born in Mobile, Alabama, but his family moved to Watts, Los Angeles, when he was six years old. While participating in childhood athletic activities, Smith developed quick reflexes; he went on to play baseball in high school and college, at Los Angeles' Locke High School and Cal Poly-San Luis Obispo respectively. Drafted as an amateur player by the Padres, Smith made his major league debut in 1978. He quickly established himself as an outstanding fielder, and later became known for performing backflips on special occasions while taking his position at the beginning of a game. Smith won his first Gold Glove Award in 1980 and made his first All-Star Game appearance in 1981. When conflict with Padres' ownership developed, he was traded to the Cardinals for shortstop Garry Templeton in 1982.
Upon joining the Cardinals, Smith helped the team win the 1982 World Series. Three years later, his game-winning home run during Game 5 of the 1985 National League Championship Series prompted broadcaster Jack Buck's "Go crazy, folks!" play-by-play call. Despite a rotator cuff injury during the 1985 season, Smith posted career highs in multiple offensive categories in 1987. Smith continued to earn Gold Gloves and All-Star appearances on an annual basis until 1993. During the 1995 season, Smith had shoulder surgery and was out nearly three months. After tension with his new manager Tony La Russa developed in 1996, Smith retired at season's end, and his uniform number (No. 1) was subsequently retired by the Cardinals. Smith served as host of the television show This Week in Baseball from 1997 to 1998.
Early life
Smith was born in Mobile, Alabama, the second of Clovi and Marvella Smith's six children (five boys and one girl). While the family lived in Mobile, his father worked as a sandblaster at Brookley Air Force Base. When Smith was six his family moved to the Watts section of Los Angeles. His father became a delivery truck driver for Safeway stores, while his mother became an aide at a nursing home. His mother was an influential part of his life who stressed the importance of education and encouraged him to pursue his dreams.
Smith played a variety of sports in his youth, though considered baseball to be his favorite. He developed quick reflexes through various athletic and leisure activity, such as bouncing a ball off the concrete steps in front of his house, moving in closer to reduce reaction time with each throw. When not at the local YMCA or playing sports, Smith sometimes went with friends to the neighborhood lumberyard, springboarding off inner tubes and doing flips into sawdust piles (a precursor to his famous backflips). In 1965, at age 10, he endured the Watts Riots with his family, recalling that, "We had to sleep on the floor because of all the sniping and looting going on."
While Smith was attending junior high school, his parents divorced. Continuing to pursue his interest in baseball, he would ride the bus for nearly an hour to reach Dodger Stadium, cheering for the Los Angeles Dodgers at about 25 games a year. Upon becoming a student at Locke High School, Smith played on the basketball and baseball teams. Smith was a teammate of future National Basketball Association player Marques Johnson on the basketball team, and a teammate of future fellow Hall-of-Fame player Eddie Murray on the baseball side. After high school Smith attended Cal Poly San Luis Obispo in 1974 on a partial academic scholarship, and managed to walk-on to the baseball team. In addition to his academic education, he learned to switch-hit from Cal Poly coach Berdy Harr. When Cal Poly's starting shortstop broke his leg midway through the 1974 season, Smith subsequently took over the starting role. Later named an All-American athlete, he established school records in career at bats (754) and career stolen bases (110) before graduating in 1977.
Professional baseball career
San Diego Padres
Smith was playing semi-professional baseball in Clarinda, Iowa, when in June 1976 he was selected in the seventh round of the amateur entry draft by the Detroit Tigers. The parties could not agree on a contract; Smith wanted a $10,000 ($ today) signing bonus, while the Tigers offered $8,500 ($ today). Smith returned to Cal Poly for his senior year, then in the 1977 draft was selected in the fourth round by the San Diego Padres, ultimately agreeing to a contract that included a $5,000 signing bonus ($ today). Smith spent his first year of professional baseball during 1977 with the Class A Walla Walla Padres of the Northwest League.
Smith began 1978 as a non-roster invitee to the San Diego Padres' spring training camp in Yuma, Arizona. Smith credited Padres manager Alvin Dark for giving him confidence by telling reporters the shortstop job was Smith's until he proved he can't handle it. Even though Dark was fired in the middle of training camp, Smith made his Major League Baseball (MLB) debut on April 7, 1978.
It did not take long for Smith to earn recognition in the major leagues, making what some consider his greatest fielding play only 10 games into his rookie season. The Padres played host to the Atlanta Braves on April 20, 1978, and with two out in the top of the fourth inning, Atlanta's Jeff Burroughs hit a ground ball up the middle. Smith described the play by saying, "He hit a ball back up the middle that everybody thought was going into center field. I instinctively broke to my left and dove behind second. As I was in the air, the ball took a bad hop and caromed behind me, but I was able to catch it with my bare hand. I hit the ground, bounced back up, and threw Burroughs out at first."
During a roadtrip to Houston, later in the season, Smith met a part-time usherette at the Astrodome named Denise while making his way to the team bus outside the stadium. The couple developed a relationship that was sometimes long-distance in nature, and eventually decided to marry. It was also during the 1978 season where Smith introduced a signature move. Padres promotion director Andy Strasberg knew Smith could perform backflips, though only did them during practice before fans entered the stadium. Strasberg asked Smith to do a backflip for fans during Fan Appreciation Day on October 1, the Padres' last home game of the season. After conferring with veteran teammate Gene Tenace, Smith went ahead with the backflip, and it proved to be wildly popular. Smith finished the 1978 season with a .258 batting average and .970 fielding percentage, placing him second in the National League Rookie of the Year voting to Bob Horner.
After working with a hitting instructor during the offseason, Smith failed to record a base hit in his first 32 at-bats of the 1979 season. Among players with enough at-bats to qualify for the 1979 National League Triple Crown, Smith finished the season last in batting average (.211), home runs (0), and RBI (27). Off the field, conflict developed between Padres' ownership and the combination of Smith and his agent, Ed Gottlieb. The parties entered into a contract dispute before the 1980 season, and when negotiations lasted into spring training, the Padres renewed Smith's contract at his 1979 salary of $72,500 Smith's agent told the Padres the shortstop would forgo the season to race in the Tour de France, despite the fact Smith admitted to The Break Room on 96.5 WCMF in Rochester, New York, he had never heard of the Tour. Angered by the Padres' attitude during those contract talks, Gottlieb took out a help-wanted ad in the San Diego Union, part of which read, "Padre baseball player wants part-time employment to supplement income." When Joan Kroc, wife of Padres owner Ray Kroc, publicly offered Smith a job as an assistant gardener on her estate, Smith and Gottlieb's relationship with the organization deteriorated further.
Meanwhile, Smith was winning recognition for his accomplishments on the field. In 1980, he set the single-season record for most assists by a shortstop (621), and began his string of 13 consecutive Gold Glove awards. Smith's fielding play prompted the Yuma Daily Sun to use the nickname "The Wizard of Oz" in a March 1981 feature article about Smith. While "The Wizard of Oz" nickname was an allusion to the 1939 motion picture of the same name, Smith also came to be known as simply "The Wizard" during his playing career, as Smith's Baseball Hall of Fame plaque would later attest. In 1981, Smith made his first All-Star Game appearance as a reserve player.
Trade
While Smith was having problems with the Padres' owners, the St. Louis Cardinals also found themselves unhappy with their shortstop, Garry Templeton. Templeton's relationship with Cardinal Nation had become increasingly strained and finally came to a head during a game at Busch Stadium on August 26, 1981, when (after being heckled for not running out a ground ball) he made obscene gestures at fans, and had to be physically pulled off the field by manager Whitey Herzog.
Given the task of overhauling the Cardinals by owner Gussie Busch (and specifically to unload Templeton), Herzog was looking to trade Templeton when he was approached by Padres General Manager Jack McKeon at the 1981 baseball winter meetings. While McKeon had previously told Herzog that Smith was untouchable in any trade, the Padres were now so angry at Smith's agent Gottlieb that McKeon was willing to deal. McKeon and Herzog agreed in principle to a six-player trade, with Templeton for Smith as the centerpiece. It was then that Padres manager Dick Williams informed Herzog a no-trade clause had been included in Smith's 1981 contract. Upon learning of the trade, Smith's initial reaction was to invoke the clause and stay in San Diego, but he was still interested to hear what the Cardinals had to say. While the deal for the players beside Templeton and Smith went through, Herzog flew to San Diego to meet with Smith and Gottlieb over the Christmas holiday. Smith later recalled that, "Whitey told me that with me playing shortstop for the St. Louis Cardinals, we could win the pennant. He made me feel wanted, which was a feeling I was quickly losing from the Padres. The mere fact that Whitey would come all the way out there to talk to us was more than enough to convince me that St. Louis was the place I wanted to be."
St. Louis Cardinals
1982–1984
On December 10, 1981, the Padres traded him along with a player to be named later and Steve Mura to the Cardinals for a player to be named later, Sixto Lezcano and Garry Templeton. The teams completed the trade on February 19, 1982, with the Padres sending Al Olmsted to the Cardinals, and St. Louis sending Luis DeLeon to the Padres. Herzog believed Smith could improve his offensive production by hitting more ground balls, and subsequently created a motivational tool designed to help Smith concentrate on that task. Approaching Smith one day during spring training, Herzog said, "Every time you hit a fly ball, you owe me a buck. Every time you hit a ground ball, I owe you a buck. We'll keep that going all year." Smith agreed to the wager, and by the end of the season had won close to $300 from Herzog. As the 1982 season got underway, Herzog's newly assembled team won 12 games in a row during the month of April, and finished the season atop the National League East division. Herzog would later say of Smith's contributions that, "If he saved two runs a game on defense, which he did many a night, it seemed to me that was just as valuable to the team as a player who drove in two runs a game on offense."
Smith became a father for the first time during the 1982 season with the birth of his son O.J., today known as Nikko, on April 28. Smith also developed a lasting friendship with teammate Willie McGee during the season, and Smith said he likes to think he "helped Willie get over some of the rough spots of adjusting to the major leagues". Smith later participated in the postseason for the first time when the Cardinals faced the Atlanta Braves in the best-of-five 1982 National League Championship Series (NLCS). Smith drove in the series' first run by hitting a sacrifice fly which scored McGee in Game 1, ultimately going five for nine in St. Louis' three-game series sweep.
Just as Herzog had predicted when he told Smith the Cardinals would win the pennant with him on the team, Smith found himself as the team's starting shortstop in the best-of-seven 1982 World Series against the Milwaukee Brewers. During the contest Smith scored three runs, had five hits, and did not commit an error in the field. When St. Louis was trailing 3–1 with one out in the sixth inning of Game 7, Smith started a rally with a base hit to left field, eventually scoring the first of the team's three runs that inning. The Cardinals scored two more runs in the 8th inning for a 6–3 win and the championship.
After the World Series championship, Smith and the Cardinals agreed on a new contract in January 1983 that paid Smith $1 million per year. Smith was voted in as the National League's starting shortstop in the All-Star Game for the first time in 1983, and at season's end won a fourth consecutive Gold Glove Award. During July of the 1984 season, Smith went on the disabled list with a broken wrist after being hit by a pitch during a game against the Padres. Smith's return to the lineup a month later was not enough to propel the Cardinals to a postseason berth.
1985–1986
In 1985, Smith amassed a .276 batting average, 31 stolen bases, and 591 assists in the field. The Cardinals as a team won 101 games during the season and earned another postseason berth. Facing the Los Angeles Dodgers in the now best-of-seven NLCS, a split of the first four games set the stage for Game 5 at Busch Stadium. With the score tied at two runs apiece in the bottom of the ninth inning, Dodgers manager Tommy Lasorda called upon closer Tom Niedenfuer to pitch. Smith batted left-handed against Niedenfuer with one out. Smith, who had never hit a home run in his previous 2,967 left-handed major league at-bats, pulled an inside fastball down the right-field line for a walk-off home run, ending Game 5 in a 3–2 Cardinals victory. Smith said, "I was trying to get an extra-base hit and get into scoring position. Fortunately, I was able to get the ball up." The home run not only prompted broadcaster Jack Buck's "Go crazy folks" play-by-play call, but was also later voted the greatest moment in Busch Stadium history by Cardinals fans.
After Smith's teammate Jack Clark hit a late-inning home run of his own in Game 6 to defeat the Dodgers, the Cardinals moved on to face the Kansas City Royals in the 1985 World Series. Once again sportswriters were quick to draw attention to Smith's outstanding defensive play instead of his 2 for 23 effort at the plate. After the Cardinals took a three-games-to-two advantage, a controversial Game 6 call by umpire Don Denkinger overshadowed the remainder of the Series (which the Royals won in seven games).
What was not publicly known during the regular season and playoffs was that Smith had torn his rotator cuff after suffering an impingement in his right shoulder during the July 11–14 homestand against the Padres. After suffering the impingement diving back into first base on a pickoff throw, Smith altered his throwing motion to such a degree that the rotator cuff tear subsequently developed. The 5'10" (1.78 m), 180-pound (82 kg) Smith opted to forgo surgery and instead built up his arm strength via weightlifting, playing through whatever pain he encountered. Said Smith, "I didn't tell anybody about the injury, because I wanted to keep playing and didn't want anybody thinking they could run on me or take advantage of the injury. I tried to do almost everything, except throw a baseball, left-handed: opening a door, turning on the radio—everything. It didn't get any better, but it was good enough that I didn't have to have surgery."
Because of his injury, Smith let his then four-year-old son Nikko perform his traditional Opening Day backflip before the Cardinals' first home game of the 1986 season. Smith made an "eye-popping" play later that season on August 4, during a game against the Philadelphia Phillies at Busch Stadium. In the top of the ninth inning, Phillies pinch-hitter Von Hayes hit a short fly ball to left field, which was pursued by both Smith and left fielder Curt Ford. Running with his back to home plate, Smith dove forward, simultaneously catching the ball while parallel to the ground and flying over the diving Ford, avoiding a collision by inches.
1987–1990
After hitting in either the second or eighth spot in the batting order for most of his time in St. Louis, Herzog made Smith the number-two hitter full-time during the 1987 season. Over the course of the year, Smith accrued a .303 batting average, 43 stolen bases, 75 RBIs, 104 runs scored, and 40 doubles, good enough to earn him the Silver Slugger Award at shortstop. In addition to winning the Gold Glove Award at shortstop for the eighth consecutive time, Smith posted a career-high on-base percentage of .392. Smith was also the leading vote-getter in the 1987 All-Star Game. The Cardinals earned a postseason berth with 95 wins, and subsequently faced the San Francisco Giants in the 1987 National League Championship Series. Smith contributed a triple during the series, and the Cardinals won the contest in seven games.
The 1987 World Series matched the Cardinals against the American League champion Minnesota Twins. The home team won every game of the contest, as Minnesota won the series. In 28 at-bats during the Series, Smith scored three runs and had two RBIs. Smith finished second in MVP balloting to Andre Dawson, who had played on the last-place Chicago Cubs, largely because Smith and teammate Jack Clark split the first-place vote. Following the 1987 season, Smith was awarded the largest contract in the National League at $2.34 million.
While the team did not see the postseason for the remainder of the decade, Smith continued to rack up All-Star appearances and Gold Gloves. Combined with the attention he received from his contract, Smith continued to be a national figure. Known as a savvy dresser, he made the April 1988 cover of GQ magazine. Smith was witness to change within the Cardinal organization when owner Gussie Busch died in 1989 and Herzog quit as manager during the 1990 season.
1990–1995
Joe Torre became Smith's new manager in 1990, but the team did not reach the postseason during Torre's nearly five-year tenure. While the Cardinals celebrated their 100th anniversary in 1992, Smith marked milestones of his own, stealing his 500th career base on April 26, then notching a triple on May 26 in front of the home crowd for his 2,000th hit. St. Louis had a one-game lead in the National League East division on June 1, 1992, but injuries took their toll on the team, including Smith's two-week illness in late July after contracting chicken pox for the first time. As a testament to his national visibility during this time, Smith appeared in a 1992 episode of The Simpsons titled "Homer at the Bat". Smith became a free agent for the first time in his career on November 2, 1992, only to sign a new contract with the Cardinals on December 6.
Smith won his final Gold Glove in 1992, and his 13 consecutive Gold Gloves at shortstop in the National League has yet to be matched. The 1993 season marked the only time between 1981 and 1996 where Smith failed to make the All-Star team, and Smith finished the 1993 season with a .288 batting average and .974 fielding percentage. He appeared in 98 games during the strike-shortened 1994 season, and later missed nearly three months of the 1995 season after shoulder surgery on May 31. Smith was recognized for his community service efforts with the 1994 Branch Rickey Award and the 1995 Roberto Clemente Award. In February 1994, Smith took on the role of honorary chairman and official spokesman for the Missouri Governor's Council on Physical Fitness and Health.
1996
As Smith entered the 1996 season, he finalized a divorce from his wife Denise during the first half of the year. Meanwhile, manager Tony La Russa began his first season with the Cardinals in tandem with a new ownership group. After General Manager Walt Jocketty acquired shortstop Royce Clayton during the offseason, La Russa emphasized an open competition for the spot that would give the Cardinals the best chance to win. When spring training concluded, Smith had amassed a .288 batting average and zero errors in the field, and Clayton batted .190 with eight errors. Smith believed he had earned the position with his spring training performance, but La Russa disagreed, and awarded Clayton the majority of playing time in the platoon situation that developed, where Smith typically saw action every third game. La Russa said, "I think it's fair to say he misunderstood how he compared to Royce in spring training ... When I and the coaches evaluated the play in spring training—the whole game—Royce started very slowly offensively and you could see him start to get better. By what he was able to do defensively and on the bases, Royce deserved to play the majority of the games."
Smith missed the first month of the season with a hamstring injury, and continued to harbor ill feelings toward La Russa that had developed after spring training ended. In a closed-door meeting in mid-May, La Russa asked Smith if he would like to be traded. Instead, Smith and his agent negotiated a compromise with Cardinals management, agreeing to a buyout of special provisions in his contract in conjunction with Smith announcing his retirement. The agreement prompted a press conference at Busch Stadium on June 19, 1996, during which Smith announced he would retire from baseball at season's end.
As Smith made his final tour of the National League, he was honored by many teams, and received a standing ovation at the 1996 All-Star Game in Philadelphia. Between June 19 and September 1, Smith's batting average increased from .239 to .286. On September 2 Smith tied a career high by scoring four runs, one of which was a home run, and another on a close play at home plate in the bottom of the 10th inning against division leader Houston. The victory moved the Cardinals to within a half game of Houston in the National League Central Division, and the Cardinals went on to win the division by six games. The Cardinals held a special ceremony at Busch Stadium on September 28, 1996, before a game against the Cincinnati Reds, honoring Smith by retiring his uniform number. Noted for his ritual backflip before Opening Days, All-Star Games, and postseason games, Smith chose this occasion to perform it for one of the last times.
In the postseason, the Cardinals first faced the San Diego Padres in the 1996 National League Division Series. After sitting out Game 1, Smith got the start in Game 2 at Busch Stadium, helping his team go up two games in the series by notching a run, a hit and two walks at the plate, along with an assist and a putout in the field. The Cardinals then swept the series by winning Game 3 in San Diego.
The Cardinals faced the Atlanta Braves in the 1996 National League Championship Series. Smith started Game 1 and subsequently registered three putouts and one assist in the field, but went hitless in four at-bats in the Cardinals' 4–2 loss. The Cardinals then won Games 2, 3, and 4, contests in which Smith did not appear. Upon receiving the start in Game 5, Smith nearly duplicated his Game 1 performance with four putouts, one assist, and no hits in four at-bats as part of another Cardinals defeat. The Cardinals also failed to win Game 6 or Game 7 in Atlanta, ending their season. When the Cardinals were trailing by 10 runs during Game 7 on October 17, Smith flied out to right field while pinch-hitting in the sixth inning, marking the end of his playing career.
Smith finished his career with distinctions ranging from the accumulation of more than 27.5 million votes in All-Star balloting, to holding the record for the most MLB at-bats without hitting a grand slam.
Post-playing career
Upon retirement, Smith took over from Mel Allen as the host of the television series This Week in Baseball (TWIB) in 1997. Smith also became color commentator for the local broadcast of Cardinals games on KPLR-TV from 1997 to 1999. When his stint on This Week in Baseball concluded, Smith then moved on to do work for CNN-SI beginning in 1999. After La Russa retired as manager of the Cardinals in 2011, Smith became active in the organization again, starting with his stint as a special instructor for the team's 2012 spring training camp.
On January 8, 2002 Smith learned via a phone call he had been elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame on his first ballot by receiving 91.7% of the votes cast. As it happened, the Olympic torch was passing through St. Louis on its way to Salt Lake City for the 2002 Winter Olympics, and Smith served as a torchbearer in a ceremony with St. Louis Rams' quarterback Kurt Warner that evening. Smith was inducted into the Hall of Fame during ceremonies on July 28, 2002. During his speech, he compared his baseball experiences with the characters from the novel The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, after which his son Dustin presented his Hall of Fame plaque. Days later on August 11, Smith was back at Busch Memorial Stadium for the unveiling of a statue in his likeness made by sculptor Harry Weber. Weber chose to emphasize Smith's defensive skills by showing Smith stretched horizontal to the ground while fielding a baseball. At the ceremony Weber told Smith, "You spent half of your career up in the air. That makes it difficult for a sculptor to do something with it."
Smith has also been an entrepreneur in a variety of business ventures. Smith opened "Ozzie's" restaurant and sports bar in 1988, started a youth sports academy in 1990, became an investor in a grocery store chain in 1999, and partnered with David Slay to open a restaurant in the early 2000s. Of those businesses the youth academy remains in operation, with the restaurant having closed in 2010 after changing ownership and locations once. Aside from appearing in numerous radio and television commercials in the St. Louis area since retiring from baseball, Smith authored a children's book in 2006 and launched his own brand of salad dressing in 2008.
Besides the National Baseball Hall of Fame, Smith has also been inducted or honored in other halls of fame and recognitions. In 1999, he ranked number 87 on The Sporting News''' list of the 100 Greatest Baseball Players, and finished third in voting at shortstop for the Major League Baseball All-Century Team. He was honored with induction into the Missouri Sports Hall of Fame, Alabama Sports Hall of Fame and the St. Louis Walk of Fame, and received an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degree from Cal Poly. In January 2014, the Cardinals announced Smith among 22 former players and personnel to be inducted into the St. Louis Cardinals Hall of Fame Museum for the inaugural class of 2014.
Career MLB statistics
Hitting
Fielding
Personal life
Smith is the father to three children from his marriage to former wife Denise; sons Nikko and Dustin, and daughter Taryn. Nikko cracked the top ten finalists of the 2005 edition of American Idol.Wald, Jaina. "When it's 'Idol' time at Ozzie's, folks go crazy for Nikko". St. Louis Post-Dispatch. April 6, 2005. E3. Retrieved on 2008-03-19. In 2012, Smith made news headlines again, when he sold all of his Gold Gloves at auction together for more than $500,000.
Smith still lives in and remains a visible figure around St. Louis, making varied appearances like playing the role of the Wizard in the St. Louis Municipal Opera's summer 2001 production of The Wizard of Oz''. He is the host of Cardinals Insider, a weekly news magazine televsion show about the club. Since 2016, he has opened five regenerative medicine clinics around Missouri.
See also
List of Major League Baseball career stolen bases leaders
List of Major League Baseball career games played leaders
List of Major League Baseball career doubles leaders
List of Major League Baseball career runs scored leaders
List of Major League Baseball career hits leaders
List of St. Louis Cardinals team records
References
Further reading
External links
Ozzie Smith at SABR (Baseball BioProject)
Ozzie Smith at St. Louis Walk of Fame
Interview with Ozzie Smith on KUT's "In Black America" radio series, September 8, 1988 at the American Archive of Public Broadcasting
1954 births
Living people
African-American baseball players
Baseball players from Alabama
Cal Poly Mustangs baseball players
Gold Glove Award winners
Major League Baseball broadcasters
Major League Baseball players with retired numbers
Major League Baseball shortstops
National Baseball Hall of Fame inductees
National League All-Stars
Baseball players from Los Angeles
Sportspeople from Mobile, Alabama
San Diego Padres players
St. Louis Cardinals announcers
St. Louis Cardinals players
Walla Walla Padres players
National League Championship Series MVPs
Silver Slugger Award winners
People from Watts, Los Angeles
21st-century African-American people
20th-century African-American sportspeople | true | [
"Oxford-Weidenfeld Translation Prize is an annual literary prize for any book-length translation into English from any other living European language. The first prize was awarded in 1999. The prize is funded by and named in honour of Lord Weidenfeld and by New College, The Queen's College and St Anne's College, Oxford.\n\nWinners\nSource:\n\nNotes\n\nExternal links\nOxford-Weidenfeld Translation Prize\n\nTranslation awards\nAwards established in 1999\n1999 establishments in the United Kingdom\nEnglish literary awards\nAwards and prizes of the University of Oxford",
"The 9th annual Genie Awards were held March 22, 1988, and honoured Canadian films released in 1987. The ceremony was held at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre and was co-hosted by Megan Follows and Gordon Pinsent.\n\nThe awards were dominated by Night Zoo (Un zoo la nuit), which won a still unmatched thirteen awards. The film garnered 14 nominations overall; the film's only nomination that failed to translate into a win was Gilles Maheu's nod for Best Actor, as he lost to the film's other Best Actor nominee, Roger Lebel. The female acting awards were won by Sheila McCarthy and Paule Baillargeon for the film I've Heard the Mermaids Singing, the only other narrative feature film to win any Genie awards that year; only the Documentary and Short Film awards, in which neither Night Zoo nor I've Heard the Mermaids Singing were even eligible for consideration, were won by any other film.\n\nWinners and nominees\n\nReferences\n\n09\nGenie\nGenie\nGenie"
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| C_df24fd28c70e4f5883e1077d803f6a39_1 | Tell me about the political background? | 1 | What is the political background of Lawrence Lessig? | Lawrence Lessig | Lessig has been politically liberal since studying philosophy at Cambridge in the mid-1980s. By the late 1980s when he was selected to serve as a law clerk for two influential conservative judges, Judge Richard Posner and Justice Antonin Scalia, he was effectively the token liberal on their staffs, chosen for his brilliance rather than for his ideology. Posner would later call him "the most distinguished law professor of his generation." Lessig has emphasized in interviews that his philosophy experience at Cambridge radically changed his values and career path. Previously, he had held strong conservative or libertarian political views, desired a career in business, was a highly active member of Teenage Republicans, served as the Youth Governor for Pennsylvania through the YMCA Youth and Government program in 1978, and almost pursued a Republican political career. What was intended to be a year abroad at Cambridge convinced him instead to stay another two years to complete an undergraduate degree in philosophy and develop his changed political values. During this time, he also traveled in the Eastern Bloc, where he acquired a lifelong interest in Eastern European law and politics. Lessig remains skeptical of government intervention but favors some regulation, calling himself "a constitutionalist." On one occasion, Lessig also commended the John McCain campaign for discussing fair use rights in a letter to YouTube where it took issue with YouTube for indulging overreaching copyright claims leading to the removal of various campaign videos. Lessig has known President Barack Obama since their days of both teaching law at the University of Chicago. In 2007, Lessig came out in favor of then Democratic primary candidate Barack Obama, citing the transformative nature of the Obama campaign as one of his chief reasons. He was subsequently mentioned as a candidate to head the Federal Communications Commission, which regulates the telecommunications industry. CANNOTANSWER | Lessig has been politically liberal since studying philosophy at Cambridge in the mid-1980s. | Lester Lawrence Lessig III (born June 3, 1961) is an American academic, attorney, and political activist. He is the Roy L. Furman Professor of Law at Harvard Law School and the former director of the Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics at Harvard University. Lessig was a candidate for the Democratic Party's nomination for president of the United States in the 2016 U.S. presidential election but withdrew before the primaries.
Lessig is a proponent of reduced legal restrictions on copyright, trademark, and radio frequency spectrum, particularly in technology applications. In 2001, he founded Creative Commons, a non-profit organization devoted to expanding the range of creative works available for others to build upon and to share legally. Prior to his most recent appointment at Harvard, he was a professor of law at Stanford Law School, where he founded the Center for Internet and Society, and at the University of Chicago. He is a former board member of the Free Software Foundation and Software Freedom Law Center; the Washington, D.C. lobbying groups Public Knowledge and Free Press; and the Electronic Frontier Foundation. He was elected to the American Philosophical Society in 2007.
As a political activist, Lessig has called for state-based activism to promote substantive reform of government with a Second Constitutional Convention. In May 2014, he launched a crowd-funded political action committee which he termed Mayday PAC with the purpose of electing candidates to Congress who would pass campaign finance reform. Lessig is also the co-founder of Rootstrikers, and is on the boards of MapLight and Represent.Us. He serves on the advisory boards of the Democracy Café and the Sunlight Foundation.
In August 2015, Lessig announced that he was exploring a possible candidacy for President of the United States, promising to run if his exploratory committee raised $1 million by Labor Day. After accomplishing this, on September 6, 2015, Lessig announced that he was entering the race to become a candidate for the 2016 Democratic Party's presidential nomination. Lessig described his candidacy as a referendum on campaign finance reform and electoral reform legislation. He stated that, if elected, he would serve a full term as president with his proposed reforms as his legislative priorities. He ended his campaign in November 2015, citing rule changes from the Democratic Party that precluded him from appearing in the televised debates.
Academic career
Lessig earned a B.A. degree in economics and a B.S. degree in management (Wharton School) from the University of Pennsylvania, an M.A. degree in philosophy from the University of Cambridge (Trinity) in England, and a J.D. degree from Yale Law School in 1989. After graduating from law school, he clerked for a year for Judge Richard Posner, at the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago, Illinois, and another year for Justice Antonin Scalia at the Supreme Court.
Lessig started his academic career at the University of Chicago Law School, where he was professor from 1991 to 1997. As co-director of the Center for the Study of Constitutionalism in Eastern Europe there, he helped the newly independent Republic of Georgia draft a constitution. From 1997 to 2000, he was at Harvard Law School, holding for a year the chair of Berkman Professor of Law, affiliated with the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society. He subsequently joined Stanford Law School, where he established the school's Center for Internet and Society.
Lessig returned to Harvard in July 2009 as professor and director of the Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics. In 2013, Lessig was appointed as the Roy L. Furman Professor of Law and Leadership; his chair lecture was titled "Aaron's Laws: Law and Justice in a Digital Age."
In popular culture
Lessig was portrayed by Christopher Lloyd in "The Wake Up Call", during season 6 of The West Wing.
Political background
Lessig has been politically liberal since studying philosophy at Cambridge in the mid-1980s. By the late 1980s, two influential conservative judges, Judge Richard Posner and Justice Antonin Scalia, selected him to serve as a law clerk, choosing him because they considered him brilliant rather than for his ideology and effectively making him the "token liberal" on their staffs. Posner would later call him "the most distinguished law professor of his generation."
Lessig has emphasized in interviews that his philosophy experience at Cambridge radically changed his values and career path. Previously, he had held strong conservative or libertarian political views, desired a career in business, was a highly active member of Teenage Republicans, served as the youth governor for Pennsylvania through the YMCA Youth and Government program in 1978, and almost pursued a Republican political career.
What was intended to be a year abroad at Cambridge convinced him instead to stay another two years to complete an undergraduate degree in philosophy and develop his changed political values. During this time, he also traveled in the Eastern Bloc, where he acquired a lifelong interest in Eastern European law and politics.
Lessig remains skeptical of government intervention but favors some regulation, calling himself "a constitutionalist." On one occasion, Lessig also commended the John McCain campaign for discussing fair use rights in a letter to YouTube where it took issue with YouTube for indulging overreaching copyright claims leading to the removal of various campaign videos.
Internet and computer activism
"Code is law"
In computer science, "code" typically refers to the text of a computer program (the source code). In law, "code" can refer to the texts that constitute statutory law. In his 1999 book Code and Other Laws of Cyberspace, Lessig explores the ways in which code in both senses can be instruments for social control, leading to his dictum that "Code is law." Lessig later updated his work in order to keep up with the prevailing views of the time and released the book as Code: Version 2.0 in December 2006.
Remix culture
Lessig has been a proponent of the remix culture since the early 2000s. In his 2008 book Remix he presents this as a desirable cultural practice distinct from piracy. Lessig further articulates remix culture as intrinsic to technology and the Internet. Remix culture is therefore an amalgam of practice, creativity, "read/write" culture and the hybrid economy.
According to Lessig, the problem with the remix comes when it is at odds with stringent US copyright law. He has compared this to the failure of Prohibition, both in its ineffectiveness and in its tendency to normalize criminal behavior. Instead he proposes more lenient licensing, namely Creative Commons licenses, as a remedy to maintain "rule of law" while combating plagiarism.
Free culture
On March 28, 2004 Lessig was elected to the FSF's board of directors. He proposed the concept of "free culture". He also supports free and open-source software and open spectrum. At his free culture keynote at the O'Reilly Open Source Convention 2002, a few minutes of his speech was about software patents, which he views as a rising threat to free software, open source software and innovation.
In March 2006, Lessig joined the board of advisors of the Digital Universe project. A few months later, Lessig gave a talk on the ethics of the Free Culture Movement at the 2006 Wikimania conference. In December 2006, his lecture On Free, and the Differences between Culture and Code was one of the highlights at 23C3 Who can you trust?.
Lessig claimed in 2009 that, because 70% of young people obtain digital information from illegal sources, the law should be changed.
In a foreword to the Freesouls book project, Lessig makes an argument in favor of amateur artists in the world of digital technologies: "there is a different class of amateur creators that digital technologies have ... enabled, and a different kind of creativity has emerged as a consequence."
Lessig is also a well-known critic of copyright term extensions.
Net neutrality
Lessig has long been known to be a supporter of net neutrality. In 2006, he testified before the US Senate that he believed Congress should ratify Michael Powell's four Internet freedoms and add a restriction to access-tiering, i.e. he does not believe content providers should be charged different amounts. The reason is that the Internet, under the neutral end-to-end design is an invaluable platform for innovation, and the economic benefit of innovation would be threatened if large corporations could purchase faster service to the detriment of newer companies with less capital. However, Lessig has supported the idea of allowing ISPs to give consumers the option of different tiers of service at different prices. He was reported on CBC News as saying that he has always been in favour of allowing internet providers to charge differently for consumer access at different speeds. He said, "Now, no doubt, my position might be wrong. Some friends in the network neutrality movement as well as some scholars believe it is wrong—that it doesn't go far enough. But the suggestion that the position is 'recent' is baseless. If I'm wrong, I've always been wrong."
Legislative reform
Despite presenting an anti-regulatory standpoint in many fora, Lessig still sees the need for legislative enforcement of copyright. He has called for limiting copyright terms for creative professionals to five years, but believes that creative professionals' work, many of them independent, would become more easily and quickly available if bureaucratic procedure were introduced to renew trademarks for up to 75 years after this five-year term.
Lessig has repeatedly taken a stance that privatization through legislation like that seen in the 1980s in the UK with British Telecommunications is not the best way to help the Internet grow. He said, "When government disappears, it's not as if paradise will take its place. When governments are gone, other interests will take their place," "My claim is that we should focus on the values of liberty. If there is not government to insist on those values, then who?" "The single unifying force should be that we govern ourselves."
Legal challenges
From 1999 to 2002, Lessig represented a high-profile challenge to the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act. Working with the Berkman Center for Internet and Society, Lessig led the team representing the plaintiff in Eldred v. Ashcroft. The plaintiff in the case was joined by a group of publishers who frequently published work in the public domain and a large number of amici including the Free Software Foundation, the American Association of Law Libraries, the Bureau of National Affairs, and the College Art Association.
In March 2003, Lessig acknowledged severe disappointment with his Supreme Court defeat in the Eldred copyright-extension case, where he unsuccessfully tried to convince Chief Justice William Rehnquist, who had sympathies for de-regulation, to back his "market-based" approach to intellectual property regulation.
In August 2013, Lawrence Lessig brought suit against Liberation Music PTY Ltd., after Liberation issued a takedown notice of one of Lessig's lectures on YouTube which had used the song "Lisztomania" by the band Phoenix, whom Liberation Music represents. Lessig sought damages under section 512(f) of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which holds parties liable for misrepresentations of infringement or removal of material. Lessig was represented by the Electronic Frontier Foundation and Jones Day. In February 2014, the case ended with a settlement in which Liberation Music admitted wrongdoing in issuing the takedown notice, issued an apology, and paid a confidential sum in compensation.
Killswitch
In October 2014, Killswitch, a film featuring Lawrence Lessig, as well as Aaron Swartz, Tim Wu, and Edward Snowden received its World Premiere at the Woodstock Film Festival, where it won the award for Best Editing. In the film, Lessig frames the story of two young hacktivists, Swartz and Snowden, who symbolize the disruptive and dynamic nature of the Internet. The film reveals the emotional bond between Lessig and Swartz, and how it was Swartz (the mentee) that challenged Lessig (the mentor) to engage in the political activism that has led to Lessig's crusade for campaign finance reform.
In February 2015, Killswitch was invited to screen at the Capitol Visitor's Center in Washington DC by Congressman Alan Grayson. The event was held on the eve of the Federal Communications Commission's historic decision on Net Neutrality. Lessig, Congressman Grayson, and Free Press (organization) CEO Craig Aaron spoke about the importance of protecting net neutrality and the free and open Internet.
Congressman Grayson states that Killswitch is "One of the most honest accounts of the battle to control the Internet -- and access to information itself." Richard von Busack of the Metro Silicon Valley, writes of Killswitch, "Some of the most lapidary use of found footage this side of The Atomic Café". Fred Swegles of the Orange County Register, remarks, "Anyone who values unfettered access to online information is apt to be captivated by Killswitch, a gripping and fast-paced documentary." Kathy Gill of GeekWire asserts that "Killswitch is much more than a dry recitation of technical history. Director Ali Akbarzadeh, producer Jeff Horn, and writer Chris Dollar created a human centered story. A large part of that connection comes from Lessig and his relationship with Swartz."
The Electors Trust
In December 2016 Lawrence Lessig and Laurence Tribe established The Electors Trust under the aegis of EqualCitizens.US to provide pro bono legal counsel as well as a secure communications platform for those of the 538 members of the United States Electoral College who are regarding a vote of conscience against Donald Trump in the presidential election
Lessig hosts the podcast Another Way in conjunction with The Young Turks Network
Money in politics activism
At the iCommons iSummit 07, Lessig announced that he would stop focusing his attention on copyright and related matters and work on political corruption instead, as the result of a transformative conversation with Aaron Swartz, a young internet prodigy whom Lessig met through his work with Creative Commons. This new work was partially facilitated through his wiki, Lessig Wiki, which he has encouraged the public to use to document cases of corruption. Lessig criticized the revolving door phenomenon in which legislators and staffers leave office to become lobbyists and have become beholden to special interests.
In February 2008, a Facebook group formed by law professor John Palfrey encouraged him to run for Congress from California's 12th congressional district, the seat vacated by the death of Representative Tom Lantos. Later that month, after forming an "exploratory project", he decided not to run for the vacant seat.
Rootstrikers
Despite having decided to forgo running for Congress himself, Lessig remained interested in attempting to change Congress to reduce corruption. To this end, he worked with political consultant Joe Trippi to launch a web based project called "Change Congress". In a press conference on March 20, 2008, Lessig explained that he hoped the Change Congress website would help provide technological tools voters could use to hold their representatives accountable and reduce the influence of money on politics. He is a board member of MAPLight.org, a nonprofit research group illuminating the connection between money and politics.
Change Congress later became Fix Congress First, and was finally named Rootstrikers. In November 2011, Lessig announced that Rootstrikers would join forces with Dylan Ratigan's Get Money Out campaign, under the umbrella of the United Republic organization. Rootstrikers subsequently came under the aegis of Demand Progress, an organization co-founded by Aaron Swartz.
Article V convention
In 2010, Lessig began to organize for a national Article V convention. He co-founded Fix Congress First! with Joe Trippi. In a speech in 2011, Lessig revealed that he was disappointed with Obama's performance in office, criticizing it as a "betrayal", and he criticized the president for using "the (Hillary) Clinton playbook". Lessig has called for state governments to call for a national Article V convention, including by supporting Wolf-PAC, a national organization attempting to call an Article V convention to address the problem. The convention Lessig supports would be populated by a "random proportional selection of citizens" which he suggested would work effectively. He said "politics is a rare sport where the amateur is better than the professional." He promoted this idea at a September 24–25, 2011, conference he co-chaired with the Tea Party Patriots' national coordinator, in Lessig's October 5, 2011, book, Republic, Lost: How Money Corrupts Congress—and a Plan to Stop It, and at the Occupy protest in Washington, DC. Reporter Dan Froomkin said the book offers a manifesto for the Occupy Wall Street protestors, focusing on the core problem of corruption in both political parties and their elections. An Article V convention does not dictate a solution, but Lessig would support a constitutional amendment that would allow legislatures to limit political contributions from non-citizens, including corporations, anonymous organizations, and foreign nationals, and he also supports public campaign financing and electoral college reform to establish the one person, one vote principle.
New Hampshire Rebellion
The New Hampshire Rebellion is a walk to raise awareness about corruption in politics. The event began in 2014 with a 185-mile march in New Hampshire. In its second year the walk expanded to include other locations in New Hampshire.
From January 11 to 24, 2014, Lessig and many others, like New York activist Jeff Kurzon, marched from Dixville Notch, New Hampshire to Nashua (a 185-mile march) to promote the idea of tackling "the systemic corruption in Washington". Lessig chose this language over the related term "campaign finance reform," commenting that "Saying we need campaign finance reform is like referring to an alcoholic as someone who has a liquid intake problem." The walk was to continue the work of NH native Doris "Granny D" Haddock, and in honor of deceased activist Aaron Swartz. The New Hampshire Rebellion marched 16 miles from Hampton to New Castle on the New Hampshire Seacoast. The initial location was also chosen because of its important and visible role in the quadrennial "New Hampshire primaries", the traditional first primary of the presidential election.
2016 presidential candidacy
Lessig announced the launch of his long shot presidential campaign on September 6, 2015.
On August 11, 2015, Lessig announced that he had launched an exploratory campaign for the purpose of exploring his prospects of winning the Democratic Party's nomination for president of the United States in the 2016 election. Lessig pledged to seek the nomination if he raised $1 million by Labor Day 2015. The announcement was widely reported in national media outlets, and was timed to coincide with a media blitz by the Lessig 2016 Campaign. Lessig was interviewed in The New York Times and Bloomberg. Campaign messages and Lessig's electoral finance reform positions were circulated widely on social media. His campaign was focused on a single issue: The Citizen Equality Act, a proposal that couples campaign finance reform with other laws aimed at curbing gerrymandering and ensuring voting access. As an expression of his commitment to the proposal, Lessig initially promised to resign once the Citizen Equality Act became law and turn the presidency over to his vice president, who would then serve out the remainder of the term as a typical American president and act on a variety of issues. In October 2015, Lessig abandoned his automatic resignation plan and adopted a full policy platform for the presidency, though he did retain the passage of the Citizen Equality Act as his primary legislative objective.
Lessig made a single campaign stop in Iowa, with an eye toward the first-in-the-nation precinct caucuses: at Dordt College, in Sioux Center, in late October. He announced the end of his campaign on November 2, 2015.
Electoral College reform
In 2017, Lessig announced a movement to challenge the winner-take-all Electoral College vote allocation in the various states, called Equal Votes. Lessig was also a counsel for electors in the Supreme Court case Chiafalo v. Washington where the court decided states could force electors to follow the state's popular vote.
Awards and honors
In 2002, Lessig received the Award for the Advancement of Free Software from the Free Software Foundation (FSF). He also received the Scientific American 50 Award for having "argued against interpretations of copyright that could stifle innovation and discourse online." Then, in 2006, Lessig was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
In 2011, Lessig was named to the Fastcase 50, "honoring the law's smartest, most courageous innovators, techies, visionaries, and leaders." Lessig was awarded honorary doctorates by the Faculty of Social Sciences at Lund University, Sweden in 2013 and by the Université catholique de Louvain in 2014. Lessig received the 2014 Webby Lifetime Achievement award for co-founding Creative Commons and defending net neutrality and the free and open software movement.
Personal life
Lessig was born in Rapid City, South Dakota, the son of Patricia (West), who sold real estate, and Lester L. "Jack" Lessig, an engineer. He grew up in Williamsport, Pennsylvania.
In May 2005, it was revealed that Lessig had experienced sexual abuse by the director at the American Boychoir School, which he had attended as an adolescent. Lessig reached a settlement with the school in the past, under confidential terms. He revealed his experiences in the course of representing another student victim, John Hardwicke, in court. In August 2006, he succeeded in persuading the New Jersey Supreme Court to radically restrict the scope of immunity, which had protected nonprofits that failed to prevent sexual abuse from legal liability.
Lessig is married to Bettina Neuefeind, a German-born Harvard University colleague. The two married in 1999. He and Neuefeind have three children: Willem, who is a Crypto-Miner, Coffy, who is a streamer, and Tess.
Defamation lawsuit against the New York Times
In 2019, during the criminal investigation of Jeffrey Epstein, it was discovered that the MIT Media Lab, under former president Joichi Ito, had accepted secret donations from Epstein after Epstein had been convicted on criminal charges. Ito eventually resigned as president following this discovery. After making supportive comments to Ito, Lessig wrote a Medium post in September 2019 to explain his stance. In his post, Lessig acknowledged that universities should not take donations from convicted criminals like Epstein who had become wealthy through actions unrelated to their criminal convictions; however, if such donations were to be accepted, it was better to take them secretly rather than publicly connect the university to the criminal. Lessig's essay drew criticism, and about a week later, Nellie Bowles of The New York Times had an interview with Lessig in which he reiterated his stance related to such donations broadly. The article used the headline "A Harvard Professor Doubles Down: If You Take Epstein’s Money, Do It in Secret", which Lessig confirmed was based on a statement he had made to the Times. Lessig took issue with the headline overlooking his argument that MIT should not accept such donations in the first place and also criticized the first two lines of the article which read "It is hard to defend soliciting donations from the convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. But Lawrence Lessig, a Harvard Law professor, has been trying." He subsequently accused the Times of writing clickbait with the headline crafted to defame him, and stated that the circulation of the article on social media had hurt his reputation.
In January 2020, Lessig filed a defamation lawsuit against the Times, including writer Bowles, business editor Ellen Pollock, and executive editor Dean Baquet. The Times stated they will "vigorously" defend against Lessig's claim, and believe that what they had published was accurate and had been reviewed by senior editors following Lessig's initial complaints.
In April 2020, the New York Times changed its original headline to read: "What Are the Ethics of Taking Tainted Funds? A conversation with Lawrence Lessig about Jeffrey Epstein, M.I.T. and reputation laundering." Lessig reported he subsequently withdrew his defamation lawsuit.
Notable cases
Golan v. Gonzales (representing multiple plaintiffs)
Eldred v. Ashcroft (representing plaintiff Eric Eldred) Lost
Kahle v. Ashcroft (also see Brewster Kahle) Dismissed
United States v. Microsoft (special master and author of an amicus brief addressing the Sherman Act)
Lessig was appointed special master by Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson in 1997; the appointment was vacated by the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit; the appellate court ruled that the powers granted to Lessig exceeded the scope of the Federal statute providing for special masters; Judge Jackson then solicited Lessig's amicus brief
Lessig said about this appointment: "Did Justice Jackson pick me to be his special master because he had determined I was the perfect mix of Holmes, and Ed Felten? No, I was picked because I was a Harvard Law Professor teaching the law of cyberspace. Remember: So is 'fame' made."
MPAA v. 2600 (submitted an amicus brief with Yochai Benkler in support of 2600)
McCutcheon v. FEC (submitted an amicus brief in support of FEC)
Chiafalo v. Washington (representing Chiafalo)
Bibliography
Code and Other Laws of Cyberspace (Basic Books, 1999)
The Future of Ideas (Vintage Books, 2001)
Free Culture (Penguin, 2004)
Code: Version 2.0 (Basic Books, 2006)
Remix: Making Art and Commerce Thrive in the Hybrid Economy (Penguin, 2008)
Republic, Lost: How Money Corrupts Congress—and a Plan to Stop It (Twelve, 2011)
One Way Forward: The Outsider's Guide to Fixing the Republic (Kindle Single/Amazon, 2012)
Lesterland: The Corruption of Congress and How to End It (2013, CC-BY-NC)
Republic, Lost: The Corruption of Equality and the Steps to End It (Twelve, rev. ed., 2015)
America, Compromised (University of Chicago Press, 2018)
Fidelity & Constraint: How the Supreme Court Has Read the American Constitution (Oxford University Press, 2019)
They Don't Represent Us: Reclaiming Our Democracy (Dey Street/William Morrow, 2019)
Filmography
RiP!: A Remix Manifesto, a 2008 documentary film
The Internet's Own Boy: The Story of Aaron Swartz, 2014 documentary film
Killswitch, 2015 documentary film
The Swamp, 2020 documentary film
Kim Dotcom: The Most Wanted Man Online, 2021 documentary film
See also
Copyleft
Free software movement
Free content
FreeCulture.org
Open educational resources
Gratis versus libre
Open content
Law of the Horse
Lobbying in the United States
Second Constitutional Convention of the United States proposal for constitutional reform
Killswitch (film)
References
External links
(includes Curriculum Vitae and Lessig blog 2002–2009)
Lessig Blog, beyond 2009
(Presidential Campaign site)
1961 births
21st-century American non-fiction writers
21st-century American politicians
Access to Knowledge activists
Alumni of Trinity College, Cambridge
American bloggers
American lawyers
American legal scholars
American people of German descent
American political writers
Articles containing video clips
Candidates in the 2016 United States presidential election
Computer law scholars
Copyright activists
Copyright scholars
Creative Commons-licensed authors
Harvard Law School faculty
Law clerks of the Supreme Court of the United States
Living people
Massachusetts Democrats
Members of the Creative Commons board of directors
Open content activists
People from Rapid City, South Dakota
People from Williamsport, Pennsylvania
Scholars of constitutional law
Sexual abuse victim advocates
Stanford Law School faculty
University of Chicago faculty
Webby Award winners
Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania alumni
Wired (magazine) people
Yale Law School alumni | true | [
"\nThe following is a list of episodes of Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me!, NPR's news panel game, that aired during 2019. All episodes, unless otherwise indicated, feature host Peter Sagal and announcer/scorekeeper Bill Kurtis, and originate at Chicago's Chase Auditorium. Dates indicated are the episodes' original Saturday air dates. Job titles and backgrounds of the guests reflect their status at the time of their appearance.\n\nJanuary\n{| class=\"wikitable\"\n|- bgcolor=\"#CCCCCC\"\n! style=\"background:#F55029;color:#FFFFFF;\"|Date !! style=\"background:#F55029;color:#FFFFFF;\"|Guest !! style=\"background:#F55029;color:#FFFFFF;\"|Panelists !! style=\"background:#F55029;color:#FFFFFF;\"|Notes\n|-\n|style=\"background:#FDD6CC;color:#000000;\"|January 5||colspan=\"3\"|\"Best of 2018\" episode, featuring segments with actors LeVar Burton and Uzo Aduba\n|-\n|style=\"background:#FFE3DF;color:#000000;\"|January 12||Houston Rockets head coach Mike D'Antoni||Luke Burbank, Paula Poundstone, Roxanne Roberts||Guest announcer/scorekeeper Chioke I’Anson<ref>[https://twitter.com/waitwait/status/1083803984123576323 Source: Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me!] on Twitter (1/11/2019)</ref>\n|-\n|style=\"background:#FDD6CC;color:#000000;\"|January 19||Late night TV host Conan O'Brien||Alonzo Bodden, Helen Hong, Mo Rocca||\n|-\n|style=\"background:#FFE3DF;color:#000000;\"|January 26||Former pro football defensive back Charles Tillman||Bim Adewunmi, Adam Burke, Amy Dickinson||\n|}\n\nFebruary\n\nMarch\n\nApril\n\nMay\n\nJune\n\nJuly\n\nAugust\n\nSeptember\n\nOctober\n\nNovember\n\nDecember\n\n References \n\nExternal links\nWait Wait... Don't Tell Me! official website\nWWDT.me, an unofficial Wait Wait'' historical site\n\nWait Wait... Don't Tell Me!\nWait Wait Don't Tell Me\nWait Wait Don't Tell Me",
"Girls About Town is the debut EP by the American rock band The Smithereens. It was released on 31 October 1980 on the band's own D-Tone Records. The EP contains four songs with the word ‘girl‘ in the title, including \"Girl Don't Tell Me,\" a song originally recorded by The Beach Boys.\n\nThe 7\" EP has never been available in any other format, though two of its tracks were included on Smithereens compilation albums: the title track on Attack of The Smithereens and From Jersey It Came! The Smithereens Anthology; and \"Girl Don't Tell Me\" on Covers.\n\nBackground\n“We had a bunch of songs with ‘girl’ in the title, and \"Girls About Town\" was the song that everyone thought was our best live song. It was the song that we thought, at the time, had the most commercial potential, so we called the EP Girls About Town and to round it off, we made it an EP that featured the word ‘girl’ in all four songs.” -Pat DiNizio\n\nTrack listing\nAll songs written by Pat DiNizio, except \"Girl Don't Tell Me\" by Brian Wilson.\n \"Girls About Town\" \n \"Girl Don't Tell Me\" \n \"Got Me A Girl\" \n \"Girls Are Like That\"\n\nPersonnel\nAdapted from the EP's liner notes.\nThe Smithereens\nPat DiNizio – vocals, guitar\nJim Babjak – guitar\nDennis Diken – drums, vocals\nMike Mesaros – bass\nAdditional personnel\n Alan Varner – mixing\n Justine Strait – art\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n Girls About Town on Discogs.com. Retrieved on 14 February 2018.\n\n1980 EPs\nThe Smithereens albums\n\nde:Girls About Town\nes:Girls About Town"
]
|
[
"Lawrence Lessig",
"Political background",
"Tell me about the political background?",
"Lessig has been politically liberal since studying philosophy at Cambridge in the mid-1980s."
]
| C_df24fd28c70e4f5883e1077d803f6a39_1 | Has he been an activist for anything? | 2 | Has Lawrence Lessig been an activist for anything? | Lawrence Lessig | Lessig has been politically liberal since studying philosophy at Cambridge in the mid-1980s. By the late 1980s when he was selected to serve as a law clerk for two influential conservative judges, Judge Richard Posner and Justice Antonin Scalia, he was effectively the token liberal on their staffs, chosen for his brilliance rather than for his ideology. Posner would later call him "the most distinguished law professor of his generation." Lessig has emphasized in interviews that his philosophy experience at Cambridge radically changed his values and career path. Previously, he had held strong conservative or libertarian political views, desired a career in business, was a highly active member of Teenage Republicans, served as the Youth Governor for Pennsylvania through the YMCA Youth and Government program in 1978, and almost pursued a Republican political career. What was intended to be a year abroad at Cambridge convinced him instead to stay another two years to complete an undergraduate degree in philosophy and develop his changed political values. During this time, he also traveled in the Eastern Bloc, where he acquired a lifelong interest in Eastern European law and politics. Lessig remains skeptical of government intervention but favors some regulation, calling himself "a constitutionalist." On one occasion, Lessig also commended the John McCain campaign for discussing fair use rights in a letter to YouTube where it took issue with YouTube for indulging overreaching copyright claims leading to the removal of various campaign videos. Lessig has known President Barack Obama since their days of both teaching law at the University of Chicago. In 2007, Lessig came out in favor of then Democratic primary candidate Barack Obama, citing the transformative nature of the Obama campaign as one of his chief reasons. He was subsequently mentioned as a candidate to head the Federal Communications Commission, which regulates the telecommunications industry. CANNOTANSWER | Lessig came out in favor of then Democratic primary candidate Barack Obama, citing the transformative nature of the Obama campaign as one of his chief reasons. | Lester Lawrence Lessig III (born June 3, 1961) is an American academic, attorney, and political activist. He is the Roy L. Furman Professor of Law at Harvard Law School and the former director of the Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics at Harvard University. Lessig was a candidate for the Democratic Party's nomination for president of the United States in the 2016 U.S. presidential election but withdrew before the primaries.
Lessig is a proponent of reduced legal restrictions on copyright, trademark, and radio frequency spectrum, particularly in technology applications. In 2001, he founded Creative Commons, a non-profit organization devoted to expanding the range of creative works available for others to build upon and to share legally. Prior to his most recent appointment at Harvard, he was a professor of law at Stanford Law School, where he founded the Center for Internet and Society, and at the University of Chicago. He is a former board member of the Free Software Foundation and Software Freedom Law Center; the Washington, D.C. lobbying groups Public Knowledge and Free Press; and the Electronic Frontier Foundation. He was elected to the American Philosophical Society in 2007.
As a political activist, Lessig has called for state-based activism to promote substantive reform of government with a Second Constitutional Convention. In May 2014, he launched a crowd-funded political action committee which he termed Mayday PAC with the purpose of electing candidates to Congress who would pass campaign finance reform. Lessig is also the co-founder of Rootstrikers, and is on the boards of MapLight and Represent.Us. He serves on the advisory boards of the Democracy Café and the Sunlight Foundation.
In August 2015, Lessig announced that he was exploring a possible candidacy for President of the United States, promising to run if his exploratory committee raised $1 million by Labor Day. After accomplishing this, on September 6, 2015, Lessig announced that he was entering the race to become a candidate for the 2016 Democratic Party's presidential nomination. Lessig described his candidacy as a referendum on campaign finance reform and electoral reform legislation. He stated that, if elected, he would serve a full term as president with his proposed reforms as his legislative priorities. He ended his campaign in November 2015, citing rule changes from the Democratic Party that precluded him from appearing in the televised debates.
Academic career
Lessig earned a B.A. degree in economics and a B.S. degree in management (Wharton School) from the University of Pennsylvania, an M.A. degree in philosophy from the University of Cambridge (Trinity) in England, and a J.D. degree from Yale Law School in 1989. After graduating from law school, he clerked for a year for Judge Richard Posner, at the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago, Illinois, and another year for Justice Antonin Scalia at the Supreme Court.
Lessig started his academic career at the University of Chicago Law School, where he was professor from 1991 to 1997. As co-director of the Center for the Study of Constitutionalism in Eastern Europe there, he helped the newly independent Republic of Georgia draft a constitution. From 1997 to 2000, he was at Harvard Law School, holding for a year the chair of Berkman Professor of Law, affiliated with the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society. He subsequently joined Stanford Law School, where he established the school's Center for Internet and Society.
Lessig returned to Harvard in July 2009 as professor and director of the Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics. In 2013, Lessig was appointed as the Roy L. Furman Professor of Law and Leadership; his chair lecture was titled "Aaron's Laws: Law and Justice in a Digital Age."
In popular culture
Lessig was portrayed by Christopher Lloyd in "The Wake Up Call", during season 6 of The West Wing.
Political background
Lessig has been politically liberal since studying philosophy at Cambridge in the mid-1980s. By the late 1980s, two influential conservative judges, Judge Richard Posner and Justice Antonin Scalia, selected him to serve as a law clerk, choosing him because they considered him brilliant rather than for his ideology and effectively making him the "token liberal" on their staffs. Posner would later call him "the most distinguished law professor of his generation."
Lessig has emphasized in interviews that his philosophy experience at Cambridge radically changed his values and career path. Previously, he had held strong conservative or libertarian political views, desired a career in business, was a highly active member of Teenage Republicans, served as the youth governor for Pennsylvania through the YMCA Youth and Government program in 1978, and almost pursued a Republican political career.
What was intended to be a year abroad at Cambridge convinced him instead to stay another two years to complete an undergraduate degree in philosophy and develop his changed political values. During this time, he also traveled in the Eastern Bloc, where he acquired a lifelong interest in Eastern European law and politics.
Lessig remains skeptical of government intervention but favors some regulation, calling himself "a constitutionalist." On one occasion, Lessig also commended the John McCain campaign for discussing fair use rights in a letter to YouTube where it took issue with YouTube for indulging overreaching copyright claims leading to the removal of various campaign videos.
Internet and computer activism
"Code is law"
In computer science, "code" typically refers to the text of a computer program (the source code). In law, "code" can refer to the texts that constitute statutory law. In his 1999 book Code and Other Laws of Cyberspace, Lessig explores the ways in which code in both senses can be instruments for social control, leading to his dictum that "Code is law." Lessig later updated his work in order to keep up with the prevailing views of the time and released the book as Code: Version 2.0 in December 2006.
Remix culture
Lessig has been a proponent of the remix culture since the early 2000s. In his 2008 book Remix he presents this as a desirable cultural practice distinct from piracy. Lessig further articulates remix culture as intrinsic to technology and the Internet. Remix culture is therefore an amalgam of practice, creativity, "read/write" culture and the hybrid economy.
According to Lessig, the problem with the remix comes when it is at odds with stringent US copyright law. He has compared this to the failure of Prohibition, both in its ineffectiveness and in its tendency to normalize criminal behavior. Instead he proposes more lenient licensing, namely Creative Commons licenses, as a remedy to maintain "rule of law" while combating plagiarism.
Free culture
On March 28, 2004 Lessig was elected to the FSF's board of directors. He proposed the concept of "free culture". He also supports free and open-source software and open spectrum. At his free culture keynote at the O'Reilly Open Source Convention 2002, a few minutes of his speech was about software patents, which he views as a rising threat to free software, open source software and innovation.
In March 2006, Lessig joined the board of advisors of the Digital Universe project. A few months later, Lessig gave a talk on the ethics of the Free Culture Movement at the 2006 Wikimania conference. In December 2006, his lecture On Free, and the Differences between Culture and Code was one of the highlights at 23C3 Who can you trust?.
Lessig claimed in 2009 that, because 70% of young people obtain digital information from illegal sources, the law should be changed.
In a foreword to the Freesouls book project, Lessig makes an argument in favor of amateur artists in the world of digital technologies: "there is a different class of amateur creators that digital technologies have ... enabled, and a different kind of creativity has emerged as a consequence."
Lessig is also a well-known critic of copyright term extensions.
Net neutrality
Lessig has long been known to be a supporter of net neutrality. In 2006, he testified before the US Senate that he believed Congress should ratify Michael Powell's four Internet freedoms and add a restriction to access-tiering, i.e. he does not believe content providers should be charged different amounts. The reason is that the Internet, under the neutral end-to-end design is an invaluable platform for innovation, and the economic benefit of innovation would be threatened if large corporations could purchase faster service to the detriment of newer companies with less capital. However, Lessig has supported the idea of allowing ISPs to give consumers the option of different tiers of service at different prices. He was reported on CBC News as saying that he has always been in favour of allowing internet providers to charge differently for consumer access at different speeds. He said, "Now, no doubt, my position might be wrong. Some friends in the network neutrality movement as well as some scholars believe it is wrong—that it doesn't go far enough. But the suggestion that the position is 'recent' is baseless. If I'm wrong, I've always been wrong."
Legislative reform
Despite presenting an anti-regulatory standpoint in many fora, Lessig still sees the need for legislative enforcement of copyright. He has called for limiting copyright terms for creative professionals to five years, but believes that creative professionals' work, many of them independent, would become more easily and quickly available if bureaucratic procedure were introduced to renew trademarks for up to 75 years after this five-year term.
Lessig has repeatedly taken a stance that privatization through legislation like that seen in the 1980s in the UK with British Telecommunications is not the best way to help the Internet grow. He said, "When government disappears, it's not as if paradise will take its place. When governments are gone, other interests will take their place," "My claim is that we should focus on the values of liberty. If there is not government to insist on those values, then who?" "The single unifying force should be that we govern ourselves."
Legal challenges
From 1999 to 2002, Lessig represented a high-profile challenge to the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act. Working with the Berkman Center for Internet and Society, Lessig led the team representing the plaintiff in Eldred v. Ashcroft. The plaintiff in the case was joined by a group of publishers who frequently published work in the public domain and a large number of amici including the Free Software Foundation, the American Association of Law Libraries, the Bureau of National Affairs, and the College Art Association.
In March 2003, Lessig acknowledged severe disappointment with his Supreme Court defeat in the Eldred copyright-extension case, where he unsuccessfully tried to convince Chief Justice William Rehnquist, who had sympathies for de-regulation, to back his "market-based" approach to intellectual property regulation.
In August 2013, Lawrence Lessig brought suit against Liberation Music PTY Ltd., after Liberation issued a takedown notice of one of Lessig's lectures on YouTube which had used the song "Lisztomania" by the band Phoenix, whom Liberation Music represents. Lessig sought damages under section 512(f) of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which holds parties liable for misrepresentations of infringement or removal of material. Lessig was represented by the Electronic Frontier Foundation and Jones Day. In February 2014, the case ended with a settlement in which Liberation Music admitted wrongdoing in issuing the takedown notice, issued an apology, and paid a confidential sum in compensation.
Killswitch
In October 2014, Killswitch, a film featuring Lawrence Lessig, as well as Aaron Swartz, Tim Wu, and Edward Snowden received its World Premiere at the Woodstock Film Festival, where it won the award for Best Editing. In the film, Lessig frames the story of two young hacktivists, Swartz and Snowden, who symbolize the disruptive and dynamic nature of the Internet. The film reveals the emotional bond between Lessig and Swartz, and how it was Swartz (the mentee) that challenged Lessig (the mentor) to engage in the political activism that has led to Lessig's crusade for campaign finance reform.
In February 2015, Killswitch was invited to screen at the Capitol Visitor's Center in Washington DC by Congressman Alan Grayson. The event was held on the eve of the Federal Communications Commission's historic decision on Net Neutrality. Lessig, Congressman Grayson, and Free Press (organization) CEO Craig Aaron spoke about the importance of protecting net neutrality and the free and open Internet.
Congressman Grayson states that Killswitch is "One of the most honest accounts of the battle to control the Internet -- and access to information itself." Richard von Busack of the Metro Silicon Valley, writes of Killswitch, "Some of the most lapidary use of found footage this side of The Atomic Café". Fred Swegles of the Orange County Register, remarks, "Anyone who values unfettered access to online information is apt to be captivated by Killswitch, a gripping and fast-paced documentary." Kathy Gill of GeekWire asserts that "Killswitch is much more than a dry recitation of technical history. Director Ali Akbarzadeh, producer Jeff Horn, and writer Chris Dollar created a human centered story. A large part of that connection comes from Lessig and his relationship with Swartz."
The Electors Trust
In December 2016 Lawrence Lessig and Laurence Tribe established The Electors Trust under the aegis of EqualCitizens.US to provide pro bono legal counsel as well as a secure communications platform for those of the 538 members of the United States Electoral College who are regarding a vote of conscience against Donald Trump in the presidential election
Lessig hosts the podcast Another Way in conjunction with The Young Turks Network
Money in politics activism
At the iCommons iSummit 07, Lessig announced that he would stop focusing his attention on copyright and related matters and work on political corruption instead, as the result of a transformative conversation with Aaron Swartz, a young internet prodigy whom Lessig met through his work with Creative Commons. This new work was partially facilitated through his wiki, Lessig Wiki, which he has encouraged the public to use to document cases of corruption. Lessig criticized the revolving door phenomenon in which legislators and staffers leave office to become lobbyists and have become beholden to special interests.
In February 2008, a Facebook group formed by law professor John Palfrey encouraged him to run for Congress from California's 12th congressional district, the seat vacated by the death of Representative Tom Lantos. Later that month, after forming an "exploratory project", he decided not to run for the vacant seat.
Rootstrikers
Despite having decided to forgo running for Congress himself, Lessig remained interested in attempting to change Congress to reduce corruption. To this end, he worked with political consultant Joe Trippi to launch a web based project called "Change Congress". In a press conference on March 20, 2008, Lessig explained that he hoped the Change Congress website would help provide technological tools voters could use to hold their representatives accountable and reduce the influence of money on politics. He is a board member of MAPLight.org, a nonprofit research group illuminating the connection between money and politics.
Change Congress later became Fix Congress First, and was finally named Rootstrikers. In November 2011, Lessig announced that Rootstrikers would join forces with Dylan Ratigan's Get Money Out campaign, under the umbrella of the United Republic organization. Rootstrikers subsequently came under the aegis of Demand Progress, an organization co-founded by Aaron Swartz.
Article V convention
In 2010, Lessig began to organize for a national Article V convention. He co-founded Fix Congress First! with Joe Trippi. In a speech in 2011, Lessig revealed that he was disappointed with Obama's performance in office, criticizing it as a "betrayal", and he criticized the president for using "the (Hillary) Clinton playbook". Lessig has called for state governments to call for a national Article V convention, including by supporting Wolf-PAC, a national organization attempting to call an Article V convention to address the problem. The convention Lessig supports would be populated by a "random proportional selection of citizens" which he suggested would work effectively. He said "politics is a rare sport where the amateur is better than the professional." He promoted this idea at a September 24–25, 2011, conference he co-chaired with the Tea Party Patriots' national coordinator, in Lessig's October 5, 2011, book, Republic, Lost: How Money Corrupts Congress—and a Plan to Stop It, and at the Occupy protest in Washington, DC. Reporter Dan Froomkin said the book offers a manifesto for the Occupy Wall Street protestors, focusing on the core problem of corruption in both political parties and their elections. An Article V convention does not dictate a solution, but Lessig would support a constitutional amendment that would allow legislatures to limit political contributions from non-citizens, including corporations, anonymous organizations, and foreign nationals, and he also supports public campaign financing and electoral college reform to establish the one person, one vote principle.
New Hampshire Rebellion
The New Hampshire Rebellion is a walk to raise awareness about corruption in politics. The event began in 2014 with a 185-mile march in New Hampshire. In its second year the walk expanded to include other locations in New Hampshire.
From January 11 to 24, 2014, Lessig and many others, like New York activist Jeff Kurzon, marched from Dixville Notch, New Hampshire to Nashua (a 185-mile march) to promote the idea of tackling "the systemic corruption in Washington". Lessig chose this language over the related term "campaign finance reform," commenting that "Saying we need campaign finance reform is like referring to an alcoholic as someone who has a liquid intake problem." The walk was to continue the work of NH native Doris "Granny D" Haddock, and in honor of deceased activist Aaron Swartz. The New Hampshire Rebellion marched 16 miles from Hampton to New Castle on the New Hampshire Seacoast. The initial location was also chosen because of its important and visible role in the quadrennial "New Hampshire primaries", the traditional first primary of the presidential election.
2016 presidential candidacy
Lessig announced the launch of his long shot presidential campaign on September 6, 2015.
On August 11, 2015, Lessig announced that he had launched an exploratory campaign for the purpose of exploring his prospects of winning the Democratic Party's nomination for president of the United States in the 2016 election. Lessig pledged to seek the nomination if he raised $1 million by Labor Day 2015. The announcement was widely reported in national media outlets, and was timed to coincide with a media blitz by the Lessig 2016 Campaign. Lessig was interviewed in The New York Times and Bloomberg. Campaign messages and Lessig's electoral finance reform positions were circulated widely on social media. His campaign was focused on a single issue: The Citizen Equality Act, a proposal that couples campaign finance reform with other laws aimed at curbing gerrymandering and ensuring voting access. As an expression of his commitment to the proposal, Lessig initially promised to resign once the Citizen Equality Act became law and turn the presidency over to his vice president, who would then serve out the remainder of the term as a typical American president and act on a variety of issues. In October 2015, Lessig abandoned his automatic resignation plan and adopted a full policy platform for the presidency, though he did retain the passage of the Citizen Equality Act as his primary legislative objective.
Lessig made a single campaign stop in Iowa, with an eye toward the first-in-the-nation precinct caucuses: at Dordt College, in Sioux Center, in late October. He announced the end of his campaign on November 2, 2015.
Electoral College reform
In 2017, Lessig announced a movement to challenge the winner-take-all Electoral College vote allocation in the various states, called Equal Votes. Lessig was also a counsel for electors in the Supreme Court case Chiafalo v. Washington where the court decided states could force electors to follow the state's popular vote.
Awards and honors
In 2002, Lessig received the Award for the Advancement of Free Software from the Free Software Foundation (FSF). He also received the Scientific American 50 Award for having "argued against interpretations of copyright that could stifle innovation and discourse online." Then, in 2006, Lessig was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
In 2011, Lessig was named to the Fastcase 50, "honoring the law's smartest, most courageous innovators, techies, visionaries, and leaders." Lessig was awarded honorary doctorates by the Faculty of Social Sciences at Lund University, Sweden in 2013 and by the Université catholique de Louvain in 2014. Lessig received the 2014 Webby Lifetime Achievement award for co-founding Creative Commons and defending net neutrality and the free and open software movement.
Personal life
Lessig was born in Rapid City, South Dakota, the son of Patricia (West), who sold real estate, and Lester L. "Jack" Lessig, an engineer. He grew up in Williamsport, Pennsylvania.
In May 2005, it was revealed that Lessig had experienced sexual abuse by the director at the American Boychoir School, which he had attended as an adolescent. Lessig reached a settlement with the school in the past, under confidential terms. He revealed his experiences in the course of representing another student victim, John Hardwicke, in court. In August 2006, he succeeded in persuading the New Jersey Supreme Court to radically restrict the scope of immunity, which had protected nonprofits that failed to prevent sexual abuse from legal liability.
Lessig is married to Bettina Neuefeind, a German-born Harvard University colleague. The two married in 1999. He and Neuefeind have three children: Willem, who is a Crypto-Miner, Coffy, who is a streamer, and Tess.
Defamation lawsuit against the New York Times
In 2019, during the criminal investigation of Jeffrey Epstein, it was discovered that the MIT Media Lab, under former president Joichi Ito, had accepted secret donations from Epstein after Epstein had been convicted on criminal charges. Ito eventually resigned as president following this discovery. After making supportive comments to Ito, Lessig wrote a Medium post in September 2019 to explain his stance. In his post, Lessig acknowledged that universities should not take donations from convicted criminals like Epstein who had become wealthy through actions unrelated to their criminal convictions; however, if such donations were to be accepted, it was better to take them secretly rather than publicly connect the university to the criminal. Lessig's essay drew criticism, and about a week later, Nellie Bowles of The New York Times had an interview with Lessig in which he reiterated his stance related to such donations broadly. The article used the headline "A Harvard Professor Doubles Down: If You Take Epstein’s Money, Do It in Secret", which Lessig confirmed was based on a statement he had made to the Times. Lessig took issue with the headline overlooking his argument that MIT should not accept such donations in the first place and also criticized the first two lines of the article which read "It is hard to defend soliciting donations from the convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. But Lawrence Lessig, a Harvard Law professor, has been trying." He subsequently accused the Times of writing clickbait with the headline crafted to defame him, and stated that the circulation of the article on social media had hurt his reputation.
In January 2020, Lessig filed a defamation lawsuit against the Times, including writer Bowles, business editor Ellen Pollock, and executive editor Dean Baquet. The Times stated they will "vigorously" defend against Lessig's claim, and believe that what they had published was accurate and had been reviewed by senior editors following Lessig's initial complaints.
In April 2020, the New York Times changed its original headline to read: "What Are the Ethics of Taking Tainted Funds? A conversation with Lawrence Lessig about Jeffrey Epstein, M.I.T. and reputation laundering." Lessig reported he subsequently withdrew his defamation lawsuit.
Notable cases
Golan v. Gonzales (representing multiple plaintiffs)
Eldred v. Ashcroft (representing plaintiff Eric Eldred) Lost
Kahle v. Ashcroft (also see Brewster Kahle) Dismissed
United States v. Microsoft (special master and author of an amicus brief addressing the Sherman Act)
Lessig was appointed special master by Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson in 1997; the appointment was vacated by the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit; the appellate court ruled that the powers granted to Lessig exceeded the scope of the Federal statute providing for special masters; Judge Jackson then solicited Lessig's amicus brief
Lessig said about this appointment: "Did Justice Jackson pick me to be his special master because he had determined I was the perfect mix of Holmes, and Ed Felten? No, I was picked because I was a Harvard Law Professor teaching the law of cyberspace. Remember: So is 'fame' made."
MPAA v. 2600 (submitted an amicus brief with Yochai Benkler in support of 2600)
McCutcheon v. FEC (submitted an amicus brief in support of FEC)
Chiafalo v. Washington (representing Chiafalo)
Bibliography
Code and Other Laws of Cyberspace (Basic Books, 1999)
The Future of Ideas (Vintage Books, 2001)
Free Culture (Penguin, 2004)
Code: Version 2.0 (Basic Books, 2006)
Remix: Making Art and Commerce Thrive in the Hybrid Economy (Penguin, 2008)
Republic, Lost: How Money Corrupts Congress—and a Plan to Stop It (Twelve, 2011)
One Way Forward: The Outsider's Guide to Fixing the Republic (Kindle Single/Amazon, 2012)
Lesterland: The Corruption of Congress and How to End It (2013, CC-BY-NC)
Republic, Lost: The Corruption of Equality and the Steps to End It (Twelve, rev. ed., 2015)
America, Compromised (University of Chicago Press, 2018)
Fidelity & Constraint: How the Supreme Court Has Read the American Constitution (Oxford University Press, 2019)
They Don't Represent Us: Reclaiming Our Democracy (Dey Street/William Morrow, 2019)
Filmography
RiP!: A Remix Manifesto, a 2008 documentary film
The Internet's Own Boy: The Story of Aaron Swartz, 2014 documentary film
Killswitch, 2015 documentary film
The Swamp, 2020 documentary film
Kim Dotcom: The Most Wanted Man Online, 2021 documentary film
See also
Copyleft
Free software movement
Free content
FreeCulture.org
Open educational resources
Gratis versus libre
Open content
Law of the Horse
Lobbying in the United States
Second Constitutional Convention of the United States proposal for constitutional reform
Killswitch (film)
References
External links
(includes Curriculum Vitae and Lessig blog 2002–2009)
Lessig Blog, beyond 2009
(Presidential Campaign site)
1961 births
21st-century American non-fiction writers
21st-century American politicians
Access to Knowledge activists
Alumni of Trinity College, Cambridge
American bloggers
American lawyers
American legal scholars
American people of German descent
American political writers
Articles containing video clips
Candidates in the 2016 United States presidential election
Computer law scholars
Copyright activists
Copyright scholars
Creative Commons-licensed authors
Harvard Law School faculty
Law clerks of the Supreme Court of the United States
Living people
Massachusetts Democrats
Members of the Creative Commons board of directors
Open content activists
People from Rapid City, South Dakota
People from Williamsport, Pennsylvania
Scholars of constitutional law
Sexual abuse victim advocates
Stanford Law School faculty
University of Chicago faculty
Webby Award winners
Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania alumni
Wired (magazine) people
Yale Law School alumni | false | [
"Ramlal Joshi is a Nepali author. In 2016 he won the Madan Puraskar, the most prestigious literary award of Nepal, for his novel Aina.\n\nRamlal Joshi is a resident of Dhangadhi Kailali. Previously, he had been a political activist, a journalist and a teacher. He has been the Chair of Sudur Paschimanchal Sahitya Samaj, an organization active for literature and culture. He received Madan Purskar for his book Aina (i.e., Mirror), an anthology of short stories in Nepali.\n\nReferences\n\nMadan Puraskar winners\nNepalese male writers\nNepali-language writers\n21st-century Nepalese male writers",
"Alfre Woodard is an American actress, producer, and political activist. She has been nominated once for an Academy Award and twice for a Grammy Award and 18 times for an Emmy Award (winning four) and has also won a Golden Globe Award and three Screen Actors Guild Awards. In 2020, The New York Times ranked Woodard seventeenth on its list of \"The 25 Greatest Actors of the 21st Century\". She is also known for her work as a political activist and producer. Woodard is a founder of Artists for a New South Africa, an organization devoted to advancing democracy and equality in that country. She is a board member of Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.\n\nMajor Associations\n\nAcademy Awards\n\nBritish Academy Film Award\n\nGolden Globe Award\n\nGrammy Award\n\nPrimetime Emmy Awards\n\nScreen Actors Guild Award\n\nIndependent Spirit Awards\n\nOther Awards\n\nBlack Reel Awards\n\nNAACP Image Award\n\nSatellite Awards\n\nFilm critic awards\n\nMiscellaneous awards\n\nReferences\n\nWoodard, Alfre"
]
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"Political background",
"Tell me about the political background?",
"Lessig has been politically liberal since studying philosophy at Cambridge in the mid-1980s.",
"Has he been an activist for anything?",
"Lessig came out in favor of then Democratic primary candidate Barack Obama, citing the transformative nature of the Obama campaign as one of his chief reasons."
]
| C_df24fd28c70e4f5883e1077d803f6a39_1 | What else does he stand for? | 3 | What else did Lawrence Lessig stand for other than Barack Obama ? | Lawrence Lessig | Lessig has been politically liberal since studying philosophy at Cambridge in the mid-1980s. By the late 1980s when he was selected to serve as a law clerk for two influential conservative judges, Judge Richard Posner and Justice Antonin Scalia, he was effectively the token liberal on their staffs, chosen for his brilliance rather than for his ideology. Posner would later call him "the most distinguished law professor of his generation." Lessig has emphasized in interviews that his philosophy experience at Cambridge radically changed his values and career path. Previously, he had held strong conservative or libertarian political views, desired a career in business, was a highly active member of Teenage Republicans, served as the Youth Governor for Pennsylvania through the YMCA Youth and Government program in 1978, and almost pursued a Republican political career. What was intended to be a year abroad at Cambridge convinced him instead to stay another two years to complete an undergraduate degree in philosophy and develop his changed political values. During this time, he also traveled in the Eastern Bloc, where he acquired a lifelong interest in Eastern European law and politics. Lessig remains skeptical of government intervention but favors some regulation, calling himself "a constitutionalist." On one occasion, Lessig also commended the John McCain campaign for discussing fair use rights in a letter to YouTube where it took issue with YouTube for indulging overreaching copyright claims leading to the removal of various campaign videos. Lessig has known President Barack Obama since their days of both teaching law at the University of Chicago. In 2007, Lessig came out in favor of then Democratic primary candidate Barack Obama, citing the transformative nature of the Obama campaign as one of his chief reasons. He was subsequently mentioned as a candidate to head the Federal Communications Commission, which regulates the telecommunications industry. CANNOTANSWER | Lessig remains skeptical of government intervention but favors some regulation, calling himself "a constitutionalist." On | Lester Lawrence Lessig III (born June 3, 1961) is an American academic, attorney, and political activist. He is the Roy L. Furman Professor of Law at Harvard Law School and the former director of the Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics at Harvard University. Lessig was a candidate for the Democratic Party's nomination for president of the United States in the 2016 U.S. presidential election but withdrew before the primaries.
Lessig is a proponent of reduced legal restrictions on copyright, trademark, and radio frequency spectrum, particularly in technology applications. In 2001, he founded Creative Commons, a non-profit organization devoted to expanding the range of creative works available for others to build upon and to share legally. Prior to his most recent appointment at Harvard, he was a professor of law at Stanford Law School, where he founded the Center for Internet and Society, and at the University of Chicago. He is a former board member of the Free Software Foundation and Software Freedom Law Center; the Washington, D.C. lobbying groups Public Knowledge and Free Press; and the Electronic Frontier Foundation. He was elected to the American Philosophical Society in 2007.
As a political activist, Lessig has called for state-based activism to promote substantive reform of government with a Second Constitutional Convention. In May 2014, he launched a crowd-funded political action committee which he termed Mayday PAC with the purpose of electing candidates to Congress who would pass campaign finance reform. Lessig is also the co-founder of Rootstrikers, and is on the boards of MapLight and Represent.Us. He serves on the advisory boards of the Democracy Café and the Sunlight Foundation.
In August 2015, Lessig announced that he was exploring a possible candidacy for President of the United States, promising to run if his exploratory committee raised $1 million by Labor Day. After accomplishing this, on September 6, 2015, Lessig announced that he was entering the race to become a candidate for the 2016 Democratic Party's presidential nomination. Lessig described his candidacy as a referendum on campaign finance reform and electoral reform legislation. He stated that, if elected, he would serve a full term as president with his proposed reforms as his legislative priorities. He ended his campaign in November 2015, citing rule changes from the Democratic Party that precluded him from appearing in the televised debates.
Academic career
Lessig earned a B.A. degree in economics and a B.S. degree in management (Wharton School) from the University of Pennsylvania, an M.A. degree in philosophy from the University of Cambridge (Trinity) in England, and a J.D. degree from Yale Law School in 1989. After graduating from law school, he clerked for a year for Judge Richard Posner, at the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago, Illinois, and another year for Justice Antonin Scalia at the Supreme Court.
Lessig started his academic career at the University of Chicago Law School, where he was professor from 1991 to 1997. As co-director of the Center for the Study of Constitutionalism in Eastern Europe there, he helped the newly independent Republic of Georgia draft a constitution. From 1997 to 2000, he was at Harvard Law School, holding for a year the chair of Berkman Professor of Law, affiliated with the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society. He subsequently joined Stanford Law School, where he established the school's Center for Internet and Society.
Lessig returned to Harvard in July 2009 as professor and director of the Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics. In 2013, Lessig was appointed as the Roy L. Furman Professor of Law and Leadership; his chair lecture was titled "Aaron's Laws: Law and Justice in a Digital Age."
In popular culture
Lessig was portrayed by Christopher Lloyd in "The Wake Up Call", during season 6 of The West Wing.
Political background
Lessig has been politically liberal since studying philosophy at Cambridge in the mid-1980s. By the late 1980s, two influential conservative judges, Judge Richard Posner and Justice Antonin Scalia, selected him to serve as a law clerk, choosing him because they considered him brilliant rather than for his ideology and effectively making him the "token liberal" on their staffs. Posner would later call him "the most distinguished law professor of his generation."
Lessig has emphasized in interviews that his philosophy experience at Cambridge radically changed his values and career path. Previously, he had held strong conservative or libertarian political views, desired a career in business, was a highly active member of Teenage Republicans, served as the youth governor for Pennsylvania through the YMCA Youth and Government program in 1978, and almost pursued a Republican political career.
What was intended to be a year abroad at Cambridge convinced him instead to stay another two years to complete an undergraduate degree in philosophy and develop his changed political values. During this time, he also traveled in the Eastern Bloc, where he acquired a lifelong interest in Eastern European law and politics.
Lessig remains skeptical of government intervention but favors some regulation, calling himself "a constitutionalist." On one occasion, Lessig also commended the John McCain campaign for discussing fair use rights in a letter to YouTube where it took issue with YouTube for indulging overreaching copyright claims leading to the removal of various campaign videos.
Internet and computer activism
"Code is law"
In computer science, "code" typically refers to the text of a computer program (the source code). In law, "code" can refer to the texts that constitute statutory law. In his 1999 book Code and Other Laws of Cyberspace, Lessig explores the ways in which code in both senses can be instruments for social control, leading to his dictum that "Code is law." Lessig later updated his work in order to keep up with the prevailing views of the time and released the book as Code: Version 2.0 in December 2006.
Remix culture
Lessig has been a proponent of the remix culture since the early 2000s. In his 2008 book Remix he presents this as a desirable cultural practice distinct from piracy. Lessig further articulates remix culture as intrinsic to technology and the Internet. Remix culture is therefore an amalgam of practice, creativity, "read/write" culture and the hybrid economy.
According to Lessig, the problem with the remix comes when it is at odds with stringent US copyright law. He has compared this to the failure of Prohibition, both in its ineffectiveness and in its tendency to normalize criminal behavior. Instead he proposes more lenient licensing, namely Creative Commons licenses, as a remedy to maintain "rule of law" while combating plagiarism.
Free culture
On March 28, 2004 Lessig was elected to the FSF's board of directors. He proposed the concept of "free culture". He also supports free and open-source software and open spectrum. At his free culture keynote at the O'Reilly Open Source Convention 2002, a few minutes of his speech was about software patents, which he views as a rising threat to free software, open source software and innovation.
In March 2006, Lessig joined the board of advisors of the Digital Universe project. A few months later, Lessig gave a talk on the ethics of the Free Culture Movement at the 2006 Wikimania conference. In December 2006, his lecture On Free, and the Differences between Culture and Code was one of the highlights at 23C3 Who can you trust?.
Lessig claimed in 2009 that, because 70% of young people obtain digital information from illegal sources, the law should be changed.
In a foreword to the Freesouls book project, Lessig makes an argument in favor of amateur artists in the world of digital technologies: "there is a different class of amateur creators that digital technologies have ... enabled, and a different kind of creativity has emerged as a consequence."
Lessig is also a well-known critic of copyright term extensions.
Net neutrality
Lessig has long been known to be a supporter of net neutrality. In 2006, he testified before the US Senate that he believed Congress should ratify Michael Powell's four Internet freedoms and add a restriction to access-tiering, i.e. he does not believe content providers should be charged different amounts. The reason is that the Internet, under the neutral end-to-end design is an invaluable platform for innovation, and the economic benefit of innovation would be threatened if large corporations could purchase faster service to the detriment of newer companies with less capital. However, Lessig has supported the idea of allowing ISPs to give consumers the option of different tiers of service at different prices. He was reported on CBC News as saying that he has always been in favour of allowing internet providers to charge differently for consumer access at different speeds. He said, "Now, no doubt, my position might be wrong. Some friends in the network neutrality movement as well as some scholars believe it is wrong—that it doesn't go far enough. But the suggestion that the position is 'recent' is baseless. If I'm wrong, I've always been wrong."
Legislative reform
Despite presenting an anti-regulatory standpoint in many fora, Lessig still sees the need for legislative enforcement of copyright. He has called for limiting copyright terms for creative professionals to five years, but believes that creative professionals' work, many of them independent, would become more easily and quickly available if bureaucratic procedure were introduced to renew trademarks for up to 75 years after this five-year term.
Lessig has repeatedly taken a stance that privatization through legislation like that seen in the 1980s in the UK with British Telecommunications is not the best way to help the Internet grow. He said, "When government disappears, it's not as if paradise will take its place. When governments are gone, other interests will take their place," "My claim is that we should focus on the values of liberty. If there is not government to insist on those values, then who?" "The single unifying force should be that we govern ourselves."
Legal challenges
From 1999 to 2002, Lessig represented a high-profile challenge to the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act. Working with the Berkman Center for Internet and Society, Lessig led the team representing the plaintiff in Eldred v. Ashcroft. The plaintiff in the case was joined by a group of publishers who frequently published work in the public domain and a large number of amici including the Free Software Foundation, the American Association of Law Libraries, the Bureau of National Affairs, and the College Art Association.
In March 2003, Lessig acknowledged severe disappointment with his Supreme Court defeat in the Eldred copyright-extension case, where he unsuccessfully tried to convince Chief Justice William Rehnquist, who had sympathies for de-regulation, to back his "market-based" approach to intellectual property regulation.
In August 2013, Lawrence Lessig brought suit against Liberation Music PTY Ltd., after Liberation issued a takedown notice of one of Lessig's lectures on YouTube which had used the song "Lisztomania" by the band Phoenix, whom Liberation Music represents. Lessig sought damages under section 512(f) of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which holds parties liable for misrepresentations of infringement or removal of material. Lessig was represented by the Electronic Frontier Foundation and Jones Day. In February 2014, the case ended with a settlement in which Liberation Music admitted wrongdoing in issuing the takedown notice, issued an apology, and paid a confidential sum in compensation.
Killswitch
In October 2014, Killswitch, a film featuring Lawrence Lessig, as well as Aaron Swartz, Tim Wu, and Edward Snowden received its World Premiere at the Woodstock Film Festival, where it won the award for Best Editing. In the film, Lessig frames the story of two young hacktivists, Swartz and Snowden, who symbolize the disruptive and dynamic nature of the Internet. The film reveals the emotional bond between Lessig and Swartz, and how it was Swartz (the mentee) that challenged Lessig (the mentor) to engage in the political activism that has led to Lessig's crusade for campaign finance reform.
In February 2015, Killswitch was invited to screen at the Capitol Visitor's Center in Washington DC by Congressman Alan Grayson. The event was held on the eve of the Federal Communications Commission's historic decision on Net Neutrality. Lessig, Congressman Grayson, and Free Press (organization) CEO Craig Aaron spoke about the importance of protecting net neutrality and the free and open Internet.
Congressman Grayson states that Killswitch is "One of the most honest accounts of the battle to control the Internet -- and access to information itself." Richard von Busack of the Metro Silicon Valley, writes of Killswitch, "Some of the most lapidary use of found footage this side of The Atomic Café". Fred Swegles of the Orange County Register, remarks, "Anyone who values unfettered access to online information is apt to be captivated by Killswitch, a gripping and fast-paced documentary." Kathy Gill of GeekWire asserts that "Killswitch is much more than a dry recitation of technical history. Director Ali Akbarzadeh, producer Jeff Horn, and writer Chris Dollar created a human centered story. A large part of that connection comes from Lessig and his relationship with Swartz."
The Electors Trust
In December 2016 Lawrence Lessig and Laurence Tribe established The Electors Trust under the aegis of EqualCitizens.US to provide pro bono legal counsel as well as a secure communications platform for those of the 538 members of the United States Electoral College who are regarding a vote of conscience against Donald Trump in the presidential election
Lessig hosts the podcast Another Way in conjunction with The Young Turks Network
Money in politics activism
At the iCommons iSummit 07, Lessig announced that he would stop focusing his attention on copyright and related matters and work on political corruption instead, as the result of a transformative conversation with Aaron Swartz, a young internet prodigy whom Lessig met through his work with Creative Commons. This new work was partially facilitated through his wiki, Lessig Wiki, which he has encouraged the public to use to document cases of corruption. Lessig criticized the revolving door phenomenon in which legislators and staffers leave office to become lobbyists and have become beholden to special interests.
In February 2008, a Facebook group formed by law professor John Palfrey encouraged him to run for Congress from California's 12th congressional district, the seat vacated by the death of Representative Tom Lantos. Later that month, after forming an "exploratory project", he decided not to run for the vacant seat.
Rootstrikers
Despite having decided to forgo running for Congress himself, Lessig remained interested in attempting to change Congress to reduce corruption. To this end, he worked with political consultant Joe Trippi to launch a web based project called "Change Congress". In a press conference on March 20, 2008, Lessig explained that he hoped the Change Congress website would help provide technological tools voters could use to hold their representatives accountable and reduce the influence of money on politics. He is a board member of MAPLight.org, a nonprofit research group illuminating the connection between money and politics.
Change Congress later became Fix Congress First, and was finally named Rootstrikers. In November 2011, Lessig announced that Rootstrikers would join forces with Dylan Ratigan's Get Money Out campaign, under the umbrella of the United Republic organization. Rootstrikers subsequently came under the aegis of Demand Progress, an organization co-founded by Aaron Swartz.
Article V convention
In 2010, Lessig began to organize for a national Article V convention. He co-founded Fix Congress First! with Joe Trippi. In a speech in 2011, Lessig revealed that he was disappointed with Obama's performance in office, criticizing it as a "betrayal", and he criticized the president for using "the (Hillary) Clinton playbook". Lessig has called for state governments to call for a national Article V convention, including by supporting Wolf-PAC, a national organization attempting to call an Article V convention to address the problem. The convention Lessig supports would be populated by a "random proportional selection of citizens" which he suggested would work effectively. He said "politics is a rare sport where the amateur is better than the professional." He promoted this idea at a September 24–25, 2011, conference he co-chaired with the Tea Party Patriots' national coordinator, in Lessig's October 5, 2011, book, Republic, Lost: How Money Corrupts Congress—and a Plan to Stop It, and at the Occupy protest in Washington, DC. Reporter Dan Froomkin said the book offers a manifesto for the Occupy Wall Street protestors, focusing on the core problem of corruption in both political parties and their elections. An Article V convention does not dictate a solution, but Lessig would support a constitutional amendment that would allow legislatures to limit political contributions from non-citizens, including corporations, anonymous organizations, and foreign nationals, and he also supports public campaign financing and electoral college reform to establish the one person, one vote principle.
New Hampshire Rebellion
The New Hampshire Rebellion is a walk to raise awareness about corruption in politics. The event began in 2014 with a 185-mile march in New Hampshire. In its second year the walk expanded to include other locations in New Hampshire.
From January 11 to 24, 2014, Lessig and many others, like New York activist Jeff Kurzon, marched from Dixville Notch, New Hampshire to Nashua (a 185-mile march) to promote the idea of tackling "the systemic corruption in Washington". Lessig chose this language over the related term "campaign finance reform," commenting that "Saying we need campaign finance reform is like referring to an alcoholic as someone who has a liquid intake problem." The walk was to continue the work of NH native Doris "Granny D" Haddock, and in honor of deceased activist Aaron Swartz. The New Hampshire Rebellion marched 16 miles from Hampton to New Castle on the New Hampshire Seacoast. The initial location was also chosen because of its important and visible role in the quadrennial "New Hampshire primaries", the traditional first primary of the presidential election.
2016 presidential candidacy
Lessig announced the launch of his long shot presidential campaign on September 6, 2015.
On August 11, 2015, Lessig announced that he had launched an exploratory campaign for the purpose of exploring his prospects of winning the Democratic Party's nomination for president of the United States in the 2016 election. Lessig pledged to seek the nomination if he raised $1 million by Labor Day 2015. The announcement was widely reported in national media outlets, and was timed to coincide with a media blitz by the Lessig 2016 Campaign. Lessig was interviewed in The New York Times and Bloomberg. Campaign messages and Lessig's electoral finance reform positions were circulated widely on social media. His campaign was focused on a single issue: The Citizen Equality Act, a proposal that couples campaign finance reform with other laws aimed at curbing gerrymandering and ensuring voting access. As an expression of his commitment to the proposal, Lessig initially promised to resign once the Citizen Equality Act became law and turn the presidency over to his vice president, who would then serve out the remainder of the term as a typical American president and act on a variety of issues. In October 2015, Lessig abandoned his automatic resignation plan and adopted a full policy platform for the presidency, though he did retain the passage of the Citizen Equality Act as his primary legislative objective.
Lessig made a single campaign stop in Iowa, with an eye toward the first-in-the-nation precinct caucuses: at Dordt College, in Sioux Center, in late October. He announced the end of his campaign on November 2, 2015.
Electoral College reform
In 2017, Lessig announced a movement to challenge the winner-take-all Electoral College vote allocation in the various states, called Equal Votes. Lessig was also a counsel for electors in the Supreme Court case Chiafalo v. Washington where the court decided states could force electors to follow the state's popular vote.
Awards and honors
In 2002, Lessig received the Award for the Advancement of Free Software from the Free Software Foundation (FSF). He also received the Scientific American 50 Award for having "argued against interpretations of copyright that could stifle innovation and discourse online." Then, in 2006, Lessig was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
In 2011, Lessig was named to the Fastcase 50, "honoring the law's smartest, most courageous innovators, techies, visionaries, and leaders." Lessig was awarded honorary doctorates by the Faculty of Social Sciences at Lund University, Sweden in 2013 and by the Université catholique de Louvain in 2014. Lessig received the 2014 Webby Lifetime Achievement award for co-founding Creative Commons and defending net neutrality and the free and open software movement.
Personal life
Lessig was born in Rapid City, South Dakota, the son of Patricia (West), who sold real estate, and Lester L. "Jack" Lessig, an engineer. He grew up in Williamsport, Pennsylvania.
In May 2005, it was revealed that Lessig had experienced sexual abuse by the director at the American Boychoir School, which he had attended as an adolescent. Lessig reached a settlement with the school in the past, under confidential terms. He revealed his experiences in the course of representing another student victim, John Hardwicke, in court. In August 2006, he succeeded in persuading the New Jersey Supreme Court to radically restrict the scope of immunity, which had protected nonprofits that failed to prevent sexual abuse from legal liability.
Lessig is married to Bettina Neuefeind, a German-born Harvard University colleague. The two married in 1999. He and Neuefeind have three children: Willem, who is a Crypto-Miner, Coffy, who is a streamer, and Tess.
Defamation lawsuit against the New York Times
In 2019, during the criminal investigation of Jeffrey Epstein, it was discovered that the MIT Media Lab, under former president Joichi Ito, had accepted secret donations from Epstein after Epstein had been convicted on criminal charges. Ito eventually resigned as president following this discovery. After making supportive comments to Ito, Lessig wrote a Medium post in September 2019 to explain his stance. In his post, Lessig acknowledged that universities should not take donations from convicted criminals like Epstein who had become wealthy through actions unrelated to their criminal convictions; however, if such donations were to be accepted, it was better to take them secretly rather than publicly connect the university to the criminal. Lessig's essay drew criticism, and about a week later, Nellie Bowles of The New York Times had an interview with Lessig in which he reiterated his stance related to such donations broadly. The article used the headline "A Harvard Professor Doubles Down: If You Take Epstein’s Money, Do It in Secret", which Lessig confirmed was based on a statement he had made to the Times. Lessig took issue with the headline overlooking his argument that MIT should not accept such donations in the first place and also criticized the first two lines of the article which read "It is hard to defend soliciting donations from the convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. But Lawrence Lessig, a Harvard Law professor, has been trying." He subsequently accused the Times of writing clickbait with the headline crafted to defame him, and stated that the circulation of the article on social media had hurt his reputation.
In January 2020, Lessig filed a defamation lawsuit against the Times, including writer Bowles, business editor Ellen Pollock, and executive editor Dean Baquet. The Times stated they will "vigorously" defend against Lessig's claim, and believe that what they had published was accurate and had been reviewed by senior editors following Lessig's initial complaints.
In April 2020, the New York Times changed its original headline to read: "What Are the Ethics of Taking Tainted Funds? A conversation with Lawrence Lessig about Jeffrey Epstein, M.I.T. and reputation laundering." Lessig reported he subsequently withdrew his defamation lawsuit.
Notable cases
Golan v. Gonzales (representing multiple plaintiffs)
Eldred v. Ashcroft (representing plaintiff Eric Eldred) Lost
Kahle v. Ashcroft (also see Brewster Kahle) Dismissed
United States v. Microsoft (special master and author of an amicus brief addressing the Sherman Act)
Lessig was appointed special master by Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson in 1997; the appointment was vacated by the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit; the appellate court ruled that the powers granted to Lessig exceeded the scope of the Federal statute providing for special masters; Judge Jackson then solicited Lessig's amicus brief
Lessig said about this appointment: "Did Justice Jackson pick me to be his special master because he had determined I was the perfect mix of Holmes, and Ed Felten? No, I was picked because I was a Harvard Law Professor teaching the law of cyberspace. Remember: So is 'fame' made."
MPAA v. 2600 (submitted an amicus brief with Yochai Benkler in support of 2600)
McCutcheon v. FEC (submitted an amicus brief in support of FEC)
Chiafalo v. Washington (representing Chiafalo)
Bibliography
Code and Other Laws of Cyberspace (Basic Books, 1999)
The Future of Ideas (Vintage Books, 2001)
Free Culture (Penguin, 2004)
Code: Version 2.0 (Basic Books, 2006)
Remix: Making Art and Commerce Thrive in the Hybrid Economy (Penguin, 2008)
Republic, Lost: How Money Corrupts Congress—and a Plan to Stop It (Twelve, 2011)
One Way Forward: The Outsider's Guide to Fixing the Republic (Kindle Single/Amazon, 2012)
Lesterland: The Corruption of Congress and How to End It (2013, CC-BY-NC)
Republic, Lost: The Corruption of Equality and the Steps to End It (Twelve, rev. ed., 2015)
America, Compromised (University of Chicago Press, 2018)
Fidelity & Constraint: How the Supreme Court Has Read the American Constitution (Oxford University Press, 2019)
They Don't Represent Us: Reclaiming Our Democracy (Dey Street/William Morrow, 2019)
Filmography
RiP!: A Remix Manifesto, a 2008 documentary film
The Internet's Own Boy: The Story of Aaron Swartz, 2014 documentary film
Killswitch, 2015 documentary film
The Swamp, 2020 documentary film
Kim Dotcom: The Most Wanted Man Online, 2021 documentary film
See also
Copyleft
Free software movement
Free content
FreeCulture.org
Open educational resources
Gratis versus libre
Open content
Law of the Horse
Lobbying in the United States
Second Constitutional Convention of the United States proposal for constitutional reform
Killswitch (film)
References
External links
(includes Curriculum Vitae and Lessig blog 2002–2009)
Lessig Blog, beyond 2009
(Presidential Campaign site)
1961 births
21st-century American non-fiction writers
21st-century American politicians
Access to Knowledge activists
Alumni of Trinity College, Cambridge
American bloggers
American lawyers
American legal scholars
American people of German descent
American political writers
Articles containing video clips
Candidates in the 2016 United States presidential election
Computer law scholars
Copyright activists
Copyright scholars
Creative Commons-licensed authors
Harvard Law School faculty
Law clerks of the Supreme Court of the United States
Living people
Massachusetts Democrats
Members of the Creative Commons board of directors
Open content activists
People from Rapid City, South Dakota
People from Williamsport, Pennsylvania
Scholars of constitutional law
Sexual abuse victim advocates
Stanford Law School faculty
University of Chicago faculty
Webby Award winners
Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania alumni
Wired (magazine) people
Yale Law School alumni | true | [
"What Does the K Stand For? is a BBC Radio Four sitcom series based on the experiences of comedian Stephen K. Amos growing up as a teenager in south London in the 1980s. The broadcast of the first series began in November 2013; the third series commenced in January 2017.\n\nCritical reception\nReviewing Series 1, Episode 1 for Radio Times, Tristram Fane Saunders found the show suited Amos \"down to the ground; there's a touch of Seinfeld about What Does the K Stand for? in the way it flows from stand up into a deliciously awkward sitcom\".\n\nWriting in The Guardian in February 2015, Priya Elan judged that, \"Standup comedian Stephen K Amos's jaunty sitcom What Does The K Stand For? (Radio 4) reaches the end of its second series with possibly the best episode yet. With shades of Chris Rock's Everybody Hates Chris, Amos takes us back to his 80s childhood, growing up gay and black in a dysfunctional household\".\n\nHowever, he added, \"Playing it broad by mixing farce with double entendres, the sitcom is slightly uneven: although the family are drawn with wit and sympathy, minor characters like the actress turned teacher Miss Bliss feel less like real people than excuses to weave in a few good dad jokes\".\n\nOverall, Elan found, \"What lifts the show are the elements of diaspora life weaved throughout, as when Aunty Princess visits from Nigeria and accuses Virginia [Stephen's mother] of cultural betrayal ('You have adopted too many fine and fancy British ways'). Stephen defends the family by suggesting she should 'go back home', prompting him to reflect that he has turned into his own racist enemy. It's unexpectedly thoughtful stuff, suggesting the third series may be even better.\"\n\nReferences\n\nBBC Radio 4 programmes\nBBC Radio comedy programmes",
"American singer William DeVaughn has released three studio albums, including a record selling nearly two million copies on its release in spring 1974 (#1 within the R&B charts and #4 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart). The track \"Be Thankful for What You Got\" first (1974) peaked at #31 in the UK Singles Chart and later (1980) at #44. \n\nDiscographies of American artists\nRhythm and blues discographies\nSoul music discographies\nBe Thankful for What You Got (1974)\nFigures Can't Calculate (1980)\n\"Creme De Creme (1980)\nTime Will Stand Still (2008)\n\"Staying Power\"(2014)\n\"Love In Any Language \"(2016)\n\"What Does It Take ( to win your love for me)\" &\" I Gotta Dance To keep From Crying\"\" (2017)"
]
|
[
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"Political background",
"Tell me about the political background?",
"Lessig has been politically liberal since studying philosophy at Cambridge in the mid-1980s.",
"Has he been an activist for anything?",
"Lessig came out in favor of then Democratic primary candidate Barack Obama, citing the transformative nature of the Obama campaign as one of his chief reasons.",
"What else does he stand for?",
"Lessig remains skeptical of government intervention but favors some regulation, calling himself \"a constitutionalist.\" On"
]
| C_df24fd28c70e4f5883e1077d803f6a39_1 | Are there any other interesting aspects about this article? | 4 | Are there any other interesting aspects about Lawrence Lessig other than being skeptical of government intervention? | Lawrence Lessig | Lessig has been politically liberal since studying philosophy at Cambridge in the mid-1980s. By the late 1980s when he was selected to serve as a law clerk for two influential conservative judges, Judge Richard Posner and Justice Antonin Scalia, he was effectively the token liberal on their staffs, chosen for his brilliance rather than for his ideology. Posner would later call him "the most distinguished law professor of his generation." Lessig has emphasized in interviews that his philosophy experience at Cambridge radically changed his values and career path. Previously, he had held strong conservative or libertarian political views, desired a career in business, was a highly active member of Teenage Republicans, served as the Youth Governor for Pennsylvania through the YMCA Youth and Government program in 1978, and almost pursued a Republican political career. What was intended to be a year abroad at Cambridge convinced him instead to stay another two years to complete an undergraduate degree in philosophy and develop his changed political values. During this time, he also traveled in the Eastern Bloc, where he acquired a lifelong interest in Eastern European law and politics. Lessig remains skeptical of government intervention but favors some regulation, calling himself "a constitutionalist." On one occasion, Lessig also commended the John McCain campaign for discussing fair use rights in a letter to YouTube where it took issue with YouTube for indulging overreaching copyright claims leading to the removal of various campaign videos. Lessig has known President Barack Obama since their days of both teaching law at the University of Chicago. In 2007, Lessig came out in favor of then Democratic primary candidate Barack Obama, citing the transformative nature of the Obama campaign as one of his chief reasons. He was subsequently mentioned as a candidate to head the Federal Communications Commission, which regulates the telecommunications industry. CANNOTANSWER | What was intended to be a year abroad at Cambridge convinced him instead to stay another two years to complete an undergraduate degree in philosophy | Lester Lawrence Lessig III (born June 3, 1961) is an American academic, attorney, and political activist. He is the Roy L. Furman Professor of Law at Harvard Law School and the former director of the Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics at Harvard University. Lessig was a candidate for the Democratic Party's nomination for president of the United States in the 2016 U.S. presidential election but withdrew before the primaries.
Lessig is a proponent of reduced legal restrictions on copyright, trademark, and radio frequency spectrum, particularly in technology applications. In 2001, he founded Creative Commons, a non-profit organization devoted to expanding the range of creative works available for others to build upon and to share legally. Prior to his most recent appointment at Harvard, he was a professor of law at Stanford Law School, where he founded the Center for Internet and Society, and at the University of Chicago. He is a former board member of the Free Software Foundation and Software Freedom Law Center; the Washington, D.C. lobbying groups Public Knowledge and Free Press; and the Electronic Frontier Foundation. He was elected to the American Philosophical Society in 2007.
As a political activist, Lessig has called for state-based activism to promote substantive reform of government with a Second Constitutional Convention. In May 2014, he launched a crowd-funded political action committee which he termed Mayday PAC with the purpose of electing candidates to Congress who would pass campaign finance reform. Lessig is also the co-founder of Rootstrikers, and is on the boards of MapLight and Represent.Us. He serves on the advisory boards of the Democracy Café and the Sunlight Foundation.
In August 2015, Lessig announced that he was exploring a possible candidacy for President of the United States, promising to run if his exploratory committee raised $1 million by Labor Day. After accomplishing this, on September 6, 2015, Lessig announced that he was entering the race to become a candidate for the 2016 Democratic Party's presidential nomination. Lessig described his candidacy as a referendum on campaign finance reform and electoral reform legislation. He stated that, if elected, he would serve a full term as president with his proposed reforms as his legislative priorities. He ended his campaign in November 2015, citing rule changes from the Democratic Party that precluded him from appearing in the televised debates.
Academic career
Lessig earned a B.A. degree in economics and a B.S. degree in management (Wharton School) from the University of Pennsylvania, an M.A. degree in philosophy from the University of Cambridge (Trinity) in England, and a J.D. degree from Yale Law School in 1989. After graduating from law school, he clerked for a year for Judge Richard Posner, at the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago, Illinois, and another year for Justice Antonin Scalia at the Supreme Court.
Lessig started his academic career at the University of Chicago Law School, where he was professor from 1991 to 1997. As co-director of the Center for the Study of Constitutionalism in Eastern Europe there, he helped the newly independent Republic of Georgia draft a constitution. From 1997 to 2000, he was at Harvard Law School, holding for a year the chair of Berkman Professor of Law, affiliated with the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society. He subsequently joined Stanford Law School, where he established the school's Center for Internet and Society.
Lessig returned to Harvard in July 2009 as professor and director of the Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics. In 2013, Lessig was appointed as the Roy L. Furman Professor of Law and Leadership; his chair lecture was titled "Aaron's Laws: Law and Justice in a Digital Age."
In popular culture
Lessig was portrayed by Christopher Lloyd in "The Wake Up Call", during season 6 of The West Wing.
Political background
Lessig has been politically liberal since studying philosophy at Cambridge in the mid-1980s. By the late 1980s, two influential conservative judges, Judge Richard Posner and Justice Antonin Scalia, selected him to serve as a law clerk, choosing him because they considered him brilliant rather than for his ideology and effectively making him the "token liberal" on their staffs. Posner would later call him "the most distinguished law professor of his generation."
Lessig has emphasized in interviews that his philosophy experience at Cambridge radically changed his values and career path. Previously, he had held strong conservative or libertarian political views, desired a career in business, was a highly active member of Teenage Republicans, served as the youth governor for Pennsylvania through the YMCA Youth and Government program in 1978, and almost pursued a Republican political career.
What was intended to be a year abroad at Cambridge convinced him instead to stay another two years to complete an undergraduate degree in philosophy and develop his changed political values. During this time, he also traveled in the Eastern Bloc, where he acquired a lifelong interest in Eastern European law and politics.
Lessig remains skeptical of government intervention but favors some regulation, calling himself "a constitutionalist." On one occasion, Lessig also commended the John McCain campaign for discussing fair use rights in a letter to YouTube where it took issue with YouTube for indulging overreaching copyright claims leading to the removal of various campaign videos.
Internet and computer activism
"Code is law"
In computer science, "code" typically refers to the text of a computer program (the source code). In law, "code" can refer to the texts that constitute statutory law. In his 1999 book Code and Other Laws of Cyberspace, Lessig explores the ways in which code in both senses can be instruments for social control, leading to his dictum that "Code is law." Lessig later updated his work in order to keep up with the prevailing views of the time and released the book as Code: Version 2.0 in December 2006.
Remix culture
Lessig has been a proponent of the remix culture since the early 2000s. In his 2008 book Remix he presents this as a desirable cultural practice distinct from piracy. Lessig further articulates remix culture as intrinsic to technology and the Internet. Remix culture is therefore an amalgam of practice, creativity, "read/write" culture and the hybrid economy.
According to Lessig, the problem with the remix comes when it is at odds with stringent US copyright law. He has compared this to the failure of Prohibition, both in its ineffectiveness and in its tendency to normalize criminal behavior. Instead he proposes more lenient licensing, namely Creative Commons licenses, as a remedy to maintain "rule of law" while combating plagiarism.
Free culture
On March 28, 2004 Lessig was elected to the FSF's board of directors. He proposed the concept of "free culture". He also supports free and open-source software and open spectrum. At his free culture keynote at the O'Reilly Open Source Convention 2002, a few minutes of his speech was about software patents, which he views as a rising threat to free software, open source software and innovation.
In March 2006, Lessig joined the board of advisors of the Digital Universe project. A few months later, Lessig gave a talk on the ethics of the Free Culture Movement at the 2006 Wikimania conference. In December 2006, his lecture On Free, and the Differences between Culture and Code was one of the highlights at 23C3 Who can you trust?.
Lessig claimed in 2009 that, because 70% of young people obtain digital information from illegal sources, the law should be changed.
In a foreword to the Freesouls book project, Lessig makes an argument in favor of amateur artists in the world of digital technologies: "there is a different class of amateur creators that digital technologies have ... enabled, and a different kind of creativity has emerged as a consequence."
Lessig is also a well-known critic of copyright term extensions.
Net neutrality
Lessig has long been known to be a supporter of net neutrality. In 2006, he testified before the US Senate that he believed Congress should ratify Michael Powell's four Internet freedoms and add a restriction to access-tiering, i.e. he does not believe content providers should be charged different amounts. The reason is that the Internet, under the neutral end-to-end design is an invaluable platform for innovation, and the economic benefit of innovation would be threatened if large corporations could purchase faster service to the detriment of newer companies with less capital. However, Lessig has supported the idea of allowing ISPs to give consumers the option of different tiers of service at different prices. He was reported on CBC News as saying that he has always been in favour of allowing internet providers to charge differently for consumer access at different speeds. He said, "Now, no doubt, my position might be wrong. Some friends in the network neutrality movement as well as some scholars believe it is wrong—that it doesn't go far enough. But the suggestion that the position is 'recent' is baseless. If I'm wrong, I've always been wrong."
Legislative reform
Despite presenting an anti-regulatory standpoint in many fora, Lessig still sees the need for legislative enforcement of copyright. He has called for limiting copyright terms for creative professionals to five years, but believes that creative professionals' work, many of them independent, would become more easily and quickly available if bureaucratic procedure were introduced to renew trademarks for up to 75 years after this five-year term.
Lessig has repeatedly taken a stance that privatization through legislation like that seen in the 1980s in the UK with British Telecommunications is not the best way to help the Internet grow. He said, "When government disappears, it's not as if paradise will take its place. When governments are gone, other interests will take their place," "My claim is that we should focus on the values of liberty. If there is not government to insist on those values, then who?" "The single unifying force should be that we govern ourselves."
Legal challenges
From 1999 to 2002, Lessig represented a high-profile challenge to the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act. Working with the Berkman Center for Internet and Society, Lessig led the team representing the plaintiff in Eldred v. Ashcroft. The plaintiff in the case was joined by a group of publishers who frequently published work in the public domain and a large number of amici including the Free Software Foundation, the American Association of Law Libraries, the Bureau of National Affairs, and the College Art Association.
In March 2003, Lessig acknowledged severe disappointment with his Supreme Court defeat in the Eldred copyright-extension case, where he unsuccessfully tried to convince Chief Justice William Rehnquist, who had sympathies for de-regulation, to back his "market-based" approach to intellectual property regulation.
In August 2013, Lawrence Lessig brought suit against Liberation Music PTY Ltd., after Liberation issued a takedown notice of one of Lessig's lectures on YouTube which had used the song "Lisztomania" by the band Phoenix, whom Liberation Music represents. Lessig sought damages under section 512(f) of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which holds parties liable for misrepresentations of infringement or removal of material. Lessig was represented by the Electronic Frontier Foundation and Jones Day. In February 2014, the case ended with a settlement in which Liberation Music admitted wrongdoing in issuing the takedown notice, issued an apology, and paid a confidential sum in compensation.
Killswitch
In October 2014, Killswitch, a film featuring Lawrence Lessig, as well as Aaron Swartz, Tim Wu, and Edward Snowden received its World Premiere at the Woodstock Film Festival, where it won the award for Best Editing. In the film, Lessig frames the story of two young hacktivists, Swartz and Snowden, who symbolize the disruptive and dynamic nature of the Internet. The film reveals the emotional bond between Lessig and Swartz, and how it was Swartz (the mentee) that challenged Lessig (the mentor) to engage in the political activism that has led to Lessig's crusade for campaign finance reform.
In February 2015, Killswitch was invited to screen at the Capitol Visitor's Center in Washington DC by Congressman Alan Grayson. The event was held on the eve of the Federal Communications Commission's historic decision on Net Neutrality. Lessig, Congressman Grayson, and Free Press (organization) CEO Craig Aaron spoke about the importance of protecting net neutrality and the free and open Internet.
Congressman Grayson states that Killswitch is "One of the most honest accounts of the battle to control the Internet -- and access to information itself." Richard von Busack of the Metro Silicon Valley, writes of Killswitch, "Some of the most lapidary use of found footage this side of The Atomic Café". Fred Swegles of the Orange County Register, remarks, "Anyone who values unfettered access to online information is apt to be captivated by Killswitch, a gripping and fast-paced documentary." Kathy Gill of GeekWire asserts that "Killswitch is much more than a dry recitation of technical history. Director Ali Akbarzadeh, producer Jeff Horn, and writer Chris Dollar created a human centered story. A large part of that connection comes from Lessig and his relationship with Swartz."
The Electors Trust
In December 2016 Lawrence Lessig and Laurence Tribe established The Electors Trust under the aegis of EqualCitizens.US to provide pro bono legal counsel as well as a secure communications platform for those of the 538 members of the United States Electoral College who are regarding a vote of conscience against Donald Trump in the presidential election
Lessig hosts the podcast Another Way in conjunction with The Young Turks Network
Money in politics activism
At the iCommons iSummit 07, Lessig announced that he would stop focusing his attention on copyright and related matters and work on political corruption instead, as the result of a transformative conversation with Aaron Swartz, a young internet prodigy whom Lessig met through his work with Creative Commons. This new work was partially facilitated through his wiki, Lessig Wiki, which he has encouraged the public to use to document cases of corruption. Lessig criticized the revolving door phenomenon in which legislators and staffers leave office to become lobbyists and have become beholden to special interests.
In February 2008, a Facebook group formed by law professor John Palfrey encouraged him to run for Congress from California's 12th congressional district, the seat vacated by the death of Representative Tom Lantos. Later that month, after forming an "exploratory project", he decided not to run for the vacant seat.
Rootstrikers
Despite having decided to forgo running for Congress himself, Lessig remained interested in attempting to change Congress to reduce corruption. To this end, he worked with political consultant Joe Trippi to launch a web based project called "Change Congress". In a press conference on March 20, 2008, Lessig explained that he hoped the Change Congress website would help provide technological tools voters could use to hold their representatives accountable and reduce the influence of money on politics. He is a board member of MAPLight.org, a nonprofit research group illuminating the connection between money and politics.
Change Congress later became Fix Congress First, and was finally named Rootstrikers. In November 2011, Lessig announced that Rootstrikers would join forces with Dylan Ratigan's Get Money Out campaign, under the umbrella of the United Republic organization. Rootstrikers subsequently came under the aegis of Demand Progress, an organization co-founded by Aaron Swartz.
Article V convention
In 2010, Lessig began to organize for a national Article V convention. He co-founded Fix Congress First! with Joe Trippi. In a speech in 2011, Lessig revealed that he was disappointed with Obama's performance in office, criticizing it as a "betrayal", and he criticized the president for using "the (Hillary) Clinton playbook". Lessig has called for state governments to call for a national Article V convention, including by supporting Wolf-PAC, a national organization attempting to call an Article V convention to address the problem. The convention Lessig supports would be populated by a "random proportional selection of citizens" which he suggested would work effectively. He said "politics is a rare sport where the amateur is better than the professional." He promoted this idea at a September 24–25, 2011, conference he co-chaired with the Tea Party Patriots' national coordinator, in Lessig's October 5, 2011, book, Republic, Lost: How Money Corrupts Congress—and a Plan to Stop It, and at the Occupy protest in Washington, DC. Reporter Dan Froomkin said the book offers a manifesto for the Occupy Wall Street protestors, focusing on the core problem of corruption in both political parties and their elections. An Article V convention does not dictate a solution, but Lessig would support a constitutional amendment that would allow legislatures to limit political contributions from non-citizens, including corporations, anonymous organizations, and foreign nationals, and he also supports public campaign financing and electoral college reform to establish the one person, one vote principle.
New Hampshire Rebellion
The New Hampshire Rebellion is a walk to raise awareness about corruption in politics. The event began in 2014 with a 185-mile march in New Hampshire. In its second year the walk expanded to include other locations in New Hampshire.
From January 11 to 24, 2014, Lessig and many others, like New York activist Jeff Kurzon, marched from Dixville Notch, New Hampshire to Nashua (a 185-mile march) to promote the idea of tackling "the systemic corruption in Washington". Lessig chose this language over the related term "campaign finance reform," commenting that "Saying we need campaign finance reform is like referring to an alcoholic as someone who has a liquid intake problem." The walk was to continue the work of NH native Doris "Granny D" Haddock, and in honor of deceased activist Aaron Swartz. The New Hampshire Rebellion marched 16 miles from Hampton to New Castle on the New Hampshire Seacoast. The initial location was also chosen because of its important and visible role in the quadrennial "New Hampshire primaries", the traditional first primary of the presidential election.
2016 presidential candidacy
Lessig announced the launch of his long shot presidential campaign on September 6, 2015.
On August 11, 2015, Lessig announced that he had launched an exploratory campaign for the purpose of exploring his prospects of winning the Democratic Party's nomination for president of the United States in the 2016 election. Lessig pledged to seek the nomination if he raised $1 million by Labor Day 2015. The announcement was widely reported in national media outlets, and was timed to coincide with a media blitz by the Lessig 2016 Campaign. Lessig was interviewed in The New York Times and Bloomberg. Campaign messages and Lessig's electoral finance reform positions were circulated widely on social media. His campaign was focused on a single issue: The Citizen Equality Act, a proposal that couples campaign finance reform with other laws aimed at curbing gerrymandering and ensuring voting access. As an expression of his commitment to the proposal, Lessig initially promised to resign once the Citizen Equality Act became law and turn the presidency over to his vice president, who would then serve out the remainder of the term as a typical American president and act on a variety of issues. In October 2015, Lessig abandoned his automatic resignation plan and adopted a full policy platform for the presidency, though he did retain the passage of the Citizen Equality Act as his primary legislative objective.
Lessig made a single campaign stop in Iowa, with an eye toward the first-in-the-nation precinct caucuses: at Dordt College, in Sioux Center, in late October. He announced the end of his campaign on November 2, 2015.
Electoral College reform
In 2017, Lessig announced a movement to challenge the winner-take-all Electoral College vote allocation in the various states, called Equal Votes. Lessig was also a counsel for electors in the Supreme Court case Chiafalo v. Washington where the court decided states could force electors to follow the state's popular vote.
Awards and honors
In 2002, Lessig received the Award for the Advancement of Free Software from the Free Software Foundation (FSF). He also received the Scientific American 50 Award for having "argued against interpretations of copyright that could stifle innovation and discourse online." Then, in 2006, Lessig was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
In 2011, Lessig was named to the Fastcase 50, "honoring the law's smartest, most courageous innovators, techies, visionaries, and leaders." Lessig was awarded honorary doctorates by the Faculty of Social Sciences at Lund University, Sweden in 2013 and by the Université catholique de Louvain in 2014. Lessig received the 2014 Webby Lifetime Achievement award for co-founding Creative Commons and defending net neutrality and the free and open software movement.
Personal life
Lessig was born in Rapid City, South Dakota, the son of Patricia (West), who sold real estate, and Lester L. "Jack" Lessig, an engineer. He grew up in Williamsport, Pennsylvania.
In May 2005, it was revealed that Lessig had experienced sexual abuse by the director at the American Boychoir School, which he had attended as an adolescent. Lessig reached a settlement with the school in the past, under confidential terms. He revealed his experiences in the course of representing another student victim, John Hardwicke, in court. In August 2006, he succeeded in persuading the New Jersey Supreme Court to radically restrict the scope of immunity, which had protected nonprofits that failed to prevent sexual abuse from legal liability.
Lessig is married to Bettina Neuefeind, a German-born Harvard University colleague. The two married in 1999. He and Neuefeind have three children: Willem, who is a Crypto-Miner, Coffy, who is a streamer, and Tess.
Defamation lawsuit against the New York Times
In 2019, during the criminal investigation of Jeffrey Epstein, it was discovered that the MIT Media Lab, under former president Joichi Ito, had accepted secret donations from Epstein after Epstein had been convicted on criminal charges. Ito eventually resigned as president following this discovery. After making supportive comments to Ito, Lessig wrote a Medium post in September 2019 to explain his stance. In his post, Lessig acknowledged that universities should not take donations from convicted criminals like Epstein who had become wealthy through actions unrelated to their criminal convictions; however, if such donations were to be accepted, it was better to take them secretly rather than publicly connect the university to the criminal. Lessig's essay drew criticism, and about a week later, Nellie Bowles of The New York Times had an interview with Lessig in which he reiterated his stance related to such donations broadly. The article used the headline "A Harvard Professor Doubles Down: If You Take Epstein’s Money, Do It in Secret", which Lessig confirmed was based on a statement he had made to the Times. Lessig took issue with the headline overlooking his argument that MIT should not accept such donations in the first place and also criticized the first two lines of the article which read "It is hard to defend soliciting donations from the convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. But Lawrence Lessig, a Harvard Law professor, has been trying." He subsequently accused the Times of writing clickbait with the headline crafted to defame him, and stated that the circulation of the article on social media had hurt his reputation.
In January 2020, Lessig filed a defamation lawsuit against the Times, including writer Bowles, business editor Ellen Pollock, and executive editor Dean Baquet. The Times stated they will "vigorously" defend against Lessig's claim, and believe that what they had published was accurate and had been reviewed by senior editors following Lessig's initial complaints.
In April 2020, the New York Times changed its original headline to read: "What Are the Ethics of Taking Tainted Funds? A conversation with Lawrence Lessig about Jeffrey Epstein, M.I.T. and reputation laundering." Lessig reported he subsequently withdrew his defamation lawsuit.
Notable cases
Golan v. Gonzales (representing multiple plaintiffs)
Eldred v. Ashcroft (representing plaintiff Eric Eldred) Lost
Kahle v. Ashcroft (also see Brewster Kahle) Dismissed
United States v. Microsoft (special master and author of an amicus brief addressing the Sherman Act)
Lessig was appointed special master by Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson in 1997; the appointment was vacated by the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit; the appellate court ruled that the powers granted to Lessig exceeded the scope of the Federal statute providing for special masters; Judge Jackson then solicited Lessig's amicus brief
Lessig said about this appointment: "Did Justice Jackson pick me to be his special master because he had determined I was the perfect mix of Holmes, and Ed Felten? No, I was picked because I was a Harvard Law Professor teaching the law of cyberspace. Remember: So is 'fame' made."
MPAA v. 2600 (submitted an amicus brief with Yochai Benkler in support of 2600)
McCutcheon v. FEC (submitted an amicus brief in support of FEC)
Chiafalo v. Washington (representing Chiafalo)
Bibliography
Code and Other Laws of Cyberspace (Basic Books, 1999)
The Future of Ideas (Vintage Books, 2001)
Free Culture (Penguin, 2004)
Code: Version 2.0 (Basic Books, 2006)
Remix: Making Art and Commerce Thrive in the Hybrid Economy (Penguin, 2008)
Republic, Lost: How Money Corrupts Congress—and a Plan to Stop It (Twelve, 2011)
One Way Forward: The Outsider's Guide to Fixing the Republic (Kindle Single/Amazon, 2012)
Lesterland: The Corruption of Congress and How to End It (2013, CC-BY-NC)
Republic, Lost: The Corruption of Equality and the Steps to End It (Twelve, rev. ed., 2015)
America, Compromised (University of Chicago Press, 2018)
Fidelity & Constraint: How the Supreme Court Has Read the American Constitution (Oxford University Press, 2019)
They Don't Represent Us: Reclaiming Our Democracy (Dey Street/William Morrow, 2019)
Filmography
RiP!: A Remix Manifesto, a 2008 documentary film
The Internet's Own Boy: The Story of Aaron Swartz, 2014 documentary film
Killswitch, 2015 documentary film
The Swamp, 2020 documentary film
Kim Dotcom: The Most Wanted Man Online, 2021 documentary film
See also
Copyleft
Free software movement
Free content
FreeCulture.org
Open educational resources
Gratis versus libre
Open content
Law of the Horse
Lobbying in the United States
Second Constitutional Convention of the United States proposal for constitutional reform
Killswitch (film)
References
External links
(includes Curriculum Vitae and Lessig blog 2002–2009)
Lessig Blog, beyond 2009
(Presidential Campaign site)
1961 births
21st-century American non-fiction writers
21st-century American politicians
Access to Knowledge activists
Alumni of Trinity College, Cambridge
American bloggers
American lawyers
American legal scholars
American people of German descent
American political writers
Articles containing video clips
Candidates in the 2016 United States presidential election
Computer law scholars
Copyright activists
Copyright scholars
Creative Commons-licensed authors
Harvard Law School faculty
Law clerks of the Supreme Court of the United States
Living people
Massachusetts Democrats
Members of the Creative Commons board of directors
Open content activists
People from Rapid City, South Dakota
People from Williamsport, Pennsylvania
Scholars of constitutional law
Sexual abuse victim advocates
Stanford Law School faculty
University of Chicago faculty
Webby Award winners
Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania alumni
Wired (magazine) people
Yale Law School alumni | true | [
"Přírodní park Třebíčsko (before Oblast klidu Třebíčsko) is a natural park near Třebíč in the Czech Republic. There are many interesting plants. The park was founded in 1983.\n\nKobylinec and Ptáčovský kopeček\n\nKobylinec is a natural monument situated ca 0,5 km from the village of Trnava.\nThe area of this monument is 0,44 ha. Pulsatilla grandis can be found here and in the Ptáčovský kopeček park near Ptáčov near Třebíč. Both monuments are very popular for tourists.\n\nPonds\n\nIn the natural park there are some interesting ponds such as Velký Bor, Malý Bor, Buršík near Přeckov and a brook Březinka. Dams on the brook are examples of European beaver activity.\n\nSyenitové skály near Pocoucov\n\nSyenitové skály (rocks of syenit) near Pocoucov is one of famed locations. There are interesting granite boulders. The area of the reservation is 0,77 ha.\n\nExternal links\nParts of this article or all article was translated from Czech. The original article is :cs:Přírodní park Třebíčsko.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\nNature near the village Trnava which is there\n\nTřebíč\nParks in the Czech Republic\nTourist attractions in the Vysočina Region",
"Damn Interesting is an independent website founded by Alan Bellows in 2005. The website presents true stories from science, history, and psychology, primarily as long-form articles, often illustrated with original artwork. Works are written by various authors, and published at irregular intervals. The website openly rejects advertising, relying on reader and listener donations to cover operating costs.\n\nAs of October 2012, each article is also published as a podcast under the same name. In November 2019, a second podcast was launched under the title Damn Interesting Week, featuring unscripted commentary on an assortment of news articles featured on the website's \"Curated Links\" section that week. In mid-2020, a third podcast called Damn Interesting Curio Cabinet began highlighting the website's periodic short-form articles in the same radioplay format as the original podcast.\n\nIn July 2009, Damn Interesting published the print book Alien Hand Syndrome through Workman Publishing. It contains some favorites from the site and some exclusive content.\n\nAwards and recognition \nIn August 2007, PC Magazine named Damn Interesting one of the \"Top 100 Undiscovered Web Sites\".\nThe article \"The Zero-Armed Bandit\" by Alan Bellows won a 2015 Sidney Award from David Brooks in The New York Times.\nThe article \"Ghoulish Acts and Dastardly Deeds\" by Alan Bellows was cited as \"nonfiction journalism from 2017 that will stand the test of time\" by Conor Friedersdorf in The Atlantic.\nThe article \"Dupes and Duplicity\" by Jennifer Lee Noonan won a 2020 Sidney Award from David Brooks in the New York Times.\n\nAccusing The Dollop of plagiarism \n\nOn July 9, 2015, Bellows posted an open letter accusing The Dollop, a comedy podcast about history, of plagiarism due to their repeated use of verbatim text from Damn Interesting articles without permission or attribution. Dave Anthony, the writer of The Dollop, responded on reddit, admitting to using Damn Interesting content, but claiming that the use was protected by fair use, and that \"historical facts are not copyrightable.\" In an article about the controversy on Plagiarism Today, Jonathan Bailey concluded, \"Any way one looks at it, The Dollop failed its ethical obligations to all of the people, not just those writing for Damn Interesting, who put in the time, energy and expertise into writing the original content upon which their show is based.\"\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links \n Official website\n\n2005 podcast debuts"
]
|
[
"Lawrence Lessig",
"Political background",
"Tell me about the political background?",
"Lessig has been politically liberal since studying philosophy at Cambridge in the mid-1980s.",
"Has he been an activist for anything?",
"Lessig came out in favor of then Democratic primary candidate Barack Obama, citing the transformative nature of the Obama campaign as one of his chief reasons.",
"What else does he stand for?",
"Lessig remains skeptical of government intervention but favors some regulation, calling himself \"a constitutionalist.\" On",
"Are there any other interesting aspects about this article?",
"What was intended to be a year abroad at Cambridge convinced him instead to stay another two years to complete an undergraduate degree in philosophy"
]
| C_df24fd28c70e4f5883e1077d803f6a39_1 | Did he study politics? | 5 | Did Lawrence Lessig study politics? | Lawrence Lessig | Lessig has been politically liberal since studying philosophy at Cambridge in the mid-1980s. By the late 1980s when he was selected to serve as a law clerk for two influential conservative judges, Judge Richard Posner and Justice Antonin Scalia, he was effectively the token liberal on their staffs, chosen for his brilliance rather than for his ideology. Posner would later call him "the most distinguished law professor of his generation." Lessig has emphasized in interviews that his philosophy experience at Cambridge radically changed his values and career path. Previously, he had held strong conservative or libertarian political views, desired a career in business, was a highly active member of Teenage Republicans, served as the Youth Governor for Pennsylvania through the YMCA Youth and Government program in 1978, and almost pursued a Republican political career. What was intended to be a year abroad at Cambridge convinced him instead to stay another two years to complete an undergraduate degree in philosophy and develop his changed political values. During this time, he also traveled in the Eastern Bloc, where he acquired a lifelong interest in Eastern European law and politics. Lessig remains skeptical of government intervention but favors some regulation, calling himself "a constitutionalist." On one occasion, Lessig also commended the John McCain campaign for discussing fair use rights in a letter to YouTube where it took issue with YouTube for indulging overreaching copyright claims leading to the removal of various campaign videos. Lessig has known President Barack Obama since their days of both teaching law at the University of Chicago. In 2007, Lessig came out in favor of then Democratic primary candidate Barack Obama, citing the transformative nature of the Obama campaign as one of his chief reasons. He was subsequently mentioned as a candidate to head the Federal Communications Commission, which regulates the telecommunications industry. CANNOTANSWER | law clerk for two influential conservative judges, Judge Richard Posner and Justice Antonin Scalia, he was effectively the token liberal on their staffs, | Lester Lawrence Lessig III (born June 3, 1961) is an American academic, attorney, and political activist. He is the Roy L. Furman Professor of Law at Harvard Law School and the former director of the Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics at Harvard University. Lessig was a candidate for the Democratic Party's nomination for president of the United States in the 2016 U.S. presidential election but withdrew before the primaries.
Lessig is a proponent of reduced legal restrictions on copyright, trademark, and radio frequency spectrum, particularly in technology applications. In 2001, he founded Creative Commons, a non-profit organization devoted to expanding the range of creative works available for others to build upon and to share legally. Prior to his most recent appointment at Harvard, he was a professor of law at Stanford Law School, where he founded the Center for Internet and Society, and at the University of Chicago. He is a former board member of the Free Software Foundation and Software Freedom Law Center; the Washington, D.C. lobbying groups Public Knowledge and Free Press; and the Electronic Frontier Foundation. He was elected to the American Philosophical Society in 2007.
As a political activist, Lessig has called for state-based activism to promote substantive reform of government with a Second Constitutional Convention. In May 2014, he launched a crowd-funded political action committee which he termed Mayday PAC with the purpose of electing candidates to Congress who would pass campaign finance reform. Lessig is also the co-founder of Rootstrikers, and is on the boards of MapLight and Represent.Us. He serves on the advisory boards of the Democracy Café and the Sunlight Foundation.
In August 2015, Lessig announced that he was exploring a possible candidacy for President of the United States, promising to run if his exploratory committee raised $1 million by Labor Day. After accomplishing this, on September 6, 2015, Lessig announced that he was entering the race to become a candidate for the 2016 Democratic Party's presidential nomination. Lessig described his candidacy as a referendum on campaign finance reform and electoral reform legislation. He stated that, if elected, he would serve a full term as president with his proposed reforms as his legislative priorities. He ended his campaign in November 2015, citing rule changes from the Democratic Party that precluded him from appearing in the televised debates.
Academic career
Lessig earned a B.A. degree in economics and a B.S. degree in management (Wharton School) from the University of Pennsylvania, an M.A. degree in philosophy from the University of Cambridge (Trinity) in England, and a J.D. degree from Yale Law School in 1989. After graduating from law school, he clerked for a year for Judge Richard Posner, at the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago, Illinois, and another year for Justice Antonin Scalia at the Supreme Court.
Lessig started his academic career at the University of Chicago Law School, where he was professor from 1991 to 1997. As co-director of the Center for the Study of Constitutionalism in Eastern Europe there, he helped the newly independent Republic of Georgia draft a constitution. From 1997 to 2000, he was at Harvard Law School, holding for a year the chair of Berkman Professor of Law, affiliated with the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society. He subsequently joined Stanford Law School, where he established the school's Center for Internet and Society.
Lessig returned to Harvard in July 2009 as professor and director of the Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics. In 2013, Lessig was appointed as the Roy L. Furman Professor of Law and Leadership; his chair lecture was titled "Aaron's Laws: Law and Justice in a Digital Age."
In popular culture
Lessig was portrayed by Christopher Lloyd in "The Wake Up Call", during season 6 of The West Wing.
Political background
Lessig has been politically liberal since studying philosophy at Cambridge in the mid-1980s. By the late 1980s, two influential conservative judges, Judge Richard Posner and Justice Antonin Scalia, selected him to serve as a law clerk, choosing him because they considered him brilliant rather than for his ideology and effectively making him the "token liberal" on their staffs. Posner would later call him "the most distinguished law professor of his generation."
Lessig has emphasized in interviews that his philosophy experience at Cambridge radically changed his values and career path. Previously, he had held strong conservative or libertarian political views, desired a career in business, was a highly active member of Teenage Republicans, served as the youth governor for Pennsylvania through the YMCA Youth and Government program in 1978, and almost pursued a Republican political career.
What was intended to be a year abroad at Cambridge convinced him instead to stay another two years to complete an undergraduate degree in philosophy and develop his changed political values. During this time, he also traveled in the Eastern Bloc, where he acquired a lifelong interest in Eastern European law and politics.
Lessig remains skeptical of government intervention but favors some regulation, calling himself "a constitutionalist." On one occasion, Lessig also commended the John McCain campaign for discussing fair use rights in a letter to YouTube where it took issue with YouTube for indulging overreaching copyright claims leading to the removal of various campaign videos.
Internet and computer activism
"Code is law"
In computer science, "code" typically refers to the text of a computer program (the source code). In law, "code" can refer to the texts that constitute statutory law. In his 1999 book Code and Other Laws of Cyberspace, Lessig explores the ways in which code in both senses can be instruments for social control, leading to his dictum that "Code is law." Lessig later updated his work in order to keep up with the prevailing views of the time and released the book as Code: Version 2.0 in December 2006.
Remix culture
Lessig has been a proponent of the remix culture since the early 2000s. In his 2008 book Remix he presents this as a desirable cultural practice distinct from piracy. Lessig further articulates remix culture as intrinsic to technology and the Internet. Remix culture is therefore an amalgam of practice, creativity, "read/write" culture and the hybrid economy.
According to Lessig, the problem with the remix comes when it is at odds with stringent US copyright law. He has compared this to the failure of Prohibition, both in its ineffectiveness and in its tendency to normalize criminal behavior. Instead he proposes more lenient licensing, namely Creative Commons licenses, as a remedy to maintain "rule of law" while combating plagiarism.
Free culture
On March 28, 2004 Lessig was elected to the FSF's board of directors. He proposed the concept of "free culture". He also supports free and open-source software and open spectrum. At his free culture keynote at the O'Reilly Open Source Convention 2002, a few minutes of his speech was about software patents, which he views as a rising threat to free software, open source software and innovation.
In March 2006, Lessig joined the board of advisors of the Digital Universe project. A few months later, Lessig gave a talk on the ethics of the Free Culture Movement at the 2006 Wikimania conference. In December 2006, his lecture On Free, and the Differences between Culture and Code was one of the highlights at 23C3 Who can you trust?.
Lessig claimed in 2009 that, because 70% of young people obtain digital information from illegal sources, the law should be changed.
In a foreword to the Freesouls book project, Lessig makes an argument in favor of amateur artists in the world of digital technologies: "there is a different class of amateur creators that digital technologies have ... enabled, and a different kind of creativity has emerged as a consequence."
Lessig is also a well-known critic of copyright term extensions.
Net neutrality
Lessig has long been known to be a supporter of net neutrality. In 2006, he testified before the US Senate that he believed Congress should ratify Michael Powell's four Internet freedoms and add a restriction to access-tiering, i.e. he does not believe content providers should be charged different amounts. The reason is that the Internet, under the neutral end-to-end design is an invaluable platform for innovation, and the economic benefit of innovation would be threatened if large corporations could purchase faster service to the detriment of newer companies with less capital. However, Lessig has supported the idea of allowing ISPs to give consumers the option of different tiers of service at different prices. He was reported on CBC News as saying that he has always been in favour of allowing internet providers to charge differently for consumer access at different speeds. He said, "Now, no doubt, my position might be wrong. Some friends in the network neutrality movement as well as some scholars believe it is wrong—that it doesn't go far enough. But the suggestion that the position is 'recent' is baseless. If I'm wrong, I've always been wrong."
Legislative reform
Despite presenting an anti-regulatory standpoint in many fora, Lessig still sees the need for legislative enforcement of copyright. He has called for limiting copyright terms for creative professionals to five years, but believes that creative professionals' work, many of them independent, would become more easily and quickly available if bureaucratic procedure were introduced to renew trademarks for up to 75 years after this five-year term.
Lessig has repeatedly taken a stance that privatization through legislation like that seen in the 1980s in the UK with British Telecommunications is not the best way to help the Internet grow. He said, "When government disappears, it's not as if paradise will take its place. When governments are gone, other interests will take their place," "My claim is that we should focus on the values of liberty. If there is not government to insist on those values, then who?" "The single unifying force should be that we govern ourselves."
Legal challenges
From 1999 to 2002, Lessig represented a high-profile challenge to the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act. Working with the Berkman Center for Internet and Society, Lessig led the team representing the plaintiff in Eldred v. Ashcroft. The plaintiff in the case was joined by a group of publishers who frequently published work in the public domain and a large number of amici including the Free Software Foundation, the American Association of Law Libraries, the Bureau of National Affairs, and the College Art Association.
In March 2003, Lessig acknowledged severe disappointment with his Supreme Court defeat in the Eldred copyright-extension case, where he unsuccessfully tried to convince Chief Justice William Rehnquist, who had sympathies for de-regulation, to back his "market-based" approach to intellectual property regulation.
In August 2013, Lawrence Lessig brought suit against Liberation Music PTY Ltd., after Liberation issued a takedown notice of one of Lessig's lectures on YouTube which had used the song "Lisztomania" by the band Phoenix, whom Liberation Music represents. Lessig sought damages under section 512(f) of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which holds parties liable for misrepresentations of infringement or removal of material. Lessig was represented by the Electronic Frontier Foundation and Jones Day. In February 2014, the case ended with a settlement in which Liberation Music admitted wrongdoing in issuing the takedown notice, issued an apology, and paid a confidential sum in compensation.
Killswitch
In October 2014, Killswitch, a film featuring Lawrence Lessig, as well as Aaron Swartz, Tim Wu, and Edward Snowden received its World Premiere at the Woodstock Film Festival, where it won the award for Best Editing. In the film, Lessig frames the story of two young hacktivists, Swartz and Snowden, who symbolize the disruptive and dynamic nature of the Internet. The film reveals the emotional bond between Lessig and Swartz, and how it was Swartz (the mentee) that challenged Lessig (the mentor) to engage in the political activism that has led to Lessig's crusade for campaign finance reform.
In February 2015, Killswitch was invited to screen at the Capitol Visitor's Center in Washington DC by Congressman Alan Grayson. The event was held on the eve of the Federal Communications Commission's historic decision on Net Neutrality. Lessig, Congressman Grayson, and Free Press (organization) CEO Craig Aaron spoke about the importance of protecting net neutrality and the free and open Internet.
Congressman Grayson states that Killswitch is "One of the most honest accounts of the battle to control the Internet -- and access to information itself." Richard von Busack of the Metro Silicon Valley, writes of Killswitch, "Some of the most lapidary use of found footage this side of The Atomic Café". Fred Swegles of the Orange County Register, remarks, "Anyone who values unfettered access to online information is apt to be captivated by Killswitch, a gripping and fast-paced documentary." Kathy Gill of GeekWire asserts that "Killswitch is much more than a dry recitation of technical history. Director Ali Akbarzadeh, producer Jeff Horn, and writer Chris Dollar created a human centered story. A large part of that connection comes from Lessig and his relationship with Swartz."
The Electors Trust
In December 2016 Lawrence Lessig and Laurence Tribe established The Electors Trust under the aegis of EqualCitizens.US to provide pro bono legal counsel as well as a secure communications platform for those of the 538 members of the United States Electoral College who are regarding a vote of conscience against Donald Trump in the presidential election
Lessig hosts the podcast Another Way in conjunction with The Young Turks Network
Money in politics activism
At the iCommons iSummit 07, Lessig announced that he would stop focusing his attention on copyright and related matters and work on political corruption instead, as the result of a transformative conversation with Aaron Swartz, a young internet prodigy whom Lessig met through his work with Creative Commons. This new work was partially facilitated through his wiki, Lessig Wiki, which he has encouraged the public to use to document cases of corruption. Lessig criticized the revolving door phenomenon in which legislators and staffers leave office to become lobbyists and have become beholden to special interests.
In February 2008, a Facebook group formed by law professor John Palfrey encouraged him to run for Congress from California's 12th congressional district, the seat vacated by the death of Representative Tom Lantos. Later that month, after forming an "exploratory project", he decided not to run for the vacant seat.
Rootstrikers
Despite having decided to forgo running for Congress himself, Lessig remained interested in attempting to change Congress to reduce corruption. To this end, he worked with political consultant Joe Trippi to launch a web based project called "Change Congress". In a press conference on March 20, 2008, Lessig explained that he hoped the Change Congress website would help provide technological tools voters could use to hold their representatives accountable and reduce the influence of money on politics. He is a board member of MAPLight.org, a nonprofit research group illuminating the connection between money and politics.
Change Congress later became Fix Congress First, and was finally named Rootstrikers. In November 2011, Lessig announced that Rootstrikers would join forces with Dylan Ratigan's Get Money Out campaign, under the umbrella of the United Republic organization. Rootstrikers subsequently came under the aegis of Demand Progress, an organization co-founded by Aaron Swartz.
Article V convention
In 2010, Lessig began to organize for a national Article V convention. He co-founded Fix Congress First! with Joe Trippi. In a speech in 2011, Lessig revealed that he was disappointed with Obama's performance in office, criticizing it as a "betrayal", and he criticized the president for using "the (Hillary) Clinton playbook". Lessig has called for state governments to call for a national Article V convention, including by supporting Wolf-PAC, a national organization attempting to call an Article V convention to address the problem. The convention Lessig supports would be populated by a "random proportional selection of citizens" which he suggested would work effectively. He said "politics is a rare sport where the amateur is better than the professional." He promoted this idea at a September 24–25, 2011, conference he co-chaired with the Tea Party Patriots' national coordinator, in Lessig's October 5, 2011, book, Republic, Lost: How Money Corrupts Congress—and a Plan to Stop It, and at the Occupy protest in Washington, DC. Reporter Dan Froomkin said the book offers a manifesto for the Occupy Wall Street protestors, focusing on the core problem of corruption in both political parties and their elections. An Article V convention does not dictate a solution, but Lessig would support a constitutional amendment that would allow legislatures to limit political contributions from non-citizens, including corporations, anonymous organizations, and foreign nationals, and he also supports public campaign financing and electoral college reform to establish the one person, one vote principle.
New Hampshire Rebellion
The New Hampshire Rebellion is a walk to raise awareness about corruption in politics. The event began in 2014 with a 185-mile march in New Hampshire. In its second year the walk expanded to include other locations in New Hampshire.
From January 11 to 24, 2014, Lessig and many others, like New York activist Jeff Kurzon, marched from Dixville Notch, New Hampshire to Nashua (a 185-mile march) to promote the idea of tackling "the systemic corruption in Washington". Lessig chose this language over the related term "campaign finance reform," commenting that "Saying we need campaign finance reform is like referring to an alcoholic as someone who has a liquid intake problem." The walk was to continue the work of NH native Doris "Granny D" Haddock, and in honor of deceased activist Aaron Swartz. The New Hampshire Rebellion marched 16 miles from Hampton to New Castle on the New Hampshire Seacoast. The initial location was also chosen because of its important and visible role in the quadrennial "New Hampshire primaries", the traditional first primary of the presidential election.
2016 presidential candidacy
Lessig announced the launch of his long shot presidential campaign on September 6, 2015.
On August 11, 2015, Lessig announced that he had launched an exploratory campaign for the purpose of exploring his prospects of winning the Democratic Party's nomination for president of the United States in the 2016 election. Lessig pledged to seek the nomination if he raised $1 million by Labor Day 2015. The announcement was widely reported in national media outlets, and was timed to coincide with a media blitz by the Lessig 2016 Campaign. Lessig was interviewed in The New York Times and Bloomberg. Campaign messages and Lessig's electoral finance reform positions were circulated widely on social media. His campaign was focused on a single issue: The Citizen Equality Act, a proposal that couples campaign finance reform with other laws aimed at curbing gerrymandering and ensuring voting access. As an expression of his commitment to the proposal, Lessig initially promised to resign once the Citizen Equality Act became law and turn the presidency over to his vice president, who would then serve out the remainder of the term as a typical American president and act on a variety of issues. In October 2015, Lessig abandoned his automatic resignation plan and adopted a full policy platform for the presidency, though he did retain the passage of the Citizen Equality Act as his primary legislative objective.
Lessig made a single campaign stop in Iowa, with an eye toward the first-in-the-nation precinct caucuses: at Dordt College, in Sioux Center, in late October. He announced the end of his campaign on November 2, 2015.
Electoral College reform
In 2017, Lessig announced a movement to challenge the winner-take-all Electoral College vote allocation in the various states, called Equal Votes. Lessig was also a counsel for electors in the Supreme Court case Chiafalo v. Washington where the court decided states could force electors to follow the state's popular vote.
Awards and honors
In 2002, Lessig received the Award for the Advancement of Free Software from the Free Software Foundation (FSF). He also received the Scientific American 50 Award for having "argued against interpretations of copyright that could stifle innovation and discourse online." Then, in 2006, Lessig was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
In 2011, Lessig was named to the Fastcase 50, "honoring the law's smartest, most courageous innovators, techies, visionaries, and leaders." Lessig was awarded honorary doctorates by the Faculty of Social Sciences at Lund University, Sweden in 2013 and by the Université catholique de Louvain in 2014. Lessig received the 2014 Webby Lifetime Achievement award for co-founding Creative Commons and defending net neutrality and the free and open software movement.
Personal life
Lessig was born in Rapid City, South Dakota, the son of Patricia (West), who sold real estate, and Lester L. "Jack" Lessig, an engineer. He grew up in Williamsport, Pennsylvania.
In May 2005, it was revealed that Lessig had experienced sexual abuse by the director at the American Boychoir School, which he had attended as an adolescent. Lessig reached a settlement with the school in the past, under confidential terms. He revealed his experiences in the course of representing another student victim, John Hardwicke, in court. In August 2006, he succeeded in persuading the New Jersey Supreme Court to radically restrict the scope of immunity, which had protected nonprofits that failed to prevent sexual abuse from legal liability.
Lessig is married to Bettina Neuefeind, a German-born Harvard University colleague. The two married in 1999. He and Neuefeind have three children: Willem, who is a Crypto-Miner, Coffy, who is a streamer, and Tess.
Defamation lawsuit against the New York Times
In 2019, during the criminal investigation of Jeffrey Epstein, it was discovered that the MIT Media Lab, under former president Joichi Ito, had accepted secret donations from Epstein after Epstein had been convicted on criminal charges. Ito eventually resigned as president following this discovery. After making supportive comments to Ito, Lessig wrote a Medium post in September 2019 to explain his stance. In his post, Lessig acknowledged that universities should not take donations from convicted criminals like Epstein who had become wealthy through actions unrelated to their criminal convictions; however, if such donations were to be accepted, it was better to take them secretly rather than publicly connect the university to the criminal. Lessig's essay drew criticism, and about a week later, Nellie Bowles of The New York Times had an interview with Lessig in which he reiterated his stance related to such donations broadly. The article used the headline "A Harvard Professor Doubles Down: If You Take Epstein’s Money, Do It in Secret", which Lessig confirmed was based on a statement he had made to the Times. Lessig took issue with the headline overlooking his argument that MIT should not accept such donations in the first place and also criticized the first two lines of the article which read "It is hard to defend soliciting donations from the convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. But Lawrence Lessig, a Harvard Law professor, has been trying." He subsequently accused the Times of writing clickbait with the headline crafted to defame him, and stated that the circulation of the article on social media had hurt his reputation.
In January 2020, Lessig filed a defamation lawsuit against the Times, including writer Bowles, business editor Ellen Pollock, and executive editor Dean Baquet. The Times stated they will "vigorously" defend against Lessig's claim, and believe that what they had published was accurate and had been reviewed by senior editors following Lessig's initial complaints.
In April 2020, the New York Times changed its original headline to read: "What Are the Ethics of Taking Tainted Funds? A conversation with Lawrence Lessig about Jeffrey Epstein, M.I.T. and reputation laundering." Lessig reported he subsequently withdrew his defamation lawsuit.
Notable cases
Golan v. Gonzales (representing multiple plaintiffs)
Eldred v. Ashcroft (representing plaintiff Eric Eldred) Lost
Kahle v. Ashcroft (also see Brewster Kahle) Dismissed
United States v. Microsoft (special master and author of an amicus brief addressing the Sherman Act)
Lessig was appointed special master by Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson in 1997; the appointment was vacated by the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit; the appellate court ruled that the powers granted to Lessig exceeded the scope of the Federal statute providing for special masters; Judge Jackson then solicited Lessig's amicus brief
Lessig said about this appointment: "Did Justice Jackson pick me to be his special master because he had determined I was the perfect mix of Holmes, and Ed Felten? No, I was picked because I was a Harvard Law Professor teaching the law of cyberspace. Remember: So is 'fame' made."
MPAA v. 2600 (submitted an amicus brief with Yochai Benkler in support of 2600)
McCutcheon v. FEC (submitted an amicus brief in support of FEC)
Chiafalo v. Washington (representing Chiafalo)
Bibliography
Code and Other Laws of Cyberspace (Basic Books, 1999)
The Future of Ideas (Vintage Books, 2001)
Free Culture (Penguin, 2004)
Code: Version 2.0 (Basic Books, 2006)
Remix: Making Art and Commerce Thrive in the Hybrid Economy (Penguin, 2008)
Republic, Lost: How Money Corrupts Congress—and a Plan to Stop It (Twelve, 2011)
One Way Forward: The Outsider's Guide to Fixing the Republic (Kindle Single/Amazon, 2012)
Lesterland: The Corruption of Congress and How to End It (2013, CC-BY-NC)
Republic, Lost: The Corruption of Equality and the Steps to End It (Twelve, rev. ed., 2015)
America, Compromised (University of Chicago Press, 2018)
Fidelity & Constraint: How the Supreme Court Has Read the American Constitution (Oxford University Press, 2019)
They Don't Represent Us: Reclaiming Our Democracy (Dey Street/William Morrow, 2019)
Filmography
RiP!: A Remix Manifesto, a 2008 documentary film
The Internet's Own Boy: The Story of Aaron Swartz, 2014 documentary film
Killswitch, 2015 documentary film
The Swamp, 2020 documentary film
Kim Dotcom: The Most Wanted Man Online, 2021 documentary film
See also
Copyleft
Free software movement
Free content
FreeCulture.org
Open educational resources
Gratis versus libre
Open content
Law of the Horse
Lobbying in the United States
Second Constitutional Convention of the United States proposal for constitutional reform
Killswitch (film)
References
External links
(includes Curriculum Vitae and Lessig blog 2002–2009)
Lessig Blog, beyond 2009
(Presidential Campaign site)
1961 births
21st-century American non-fiction writers
21st-century American politicians
Access to Knowledge activists
Alumni of Trinity College, Cambridge
American bloggers
American lawyers
American legal scholars
American people of German descent
American political writers
Articles containing video clips
Candidates in the 2016 United States presidential election
Computer law scholars
Copyright activists
Copyright scholars
Creative Commons-licensed authors
Harvard Law School faculty
Law clerks of the Supreme Court of the United States
Living people
Massachusetts Democrats
Members of the Creative Commons board of directors
Open content activists
People from Rapid City, South Dakota
People from Williamsport, Pennsylvania
Scholars of constitutional law
Sexual abuse victim advocates
Stanford Law School faculty
University of Chicago faculty
Webby Award winners
Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania alumni
Wired (magazine) people
Yale Law School alumni | false | [
"Matt Golder is political scientist. He is Professor and Director of Undergraduate Studies in the Department of Political Science at Pennsylvania State University. Golder is the editor of two important works of comparative political science, Principles of Comparative Politics and Foundations in Comparative Politics.\n\nGolder attended St. Edmund Hall, Oxford, receiving a BA in Philosophy, Politics and Economics and an M.Phil. in European Politics and Society. He went on to further study at New York University, graduating with an M.A. in French Studies in 1999 and receiving his Ph.D. from the Department of Politics in 2004. He had also taught at Florida State University, the University of Iowa, the University of Essex and did research at University of Mannheim, Germany (2012).\n\nGolders research focuses on political representation and electoral performance.\n\nPublications\n William Roberts Clark, Matt Golder, Sona Nadenichek Golder (2018): Foundations of Comparative Politics. Saga Publications\n\nExternal links\n Matt Golders personal page\n Matt Golder at PSU\n\nNotes and references\n\n1970 births\nLiving people\nEnglish political writers\nAmerican political scientists\nNew York University alumni\nAlumni of the University of Oxford\nAlumni of St Edmund Hall, Oxford",
"Robert B. Warren was an American economist and banking expert. He was a member of the faculty of the Institute for Advanced Study from 1939 until his death in 1950.\n\nEducation and career\nWarren got an A.M. at Harvard University in 1916. In 1919 he went to work for the Federal Reserve in Washington.\n\nIn 1935 Abraham Flexner was struggling to establish a School of Economics and Politics at the recently founded Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey. The school initially consisted of Edward M. Earle, David Mitrany, and Winfield W. Riefler. In 1939 Warren joined the school on the recommendation of then trustee Walter W. Stewart who had worked with him at the Federal Reserve. But Flexner had established the economics school without the approval of the other faculty and this led to his resignation as Director of the Institute in 1939.\n\nNevertheless, during World War II members of the IAS School of Economics and Politics did important war work. In 1944 Warren along with IAS colleague Walter W. Stewart advised the Treasury Department in Washington on the relation between fiscal operations and the banking system.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n Home page of Robert B. Warren at the Institute for Advanced Study\n\nAmerican economists\nInstitute for Advanced Study faculty\nHarvard University alumni\n1950 deaths"
]
|
[
"Lawrence Lessig",
"Political background",
"Tell me about the political background?",
"Lessig has been politically liberal since studying philosophy at Cambridge in the mid-1980s.",
"Has he been an activist for anything?",
"Lessig came out in favor of then Democratic primary candidate Barack Obama, citing the transformative nature of the Obama campaign as one of his chief reasons.",
"What else does he stand for?",
"Lessig remains skeptical of government intervention but favors some regulation, calling himself \"a constitutionalist.\" On",
"Are there any other interesting aspects about this article?",
"What was intended to be a year abroad at Cambridge convinced him instead to stay another two years to complete an undergraduate degree in philosophy",
"Did he study politics?",
"law clerk for two influential conservative judges, Judge Richard Posner and Justice Antonin Scalia, he was effectively the token liberal on their staffs,"
]
| C_df24fd28c70e4f5883e1077d803f6a39_1 | Did he run for office? | 6 | Did Lawrence Lessig run for office? | Lawrence Lessig | Lessig has been politically liberal since studying philosophy at Cambridge in the mid-1980s. By the late 1980s when he was selected to serve as a law clerk for two influential conservative judges, Judge Richard Posner and Justice Antonin Scalia, he was effectively the token liberal on their staffs, chosen for his brilliance rather than for his ideology. Posner would later call him "the most distinguished law professor of his generation." Lessig has emphasized in interviews that his philosophy experience at Cambridge radically changed his values and career path. Previously, he had held strong conservative or libertarian political views, desired a career in business, was a highly active member of Teenage Republicans, served as the Youth Governor for Pennsylvania through the YMCA Youth and Government program in 1978, and almost pursued a Republican political career. What was intended to be a year abroad at Cambridge convinced him instead to stay another two years to complete an undergraduate degree in philosophy and develop his changed political values. During this time, he also traveled in the Eastern Bloc, where he acquired a lifelong interest in Eastern European law and politics. Lessig remains skeptical of government intervention but favors some regulation, calling himself "a constitutionalist." On one occasion, Lessig also commended the John McCain campaign for discussing fair use rights in a letter to YouTube where it took issue with YouTube for indulging overreaching copyright claims leading to the removal of various campaign videos. Lessig has known President Barack Obama since their days of both teaching law at the University of Chicago. In 2007, Lessig came out in favor of then Democratic primary candidate Barack Obama, citing the transformative nature of the Obama campaign as one of his chief reasons. He was subsequently mentioned as a candidate to head the Federal Communications Commission, which regulates the telecommunications industry. CANNOTANSWER | CANNOTANSWER | Lester Lawrence Lessig III (born June 3, 1961) is an American academic, attorney, and political activist. He is the Roy L. Furman Professor of Law at Harvard Law School and the former director of the Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics at Harvard University. Lessig was a candidate for the Democratic Party's nomination for president of the United States in the 2016 U.S. presidential election but withdrew before the primaries.
Lessig is a proponent of reduced legal restrictions on copyright, trademark, and radio frequency spectrum, particularly in technology applications. In 2001, he founded Creative Commons, a non-profit organization devoted to expanding the range of creative works available for others to build upon and to share legally. Prior to his most recent appointment at Harvard, he was a professor of law at Stanford Law School, where he founded the Center for Internet and Society, and at the University of Chicago. He is a former board member of the Free Software Foundation and Software Freedom Law Center; the Washington, D.C. lobbying groups Public Knowledge and Free Press; and the Electronic Frontier Foundation. He was elected to the American Philosophical Society in 2007.
As a political activist, Lessig has called for state-based activism to promote substantive reform of government with a Second Constitutional Convention. In May 2014, he launched a crowd-funded political action committee which he termed Mayday PAC with the purpose of electing candidates to Congress who would pass campaign finance reform. Lessig is also the co-founder of Rootstrikers, and is on the boards of MapLight and Represent.Us. He serves on the advisory boards of the Democracy Café and the Sunlight Foundation.
In August 2015, Lessig announced that he was exploring a possible candidacy for President of the United States, promising to run if his exploratory committee raised $1 million by Labor Day. After accomplishing this, on September 6, 2015, Lessig announced that he was entering the race to become a candidate for the 2016 Democratic Party's presidential nomination. Lessig described his candidacy as a referendum on campaign finance reform and electoral reform legislation. He stated that, if elected, he would serve a full term as president with his proposed reforms as his legislative priorities. He ended his campaign in November 2015, citing rule changes from the Democratic Party that precluded him from appearing in the televised debates.
Academic career
Lessig earned a B.A. degree in economics and a B.S. degree in management (Wharton School) from the University of Pennsylvania, an M.A. degree in philosophy from the University of Cambridge (Trinity) in England, and a J.D. degree from Yale Law School in 1989. After graduating from law school, he clerked for a year for Judge Richard Posner, at the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago, Illinois, and another year for Justice Antonin Scalia at the Supreme Court.
Lessig started his academic career at the University of Chicago Law School, where he was professor from 1991 to 1997. As co-director of the Center for the Study of Constitutionalism in Eastern Europe there, he helped the newly independent Republic of Georgia draft a constitution. From 1997 to 2000, he was at Harvard Law School, holding for a year the chair of Berkman Professor of Law, affiliated with the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society. He subsequently joined Stanford Law School, where he established the school's Center for Internet and Society.
Lessig returned to Harvard in July 2009 as professor and director of the Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics. In 2013, Lessig was appointed as the Roy L. Furman Professor of Law and Leadership; his chair lecture was titled "Aaron's Laws: Law and Justice in a Digital Age."
In popular culture
Lessig was portrayed by Christopher Lloyd in "The Wake Up Call", during season 6 of The West Wing.
Political background
Lessig has been politically liberal since studying philosophy at Cambridge in the mid-1980s. By the late 1980s, two influential conservative judges, Judge Richard Posner and Justice Antonin Scalia, selected him to serve as a law clerk, choosing him because they considered him brilliant rather than for his ideology and effectively making him the "token liberal" on their staffs. Posner would later call him "the most distinguished law professor of his generation."
Lessig has emphasized in interviews that his philosophy experience at Cambridge radically changed his values and career path. Previously, he had held strong conservative or libertarian political views, desired a career in business, was a highly active member of Teenage Republicans, served as the youth governor for Pennsylvania through the YMCA Youth and Government program in 1978, and almost pursued a Republican political career.
What was intended to be a year abroad at Cambridge convinced him instead to stay another two years to complete an undergraduate degree in philosophy and develop his changed political values. During this time, he also traveled in the Eastern Bloc, where he acquired a lifelong interest in Eastern European law and politics.
Lessig remains skeptical of government intervention but favors some regulation, calling himself "a constitutionalist." On one occasion, Lessig also commended the John McCain campaign for discussing fair use rights in a letter to YouTube where it took issue with YouTube for indulging overreaching copyright claims leading to the removal of various campaign videos.
Internet and computer activism
"Code is law"
In computer science, "code" typically refers to the text of a computer program (the source code). In law, "code" can refer to the texts that constitute statutory law. In his 1999 book Code and Other Laws of Cyberspace, Lessig explores the ways in which code in both senses can be instruments for social control, leading to his dictum that "Code is law." Lessig later updated his work in order to keep up with the prevailing views of the time and released the book as Code: Version 2.0 in December 2006.
Remix culture
Lessig has been a proponent of the remix culture since the early 2000s. In his 2008 book Remix he presents this as a desirable cultural practice distinct from piracy. Lessig further articulates remix culture as intrinsic to technology and the Internet. Remix culture is therefore an amalgam of practice, creativity, "read/write" culture and the hybrid economy.
According to Lessig, the problem with the remix comes when it is at odds with stringent US copyright law. He has compared this to the failure of Prohibition, both in its ineffectiveness and in its tendency to normalize criminal behavior. Instead he proposes more lenient licensing, namely Creative Commons licenses, as a remedy to maintain "rule of law" while combating plagiarism.
Free culture
On March 28, 2004 Lessig was elected to the FSF's board of directors. He proposed the concept of "free culture". He also supports free and open-source software and open spectrum. At his free culture keynote at the O'Reilly Open Source Convention 2002, a few minutes of his speech was about software patents, which he views as a rising threat to free software, open source software and innovation.
In March 2006, Lessig joined the board of advisors of the Digital Universe project. A few months later, Lessig gave a talk on the ethics of the Free Culture Movement at the 2006 Wikimania conference. In December 2006, his lecture On Free, and the Differences between Culture and Code was one of the highlights at 23C3 Who can you trust?.
Lessig claimed in 2009 that, because 70% of young people obtain digital information from illegal sources, the law should be changed.
In a foreword to the Freesouls book project, Lessig makes an argument in favor of amateur artists in the world of digital technologies: "there is a different class of amateur creators that digital technologies have ... enabled, and a different kind of creativity has emerged as a consequence."
Lessig is also a well-known critic of copyright term extensions.
Net neutrality
Lessig has long been known to be a supporter of net neutrality. In 2006, he testified before the US Senate that he believed Congress should ratify Michael Powell's four Internet freedoms and add a restriction to access-tiering, i.e. he does not believe content providers should be charged different amounts. The reason is that the Internet, under the neutral end-to-end design is an invaluable platform for innovation, and the economic benefit of innovation would be threatened if large corporations could purchase faster service to the detriment of newer companies with less capital. However, Lessig has supported the idea of allowing ISPs to give consumers the option of different tiers of service at different prices. He was reported on CBC News as saying that he has always been in favour of allowing internet providers to charge differently for consumer access at different speeds. He said, "Now, no doubt, my position might be wrong. Some friends in the network neutrality movement as well as some scholars believe it is wrong—that it doesn't go far enough. But the suggestion that the position is 'recent' is baseless. If I'm wrong, I've always been wrong."
Legislative reform
Despite presenting an anti-regulatory standpoint in many fora, Lessig still sees the need for legislative enforcement of copyright. He has called for limiting copyright terms for creative professionals to five years, but believes that creative professionals' work, many of them independent, would become more easily and quickly available if bureaucratic procedure were introduced to renew trademarks for up to 75 years after this five-year term.
Lessig has repeatedly taken a stance that privatization through legislation like that seen in the 1980s in the UK with British Telecommunications is not the best way to help the Internet grow. He said, "When government disappears, it's not as if paradise will take its place. When governments are gone, other interests will take their place," "My claim is that we should focus on the values of liberty. If there is not government to insist on those values, then who?" "The single unifying force should be that we govern ourselves."
Legal challenges
From 1999 to 2002, Lessig represented a high-profile challenge to the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act. Working with the Berkman Center for Internet and Society, Lessig led the team representing the plaintiff in Eldred v. Ashcroft. The plaintiff in the case was joined by a group of publishers who frequently published work in the public domain and a large number of amici including the Free Software Foundation, the American Association of Law Libraries, the Bureau of National Affairs, and the College Art Association.
In March 2003, Lessig acknowledged severe disappointment with his Supreme Court defeat in the Eldred copyright-extension case, where he unsuccessfully tried to convince Chief Justice William Rehnquist, who had sympathies for de-regulation, to back his "market-based" approach to intellectual property regulation.
In August 2013, Lawrence Lessig brought suit against Liberation Music PTY Ltd., after Liberation issued a takedown notice of one of Lessig's lectures on YouTube which had used the song "Lisztomania" by the band Phoenix, whom Liberation Music represents. Lessig sought damages under section 512(f) of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which holds parties liable for misrepresentations of infringement or removal of material. Lessig was represented by the Electronic Frontier Foundation and Jones Day. In February 2014, the case ended with a settlement in which Liberation Music admitted wrongdoing in issuing the takedown notice, issued an apology, and paid a confidential sum in compensation.
Killswitch
In October 2014, Killswitch, a film featuring Lawrence Lessig, as well as Aaron Swartz, Tim Wu, and Edward Snowden received its World Premiere at the Woodstock Film Festival, where it won the award for Best Editing. In the film, Lessig frames the story of two young hacktivists, Swartz and Snowden, who symbolize the disruptive and dynamic nature of the Internet. The film reveals the emotional bond between Lessig and Swartz, and how it was Swartz (the mentee) that challenged Lessig (the mentor) to engage in the political activism that has led to Lessig's crusade for campaign finance reform.
In February 2015, Killswitch was invited to screen at the Capitol Visitor's Center in Washington DC by Congressman Alan Grayson. The event was held on the eve of the Federal Communications Commission's historic decision on Net Neutrality. Lessig, Congressman Grayson, and Free Press (organization) CEO Craig Aaron spoke about the importance of protecting net neutrality and the free and open Internet.
Congressman Grayson states that Killswitch is "One of the most honest accounts of the battle to control the Internet -- and access to information itself." Richard von Busack of the Metro Silicon Valley, writes of Killswitch, "Some of the most lapidary use of found footage this side of The Atomic Café". Fred Swegles of the Orange County Register, remarks, "Anyone who values unfettered access to online information is apt to be captivated by Killswitch, a gripping and fast-paced documentary." Kathy Gill of GeekWire asserts that "Killswitch is much more than a dry recitation of technical history. Director Ali Akbarzadeh, producer Jeff Horn, and writer Chris Dollar created a human centered story. A large part of that connection comes from Lessig and his relationship with Swartz."
The Electors Trust
In December 2016 Lawrence Lessig and Laurence Tribe established The Electors Trust under the aegis of EqualCitizens.US to provide pro bono legal counsel as well as a secure communications platform for those of the 538 members of the United States Electoral College who are regarding a vote of conscience against Donald Trump in the presidential election
Lessig hosts the podcast Another Way in conjunction with The Young Turks Network
Money in politics activism
At the iCommons iSummit 07, Lessig announced that he would stop focusing his attention on copyright and related matters and work on political corruption instead, as the result of a transformative conversation with Aaron Swartz, a young internet prodigy whom Lessig met through his work with Creative Commons. This new work was partially facilitated through his wiki, Lessig Wiki, which he has encouraged the public to use to document cases of corruption. Lessig criticized the revolving door phenomenon in which legislators and staffers leave office to become lobbyists and have become beholden to special interests.
In February 2008, a Facebook group formed by law professor John Palfrey encouraged him to run for Congress from California's 12th congressional district, the seat vacated by the death of Representative Tom Lantos. Later that month, after forming an "exploratory project", he decided not to run for the vacant seat.
Rootstrikers
Despite having decided to forgo running for Congress himself, Lessig remained interested in attempting to change Congress to reduce corruption. To this end, he worked with political consultant Joe Trippi to launch a web based project called "Change Congress". In a press conference on March 20, 2008, Lessig explained that he hoped the Change Congress website would help provide technological tools voters could use to hold their representatives accountable and reduce the influence of money on politics. He is a board member of MAPLight.org, a nonprofit research group illuminating the connection between money and politics.
Change Congress later became Fix Congress First, and was finally named Rootstrikers. In November 2011, Lessig announced that Rootstrikers would join forces with Dylan Ratigan's Get Money Out campaign, under the umbrella of the United Republic organization. Rootstrikers subsequently came under the aegis of Demand Progress, an organization co-founded by Aaron Swartz.
Article V convention
In 2010, Lessig began to organize for a national Article V convention. He co-founded Fix Congress First! with Joe Trippi. In a speech in 2011, Lessig revealed that he was disappointed with Obama's performance in office, criticizing it as a "betrayal", and he criticized the president for using "the (Hillary) Clinton playbook". Lessig has called for state governments to call for a national Article V convention, including by supporting Wolf-PAC, a national organization attempting to call an Article V convention to address the problem. The convention Lessig supports would be populated by a "random proportional selection of citizens" which he suggested would work effectively. He said "politics is a rare sport where the amateur is better than the professional." He promoted this idea at a September 24–25, 2011, conference he co-chaired with the Tea Party Patriots' national coordinator, in Lessig's October 5, 2011, book, Republic, Lost: How Money Corrupts Congress—and a Plan to Stop It, and at the Occupy protest in Washington, DC. Reporter Dan Froomkin said the book offers a manifesto for the Occupy Wall Street protestors, focusing on the core problem of corruption in both political parties and their elections. An Article V convention does not dictate a solution, but Lessig would support a constitutional amendment that would allow legislatures to limit political contributions from non-citizens, including corporations, anonymous organizations, and foreign nationals, and he also supports public campaign financing and electoral college reform to establish the one person, one vote principle.
New Hampshire Rebellion
The New Hampshire Rebellion is a walk to raise awareness about corruption in politics. The event began in 2014 with a 185-mile march in New Hampshire. In its second year the walk expanded to include other locations in New Hampshire.
From January 11 to 24, 2014, Lessig and many others, like New York activist Jeff Kurzon, marched from Dixville Notch, New Hampshire to Nashua (a 185-mile march) to promote the idea of tackling "the systemic corruption in Washington". Lessig chose this language over the related term "campaign finance reform," commenting that "Saying we need campaign finance reform is like referring to an alcoholic as someone who has a liquid intake problem." The walk was to continue the work of NH native Doris "Granny D" Haddock, and in honor of deceased activist Aaron Swartz. The New Hampshire Rebellion marched 16 miles from Hampton to New Castle on the New Hampshire Seacoast. The initial location was also chosen because of its important and visible role in the quadrennial "New Hampshire primaries", the traditional first primary of the presidential election.
2016 presidential candidacy
Lessig announced the launch of his long shot presidential campaign on September 6, 2015.
On August 11, 2015, Lessig announced that he had launched an exploratory campaign for the purpose of exploring his prospects of winning the Democratic Party's nomination for president of the United States in the 2016 election. Lessig pledged to seek the nomination if he raised $1 million by Labor Day 2015. The announcement was widely reported in national media outlets, and was timed to coincide with a media blitz by the Lessig 2016 Campaign. Lessig was interviewed in The New York Times and Bloomberg. Campaign messages and Lessig's electoral finance reform positions were circulated widely on social media. His campaign was focused on a single issue: The Citizen Equality Act, a proposal that couples campaign finance reform with other laws aimed at curbing gerrymandering and ensuring voting access. As an expression of his commitment to the proposal, Lessig initially promised to resign once the Citizen Equality Act became law and turn the presidency over to his vice president, who would then serve out the remainder of the term as a typical American president and act on a variety of issues. In October 2015, Lessig abandoned his automatic resignation plan and adopted a full policy platform for the presidency, though he did retain the passage of the Citizen Equality Act as his primary legislative objective.
Lessig made a single campaign stop in Iowa, with an eye toward the first-in-the-nation precinct caucuses: at Dordt College, in Sioux Center, in late October. He announced the end of his campaign on November 2, 2015.
Electoral College reform
In 2017, Lessig announced a movement to challenge the winner-take-all Electoral College vote allocation in the various states, called Equal Votes. Lessig was also a counsel for electors in the Supreme Court case Chiafalo v. Washington where the court decided states could force electors to follow the state's popular vote.
Awards and honors
In 2002, Lessig received the Award for the Advancement of Free Software from the Free Software Foundation (FSF). He also received the Scientific American 50 Award for having "argued against interpretations of copyright that could stifle innovation and discourse online." Then, in 2006, Lessig was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
In 2011, Lessig was named to the Fastcase 50, "honoring the law's smartest, most courageous innovators, techies, visionaries, and leaders." Lessig was awarded honorary doctorates by the Faculty of Social Sciences at Lund University, Sweden in 2013 and by the Université catholique de Louvain in 2014. Lessig received the 2014 Webby Lifetime Achievement award for co-founding Creative Commons and defending net neutrality and the free and open software movement.
Personal life
Lessig was born in Rapid City, South Dakota, the son of Patricia (West), who sold real estate, and Lester L. "Jack" Lessig, an engineer. He grew up in Williamsport, Pennsylvania.
In May 2005, it was revealed that Lessig had experienced sexual abuse by the director at the American Boychoir School, which he had attended as an adolescent. Lessig reached a settlement with the school in the past, under confidential terms. He revealed his experiences in the course of representing another student victim, John Hardwicke, in court. In August 2006, he succeeded in persuading the New Jersey Supreme Court to radically restrict the scope of immunity, which had protected nonprofits that failed to prevent sexual abuse from legal liability.
Lessig is married to Bettina Neuefeind, a German-born Harvard University colleague. The two married in 1999. He and Neuefeind have three children: Willem, who is a Crypto-Miner, Coffy, who is a streamer, and Tess.
Defamation lawsuit against the New York Times
In 2019, during the criminal investigation of Jeffrey Epstein, it was discovered that the MIT Media Lab, under former president Joichi Ito, had accepted secret donations from Epstein after Epstein had been convicted on criminal charges. Ito eventually resigned as president following this discovery. After making supportive comments to Ito, Lessig wrote a Medium post in September 2019 to explain his stance. In his post, Lessig acknowledged that universities should not take donations from convicted criminals like Epstein who had become wealthy through actions unrelated to their criminal convictions; however, if such donations were to be accepted, it was better to take them secretly rather than publicly connect the university to the criminal. Lessig's essay drew criticism, and about a week later, Nellie Bowles of The New York Times had an interview with Lessig in which he reiterated his stance related to such donations broadly. The article used the headline "A Harvard Professor Doubles Down: If You Take Epstein’s Money, Do It in Secret", which Lessig confirmed was based on a statement he had made to the Times. Lessig took issue with the headline overlooking his argument that MIT should not accept such donations in the first place and also criticized the first two lines of the article which read "It is hard to defend soliciting donations from the convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. But Lawrence Lessig, a Harvard Law professor, has been trying." He subsequently accused the Times of writing clickbait with the headline crafted to defame him, and stated that the circulation of the article on social media had hurt his reputation.
In January 2020, Lessig filed a defamation lawsuit against the Times, including writer Bowles, business editor Ellen Pollock, and executive editor Dean Baquet. The Times stated they will "vigorously" defend against Lessig's claim, and believe that what they had published was accurate and had been reviewed by senior editors following Lessig's initial complaints.
In April 2020, the New York Times changed its original headline to read: "What Are the Ethics of Taking Tainted Funds? A conversation with Lawrence Lessig about Jeffrey Epstein, M.I.T. and reputation laundering." Lessig reported he subsequently withdrew his defamation lawsuit.
Notable cases
Golan v. Gonzales (representing multiple plaintiffs)
Eldred v. Ashcroft (representing plaintiff Eric Eldred) Lost
Kahle v. Ashcroft (also see Brewster Kahle) Dismissed
United States v. Microsoft (special master and author of an amicus brief addressing the Sherman Act)
Lessig was appointed special master by Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson in 1997; the appointment was vacated by the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit; the appellate court ruled that the powers granted to Lessig exceeded the scope of the Federal statute providing for special masters; Judge Jackson then solicited Lessig's amicus brief
Lessig said about this appointment: "Did Justice Jackson pick me to be his special master because he had determined I was the perfect mix of Holmes, and Ed Felten? No, I was picked because I was a Harvard Law Professor teaching the law of cyberspace. Remember: So is 'fame' made."
MPAA v. 2600 (submitted an amicus brief with Yochai Benkler in support of 2600)
McCutcheon v. FEC (submitted an amicus brief in support of FEC)
Chiafalo v. Washington (representing Chiafalo)
Bibliography
Code and Other Laws of Cyberspace (Basic Books, 1999)
The Future of Ideas (Vintage Books, 2001)
Free Culture (Penguin, 2004)
Code: Version 2.0 (Basic Books, 2006)
Remix: Making Art and Commerce Thrive in the Hybrid Economy (Penguin, 2008)
Republic, Lost: How Money Corrupts Congress—and a Plan to Stop It (Twelve, 2011)
One Way Forward: The Outsider's Guide to Fixing the Republic (Kindle Single/Amazon, 2012)
Lesterland: The Corruption of Congress and How to End It (2013, CC-BY-NC)
Republic, Lost: The Corruption of Equality and the Steps to End It (Twelve, rev. ed., 2015)
America, Compromised (University of Chicago Press, 2018)
Fidelity & Constraint: How the Supreme Court Has Read the American Constitution (Oxford University Press, 2019)
They Don't Represent Us: Reclaiming Our Democracy (Dey Street/William Morrow, 2019)
Filmography
RiP!: A Remix Manifesto, a 2008 documentary film
The Internet's Own Boy: The Story of Aaron Swartz, 2014 documentary film
Killswitch, 2015 documentary film
The Swamp, 2020 documentary film
Kim Dotcom: The Most Wanted Man Online, 2021 documentary film
See also
Copyleft
Free software movement
Free content
FreeCulture.org
Open educational resources
Gratis versus libre
Open content
Law of the Horse
Lobbying in the United States
Second Constitutional Convention of the United States proposal for constitutional reform
Killswitch (film)
References
External links
(includes Curriculum Vitae and Lessig blog 2002–2009)
Lessig Blog, beyond 2009
(Presidential Campaign site)
1961 births
21st-century American non-fiction writers
21st-century American politicians
Access to Knowledge activists
Alumni of Trinity College, Cambridge
American bloggers
American lawyers
American legal scholars
American people of German descent
American political writers
Articles containing video clips
Candidates in the 2016 United States presidential election
Computer law scholars
Copyright activists
Copyright scholars
Creative Commons-licensed authors
Harvard Law School faculty
Law clerks of the Supreme Court of the United States
Living people
Massachusetts Democrats
Members of the Creative Commons board of directors
Open content activists
People from Rapid City, South Dakota
People from Williamsport, Pennsylvania
Scholars of constitutional law
Sexual abuse victim advocates
Stanford Law School faculty
University of Chicago faculty
Webby Award winners
Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania alumni
Wired (magazine) people
Yale Law School alumni | false | [
"A general election was held in the U.S. state of Mississippi on November 3, 2015. All of Mississippi's executive officers were up for election. Primary elections were held on August 4, 2015, with primary runoffs, necessary if no candidate wins a majority of the vote, to be held on August 25, 2015. The filing deadline for primary ballot access was February 27.\n\nGovernor\n\nIncumbent Republican Governor Phil Bryant won re-election to a second and final term in office. He was challenged in the Republican primary by Mitch Young.\n\nRetired firefighter Robert Gray, physician Valerie Short and attorney Vicki Slater ran for the Democratic nomination.\n\nLieutenant Governor\n\nIncumbent Republican Lieutenant Governor Tate Reeves is running for re-election to a second term in office. He is being challenged in the primary by teacher Alisha Nelson McElhenney. Secretary of State Delbert Hosemann, State Senator and candidate for the U.S. Senate in 2014 Chris McDaniel and State Senator Michael Watson all considered running against Reeves in the Republican primary, but none did so.\n\nTwo candidates filed for the Democratic nomination: actor and candidate for Mayor of Greenwood in 2013 Jelani Barr and former Republican State Senator and former Republican Madison County Supervisor Tim Johnson. Mississippi Public Service Commissionner Brandon Presley was a potential Democratic candidate but is instead running for re-election.\n\nDemocratic primary\n\nCandidates\nJelani Barr, actor and candidate for Mayor of Greenwood in 2013\nTim Johnson, former Republican State Senator and former Madison County Supervisor\n\nResults\n\nRepublican primary\n\nCandidates\nTate Reeves, incumbent \nAlisha Nelson McElhenney, teacher\n\nResults\n\nGeneral election\n\nResults\n\nSecretary of State\n\nIncumbent Republican Secretary of State Delbert Hosemann had considered running for Lieutenant Governor against Tate Reeves in the Republican primary. However, he chose to run for re-election to a third term in office instead. Had Hosemann retired or run for another office, potential Republican candidates included State Senator Michael Watson and attorney and Hosemann's former Chief of Staff Cory Wilson.\n\nRetired firefighter Charles Graham is running for the Democrats. State Senator David Blount and former Secretary of State Dick Molpus were potential Democratic candidates, but neither chose to run.\n\nDemocratic nomination\n\nCandidate\nCharles Graham, retired firefighter\n\nRepublican primary\n\nCandidate\nDelbert Hosemann, incumbent\n\nResults\n\nGeneral election\n\nResults\n\nAttorney General\n\nIncumbent Democratic Attorney General Jim Hood had been mentioned as a potential candidate for Governor, but he is instead running for re-election to a fourth term in office.\n\nThe only candidate to file for the Republican nomination was Assistant U.S. Attorney Mike Hurst. Attorney Russ Latino considered running but declined to do so. Secretary of State Delbert Hosemann, State Senator Chris McDaniel, State Senator Michael Watson, Jackson County District Attorney Tony Lawrence, Madison and Rankin Counties' District Attorney Michael Guest were all mentioned as potential Republican candidates. However, none of them filed to run. State Representative Mark Baker and attorney, author and former Madison County Supervisor Andy Taggart declined to run.\n\nDemocratic nomination\n\nCandidate\nJim Hood, incumbent\n\nRepublican primary\n\nCandidate\nMike Hurst, Assistant U.S. Attorney\n\nResults\n\nGeneral election\n\nResults\n\nState Auditor\n\nIncumbent Republican State Auditor Stacey Pickering is running for re-election to a third term in office. Pickering is being challenged in the Republican primary by Mary Hawkins-Butler, the Mayor of Madison. State Senator Michael Watson had considered running but did not do so.\n\nJoce Pritchett, an engineer, is running as a Democrat. Charles Graham, a retired firefighter, had been running, but decided instead to run for Secretary of State.\n\nDemocratic nomination\n\nCandidate\nJocelyn Pritchett, engineer\n\nRepublican primary\n\nCandidates\nStacey Pickering, incumbent \nMary Hawkins-Butler, the Mayor of Madison\n\nResults\n\nGeneral election\n\nResults\n\nState Treasurer\n\nIncumbent Republican State Treasurer Lynn Fitch is running for re-election to a second term in office. Attorney David McRae, whose family formerly owned the McRae's department store chain, is running against Fitch in the Republican primary.\n\nNo Democrat filed to run for the office.\n\nRepublican primary\n\nCandidates\nLynn Fitch, incumbent \nDavid McRae, attorney\n\nResults\n\nGeneral election\n\nResults\n\nCommissioner of Agriculture and Commerce\n\nIncumbent Republican Commissioner of Agriculture and Commerce Cindy Hyde-Smith is running for re-election to a second term in office\n\nAddie Lee Green is running as a Democrat.\n\nDemocratic nomination\n\nCandidate\nAddie Lee Green\n\nRepublican primary\n\nCandidate\nCindy Hyde-Smith, incumbent\n\nResults\n\nGeneral election\n\nResults\n\nCommissioner of Insurance\n\nIncumbent Republican Commissioner of Insurance Mike Chaney is running for re-election to a third term in office. Businessman John Mosley is running against Chaney in the Republican primary.\n\nFormer State Representative and Director of the Mississippi Democratic Trust Brandon Jones was a possible Democratic candidate. No Democrat filed to run for the office.\n\nRepublican primary\n\nCandidates\nMike Chaney, incumbent \nJohn Mosley, businessman\n\nResults\n\nGeneral election\n\nResults\n\nPublic Service Commission\n\nNorthern District\nIncumbent Democratic Commissioner Brandon Presley had considered running for Governor and Lieutenant Governor, but decided not to and is running for re-election to a third term in office.\n\nMike Maynard is running as a Republican.\n\nCentral District\nIncumbent Republican Commissioner Lynn Posey is retiring rather than run for re-election to a third term in office.\n\nFor the Republicans, Brent Bailey and attorney and candidate for Governor in 2003 Mitch Tyner are running. Other potential Republican candidates were former State Senator and candidate for State Treasurer in 2011 Lee Yancey and Jason Cochran, a utility construction company project manager, the son of former Commissioner Nielsen Cochran and nephew of U.S. Senator Thad Cochran Neither filed to run.\n\nBruce Burton and State Representative Cecil Brown are running for the Democrats. Robert Amos originally qualified as a Democratic candidate for this seat, but switched to run for the Central District of the Transportation Commission.\n\nSouthern District\nIncumbent Republican Commissioner Steve Renfroe, who was appointed to the office in September 2013 after Leonard Bentz resigned to become executive director of the South Mississippi Planning and Development District, is not running for election to a full term in office. Sam Britton and State Senator Tony Smith are running for the Republican nomination. State Senator Philip Moran and Hancock County Supervisor Steve Seymour ruled out running and 2011 candidate Travis Rose chose not to run again.\n\nThomas Blanton was a potential Democratic candidate but he did not file and neither did any other Democrat.\n\nTransportation Commission\n\nNorthern District\nIncumbent Republican Mike Tagert, who won a special election in 2011 following the death of Democratic Commissioner Bill Minor, is running for re-election to a second full term in office. He is also running in the May 2015 special election for Mississippi's 1st congressional district. Hernando Mayor Chip Johnson has announced that he is running for the Republican nomination. An ally of Tagert, he will withdraw from the race if Tagert does not win the Congressional election.\n\nNo Democrat filed to run for this seat.\n\nCentral District\nIncumbent Republican Commissioner Dick Hall, who was appointed to the Commission in 1999, is running for re-election to a fifth full term in office.\n\nRobert Amos is running for the Democrats. Former Jackson Mayor Harvey Johnson, Jr. was a potential Democratic candidate, but he did not run.\n\nSouthern District\nIncumbent Republican Commissioner Tom King is running for re-election to a second term in office.\n\nChad Toney is running for the Democrats.\n\nSpecial Congressional election\n\nA special election for Mississippi's 1st congressional district was held to fill the term left by the vacancy created by the death of Alan Nunnelee. Nunnelee, a member of the Republican Party, died on February 6, 2015. The top-two primary was held on May 12, with Democrat Walter Zinn and Republican Trent Kelly advancing. Kelly defeated Zinn in the June 12 runoff election.\n\nReferences",
"John V. McCarthy (c. 1932 – May 24, 1987) was a member of the Ohio House of Representatives. While in office, he was the sponsor of a bill proposing the establishment of medical schools at three Ohio universities. He left office in 1972 in order to run for election for treasurer of Mahoning County, Ohio, but did not win the election.\n\nReferences\n\nMembers of the Ohio House of Representatives\nOhio Democrats\n1930s births\n1987 deaths\n20th-century American politicians"
]
|
[
"Lawrence Lessig",
"Political background",
"Tell me about the political background?",
"Lessig has been politically liberal since studying philosophy at Cambridge in the mid-1980s.",
"Has he been an activist for anything?",
"Lessig came out in favor of then Democratic primary candidate Barack Obama, citing the transformative nature of the Obama campaign as one of his chief reasons.",
"What else does he stand for?",
"Lessig remains skeptical of government intervention but favors some regulation, calling himself \"a constitutionalist.\" On",
"Are there any other interesting aspects about this article?",
"What was intended to be a year abroad at Cambridge convinced him instead to stay another two years to complete an undergraduate degree in philosophy",
"Did he study politics?",
"law clerk for two influential conservative judges, Judge Richard Posner and Justice Antonin Scalia, he was effectively the token liberal on their staffs,",
"Did he run for office?",
"I don't know."
]
| C_df24fd28c70e4f5883e1077d803f6a39_1 | Where else did he work? | 7 | Where else did Lawrence Lessig work other than being a law clerk for two judges? | Lawrence Lessig | Lessig has been politically liberal since studying philosophy at Cambridge in the mid-1980s. By the late 1980s when he was selected to serve as a law clerk for two influential conservative judges, Judge Richard Posner and Justice Antonin Scalia, he was effectively the token liberal on their staffs, chosen for his brilliance rather than for his ideology. Posner would later call him "the most distinguished law professor of his generation." Lessig has emphasized in interviews that his philosophy experience at Cambridge radically changed his values and career path. Previously, he had held strong conservative or libertarian political views, desired a career in business, was a highly active member of Teenage Republicans, served as the Youth Governor for Pennsylvania through the YMCA Youth and Government program in 1978, and almost pursued a Republican political career. What was intended to be a year abroad at Cambridge convinced him instead to stay another two years to complete an undergraduate degree in philosophy and develop his changed political values. During this time, he also traveled in the Eastern Bloc, where he acquired a lifelong interest in Eastern European law and politics. Lessig remains skeptical of government intervention but favors some regulation, calling himself "a constitutionalist." On one occasion, Lessig also commended the John McCain campaign for discussing fair use rights in a letter to YouTube where it took issue with YouTube for indulging overreaching copyright claims leading to the removal of various campaign videos. Lessig has known President Barack Obama since their days of both teaching law at the University of Chicago. In 2007, Lessig came out in favor of then Democratic primary candidate Barack Obama, citing the transformative nature of the Obama campaign as one of his chief reasons. He was subsequently mentioned as a candidate to head the Federal Communications Commission, which regulates the telecommunications industry. CANNOTANSWER | He was subsequently mentioned as a candidate to head the Federal Communications Commission, | Lester Lawrence Lessig III (born June 3, 1961) is an American academic, attorney, and political activist. He is the Roy L. Furman Professor of Law at Harvard Law School and the former director of the Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics at Harvard University. Lessig was a candidate for the Democratic Party's nomination for president of the United States in the 2016 U.S. presidential election but withdrew before the primaries.
Lessig is a proponent of reduced legal restrictions on copyright, trademark, and radio frequency spectrum, particularly in technology applications. In 2001, he founded Creative Commons, a non-profit organization devoted to expanding the range of creative works available for others to build upon and to share legally. Prior to his most recent appointment at Harvard, he was a professor of law at Stanford Law School, where he founded the Center for Internet and Society, and at the University of Chicago. He is a former board member of the Free Software Foundation and Software Freedom Law Center; the Washington, D.C. lobbying groups Public Knowledge and Free Press; and the Electronic Frontier Foundation. He was elected to the American Philosophical Society in 2007.
As a political activist, Lessig has called for state-based activism to promote substantive reform of government with a Second Constitutional Convention. In May 2014, he launched a crowd-funded political action committee which he termed Mayday PAC with the purpose of electing candidates to Congress who would pass campaign finance reform. Lessig is also the co-founder of Rootstrikers, and is on the boards of MapLight and Represent.Us. He serves on the advisory boards of the Democracy Café and the Sunlight Foundation.
In August 2015, Lessig announced that he was exploring a possible candidacy for President of the United States, promising to run if his exploratory committee raised $1 million by Labor Day. After accomplishing this, on September 6, 2015, Lessig announced that he was entering the race to become a candidate for the 2016 Democratic Party's presidential nomination. Lessig described his candidacy as a referendum on campaign finance reform and electoral reform legislation. He stated that, if elected, he would serve a full term as president with his proposed reforms as his legislative priorities. He ended his campaign in November 2015, citing rule changes from the Democratic Party that precluded him from appearing in the televised debates.
Academic career
Lessig earned a B.A. degree in economics and a B.S. degree in management (Wharton School) from the University of Pennsylvania, an M.A. degree in philosophy from the University of Cambridge (Trinity) in England, and a J.D. degree from Yale Law School in 1989. After graduating from law school, he clerked for a year for Judge Richard Posner, at the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago, Illinois, and another year for Justice Antonin Scalia at the Supreme Court.
Lessig started his academic career at the University of Chicago Law School, where he was professor from 1991 to 1997. As co-director of the Center for the Study of Constitutionalism in Eastern Europe there, he helped the newly independent Republic of Georgia draft a constitution. From 1997 to 2000, he was at Harvard Law School, holding for a year the chair of Berkman Professor of Law, affiliated with the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society. He subsequently joined Stanford Law School, where he established the school's Center for Internet and Society.
Lessig returned to Harvard in July 2009 as professor and director of the Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics. In 2013, Lessig was appointed as the Roy L. Furman Professor of Law and Leadership; his chair lecture was titled "Aaron's Laws: Law and Justice in a Digital Age."
In popular culture
Lessig was portrayed by Christopher Lloyd in "The Wake Up Call", during season 6 of The West Wing.
Political background
Lessig has been politically liberal since studying philosophy at Cambridge in the mid-1980s. By the late 1980s, two influential conservative judges, Judge Richard Posner and Justice Antonin Scalia, selected him to serve as a law clerk, choosing him because they considered him brilliant rather than for his ideology and effectively making him the "token liberal" on their staffs. Posner would later call him "the most distinguished law professor of his generation."
Lessig has emphasized in interviews that his philosophy experience at Cambridge radically changed his values and career path. Previously, he had held strong conservative or libertarian political views, desired a career in business, was a highly active member of Teenage Republicans, served as the youth governor for Pennsylvania through the YMCA Youth and Government program in 1978, and almost pursued a Republican political career.
What was intended to be a year abroad at Cambridge convinced him instead to stay another two years to complete an undergraduate degree in philosophy and develop his changed political values. During this time, he also traveled in the Eastern Bloc, where he acquired a lifelong interest in Eastern European law and politics.
Lessig remains skeptical of government intervention but favors some regulation, calling himself "a constitutionalist." On one occasion, Lessig also commended the John McCain campaign for discussing fair use rights in a letter to YouTube where it took issue with YouTube for indulging overreaching copyright claims leading to the removal of various campaign videos.
Internet and computer activism
"Code is law"
In computer science, "code" typically refers to the text of a computer program (the source code). In law, "code" can refer to the texts that constitute statutory law. In his 1999 book Code and Other Laws of Cyberspace, Lessig explores the ways in which code in both senses can be instruments for social control, leading to his dictum that "Code is law." Lessig later updated his work in order to keep up with the prevailing views of the time and released the book as Code: Version 2.0 in December 2006.
Remix culture
Lessig has been a proponent of the remix culture since the early 2000s. In his 2008 book Remix he presents this as a desirable cultural practice distinct from piracy. Lessig further articulates remix culture as intrinsic to technology and the Internet. Remix culture is therefore an amalgam of practice, creativity, "read/write" culture and the hybrid economy.
According to Lessig, the problem with the remix comes when it is at odds with stringent US copyright law. He has compared this to the failure of Prohibition, both in its ineffectiveness and in its tendency to normalize criminal behavior. Instead he proposes more lenient licensing, namely Creative Commons licenses, as a remedy to maintain "rule of law" while combating plagiarism.
Free culture
On March 28, 2004 Lessig was elected to the FSF's board of directors. He proposed the concept of "free culture". He also supports free and open-source software and open spectrum. At his free culture keynote at the O'Reilly Open Source Convention 2002, a few minutes of his speech was about software patents, which he views as a rising threat to free software, open source software and innovation.
In March 2006, Lessig joined the board of advisors of the Digital Universe project. A few months later, Lessig gave a talk on the ethics of the Free Culture Movement at the 2006 Wikimania conference. In December 2006, his lecture On Free, and the Differences between Culture and Code was one of the highlights at 23C3 Who can you trust?.
Lessig claimed in 2009 that, because 70% of young people obtain digital information from illegal sources, the law should be changed.
In a foreword to the Freesouls book project, Lessig makes an argument in favor of amateur artists in the world of digital technologies: "there is a different class of amateur creators that digital technologies have ... enabled, and a different kind of creativity has emerged as a consequence."
Lessig is also a well-known critic of copyright term extensions.
Net neutrality
Lessig has long been known to be a supporter of net neutrality. In 2006, he testified before the US Senate that he believed Congress should ratify Michael Powell's four Internet freedoms and add a restriction to access-tiering, i.e. he does not believe content providers should be charged different amounts. The reason is that the Internet, under the neutral end-to-end design is an invaluable platform for innovation, and the economic benefit of innovation would be threatened if large corporations could purchase faster service to the detriment of newer companies with less capital. However, Lessig has supported the idea of allowing ISPs to give consumers the option of different tiers of service at different prices. He was reported on CBC News as saying that he has always been in favour of allowing internet providers to charge differently for consumer access at different speeds. He said, "Now, no doubt, my position might be wrong. Some friends in the network neutrality movement as well as some scholars believe it is wrong—that it doesn't go far enough. But the suggestion that the position is 'recent' is baseless. If I'm wrong, I've always been wrong."
Legislative reform
Despite presenting an anti-regulatory standpoint in many fora, Lessig still sees the need for legislative enforcement of copyright. He has called for limiting copyright terms for creative professionals to five years, but believes that creative professionals' work, many of them independent, would become more easily and quickly available if bureaucratic procedure were introduced to renew trademarks for up to 75 years after this five-year term.
Lessig has repeatedly taken a stance that privatization through legislation like that seen in the 1980s in the UK with British Telecommunications is not the best way to help the Internet grow. He said, "When government disappears, it's not as if paradise will take its place. When governments are gone, other interests will take their place," "My claim is that we should focus on the values of liberty. If there is not government to insist on those values, then who?" "The single unifying force should be that we govern ourselves."
Legal challenges
From 1999 to 2002, Lessig represented a high-profile challenge to the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act. Working with the Berkman Center for Internet and Society, Lessig led the team representing the plaintiff in Eldred v. Ashcroft. The plaintiff in the case was joined by a group of publishers who frequently published work in the public domain and a large number of amici including the Free Software Foundation, the American Association of Law Libraries, the Bureau of National Affairs, and the College Art Association.
In March 2003, Lessig acknowledged severe disappointment with his Supreme Court defeat in the Eldred copyright-extension case, where he unsuccessfully tried to convince Chief Justice William Rehnquist, who had sympathies for de-regulation, to back his "market-based" approach to intellectual property regulation.
In August 2013, Lawrence Lessig brought suit against Liberation Music PTY Ltd., after Liberation issued a takedown notice of one of Lessig's lectures on YouTube which had used the song "Lisztomania" by the band Phoenix, whom Liberation Music represents. Lessig sought damages under section 512(f) of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which holds parties liable for misrepresentations of infringement or removal of material. Lessig was represented by the Electronic Frontier Foundation and Jones Day. In February 2014, the case ended with a settlement in which Liberation Music admitted wrongdoing in issuing the takedown notice, issued an apology, and paid a confidential sum in compensation.
Killswitch
In October 2014, Killswitch, a film featuring Lawrence Lessig, as well as Aaron Swartz, Tim Wu, and Edward Snowden received its World Premiere at the Woodstock Film Festival, where it won the award for Best Editing. In the film, Lessig frames the story of two young hacktivists, Swartz and Snowden, who symbolize the disruptive and dynamic nature of the Internet. The film reveals the emotional bond between Lessig and Swartz, and how it was Swartz (the mentee) that challenged Lessig (the mentor) to engage in the political activism that has led to Lessig's crusade for campaign finance reform.
In February 2015, Killswitch was invited to screen at the Capitol Visitor's Center in Washington DC by Congressman Alan Grayson. The event was held on the eve of the Federal Communications Commission's historic decision on Net Neutrality. Lessig, Congressman Grayson, and Free Press (organization) CEO Craig Aaron spoke about the importance of protecting net neutrality and the free and open Internet.
Congressman Grayson states that Killswitch is "One of the most honest accounts of the battle to control the Internet -- and access to information itself." Richard von Busack of the Metro Silicon Valley, writes of Killswitch, "Some of the most lapidary use of found footage this side of The Atomic Café". Fred Swegles of the Orange County Register, remarks, "Anyone who values unfettered access to online information is apt to be captivated by Killswitch, a gripping and fast-paced documentary." Kathy Gill of GeekWire asserts that "Killswitch is much more than a dry recitation of technical history. Director Ali Akbarzadeh, producer Jeff Horn, and writer Chris Dollar created a human centered story. A large part of that connection comes from Lessig and his relationship with Swartz."
The Electors Trust
In December 2016 Lawrence Lessig and Laurence Tribe established The Electors Trust under the aegis of EqualCitizens.US to provide pro bono legal counsel as well as a secure communications platform for those of the 538 members of the United States Electoral College who are regarding a vote of conscience against Donald Trump in the presidential election
Lessig hosts the podcast Another Way in conjunction with The Young Turks Network
Money in politics activism
At the iCommons iSummit 07, Lessig announced that he would stop focusing his attention on copyright and related matters and work on political corruption instead, as the result of a transformative conversation with Aaron Swartz, a young internet prodigy whom Lessig met through his work with Creative Commons. This new work was partially facilitated through his wiki, Lessig Wiki, which he has encouraged the public to use to document cases of corruption. Lessig criticized the revolving door phenomenon in which legislators and staffers leave office to become lobbyists and have become beholden to special interests.
In February 2008, a Facebook group formed by law professor John Palfrey encouraged him to run for Congress from California's 12th congressional district, the seat vacated by the death of Representative Tom Lantos. Later that month, after forming an "exploratory project", he decided not to run for the vacant seat.
Rootstrikers
Despite having decided to forgo running for Congress himself, Lessig remained interested in attempting to change Congress to reduce corruption. To this end, he worked with political consultant Joe Trippi to launch a web based project called "Change Congress". In a press conference on March 20, 2008, Lessig explained that he hoped the Change Congress website would help provide technological tools voters could use to hold their representatives accountable and reduce the influence of money on politics. He is a board member of MAPLight.org, a nonprofit research group illuminating the connection between money and politics.
Change Congress later became Fix Congress First, and was finally named Rootstrikers. In November 2011, Lessig announced that Rootstrikers would join forces with Dylan Ratigan's Get Money Out campaign, under the umbrella of the United Republic organization. Rootstrikers subsequently came under the aegis of Demand Progress, an organization co-founded by Aaron Swartz.
Article V convention
In 2010, Lessig began to organize for a national Article V convention. He co-founded Fix Congress First! with Joe Trippi. In a speech in 2011, Lessig revealed that he was disappointed with Obama's performance in office, criticizing it as a "betrayal", and he criticized the president for using "the (Hillary) Clinton playbook". Lessig has called for state governments to call for a national Article V convention, including by supporting Wolf-PAC, a national organization attempting to call an Article V convention to address the problem. The convention Lessig supports would be populated by a "random proportional selection of citizens" which he suggested would work effectively. He said "politics is a rare sport where the amateur is better than the professional." He promoted this idea at a September 24–25, 2011, conference he co-chaired with the Tea Party Patriots' national coordinator, in Lessig's October 5, 2011, book, Republic, Lost: How Money Corrupts Congress—and a Plan to Stop It, and at the Occupy protest in Washington, DC. Reporter Dan Froomkin said the book offers a manifesto for the Occupy Wall Street protestors, focusing on the core problem of corruption in both political parties and their elections. An Article V convention does not dictate a solution, but Lessig would support a constitutional amendment that would allow legislatures to limit political contributions from non-citizens, including corporations, anonymous organizations, and foreign nationals, and he also supports public campaign financing and electoral college reform to establish the one person, one vote principle.
New Hampshire Rebellion
The New Hampshire Rebellion is a walk to raise awareness about corruption in politics. The event began in 2014 with a 185-mile march in New Hampshire. In its second year the walk expanded to include other locations in New Hampshire.
From January 11 to 24, 2014, Lessig and many others, like New York activist Jeff Kurzon, marched from Dixville Notch, New Hampshire to Nashua (a 185-mile march) to promote the idea of tackling "the systemic corruption in Washington". Lessig chose this language over the related term "campaign finance reform," commenting that "Saying we need campaign finance reform is like referring to an alcoholic as someone who has a liquid intake problem." The walk was to continue the work of NH native Doris "Granny D" Haddock, and in honor of deceased activist Aaron Swartz. The New Hampshire Rebellion marched 16 miles from Hampton to New Castle on the New Hampshire Seacoast. The initial location was also chosen because of its important and visible role in the quadrennial "New Hampshire primaries", the traditional first primary of the presidential election.
2016 presidential candidacy
Lessig announced the launch of his long shot presidential campaign on September 6, 2015.
On August 11, 2015, Lessig announced that he had launched an exploratory campaign for the purpose of exploring his prospects of winning the Democratic Party's nomination for president of the United States in the 2016 election. Lessig pledged to seek the nomination if he raised $1 million by Labor Day 2015. The announcement was widely reported in national media outlets, and was timed to coincide with a media blitz by the Lessig 2016 Campaign. Lessig was interviewed in The New York Times and Bloomberg. Campaign messages and Lessig's electoral finance reform positions were circulated widely on social media. His campaign was focused on a single issue: The Citizen Equality Act, a proposal that couples campaign finance reform with other laws aimed at curbing gerrymandering and ensuring voting access. As an expression of his commitment to the proposal, Lessig initially promised to resign once the Citizen Equality Act became law and turn the presidency over to his vice president, who would then serve out the remainder of the term as a typical American president and act on a variety of issues. In October 2015, Lessig abandoned his automatic resignation plan and adopted a full policy platform for the presidency, though he did retain the passage of the Citizen Equality Act as his primary legislative objective.
Lessig made a single campaign stop in Iowa, with an eye toward the first-in-the-nation precinct caucuses: at Dordt College, in Sioux Center, in late October. He announced the end of his campaign on November 2, 2015.
Electoral College reform
In 2017, Lessig announced a movement to challenge the winner-take-all Electoral College vote allocation in the various states, called Equal Votes. Lessig was also a counsel for electors in the Supreme Court case Chiafalo v. Washington where the court decided states could force electors to follow the state's popular vote.
Awards and honors
In 2002, Lessig received the Award for the Advancement of Free Software from the Free Software Foundation (FSF). He also received the Scientific American 50 Award for having "argued against interpretations of copyright that could stifle innovation and discourse online." Then, in 2006, Lessig was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
In 2011, Lessig was named to the Fastcase 50, "honoring the law's smartest, most courageous innovators, techies, visionaries, and leaders." Lessig was awarded honorary doctorates by the Faculty of Social Sciences at Lund University, Sweden in 2013 and by the Université catholique de Louvain in 2014. Lessig received the 2014 Webby Lifetime Achievement award for co-founding Creative Commons and defending net neutrality and the free and open software movement.
Personal life
Lessig was born in Rapid City, South Dakota, the son of Patricia (West), who sold real estate, and Lester L. "Jack" Lessig, an engineer. He grew up in Williamsport, Pennsylvania.
In May 2005, it was revealed that Lessig had experienced sexual abuse by the director at the American Boychoir School, which he had attended as an adolescent. Lessig reached a settlement with the school in the past, under confidential terms. He revealed his experiences in the course of representing another student victim, John Hardwicke, in court. In August 2006, he succeeded in persuading the New Jersey Supreme Court to radically restrict the scope of immunity, which had protected nonprofits that failed to prevent sexual abuse from legal liability.
Lessig is married to Bettina Neuefeind, a German-born Harvard University colleague. The two married in 1999. He and Neuefeind have three children: Willem, who is a Crypto-Miner, Coffy, who is a streamer, and Tess.
Defamation lawsuit against the New York Times
In 2019, during the criminal investigation of Jeffrey Epstein, it was discovered that the MIT Media Lab, under former president Joichi Ito, had accepted secret donations from Epstein after Epstein had been convicted on criminal charges. Ito eventually resigned as president following this discovery. After making supportive comments to Ito, Lessig wrote a Medium post in September 2019 to explain his stance. In his post, Lessig acknowledged that universities should not take donations from convicted criminals like Epstein who had become wealthy through actions unrelated to their criminal convictions; however, if such donations were to be accepted, it was better to take them secretly rather than publicly connect the university to the criminal. Lessig's essay drew criticism, and about a week later, Nellie Bowles of The New York Times had an interview with Lessig in which he reiterated his stance related to such donations broadly. The article used the headline "A Harvard Professor Doubles Down: If You Take Epstein’s Money, Do It in Secret", which Lessig confirmed was based on a statement he had made to the Times. Lessig took issue with the headline overlooking his argument that MIT should not accept such donations in the first place and also criticized the first two lines of the article which read "It is hard to defend soliciting donations from the convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. But Lawrence Lessig, a Harvard Law professor, has been trying." He subsequently accused the Times of writing clickbait with the headline crafted to defame him, and stated that the circulation of the article on social media had hurt his reputation.
In January 2020, Lessig filed a defamation lawsuit against the Times, including writer Bowles, business editor Ellen Pollock, and executive editor Dean Baquet. The Times stated they will "vigorously" defend against Lessig's claim, and believe that what they had published was accurate and had been reviewed by senior editors following Lessig's initial complaints.
In April 2020, the New York Times changed its original headline to read: "What Are the Ethics of Taking Tainted Funds? A conversation with Lawrence Lessig about Jeffrey Epstein, M.I.T. and reputation laundering." Lessig reported he subsequently withdrew his defamation lawsuit.
Notable cases
Golan v. Gonzales (representing multiple plaintiffs)
Eldred v. Ashcroft (representing plaintiff Eric Eldred) Lost
Kahle v. Ashcroft (also see Brewster Kahle) Dismissed
United States v. Microsoft (special master and author of an amicus brief addressing the Sherman Act)
Lessig was appointed special master by Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson in 1997; the appointment was vacated by the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit; the appellate court ruled that the powers granted to Lessig exceeded the scope of the Federal statute providing for special masters; Judge Jackson then solicited Lessig's amicus brief
Lessig said about this appointment: "Did Justice Jackson pick me to be his special master because he had determined I was the perfect mix of Holmes, and Ed Felten? No, I was picked because I was a Harvard Law Professor teaching the law of cyberspace. Remember: So is 'fame' made."
MPAA v. 2600 (submitted an amicus brief with Yochai Benkler in support of 2600)
McCutcheon v. FEC (submitted an amicus brief in support of FEC)
Chiafalo v. Washington (representing Chiafalo)
Bibliography
Code and Other Laws of Cyberspace (Basic Books, 1999)
The Future of Ideas (Vintage Books, 2001)
Free Culture (Penguin, 2004)
Code: Version 2.0 (Basic Books, 2006)
Remix: Making Art and Commerce Thrive in the Hybrid Economy (Penguin, 2008)
Republic, Lost: How Money Corrupts Congress—and a Plan to Stop It (Twelve, 2011)
One Way Forward: The Outsider's Guide to Fixing the Republic (Kindle Single/Amazon, 2012)
Lesterland: The Corruption of Congress and How to End It (2013, CC-BY-NC)
Republic, Lost: The Corruption of Equality and the Steps to End It (Twelve, rev. ed., 2015)
America, Compromised (University of Chicago Press, 2018)
Fidelity & Constraint: How the Supreme Court Has Read the American Constitution (Oxford University Press, 2019)
They Don't Represent Us: Reclaiming Our Democracy (Dey Street/William Morrow, 2019)
Filmography
RiP!: A Remix Manifesto, a 2008 documentary film
The Internet's Own Boy: The Story of Aaron Swartz, 2014 documentary film
Killswitch, 2015 documentary film
The Swamp, 2020 documentary film
Kim Dotcom: The Most Wanted Man Online, 2021 documentary film
See also
Copyleft
Free software movement
Free content
FreeCulture.org
Open educational resources
Gratis versus libre
Open content
Law of the Horse
Lobbying in the United States
Second Constitutional Convention of the United States proposal for constitutional reform
Killswitch (film)
References
External links
(includes Curriculum Vitae and Lessig blog 2002–2009)
Lessig Blog, beyond 2009
(Presidential Campaign site)
1961 births
21st-century American non-fiction writers
21st-century American politicians
Access to Knowledge activists
Alumni of Trinity College, Cambridge
American bloggers
American lawyers
American legal scholars
American people of German descent
American political writers
Articles containing video clips
Candidates in the 2016 United States presidential election
Computer law scholars
Copyright activists
Copyright scholars
Creative Commons-licensed authors
Harvard Law School faculty
Law clerks of the Supreme Court of the United States
Living people
Massachusetts Democrats
Members of the Creative Commons board of directors
Open content activists
People from Rapid City, South Dakota
People from Williamsport, Pennsylvania
Scholars of constitutional law
Sexual abuse victim advocates
Stanford Law School faculty
University of Chicago faculty
Webby Award winners
Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania alumni
Wired (magazine) people
Yale Law School alumni | false | [
"Gerald Frank Else (July 1, 1908 – 6 September 1982) was a distinguished American classicist. He was professor of Greek and Latin at University of Michigan and University of Iowa. Else is substantially credited with the refinement of Aristotelian scholarship in aesthetics in the 20th century to expand the reading of catharsis alone to include the aesthetic triad of mimesis, hamartia, and catharsis as all essentially linked to each other.\n\nBiography\nElse studied classics and philosophy at Harvard University and finished his PhD there in 1934. He taught at Harvard University until he joined the U.S. Marine Corps as a Captain in 1943. After completing his service, in 1945 he became chair of the University of Iowa Classics Department. He spent 1956 to 1957 at The American Academy in Rome and in September of 1957 went to the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, where he remained for the rest of his career. He was chair of that department from 1957 to 1968. During that time he founded the Center for Coordination of Ancient and Modern Studies, seeking to unite the humanities and to show how the study of the ancient world is relevant to modern literature and modern concerns.\n\nAccomplishments\nElse's magnum opus is titled, Aristotle's Poetics: The Argument. It is a meticulous, comprehensive reading of Aristotle's treatise that was published in 1957. Widely regarded in its time as a central work of literary theory, Else's other important contribution is The Origin and Early Form of Greek Tragedy, which was published in 1965. In this work he argued against the view of tragedy as having arisen from religious ritual. Else wrote several other works on Greek literature and philosophy.\n\nUp to Else's time, Aristotle's concept of catharsis was almost exclusively associated with the reading of Jakob Bernays who defined it as the \"therapeutic purgation of pity and fear.\" In a convincing manner, Else refined this definition to understanding literary catharsis as, \"that moment of insight which arises out of the audience's climactic intellectual, emotional, and spiritual enlightenment, which for Aristotle is both the essential pleasure and essential goal of mimetic art.\" For Else, catharsis is an Aristotelian concept which must be read alongside the literary concepts of mimesis and hamartia as well. These latter two concepts are usually paraphrased as \"literary representation\" and \"intellectual error\" in Else's appraisal of Aristotle's literary aesthetic theory.\n\nElse was a member of the National Council for the Humanities, appointed by President Lyndon Johnson, and was President of the American Philological Association in 1964. Else retired in 1977 and died in 1982. A Festschrift in his honor (Ancient and Modern: Essays in Honor of Gerald F. Else, ed. J. D'Arms and J. W. Eadie) was published in 1977. A volume of collected essays written by Else was edited by Peter Burian, an editor at the University of North Carolina Press, in 1987 fourteen of Else's essays titled Plato and Aristotle on Poetry. The volume is notable for the inclusion of the biography on Else by Burian included in the prefatory section of the book., pp xi-xvi. Gerald Else is commemorated at Michigan by an annual lecture in the humanities.\n\nBooks\n Aristotle's Poetics: the argument. 1957\n Origin and early form of Greek tragedy. 1965\n Ancient and modern : essays in honor of Gerald F. Else. edited by John H. D'Arms, John W. Eadie. 1977\n Plato and Aristotle on poetry. Edited with introduction and notes by Peter Burian. 1986\n Aristotle Poetics. translated with an introd. and notes by Gerald F. Else.\n\nExternal links\n \n \n Picture of Gerald Else\n\nReferences\n\n1908 births\n1982 deaths\nWriters from Lincoln, Nebraska\nHarvard Graduate School of Arts and Sciences alumni\nUniversity of Iowa faculty\nUniversity of Michigan faculty\nPeople from Redfield, South Dakota",
"Fräulein Else may refer to:\n\n Fräulein Else (novella), a short work by the Austrian writer Arthur Schnitzler\n Fräulein Else (1929 film), a German silent film directed by Paul Czinner\n Fräulein Else (2014 film), directed by Anna Martinetz"
]
|
[
"Virginia Woolf",
"Talland House (1882-1894)"
]
| C_2448e986735e46eb8b47624e648fd3f5_1 | Where is Talland House? | 1 | Where is Talland House? | Virginia Woolf | Leslie Stephen was in the habit of hiking in Cornwall, and in the spring of 1881 he came across a large white house in St. Ives, Cornwall, and took out a lease on it that September. Although it had limited amenities, its main attraction was the view overlooking Porthminster Bay towards the Godrevy Lighthouse, which the young Virginia could see from the upper windows and was to be the central figure in her To the Lighthouse (1927). It was a large square house, with a terraced garden, divided by hedges, sloping down towards the sea. Each year between 1882 and 1894 from mid-July to mid-September the Stephen's leased Talland House as a summer residence. Leslie Stephen, who referred to it thus: "a pocket-paradise", described it as "The pleasantest of my memories... refer to our summers, all of which were passed in Cornwall, especially to the thirteen summers (1882-1894) at St. Ives. There we bought the lease of Talland House: a small but roomy house, with a garden of an acre or two all up and down hill, with quaint little terraces divided by hedges of escallonia, a grape-house and kitchen-garden and a so-called 'orchard' beyond". It was in Leslie's words, a place of "intense domestic happiness". Virginia herself described the house in great detail: In both London and Cornwall, Julia was perpetually entertaining, and was notorious for her manipulation of her guests' lives, constantly matchmaking in the belief everyone should be married, the domestic equivalence of her philanthropy. As her husband observed "My Julia was of course, though with all due reserve, a bit of a matchmaker". While Cornwall was supposed to be a summer respite, Julia Stephen soon immersed herself in the work of caring for the sick and poor there, as well as in London. Both at Hyde Park Gate and Talland House, the family mingled with much of the country's literary and artistic circles. Frequent guests included literary figures such as Henry James and George Meredith, as well as James Russell Lowell, and the children were exposed to much more intellectual conversations than their mother's at Little Holland House. The family did not return, following Julia Stephen's death in May 1895. For the children it was the highlight of the year, and Virginia's most vivid childhood memories were not of London but of Cornwall. In a diary entry of 22 March 1921, she described why she felt so connected to Talland House, looking back to a summer day in August 1890. "Why am I so incredibly and incurably romantic about Cornwall? One's past, I suppose; I see children running in the garden ... The sound of the sea at night ... almost forty years of life, all built on that, permeated by that: so much I could never explain". Cornwall inspired aspects of her work, in particular the "St Ives Trilogy" of Jacob's Room (1922), To the Lighthouse (1927), and The Waves (1931). CANNOTANSWER | ) at St. Ives. | Adeline Virginia Woolf (; ; 25 January 1882 28 March 1941) was an English writer, considered one of the most important modernist 20th-century authors and a pioneer in the use of stream of consciousness as a narrative device.
Woolf was born into an affluent household in South Kensington, London, the seventh child of Julia Prinsep Jackson and Leslie Stephen in a blended family of eight which included the modernist painter Vanessa Bell. She was home-schooled in English classics and Victorian literature from a young age. From 1897 to 1901, she attended the Ladies' Department of King's College London, where she studied classics and history and came into contact with early reformers of women's higher education and the women's rights movement.
Encouraged by her father, Woolf began writing professionally in 1900. After her father's death in 1904, the Stephen family moved from Kensington to the more bohemian Bloomsbury, where, in conjunction with the brothers' intellectual friends, they formed the artistic and literary Bloomsbury Group. In 1912, she married Leonard Woolf, and in 1917, the couple founded the Hogarth Press, which published much of her work. They rented a home in Sussex and moved there permanently in 1940. Woolf had romantic relationships with women, including Vita Sackville-West, who also published her books through Hogarth Press. Both women's literature became inspired by their relationship, which lasted until Woolf's death.
During the inter-war period, Woolf was an important part of London's literary and artistic society. In 1915, she had published her first novel, The Voyage Out, through her half-brother's publishing house, Gerald Duckworth and Company. Her best-known works include the novels Mrs Dalloway (1925), To the Lighthouse (1927) and Orlando (1928). She is also known for her essays, including A Room of One's Own (1929). Woolf became one of the central subjects of the 1970s movement of feminist criticism and her works have since attracted much attention and widespread commentary for "inspiring feminism". Her works have been translated into more than 50 languages. A large body of literature is dedicated to her life and work, and she has been the subject of plays, novels and films. Woolf is commemorated today by statues, societies dedicated to her work and a building at the University of London.
Throughout her life, Woolf was troubled by mental illness. She was institutionalised several times and attempted suicide at least twice. According to Dalsimer (2004) her illness was characterized by symptoms that today would be diagnosed as bipolar disorder, for which there was no effective intervention during her lifetime. In 1941, at age 59, Woolf died by drowning herself in the River Ouse at Lewes.
Life
Family of origin
Virginia Woolf was born Adeline Virginia Stephen on 25 January 1882 at 22 Hyde Park Gate in South Kensington, London, to Julia (née Jackson) (1846–1895) and Leslie Stephen (1832–1904), writer, historian, essayist, biographer and mountaineer. Julia Jackson was born in 1846 in Calcutta, British India, to John Jackson and Maria "Mia" Theodosia Pattle, from two Anglo-Indian families. John Jackson FRCS was the third son of George Jackson and Mary Howard of Bengal, a physician who spent 25 years with the Bengal Medical Service and East India Company and a professor at the fledgling Calcutta Medical College. While John Jackson was an almost invisible presence, the Pattle family were famous beauties, and moved in the upper circles of Bengali society. The seven Pattle sisters married into important families. Julia Margaret Cameron was a celebrated photographer, while Virginia married Earl Somers, and their daughter, Julia Jackson's cousin, was Lady Henry Somerset, the temperance leader. Julia moved to England with her mother at the age of two and spent much of her early life with another of her mother's sisters, Sarah Monckton Pattle. Sarah and her husband Henry Thoby Prinsep, conducted an artistic and literary salon at Little Holland House where she came into contact with a number of Pre-Raphaelite painters such as Edward Burne-Jones, for whom she modelled.
Julia was the youngest of three sisters, and Adeline Virginia was named after her mother's eldest sister Adeline Maria Jackson (1837–1881) and her mother's aunt Virginia Pattle (see Pattle family tree). Because of the tragedy of her aunt Adeline's death the previous year, the family never used Virginia's first name. The Jacksons were a well educated, literary and artistic proconsular middle-class family. In 1867, Julia Jackson married Herbert Duckworth, a barrister, but within three years was left a widow with three infant children. She was devastated and entered a prolonged period of mourning, abandoning her faith and turning to nursing and philanthropy. Julia and Herbert Duckworth had three children:
George (5 March 1868 – 27 April 1934), a senior civil servant, married Lady Margaret Herbert in 1904
Stella (30 May 1869 – 19 July 1897), died aged 28
Gerald (29 October 1870 – 28 September 1937), founder of Duckworth Publishing, married Cecil Alice Scott-Chad in 1921
Leslie Stephen was born in 1832 in South Kensington to Sir James and Lady Jane Catherine Stephen (née Venn), daughter of John Venn, rector of Clapham. The Venns were the centre of the evangelical Clapham Sect. Sir James Stephen was the under secretary at the Colonial Office, and with another Clapham member, William Wilberforce, was responsible for the passage of the Slavery Abolition Bill in 1833. In 1849 he was appointed Regius Professor of Modern History at Cambridge University. As a family of educators, lawyers, and writers the Stephens represented the elite intellectual aristocracy. While his family were distinguished and intellectual, they were less colourful and aristocratic than Julia Jackson's. A graduate and fellow of Cambridge University he renounced his faith and position to move to London where he became a notable man of letters. In addition, he was a rambler and mountaineer, described as a "gaunt figure with the ragged red brown beard...a formidable man, with an immensely high forehead, steely-blue eyes, and a long pointed nose." In the same year as Julia Jackson's marriage, he wed Harriet Marian (Minny) Thackeray (1840–1875), youngest daughter of William Makepeace Thackeray, who bore him a daughter, Laura (1870–1945), but died in childbirth in 1875. Laura was developmentally disabled and eventually institutionalised.
The widowed Julia Duckworth knew Leslie Stephen through her friendship with Minny's elder sister Anne (Anny) Isabella Ritchie and had developed an interest in his agnostic writings. She was present the night Minny died and later, tended to Leslie Stephen and helped him move next door to her on Hyde Park Gate so Laura could have some companionship with her own children. Both were preoccupied with mourning and although they developed a close friendship and intense correspondence, agreed it would go no further. Leslie Stephen proposed to her in 1877, an offer she declined, but when Anny married later that year she accepted him and they were married on 26 March 1878. He and Laura then moved next door into Julia's house, where they lived till his death in 1904. Julia was 32 and Leslie was 46.
Their first child, Vanessa, was born on 30 May 1879. Julia, having presented her husband with a child and now having five children to care for, decided to limit her family's growth. However, despite the fact that the couple took "precautions", "contraception was a very imperfect art in the nineteenth century": it resulted in the birth of three more children over the next four years.
22 Hyde Park Gate (1882–1904)
1882–1895
Virginia Woolf provides insight into her early life in her autobiographical essays, including Reminiscences (1908), 22 Hyde Park Gate (1921), and A Sketch of the Past (1940). Other essays that provide insight into this period include Leslie Stephen (1932). She also alludes to her childhood in her fictional writing. In To the Lighthouse (1927), her depiction of the life of the Ramsays in the Hebrides is an only thinly disguised account of the Stephens in Cornwall and the Godrevy Lighthouse they would visit there. However, Woolf's understanding of her mother and family evolved considerably between 1907 and 1940, in which the somewhat distant, yet revered figure of her mother becomes more nuanced and filled in.
In February 1891, with her sister Vanessa, Woolf began the Hyde Park Gate News, chronicling life and events within the Stephen family, and modelled on the popular magazine Tit-Bits. Initially, this was mainly Vanessa's and Thoby's articles, but very soon Virginia became the main contributor, with Vanessa as editor. Their mother's response when it first appeared was "Rather clever I think". Virginia would run the Hyde Park Gate News until 1895, the time of her mother's death. The following year the Stephen sisters also used photography to supplement their insights, as did Stella Duckworth. Vanessa Bell's 1892 portrait of her sister and parents in the Library at Talland House (see image) was one of the family's favourites and was written about lovingly in Leslie Stephen's memoir. In 1897 ("the first really lived year of my life)" Virginia began her first diary, which she kept for the next twelve years, and a notebook in 1909.
Virginia was, as she describes it, "born into a large connection, born not of rich parents, but of well-to-do parents, born into a very communicative, literate, letter writing, visiting, articulate, late nineteenth century world." It was a well-connected family consisting of six children, with two half brothers and a half sister (the Duckworths, from her mother's first marriage), another half sister, Laura (from her father's first marriage), and an older sister, Vanessa, and brother Thoby. The following year, another brother Adrian followed. The disabled Laura Stephen lived with the family until she was institutionalised in 1891. Julia and Leslie had four children together:
Vanessa "Nessa" (30 May 1879 – 1961), married Clive Bell in 1907
Thoby (9 September 1880 – 1906), founded Bloomsbury Group
Virginia "Jinny"/"Ginia" (25 January 1882 – 1941), married Leonard Woolf in 1912
Adrian (27 October 1883 – 1948), married Karin Costelloe in 1914
Virginia was born at 22 Hyde Park Gate and lived there until her father's death in 1904. Number 22 Hyde Park Gate, South Kensington, lay at the south-east end of Hyde Park Gate, a narrow cul-de-sac running south from Kensington Road, just west of the Royal Albert Hall, and opposite Kensington Gardens and Hyde Park, where the family regularly took their walks (see Map; Street plan). Built in 1846 by Henry Payne of Hammersmith as one of a row of single-family townhouses for the upper middle class, it soon became too small for their expanding family. At the time of their marriage, it consisted of a basement, two storeys, and an attic. In July 1886 Leslie Stephen obtained the services of J. W. Penfold, an architect, to add additional living space above and behind the existing structure. The substantial renovations added a new top floor (see image of red brick extension), with three bedrooms and a study for himself, converted the original attic into rooms, and added the first bathroom. It was a tall but narrow townhouse, that at that time had no running water. Virginia would later describe it as "a very tall house on the left-hand side near the bottom which begins by being stucco and ends by being red brick; which is so high and yet—as I can say now that we have sold it—so rickety that it seems as if a very high wind would topple it over."
The servants worked "downstairs" in the basement. The ground floor had a drawing room, separated by a curtain from the servant's pantry and a library. Above this on the first floor were Julia and Leslie's bedrooms. On the next floor were the Duckworth children's rooms, and above them, the day and night nurseries of the Stephen children occupied two further floors. Finally, in the attic, under the eaves, were the servants' bedrooms, accessed by a back staircase. Life at 22 Hyde Park Gate was also divided symbolically; as Virginia put it, "The division in our lives was curious. Downstairs there was pure convention: upstairs pure intellect. But there was no connection between them", the worlds typified by George Duckworth and Leslie Stephen. Their mother, it seems, was the only one who could span this divide. The house was described as dimly lit and crowded with furniture and paintings. Within it, the younger Stephens formed a close-knit group. Despite this, the children still held their grievances. Virginia envied Adrian for being their mother's favourite. Virginia and Vanessa's status as creatives (writing and art respectively) caused a rivalry between them at times. Life in London differed sharply from their summers in Cornwall, their outdoor activities consisting mainly of walks in nearby Kensington Gardens, where they would play hide-and-seek and sail their boats on the Round Pond, while indoors, it revolved around their lessons.
Leslie Stephen's eminence as an editor, critic, and biographer, and his connection to William Thackeray, meant his children were raised in an environment filled with the influences of a Victorian literary society. Henry James, George Henry Lewes, Alfred Lord Tennyson, Thomas Hardy, Edward Burne-Jones, and Virginia's honorary godfather, James Russell Lowell, were among the visitors to the house. Julia Stephen was equally well connected. Her aunt was a pioneering early photographer, Julia Margaret Cameron, who was also a visitor to the Stephen household. The two Stephen sisters, Vanessa and Virginia, were almost three years apart in age. Virginia christened her older sister "the saint" and was far more inclined to exhibit her cleverness than her more reserved sister. Virginia resented the domesticity Victorian tradition forced on them far more than her sister. They also competed for Thoby's affections. Virginia would later confess her ambivalence over this rivalry to Duncan Grant in 1917: "indeed one of the concealed worms of my life has been a sister's jealousy – of a sister I mean; and to feed this I have invented such a myth about her that I scarce know one from t'other."
Virginia showed an early affinity for writing. Although both parents disapproved of formal education for females, writing was considered a respectable profession for women, and her father encouraged her in this respect. Later, she would describe this as "ever since I was a little creature, scribbling a story in the manner of Hawthorne on the green plush sofa in the drawing room at St. Ives while the grown-ups dined". By the age of five, she was writing letters and could tell her father a story every night. Later, she, Vanessa, and Adrian would develop the tradition of inventing a serial about their next-door neighbours, every night in the nursery, or in the case of St. Ives, of spirits that resided in the garden. It was her fascination with books that formed the strongest bond between her and her father. For her tenth birthday, she received an ink-stand, a blotter, drawing book and a box of writing implements.
Talland House (1882–1894)
Leslie Stephen was in the habit of hiking in Cornwall, and in the spring of 1881 he came across a large white house in St Ives, Cornwall, and took out a lease on it that September. Although it had limited amenities, its main attraction was the view overlooking Porthminster Bay towards the Godrevy Lighthouse, which the young Virginia could see from the upper windows and was to be the central figure in her To the Lighthouse (1927). It was a large square house, with a terraced garden, divided by hedges, sloping down towards the sea. Each year between 1882 and 1894 from mid-July to mid-September the Stephen family leased Talland House as a summer residence. Leslie Stephen, who referred to it thus: "a pocket-paradise", described it as "The pleasantest of my memories... refer to our summers, all of which were passed in Cornwall, especially to the thirteen summers (1882–1894) at St Ives. There we bought the lease of Talland House: a small but roomy house, with a garden of an acre or two all up and down hill, with quaint little terraces divided by hedges of escallonia, a grape-house and kitchen-garden and a so-called 'orchard' beyond". It was in Leslie's words, a place of "intense domestic happiness". Virginia herself described the house in great detail:
In both London and Cornwall, Julia was perpetually entertaining, and was notorious for her manipulation of her guests' lives, constantly matchmaking in the belief everyone should be married, the domestic equivalence of her philanthropy. As her husband observed, "My Julia was of course, though with all due reserve, a bit of a matchmaker." Amongst their guests in 1893 were the Brookes, whose children, including Rupert Brooke, played with the Stephen children. Rupert and his group of Cambridge Neo-pagans would come to play an important role in their lives in the years before the First World War. While Cornwall was supposed to be a summer respite, Julia Stephen soon immersed herself in the work of caring for the sick and poor there, as well as in London. Both at Hyde Park Gate and Talland House, the family mingled with much of the country's literary and artistic circles. Frequent guests included literary figures such as Henry James and George Meredith, as well as James Russell Lowell, and the children were exposed to much more intellectual conversations than at their mother's Little Holland House. The family did not return, following Julia Stephen's death in May 1895.
For the children, it was the highlight of the year, and Virginia's most vivid childhood memories were not of London but of Cornwall. In a diary entry of 22 March 1921, she described why she felt so connected to Talland House, looking back to a summer day in August 1890. "Why am I so incredibly and incurably romantic about Cornwall? One's past, I suppose; I see children running in the garden … The sound of the sea at night … almost forty years of life, all built on that, permeated by that: so much I could never explain". Cornwall inspired aspects of her work, in particular the "St Ives Trilogy" of Jacob's Room (1922), To the Lighthouse (1927), and The Waves (1931).
1895–1904
Julia Stephen fell ill with influenza in February 1895, and never properly recovered, dying on 5 May, when Virginia was 13. It was a pivotal moment in her life and the beginning of her struggles with mental illness. Essentially, her life had fallen apart. The Duckworths were travelling abroad at the time of their mother's death, and Stella returned immediately to take charge and assume her role. That summer, rather than return to the memories of St Ives, the Stephens went to Freshwater, Isle of Wight, where some of their mother's relatives lived. It was there that Virginia had the first of her many nervous breakdowns, and Vanessa was forced to assume some of her mother's role in caring for Virginia's mental state. Stella became engaged to Jack Hills the following year and they were married on 10 April 1897, making Virginia even more dependent on her older sister.
George Duckworth also assumed some of their mother's role, taking upon himself the task of bringing them out into society. First Vanessa, then Virginia, in both cases an equal disaster, for it was not a rite of passage that resonated with either girl and attracted a scathing critique by Virginia regarding the conventional expectations of young upper-class women: "Society in those days was a perfectly competent, perfectly complacent, ruthless machine. A girl had no chance against its fangs. No other desires – say to paint, or to write – could be taken seriously". Rather her priorities were to escape from the Victorian conventionality of the downstairs drawing room to a "room of one's own" to pursue her writing aspirations. She would revisit this criticism in her depiction of Mrs. Ramsay stating the duties of a Victorian mother in To the Lighthouse "an unmarried woman has missed the best of life".
The death of Stella Duckworth on 19 July 1897, after a long illness, was a further blow to Virginia's sense of self, and the family dynamics. Woolf described the period following the death of both her mother and Stella as "1897–1904 – the seven unhappy years", referring to "the lash of a random unheeding flail that pointlessly and brutally killed the two people who should, normally and naturally, have made those years, not perhaps happy but normal and natural". In April 1902, their father became ill, and although he underwent surgery later that year he never fully recovered, dying on 22 February 1904. Virginia's father's death precipitated a further breakdown. Later, Virginia would describe this time as one in which she was dealt successive blows as a "broken chrysalis" with wings still creased. Chrysalis occurs many times in Woolf's writing but the "broken chrysalis" was an image that became a metaphor for those exploring the relationship between Woolf and grief. At his death, Leslie Stephen's net worth was £15,715 6s. 6d. (probate 23 March 1904)
Education
In the late 19th century, education was sharply divided along gender lines, a tradition that Virginia would note and condemn in her writing. Boys were sent to school, and in upper-middle-class families such as the Stephens, it involved private boys schools, often boarding schools, and university. Girls, if they were afforded the luxury of education, received it from their parents, governesses, and tutors. Virginia was educated by her parents who shared the duty. There was a small classroom off the back of the drawing room, with its many windows, which they found perfect for quiet writing and painting. Julia taught the children Latin, French, and history, while Leslie taught them mathematics. They also received piano lessons. Supplementing their lessons was the children's unrestricted access to Leslie Stephen's vast library, exposing them to much of the literary canon, resulting in a greater depth of reading than any of their Cambridge contemporaries, Virginia's reading being described as "greedy". Later, she would recall After public school, the boys in the family all attended Cambridge University. The girls derived some indirect benefit from this, as the boys introduced them to their friends. Another source was the conversation of their father's friends, to whom they were exposed. Leslie Stephen described his circle as "most of the literary people of mark...clever young writers and barristers, chiefly of the radical persuasion...we used to meet on Wednesday and Sunday evenings, to smoke and drink and discuss the universe and the reform movement".
Later, between the ages of 15 and 19, Virginia was able to pursue higher education. She took courses of study, some at degree level, in beginning and advanced Ancient Greek, intermediate Latin and German, together with continental and English history at the Ladies' Department of King's College London at nearby 13 Kensington Square between 1897 and 1901. She studied Greek under the eminent scholar George Charles Winter Warr, professor of Classical Literature at King's. In addition she had private tutoring in German, Greek, and Latin. One of her Greek tutors was Clara Pater (1899–1900), who taught at King's. Another was Janet Case, who involved her in the women's rights movement, and whose obituary Virginia would later write in 1937. Her experiences led to her 1925 essay "On Not Knowing Greek". Her time at King's also brought her into contact with some of the early reformers of women's higher education such as the principal of the Ladies' Department, Lilian Faithfull (one of the so-called steamboat ladies), in addition to Pater. Her sister Vanessa also enrolled at the Ladies' Department (1899–1901). Although the Stephen girls could not attend Cambridge, they were to be profoundly influenced by their brothers' experiences there. When Thoby went to Trinity in 1899, he befriended a circle of young men, including Clive Bell, Lytton Strachey, Leonard Woolf (whom Virginia would later marry), and Saxon Sydney-Turner, whom he would soon introduce to his sisters at the Trinity May Ball in 1900. These men formed a reading group they named the Midnight Society.
Relationships with family
Although Virginia expressed the opinion her father was her favourite parent, and although she had only turned thirteen when her mother died, she was profoundly influenced by her mother throughout her life. It was Virginia who famously stated that "for we think back through our mothers if we are women", and invoked the image of her mother repeatedly throughout her life in her diaries, her letters and a number of her autobiographical essays, including Reminiscences (1908), 22 Hyde Park Gate (1921) and A Sketch of the Past (1940), frequently evoking her memories with the words "I see her ...". She also alludes to her childhood in her fictional writing. In To the Lighthouse (1927), the artist, Lily Briscoe, attempts to paint Mrs. Ramsay, a complex character based on Julia Stephen, and repeatedly comments on the fact that she was "astonishingly beautiful". Her depiction of the life of the Ramsays in the Hebrides is an only thinly disguised account of the Stephens in Cornwall and the Godrevy Lighthouse they would visit there. However, Woolf's understanding of her mother and family evolved considerably between 1907 and 1940, in which the somewhat distant, yet revered figure becomes more nuanced and complete.
While her father painted Julia Stephen's work in terms of reverence, Woolf drew a sharp distinction between her mother's work and "the mischievous philanthropy which other women practise so complacently and often with such disastrous results." She describes her degree of sympathy, engagement, judgement, and decisiveness, and her sense of both irony and the absurd. She recalls trying to recapture "the clear round voice, or the sight of the beautiful figure, so upright and distinct, in its long shabby cloak, with the head held at a certain angle, so that the eye looked straight out at you." Julia Stephen dealt with her husband's depressions and his need for attention, which created resentment in her children, boosted his self-confidence, nursed her parents in their final illness, and had many commitments outside the home that would eventually wear her down. Her frequent absences and the demands of her husband instilled a sense of insecurity in her children that had a lasting effect on her daughters. In considering the demands on her mother, Woolf described her father as "fifteen years her elder, difficult, exacting, dependent on her," and reflected that it was at the expense of the amount of attention she could spare her young children: "a general presence rather than a particular person to a child." She reflected that she rarely ever spent a moment alone with her mother: "someone was always interrupting." Woolf was ambivalent about it, yet eager to separate herself from this model of utter selflessness. In To the Lighthouse, she describes it as "boasting of her capacity to surround and protect, there was scarcely a shell of herself left for her to know herself by; all was so lavished and spent." At the same time, she admired the strengths of her mother's womanly ideals. Given Julia's frequent absences and commitments, the young Stephen children became increasingly dependent on Stella Duckworth, who emulated her mother's selflessness; as Woolf wrote, "Stella was always the beautiful attendant handmaid ... making it the central duty of her life."
Julia Stephen greatly admired her husband's intellect. As Woolf observed "she never belittled her own works, thinking them, if properly discharged, of equal, though other, importance with her husband's." She believed with certainty in her role as the centre of her activities, and the person who held everything together, with a firm sense of what was important and valuing devotion. Of the two parents, Julia's "nervous energy dominated the family". While Virginia identified most closely with her father, Vanessa stated her mother was her favourite parent. Angelica Garnett recalls how Virginia asked Vanessa which parent she preferred, although Vanessa considered it a question that "one ought not to ask", she was unequivocal in answering "Mother" yet the centrality of her mother to Virginia's world is expressed in this description of her "Certainly there she was, in the very centre of that great Cathedral space which was childhood; there she was from the very first". Virginia observed that her half-sister, Stella, the oldest daughter, led a life of total subservience to her mother, incorporating her ideals of love and service. Virginia quickly learned, that like her father, being ill was the only reliable way of gaining the attention of her mother, who prided herself on her sickroom nursing.
Another issue the children had to deal with was Leslie Stephen's temper, Woolf describing him as "the tyrant father". Eventually, she became deeply ambivalent about him. He had given her his ring on her eighteenth birthday and she had a deep emotional attachment as his literary heir, writing about her "great devotion for him". Yet, like Vanessa, she also saw him as victimiser and tyrant. She had a lasting ambivalence towards him through her life, albeit one that evolved. Her adolescent image was of an "Eminent Victorian" and tyrant but as she grew older she began to realise how much of him was in her: "I have been dipping into old letters and father's memoirs....so candid and reasonable and transparent—and had such a fastidious delicate mind, educated, and transparent," she wrote 22 December 1940. She was in turn both fascinated and condemnatory of Leslie Stephen: "She [her mother] has haunted me: but then, so did that old wretch my father. . . . I was more like him than her, I think; and therefore more critical: but he was an adorable man, and somehow, tremendous."
Sexual abuse
Woolf stated that she first remembers being molested by Gerald Duckworth when she was six years old. It has been suggested that this led to a lifetime of sexual fear and resistance to
masculine authority. Against a background of over-committed and distant parents, suggestions that this was a dysfunctional family must be evaluated. These include evidence of sexual abuse of the Stephen girls by their older Duckworth half-brothers, and by their cousin, James Kenneth Stephen (1859–1892), at least of Stella Duckworth. Laura is also thought to have been abused. The most graphic account is by Louise DeSalvo, but other authors and reviewers have been more cautious. Virginia's accounts of being continually sexually abused during the time that she lived at 22 Hyde Park Gate, have been cited by some critics as a possible cause of her mental health issues, although there are likely to be a number of contributing factors. Lee states that, "The evidence is strong enough, and yet ambiguous enough, to open the way for conflicting psychobiographical interpretations that draw quite different shapes of Virginia Woolf's interior life".
Bloomsbury (1904–1940)
Gordon Square (1904–1907)
On their father's death, the Stephens' first instinct was to escape from the dark house of yet more mourning, and this they did immediately, accompanied by George, travelling to Manorbier, on the coast of Pembrokeshire on 27 February. There, they spent a month, and it was there that Virginia first came to realise her destiny was as a writer, as she recalls in her diary of 3 September 1922. They then further pursued their newfound freedom by spending April in Italy and France, where they met up with Clive Bell again. Virginia then suffered her second nervous breakdown, and first suicidal attempt on 10 May, and convalesced over the next three months.
Before their father died, the Stephens had discussed the need to leave South Kensington in the West End, with its tragic memories and their parents' relations. George Duckworth was 35, his brother Gerald 33. The Stephen children were now between 24 and 20. Virginia was 22. Vanessa and Adrian decided to sell 22 Hyde Park Gate in respectable South Kensington and move to Bloomsbury. Bohemian Bloomsbury, with its characteristic leafy squares seemed sufficiently far away, geographically and socially, and was a much cheaper neighbourhood rentwise. They had not inherited much and they were unsure about their finances. Also, Bloomsbury was close to the Slade School which Vanessa was then attending. While Gerald was quite happy to move on and find himself a bachelor establishment, George who had always assumed the role of quasi-parent decided to accompany them, much to their dismay. It was then that Lady Margaret Herbert appeared on the scene, George proposed, was accepted and married in September, leaving the Stephens to their own devices.
Vanessa found a house at 46 Gordon Square in Bloomsbury, and they moved in November, to be joined by Virginia now sufficiently recovered. It was at Gordon Square that the Stephens began to regularly entertain Thoby's intellectual friends in March 1905. The circle, which largely came from the Cambridge Apostles, included writers (Saxon Sydney-Turner, Lytton Strachey) and critics (Clive Bell, Desmond MacCarthy) with Thursday evening "At Homes" that became known as the Thursday Club, a vision of recreating Trinity College ("Cambridge in London"). This circle formed the nucleus of the intellectual circle of writers and artists known as the Bloomsbury Group. Later, it would include John Maynard Keynes (1907), Duncan Grant (1908), E.M. Forster (1910), Roger Fry (1910), Leonard Woolf (1911), and David Garnett (1914).
In 1905, Virginia and Adrian visited Portugal and Spain. Clive Bell proposed to Vanessa, but was declined, while Virginia began teaching evening classes at Morley College and Vanessa added another event to their calendar with the Friday Club, dedicated to the discussion of and later exhibition of the fine arts. This introduced some new people into their circle, including Vanessa's friends from the Royal Academy and Slade, such as Henry Lamb and Gwen Darwin (who became secretary), but also the eighteen-year-old Katherine Laird ("Ka") Cox (1887–1938), who was about to go up to Newnham. Although Virginia did not actually meet Ka until much later, Ka would come to play an important part in her life. Ka and others brought the Bloomsbury Group into contact with another, slightly younger, group of Cambridge intellectuals to whom the Stephen sisters gave the name "Neo-pagans". The Friday Club continued until 1913.
The following year, 1906, Virginia suffered two further losses. Her cherished brother Thoby, who was only 26, died of typhoid, following a trip they had all taken to Greece, and immediately afterward Vanessa accepted Clive's third proposal. Vanessa and Clive were married in February 1907 and as a couple, their interest in avant-garde art would have an important influence on Woolf's further development as an author. With Vanessa's marriage, Virginia and Adrian needed to find a new home.
Fitzroy Square (1907–1911)
Virginia moved into 29 Fitzroy Square in April 1907, a house on the west side of the street, formerly occupied by George Bernard Shaw. It was in Fitzrovia, immediately to the west of Bloomsbury but still relatively close to her sister at Gordon Square. The two sisters continued to travel together, visiting Paris in March. Adrian was now to play a much larger part in Virginia's life, and they resumed the Thursday Club in October at their new home, while Gordon Square became the venue for the Play Reading Society in December. During this period, the group began to increasingly explore progressive ideas, first in speech, and then in conduct, Vanessa proclaiming in 1910 a libertarian society with sexual freedom for all.
Meanwhile, Virginia began work on her first novel, Melymbrosia, that eventually became The Voyage Out (1915). Vanessa's first child, Julian was born in February 1908, and in September Virginia accompanied the Bells to Italy and France. It was during this time that Virginia's rivalry with her sister resurfaced, flirting with Clive, which he reciprocated, and which lasted on and off from 1908 to 1914, by which time her sister's marriage was breaking down. On 17 February 1909, Lytton Strachey proposed to Virginia and she accepted, but he then withdrew the offer.
It was while she was at Fitzroy Square that the question arose of Virginia needing a quiet country retreat, and she required a six-week rest cure and sought the countryside away from London as much as possible. In December, she and Adrian stayed at Lewes and started exploring the area of Sussex around the town. She started to want a place of her own, like St Ives, but closer to London. She soon found a property in nearby Firle (see below), maintaining a relationship with that area for the rest of her life.
Dreadnought hoax 1910
Several members of the group attained notoriety in 1910 with the Dreadnought hoax, which Virginia participated in disguised as a male Abyssinian royal. Her complete 1940 talk on the hoax was discovered and is published in the memoirs collected in the expanded edition of The Platform of Time (2008).
Brunswick Square (1911–1912)
In October 1911, the lease on Fitzroy Square was running out and Virginia and Adrian decided to give up their home on Fitzroy Square in favour of a different living arrangement, moving to a four-storied house at 38 Brunswick Square in Bloomsbury proper in November. Virginia saw it as a new opportunity: "We are going to try all kinds of experiments," she told Ottoline Morrell. Adrian occupied the second floor, with Maynard Keynes and Duncan Grant sharing the ground floor. This arrangement for a single woman was considered scandalous, and George Duckworth was horrified. The house was adjacent to the Foundling Hospital, much to Virginia's amusement as an unchaperoned single woman. Originally, Ka Cox was supposed to share in the arrangements, but opposition came from Rupert Brooke, who was involved with her and pressured her to abandon the idea. At the house, Duncan Grant decorated Adrian Stephen's rooms (see image).
Marriage (1912–1941)
Leonard Woolf was one of Thoby Stephen's friends at Trinity College, Cambridge, and noticed the Stephen sisters in Thoby's rooms there on their visits to the May Ball in 1900 and 1901. He recalls them in "white dresses and large hats, with parasols in their hands, their beauty literally took one's breath away". To him, they were silent, "formidable and alarming".
Woolf did not meet Virginia formally till 17 November 1904 when he dined with the Stephens at Gordon Square, to say goodbye before leaving to take up a position with the civil service in Ceylon, although she was aware of him through Thoby's stories. At that visit he noted that she was perfectly silent throughout the meal, and looked ill. In 1909, Lytton Strachey suggested to Woolf he should make her an offer of marriage. He did so, but received no answer. In June 1911, he returned to London on a one-year leave, but did not go back to Ceylon. In England again, Leonard renewed his contacts with family and friends. Three weeks after arriving he dined with Vanessa and Clive Bell at Gordon Square on 3 July, where they were later joined by Virginia and other members of what would later be called "Bloomsbury", and Leonard dates the group's formation to that night. In September, Virginia asked Leonard to join her at Little Talland House at Firle in Sussex for a long weekend. After that weekend, they began seeing each other more frequently.
On 4 December 1911, Leonard moved into the ménage on Brunswick Square, occupying a bedroom and sitting room on the fourth floor, and started to see Virginia constantly and by the end of the month had decided he was in love with her. On 11 January 1912, he proposed to her; she asked for time to consider, so he asked for an extension of his leave and, on being refused, offered his resignation on 25 April, effective 20 May. He continued to pursue Virginia, and in a letter of 1 May 1912 (which see) she explained why she did not favour a marriage. However, on 29 May, Virginia told Leonard that she wished to marry him, and they were married on 10 August at the St Pancras Register Office. It was during this time that Leonard first became aware of Virginia's precarious mental state. The Woolfs continued to live at Brunswick Square until October 1912, when they moved to a small flat at 13 Clifford's Inn, further to the east (subsequently demolished). Despite his low material status (Woolf referring to Leonard during their engagement as a "penniless Jew"), the couple shared a close bond. Indeed, in 1937, Woolf wrote in her diary: "Love-making—after 25 years can't bear to be separate ... you see it is enormous pleasure being wanted: a wife. And our marriage so complete." However, Virginia made a suicide attempt in 1913.
In October 1914, Leonard and Virginia Woolf moved away from Bloomsbury and central London to Richmond, living at 17 The Green, a home discussed by Leonard in his autobiography Beginning Again (1964). In early March 1915, the couple moved again, to nearby Hogarth House, Paradise Road, after which they named their publishing house. Virginia's first novel, The Voyage Out was published in 1915, followed by another suicide attempt. Despite the introduction of conscription in 1916, Leonard was exempted on medical grounds.
Between 1924 and 1940, the Woolfs returned to Bloomsbury, taking out a ten-year lease at 52 Tavistock Square, from where they ran the Hogarth Press from the basement, where Virginia also had her writing room, and is commemorated with a bust of her in the square (see illustration). 1925 saw the publication of Mrs Dalloway in May followed by her collapse while at Charleston in August. In 1927, her next novel, To the Lighthouse, was published, and the following year she lectured on Women & Fiction at Cambridge University and published Orlando in October. Her two Cambridge lectures then became the basis for her major essay A Room of One's Own in 1929. Virginia wrote only one drama, Freshwater, based on her great-aunt Julia Margaret Cameron, and produced at her sister's studio on Fitzroy Street in 1935. 1936 saw another collapse of her health following the completion of The Years.
The Woolf's final residence in London was at 37 Mecklenburgh Square (1939–1940), destroyed during the Blitz in September 1940; a month later their previous home on Tavistock Square was also destroyed. After that, they made Sussex their permanent home. For descriptions and illustrations of all Virginia Woolf's London homes, see Jean Moorcroft Wilson's book Virginia Woolf, Life and London: A Biography of Place (pub. Cecil Woolf, 1987).
Hogarth Press (1917–1938)
Virginia had taken up book-binding as a pastime in October 1901, at the age of 19, and the Woolfs had been discussing setting up a publishing house for some time, and at the end of 1916 started making plans. Having discovered that they were not eligible to enroll in the St Bride School of Printing, they started purchasing supplies after seeking advice from the Excelsior Printing Supply Company on Farringdon Road in March 1917, and soon they had a printing press set up on their dining room table at Hogarth House, and the Hogarth Press was born.
Their first publication was Two Stories in July 1917, inscribed Publication No. 1, and consisted of two short stories, "The Mark on the Wall" by Virginia Woolf and Three Jews by Leonard Woolf. The work consisted of 32 pages, hand bound and sewn, and illustrated by woodcuts designed by Dora Carrington. The illustrations were a success, leading Virginia to remark that the press was "specially good at printing pictures, and we see that we must make a practice of always having pictures." (13 July 1917) The process took two and a half months with a production run of 150 copies. Other short short stories followed, including Kew Gardens (1919) with a woodblock by Vanessa Bell as frontispiece. Subsequently, Bell added further illustrations, adorning each page of the text.
The press subsequently published Virginia's novels along with works by T.S. Eliot, Laurens van der Post, and others. The Press also commissioned works by contemporary artists, including Dora Carrington and Vanessa Bell. Woolf believed that to break free of a patriarchal society women writers needed a "room of their own" to develop and often fantasised about an "Outsider's Society" where women writers would create a virtual private space for themselves via their writings to develop a feminist critique of society. Though Woolf never created the "Outsider's society", the Hogarth Press was the closest approximation as the Woolfs chose to publish books by writers that took unconventional points of view to form a reading community. Initially the press concentrated on small experimental publications, of little interest to large commercial publishers. Until 1930, Woolf often helped her husband print the Hogarth books as the money for employees was not there. Virginia relinquished her interest in 1938, following a third attempted suicide. After it was bombed in September 1940, the press was moved to Letchworth for the remainder of the war. Both the Woolfs were internationalists and pacifists who believed that promoting understanding between peoples was the best way to avoid another world war and chose quite consciously to publish works by foreign authors of whom the British reading public were unaware. The first non-British author to be published was the Soviet writer Maxim Gorky, the book Reminiscences of Leo Nikolaiovich Tolstoy in 1920, dealing with his friendship with Count Leo Tolstoy.
Memoir Club (1920–1941)
1920 saw a postwar reconstitution of the Bloomsbury Group, under the title of the Memoir Club, which as the name suggests focussed on self-writing, in the manner of Proust's A La Recherche, and inspired some of the more influential books of the 20th century. The Group, which had been scattered by the war, was reconvened by Mary ('Molly') MacCarthy who called them "Bloomsberries", and operated under rules derived from the Cambridge Apostles, an elite university debating society that a number of them had been members of. These rules emphasised candour and openness. Among the 125 memoirs presented, Virginia contributed three that were published posthumously in 1976, in the autobiographical anthology Moments of Being. These were 22 Hyde Park Gate (1921), Old Bloomsbury (1922) and Am I a Snob? (1936).
Vita Sackville-West (1922–1941)
The ethos of the Bloomsbury group encouraged a liberal approach to sexuality, and on 14 December 1922 Woolf met the writer and gardener Vita Sackville-West, wife of Harold Nicolson, while dining with Clive Bell. Writing in her diary the next day, she referred to meeting "the lovely gifted aristocratic Sackville West". At the time, Sackville-West was the more successful writer as both poet and novelist, commercially and critically, and it was not until after Woolf's death that she became considered the better writer. After a tentative start, they began a sexual relationship, which, according to Sackville-West in a letter to her husband on 17 August 1926, was only twice consummated. The relationship reached its peak between 1925 and 1928, evolving into more of a friendship through the 1930s, though Woolf was also inclined to brag of her affairs with other women within her intimate circle, such as Sibyl Colefax and Comtesse de Polignac. This period of intimacy was to prove fruitful for both authors, Woolf producing three novels, To the Lighthouse (1927), Orlando (1928), and The Waves (1931) as well as a number of essays, including "Mr. Bennett and Mrs. Brown" (1924) and "A Letter to a Young Poet" (1932).
Sackville-West worked tirelessly to lift Woolf's self-esteem, encouraging her not to view herself as a quasi-reclusive inclined to sickness who should hide herself away from the world, but rather offered praise for her liveliness and wit, her health, her intelligence and achievements as a writer. Sackville-West led Woolf to reappraise herself, developing a more positive self-image, and the feeling that her writings were the products of her strengths rather than her weakness. Starting at the age of 15, Woolf had believed the diagnosis by her father and his doctor that reading and writing were deleterious to her nervous condition, requiring a regime of physical labour such as gardening to prevent a total nervous collapse. This led Woolf to spend much time obsessively engaging in such physical labour.
Sackville-West was the first to argue to Woolf she had been misdiagnosed, and that it was far better to engage in reading and writing to calm her nerves—advice that was taken. Under the influence of Sackville-West, Woolf learned to deal with her nervous ailments by switching between various forms of intellectual activities such as reading, writing and book reviews, instead of spending her time in physical activities that sapped her strength and worsened her nerves. Sackville-West chose the financially struggling Hogarth Press as her publisher to assist the Woolfs financially. Seducers in Ecuador, the first of the novels by Sackville-West published by Hogarth, was not a success, selling only 1500 copies in its first year, but the next Sackville-West novel they published, The Edwardians, was a best-seller that sold 30,000 copies in its first six months. Sackville-West's novels, though not typical of the Hogarth Press, saved Hogarth, taking them from the red into the black. However, Woolf was not always appreciative of the fact that it was Sackville-West's books that kept the Hogarth Press profitable, writing dismissively in 1933 of her "servant girl" novels. The financial security allowed by the good sales of Sackville-West's novels in turn allowed Woolf to engage in more experimental work, such as The Waves, as Woolf had to be cautious when she depended upon Hogarth entirely for her income.
In 1928, Woolf presented Sackville-West with Orlando, a fantastical biography in which the eponymous hero's life spans three centuries and both sexes. It was published in October, shortly after the two women spent a week travelling together in France, that September. Nigel Nicolson, Vita Sackville-West's son, wrote, "The effect of Vita on Virginia is all contained in Orlando, the longest and most charming love letter in literature, in which she explores Vita, weaves her in and out of the centuries, tosses her from one sex to the other, plays with her, dresses her in furs, lace and emeralds, teases her, flirts with her, drops a veil of mist around her." After their affair ended, the two women remained friends until Woolf's death in 1941. Virginia Woolf also remained close to her surviving siblings, Adrian and Vanessa; Thoby had died of typhoid fever at the age of 26.
Sussex (1911–1941)
Virginia was needing a country retreat to escape to, and on 24 December 1910, she found a house for rent in Firle, Sussex, near Lewes (see Map). She obtained a lease and took possession of the house the following month, naming it 'Little Talland House', after their childhood home in Cornwall, although it was actually a new red gabled villa on the main street opposite the village hall. The lease was a short one, and in October, she and Leonard Woolf found Asham House at Asheham a few miles to the west, while walking along the Ouse from Firle. The house, at the end of a tree-lined road was a strange beautiful Regency-Gothic house in a lonely location. She described it as "flat, pale, serene, yellow-washed", without electricity or water and allegedly haunted. She took out a five-year lease jointly with Vanessa in the New Year, and they moved into it in February 1912, holding a house warming party on the 9th.
It was at Asham that the Woolfs spent their wedding night later that year. At Asham, she recorded the events of the weekends and holidays they spent there in her Asham Diary, part of which was later published as A Writer's Diary in 1953. In terms of creative writing, The Voyage Out was completed there, and much of Night and Day. Asham provided Woolf with well needed relief from the pace of London life and was where she found a happiness that she expressed in her diary of 5 May 1919 "Oh, but how happy we've been at Asheham! It was a most melodious time. Everything went so freely; – but I can't analyse all the sources of my joy". Asham was also the inspiration for A Haunted House (1921–1944), and was painted by members of the Bloomsbury Group, including Vanessa Bell and Roger Fry. It was during these times at Asham that Ka Cox (seen here) started to devote herself to Virginia and become very useful.
While at Asham Leonard and Virginia found a farmhouse in 1916, that was to let, about four miles away, which they thought would be ideal for her sister. Eventually, Vanessa came down to inspect it, and moved in in October of that year, taking it as a summer home for her family. The Charleston Farmhouse was to become the summer gathering place for the literary and artistic circle of the Bloomsbury Group.
After the end of the war, in 1918, the Woolfs were given a year's notice by the landlord, who needed the house. In mid-1919, "in despair", they purchased "a very strange little house" for £300, the Round House in Pipe Passage, Lewes, a converted windmill. No sooner had they bought the Round House, than Monk's House in nearby Rodmell, came up for auction, a weatherboarded house with oak beamed rooms, said to be 15th or 16th century. The Leonards favoured the latter because of its orchard and garden, and sold the Round House, to purchase Monk's House for £700. Monk's House also lacked water and electricity, but came with an acre of garden, and had a view across the Ouse towards the hills of the South Downs. Leonard Woolf describes this view (and the amenities) as being unchanged since the days of Chaucer. From 1940, it became their permanent home after their London home was bombed, and Virginia continued to live there until her death. Meanwhile, Vanessa made Charleston her permanent home in 1936. It was at Monk's House that Virginia completed Between the Acts in early 1941, followed by a further breakdown directly resulting in her suicide on 28 March 1941, the novel being published posthumously later that year.
The Neo-pagans (1911–1912)
During her time in Firle, Virginia became better acquainted with Rupert Brooke and his group of Neo-Pagans, pursuing socialism, vegetarianism, exercising outdoors and alternative life styles, including social nudity. They were influenced by the ethos of Bedales, Fabianism and Shelley. The women wore sandals, socks, open neck shirts and head-scarves. Although she had some reservations, Woolf was involved with their activities for a while, fascinated by their bucolic innocence in contrast to the sceptical intellectualism of Bloomsbury, which earned her the nickname "The Goat" from her brother Adrian. While Woolf liked to make much of a weekend she spent with Brooke at the vicarage in Grantchester, including swimming in the pool there, it appears to have been principally a literary assignation. They also shared a psychiatrist in the name of Maurice Craig. Through the Neo-Pagans, she finally met Ka Cox on a weekend in Oxford in January 1911, who had been part of the Friday Club circle and now became her friend and played an important part in dealing with her illnesses. Virginia nicknamed her "Bruin". At the same time, she found herself dragged into a triangular relationship involving Ka, Jacques Raverat and Gwen Darwin. She became resentful of the other couple, Jacques and Gwen, who married later in 1911, not the outcome Virginia had predicted or desired. They would later be referred to in both To the Lighthouse and The Years. The exclusion she felt evoked memories of both Stella Duckworth's marriage and her triangular involvement with Vanessa and Clive.
The two groups eventually fell out. Brooke pressured Ka into withdrawing from joining Virginia's ménage on Brunswick Square in late 1911, calling it a "bawdy-house" and by the end of 1912 he had vehemently turned against Bloomsbury. Later, she would write sardonically about Brooke, whose premature death resulted in his idealisation, and express regret about "the Neo-Paganism at that stage of my life". Virginia was deeply disappointed when Ka married William Edward Arnold-Forster in 1918, and became increasingly critical of her.
Mental health
Much examination has been made of Woolf's mental health (e.g., see Mental health bibliography). From the age of 13, following the death of her mother, Woolf suffered periodic mood swings from severe depression to manic excitement, including psychotic episodes, which the family referred to as her "madness". However, as Hermione Lee points out, Woolf was not "mad"; she was merely a woman who suffered from and struggled with illness for much of her relatively short life, a woman of "exceptional courage, intelligence and stoicism", who made the best use, and achieved the best understanding she could of that illness.
Psychiatrists today contend that her illness constitutes bipolar disorder (manic-depressive illness). Her mother's death in 1895, "the greatest disaster that could happen", precipitated a crisis of alternating excitability and depression accompanied by irrational fears, for which their family doctor, Dr. Seton, prescribed rest, stopping lessons and writing, and regular walks supervised by Stella. Yet just two years later, Stella too was dead, bringing on her next crisis in 1897, and her first expressed wish for death at the age of fifteen, writing in her diary that October that "death would be shorter & less painful". She then stopped keeping a diary for some time. This was a scenario she would later recreate in "Time Passes" (To the Lighthouse, 1927).
The death of her father in 1904 provoked her most alarming collapse, on 10 May, when she threw herself out a window and she was briefly institutionalised under the care of her father's friend, the eminent psychiatrist George Savage. Savage blamed her education—frowned on by many at the time as unsuitable for women—for her illness. She spent time recovering at the house of Stella's friend Violet Dickinson, and at her aunt Caroline's house in Cambridge, and by January 1905, Dr. Savage considered her "cured". Violet, seventeen years older than Virginia, became one of her closest friends and one of her more effective nurses. She characterised it as a "romantic friendship" (Letter to Violet 4 May 1903). Her brother Thoby's death in 1906 marked a "decade of deaths” that ended her childhood and adolescence. Gordon (2004) writes: "Ghostly voices spoke to her with increasing urgency, perhaps more real than the people who lived by her side. When voices of the dead urged her to impossible things, they drove her mad but, controlled, they became the material of fiction..."
On Dr. Savage's recommendation, Virginia spent three short periods in 1910, 1912, and 1913 at Burley House at 15 Cambridge Park, Twickenham (see image), described as "a private nursing home for women with nervous disorder" run by Miss Jean Thomas. By the end of February 1910, she was becoming increasingly restless, and Dr. Savage suggested being away from London. Vanessa rented Moat House, outside Canterbury, in June, but there was no improvement, so Dr. Savage sent her to Burley for a "rest cure". This involved partial isolation, deprivation of literature, and force-feeding, and after six weeks she was able to convalesce in Cornwall and Dorset during the autumn.
She loathed the experience; writing to her sister on 28 July, she described how she found the phony religious atmosphere stifling and the institution ugly, and informed Vanessa that to escape "I shall soon have to jump out of a window." The threat of being sent back would later lead to her contemplating suicide. Despite her protests, Savage would refer her back in 1912 for insomnia and in 1913 for depression.
On emerging from Burley House in September 1913, she sought further opinions from two other physicians on the 13th: Maurice Wright, and Henry Head, who had been Henry James's physician. Both recommended she return to Burley House. Distraught, she returned home and attempted suicide by taking an overdose of 100 grains of veronal (a barbiturate) and nearly dying: she was found by Ka Cox, who summoned help.
On recovery, she went to Dalingridge Hall, George Duckworth's home in East Grinstead, Sussex, to convalesce on 30 September, accompanied by Ka Cox and a nurse, returning to Asham on 18 November with Cox and Janet Case. She remained unstable over the next two years, with another incident involving veronal that she claimed was an "accident", and consulted another psychiatrist in April 1914, Maurice Craig, who explained that she was not sufficiently psychotic to be certified or committed to an institution.
The rest of the summer of 1914 went better for her, and they moved to Richmond, but in February 1915, just as The Voyage Out was due to be published, she relapsed once more, and remained in poor health for most of that year. Then, despite Miss Thomas's gloomy prognosis, she began to recover, following 20 years of ill health. Nevertheless, there was a feeling among those around her that she was now permanently changed, and not for the better.
Over the rest of her life, she suffered recurrent bouts of depression. In 1940, a number of factors appeared to overwhelm her. Her biography of Roger Fry had been published in July, and she had been disappointed in its reception. The horrors of war depressed her, and their London homes had been destroyed in the Blitz in September and October. Woolf had completed Between the Acts (published posthumously in 1941) in November, and completing a novel was frequently accompanied by exhaustion. Her health became increasingly a matter of concern, culminating in her decision to end her life on 28 March 1941.
Though this instability would frequently affect her social life, she was able to continue her literary productivity with few interruptions throughout her life. Woolf herself provides not only a vivid picture of her symptoms in her diaries and letters, but also her response to the demons that haunted her and at times made her long for death: "But it is always a question whether I wish to avoid these glooms... These 9 weeks give one a plunge into deep waters... One goes down into the well & nothing protects one from the assault of truth."
Psychiatry had little to offer Woolf, but she recognised that writing was one of the behaviours that enabled her to cope with her illness: "The only way I keep afloat... is by working... Directly I stop working I feel that I am sinking down, down. And as usual, I feel that if I sink further I shall reach the truth." Sinking under water was Woolf's metaphor for both the effects of depression and psychosis— but also for finding truth, and ultimately was her choice of death.
Throughout her life, Woolf struggled, without success, to find meaning in her illness: on the one hand, an impediment, on the other, something she visualised as an essential part of who she was, and a necessary condition of her art. Her experiences informed her work, such as the character of Septimus Warren Smith in Mrs Dalloway (1925), who, like Woolf, was haunted by the dead, and ultimately takes his own life rather than be admitted to a sanitorium.
Leonard Woolf relates how during the 30 years they were married, they consulted many doctors in the Harley Street area, and although they were given a diagnosis of neurasthenia, he felt they had little understanding of the causes or nature. The proposed solution was simple—as long as she lived a quiet life without any physical or mental exertion, she was well. On the other hand, any mental, emotional, or physical strain resulted in a reappearance of her symptoms, beginning with a headache, followed by insomnia and thoughts that started to race. Her remedy was simple: to retire to bed in a darkened room, eat, and drink plenty of milk, following which the symptoms slowly subsided.
Modern scholars, including her nephew and biographer, Quentin Bell, have suggested her breakdowns and subsequent recurring depressive periods were influenced by the sexual abuse which she and her sister Vanessa were subjected to by their half-brothers George and Gerald Duckworth (which Woolf recalls in her autobiographical essays "A Sketch of the Past" and "22 Hyde Park Gate") (see Sexual abuse). Biographers point out that when Stella died in 1897, there was no counterbalance to control George's predation, and his nighttime prowling. Virginia describes him as her first lover, "The old ladies of Kensington and Belgravia never knew that George Duckworth was not only father and mother, brother and sister to those poor Stephen girls; he was their lover also."
It is likely that other factors also played a part. It has been suggested that they include genetic predisposition, for both trauma and family history have been implicated in bipolar disorder. Virginia's father, Leslie Stephen, suffered from depression, and her half-sister Laura was institutionalised. Many of Virginia's symptoms, including persistent headache, insomnia, irritability, and anxiety, resembled of her father's. Another factor is the pressure she placed upon herself in her work; for instance, her breakdown of 1913 was at least partly triggered by the need to finish The Voyage Out.
Virginia herself hinted that her illness was related to how she saw the repressed position of women in society, when she wrote in A Room of One's Own that had Shakespeare had a sister of equal genius, she "would certainly have gone crazed, shot herself, or ended her days in some lonely cottage outside the village, half witch, half wizard, feared and mocked at". These inspirations emerged from what Woolf referred to as her lava of madness, describing her time at Burley in a 1930 letter to Ethel Smyth:
Thomas Caramagno and others, in discussing her illness, oppose the "neurotic-genius" way of looking at mental illness, where creativity and mental illness are conceptualised as linked rather than antithetical. Stephen Trombley describes Woolf as having a confrontational relationship with her doctors, and possibly being a woman who is a "victim of male medicine", referring to the lack of understanding, particularly at the time, about mental illness.
Death
After completing the manuscript of her last novel (posthumously published), Between the Acts (1941), Woolf fell into a depression similar to one which she had earlier experienced. The onset of World War II, the destruction of her London home during the Blitz, and the cool reception given to her biography of her late friend Roger Fry all worsened her condition until she was unable to work. When Leonard enlisted in the Home Guard, Virginia disapproved. She held fast to her pacifism and criticised her husband for wearing what she considered to be "the silly uniform of the Home Guard".
After World War II began, Woolf's diary indicates that she was obsessed with death, which figured more and more as her mood darkened. On 28 March 1941, Woolf drowned herself by filling her overcoat pockets with stones and walking into the River Ouse near her home. Her body was not found until 18 April. Her husband buried her cremated remains beneath an elm tree in the garden of Monk's House, their home in Rodmell, Sussex.
In her suicide note, addressed to her husband, she wrote:
Work
Woolf is considered to be one of the more important 20th century novelists. A modernist, she was one of the pioneers of using stream of consciousness as a narrative device, alongside contemporaries such as Marcel Proust, Dorothy Richardson and James Joyce. Woolf's reputation was at its greatest during the 1930s, but declined considerably following World War II. The growth of feminist criticism in the 1970s helped re-establish her reputation.
Virginia submitted her first article in 1890, to a competition in Tit-Bits. Although it was rejected, this shipboard romance by the 8-year-old would presage her first novel 25 years later, as would contributions to the Hyde Park News, such as the model letter "to show young people the right way to express what is in their hearts", a subtle commentary on her mother's legendary matchmaking. She transitioned from juvenilia to professional journalism in 1904 at the age of 22. Violet Dickinson introduced her to Mrs. Lyttelton, the editor of the Women's Supplement of The Guardian, a Church of England newspaper. Invited to submit a 1,500-word article, Virginia sent Lyttelton a review of W.D. Howells' The Son of Royal Langbirth and an essay about her visit to Haworth that year, Haworth, November 1904. The review was published anonymously on 4 December, and the essay on the 21st. In 1905, Woolf began writing for The Times Literary Supplement.
Woolf would go on to publish novels and essays as a public intellectual to both critical and popular acclaim. Much of her work was self-published through the Hogarth Press. "Virginia Woolf's peculiarities as a fiction writer have tended to obscure her central strength: she is arguably the major lyrical novelist in the English language. Her novels are highly experimental: a narrative, frequently uneventful and commonplace, is refracted—and sometimes almost dissolved—in the characters' receptive consciousness. Intense lyricism and stylistic virtuosity fuse to create a world overabundant with auditory and visual impressions." "The intensity of Virginia Woolf's poetic vision elevates the ordinary, sometimes banal settings"—often wartime environments—"of most of her novels."
Fiction and drama
Novels
Her first novel, The Voyage Out, was published in 1915 at the age of 33, by her half-brother's imprint, Gerald Duckworth and Company Ltd. This novel was originally titled Melymbrosia, but Woolf repeatedly changed the draft. An earlier version of The Voyage Out has been reconstructed by Woolf scholar Louise DeSalvo and is now available to the public under the intended title. DeSalvo argues that many of the changes Woolf made in the text were in response to changes in her own life. The novel is set on a ship bound for South America, and a group of young Edwardians onboard and their various mismatched yearnings and misunderstandings. In the novel are hints of themes that would emerge in later work, including the gap between preceding thought and the spoken word that follows, and the lack of concordance between expression and underlying intention, together with how these reveal to us aspects of the nature of love.
"Mrs Dalloway (1925) centres on the efforts of Clarissa Dalloway, a middle-aged society woman, to organise a party, even as her life is paralleled with that of Septimus Warren Smith, a working-class veteran who has returned from the First World War bearing deep psychological scars".
"To the Lighthouse (1927) is set on two days ten years apart. The plot centres on the Ramsay family's anticipation of and reflection upon a visit to a lighthouse and the connected familial tensions. One of the primary themes of the novel is the struggle in the creative process that beset painter Lily Briscoe while she struggles to paint in the midst of the family drama. The novel is also a meditation upon the lives of a nation's inhabitants in the midst of war, and of the people left behind." It also explores the passage of time, and how women are forced by society to allow men to take emotional strength from them.
Orlando: A Biography (1928) is one of Virginia Woolf's lightest novels. A parodic biography of a young nobleman who lives for three centuries without ageing much past thirty (but who does abruptly turn into a woman), the book is in part a portrait of Woolf's lover Vita Sackville-West. It was meant to console Vita for the loss of her ancestral home, Knole House, though it is also a satirical treatment of Vita and her work. In Orlando, the techniques of historical biographers are being ridiculed; the character of a pompous biographer is being assumed for it to be mocked.
"The Waves (1931) presents a group of six friends whose reflections, which are closer to recitatives than to interior monologues proper, create a wave-like atmosphere that is more akin to a prose poem than to a plot-centred novel".
Flush: A Biography (1933) is a part-fiction, part-biography of the cocker spaniel owned by Victorian poet Elizabeth Barrett Browning. The book is written from the dog's point of view. Woolf was inspired to write this book from the success of the Rudolf Besier play The Barretts of Wimpole Street. In the play, Flush is on stage for much of the action. The play was produced for the first time in 1932 by the actress Katharine Cornell.
The Years (1936), traces the history of the genteel Pargiter family from the 1880s to the "present day" of the mid-1930s. The novel had its origin in a lecture Woolf gave to the National Society for Women's Service in 1931, an edited version of which would later be published as "Professions for Women". Woolf first thought of making this lecture the basis of a new book-length essay on women, this time taking a broader view of their economic and social life, rather than focusing on women as artists, as the first book had. She soon jettisoned the theoretical framework of her "novel-essay" and began to rework the book solely as a fictional narrative, but some of the non-fiction material she first intended for this book was later used in Three Guineas (1938).
"Her last work, Between the Acts (1941), sums up and magnifies Woolf's chief preoccupations: the transformation of life through art, sexual ambivalence, and meditation on the themes of flux of time and life, presented simultaneously as corrosion and rejuvenation—all set in a highly imaginative and symbolic narrative encompassing almost all of English history." This book is the most lyrical of all her works, not only in feeling but in style, being chiefly written in verse. While Woolf's work can be understood as consistently in dialogue with the Bloomsbury Group, particularly its tendency (informed by G.E. Moore, among others) towards doctrinaire rationalism, it is not a simple recapitulation of the coterie's ideals.
Themes
Woolf's fiction has been studied for its insight into many themes including war, shell shock, witchcraft, and the role of social class in contemporary modern British society. In the postwar Mrs Dalloway (1925), Woolf addresses the moral dilemma of war and its effects and provides an authentic voice for soldiers returning from World War I, suffering from shell shock, in the person of Septimus Smith. In A Room of One's Own (1929) Woolf equates historical accusations of witchcraft with creativity and genius among women "When, however, one reads of a witch being ducked, of a woman possessed by devils...then I think we are on the track of a lost novelist, a suppressed poet, of some mute and inglorious Jane Austen". Throughout her work Woolf tried to evaluate the degree to which her privileged background framed the lens through which she viewed class. She both examined her own position as someone who would be considered an elitist snob, but attacked the class structure of Britain as she found it. In her 1936 essay Am I a Snob?, she examined her values and those of the privileged circle she existed in. She concluded she was, and subsequent critics and supporters have tried to deal with the dilemma of being both elite and a social critic.
The sea is a recurring motif in Woolf's work. Noting Woolf's early memory of listening to waves break in Cornwall, Katharine Smyth writes in The Paris Review that "the radiance [of] cresting water would be consecrated again and again in her writing, saturating not only essays, diaries, and letters but also Jacob’s Room, The Waves, and To the Lighthouse." Patrizia A. Muscogiuri explains that "seascapes, sailing, diving and the sea itself are aspects of nature and of human beings’ relationship with it which frequently inspired Virginia Woolf's writing." This trope is deeply embedded in her texts’ structure and grammar; James Antoniou notes in Sydney Morning Herald how "Woolf made a virtue of the semicolon, the shape and function of which resembles the wave, her most famous motif."
Despite the considerable conceptual difficulties, given Woolf's idiosyncratic use of language, her works have been translated into over 50 languages. Some writers, such as the Belgian Marguerite Yourcenar, had rather tense encounters with her, while others, such as the Argentinian Jorge Luis Borges, produced versions that were highly controversial.
Drama
Virginia Woolf researched the life of her great-aunt, the photographer Julia Margaret Cameron, publishing her findings in an essay titled "Pattledom" (1925), and later in her introduction to her 1926 edition of Cameron's photographs. She had begun work on a play based on an episode in Cameron's life in 1923, but abandoned it. Finally it was performed on 18 January 1935 at the studio of her sister, Vanessa Bell on Fitzroy Street in 1935. Woolf directed it herself, and the cast were mainly members of the Bloomsbury Group, including herself. Freshwater is a short three act comedy satirising the Victorian era, only performed once in Woolf's lifetime. Beneath the comedic elements, there is an exploration of both generational change and artistic freedom. Both Cameron and Woolf fought against the class and gender dynamics of Victorianism and the play shows links to both To the Lighthouse and A Room of One's Own that would follow.
Non-fiction
Woolf wrote a body of autobiographical work and more than 500 essays and reviews, some of which, like A Room of One's Own (1929) were of book length. Not all were published in her lifetime. Shortly after her death, Leonard Woolf produced an edited edition of unpublished essays titled The Moment and other Essays, published by the Hogarth Press in 1947. Many of these were originally lectures that she gave, and several more volumes of essays followed, such as The Captain's Death Bed: and other essays (1950).
A Room of One's Own
Among Woolf's non-fiction works, one of the best known is A Room of One's Own (1929), a book-length essay. Considered a key work of feminist literary criticism, it was written following two lectures she delivered on "Women and Fiction" at Cambridge University the previous year. In it, she examines the historical disempowerment women have faced in many spheres, including social, educational and financial. One of her more famous dicta is contained within the book "A woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction". Much of her argument ("to show you how I arrived at this opinion about the room and the money") is developed through the "unsolved problems" of women and fiction writing to arrive at her conclusion, although she claimed that was only "an opinion upon one minor point". In doing so, she states a good deal about the nature of women and fiction, employing a quasi-fictional style as she examines where women writers failed because of lack of resources and opportunities, examining along the way the experiences of the Brontës, George Eliot and George Sand, as well as the fictional character of Shakespeare's sister, equipped with the same genius but not position. She contrasted these women who accepted a deferential status with Jane Austen, who wrote entirely as a woman.
Influences
Michel Lackey argues that a major influence on Woolf, from 1912 onward, was Russian literature and Woolf adopted many of its aesthetic conventions. The style of Fyodor Dostoyevsky with his depiction of a fluid mind in operation helped to influence Woolf's writings about a "discontinuous writing process", though Woolf objected to Dostoyevsky's obsession with "psychological extremity" and the "tumultuous flux of emotions" in his characters together with his right-wing, monarchist politics as Dostoyevsky was an ardent supporter of the autocracy of the Russian Empire. In contrast to her objections to Dostoyevsky's "exaggerated emotional pitch", Woolf found much to admire in the work of Anton Chekhov and Leo Tolstoy. Woolf admired Chekhov for his stories of ordinary people living their lives, doing banal things and plots that had no neat endings. From Tolstoy, Woolf drew lessons about how a novelist should depict a character's psychological state and the interior tension within. Lackey notes that, from Ivan Turgenev, Woolf drew the lessons that there are multiple "I's" when writing a novel, and the novelist needed to balance those multiple versions of him- or herself to balance the "mundane facts" of a story vs. the writer's overarching vision, which required a "total passion" for art.
The American writer Henry David Thoreau also influenced Woolf. In a 1917 essay, she praised Thoreau for his statement "The millions are awake enough for physical labor, but only one in hundreds of millions is awake enough to a poetic or divine life. To be awake is to be alive." They both aimed to capture 'the moment'––as Walter Pater says, "to burn always with this hard, gem-like flame." Woolf praised Thoreau for his "simplicity" in finding "a way for setting free the delicate and complicated machinery of the soul". Like Thoreau, Woolf believed that it was silence that set the mind free to really contemplate and understand the world. Both authors believed in a certain transcendental, mystical approach to life and writing, where even banal things could be capable of generating deep emotions if one had enough silence and the presence of mind to appreciate them. Woolf and Thoreau were both concerned with the difficulty of human relationships in the modern age. Other notable influences include William Shakespeare, George Eliot, Leo Tolstoy, Marcel Proust, Anton Chekhov, Emily Brontë, Daniel Defoe, James Joyce, and E.M. Forster.
List of selected publications
see , ,
Novels
see also The Voyage Out & Complete text
see also Night and Day & Complete text
see also Jacob's Room & Complete text
see also Mrs Dalloway & Complete text
see also To the Lighthouse & Complete text, also Texts at Woolf Online
see also Orlando: A Biography & Complete text
see also The Waves & Complete text
see also Between the Acts & Complete text
Short stories
see also A Haunted House and Other Short Stories & Complete text
see also The Mark on the Wall & Complete text
see also Kew Gardens & Complete text
Cross-genre
see also Flush: A Biography & Complete text
Drama
see also Freshwater
Biography
see also Roger Fry: A Biography & Complete text
Essays
see also A Room of One's Own & Complete text
see also Mr. Bennett and Mrs. Brown & Complete text
see also A Letter to a Young Poet & Complete text
see also Three Guineas & Complete text
Essay collections
(Review)
(Review)
Complete text
(Review)
First American edition published by Harcourt, Brace and Company, New York, 1950.
& also here
— (1934). "Walter Sickert: A Conversation".
Contributions
(Digital edition)
Autobiographical writing
(Review)
(see Moments of Being)
, in (excerpts)
, in
(excerpts – 1st ed.)
Memoir Club Contributions
Diaries and notebooks
Letters
(Review)
Photograph albums
List of Album Guides
Album 1 MS Thr 557 (1863–1938)
Album 2 MS Thr 559 (1909–1922)
Album 3 MS Thr 560 (1890–1933)
Album 4 MS Thr 561 (1890–1947)
Album 5 MS Thr 562 (1892–1938)
Album 6 MS Thr 563 (1850–1900)
Collections
Views
In her lifetime, Woolf was outspoken on many topics that were considered controversial, some of which are now considered progressive, others regressive. She was an ardent feminist at a time when women's rights were barely recognised, and anti-colonialist, anti-imperialist and a pacifist when chauvinism was popular. On the other hand, she has been criticised for views on class and race in her private writings and published works. Like many of her contemporaries, some of her writing is now considered offensive. As a result, she is considered polarising, a revolutionary feminist and socialist hero or a purveyor of hate speech.
Works such as A Room of One's Own (1929) and Three Guineas (1938) are frequently taught as icons of feminist literature in courses that would be very critical of some of her views expressed elsewhere. She has also been the recipient of considerable homophobic and misogynist criticism.
Humanist views
Virginia Woolf was born into a non-religious family and is regarded, along with her fellow Bloomsberries E.M. Forster and G.E. Moore, as a humanist. Both her parents were prominent agnostic atheists. Her father, Leslie Stephen, had become famous in polite society for his writings which expressed and publicised reasons to doubt the veracity of religion. Stephen was also President of the West London Ethical Society, an early humanist organisation, and helped to found the Union of Ethical Societies in 1896. Woolf's mother, Julia Stephen, wrote the book Agnostic Women (1880), which argued that agnosticism (defined here as something more like atheism) could be a highly moral approach to life.
Woolf was a critic of Christianity. In a letter to Ethel Smyth, she gave a scathing denunciation of the religion, seeing it as self-righteous "egotism" and stating "my Jew [Leonard] has more religion in one toenail—more human love, in one hair". Woolf stated in her private letters that she thought of herself as an atheist.
Controversies
Hermione Lee cites a number of extracts from Woolf's writings that many, including Lee, would consider offensive, and these criticisms can be traced back as far as those of Wyndham Lewis and Q.D. Leavis in the 1920s and 1930s. Other authors provide more nuanced contextual interpretations, and stress the complexity of her character and the apparent inherent contradictions in analysing her apparent flaws. She could certainly be off-hand, rude and even cruel in her dealings with other authors, translators and biographers, such as her treatment of Ruth Gruber. Some authors, particularly postcolonial feminists dismiss her (and modernist authors in general) as privileged, elitist, classist, racist, and antisemitic.
Woolf's tendentious expressions, including prejudicial feelings against disabled people, have often been the topic of academic criticism:
The first quotation is from a diary entry of September 1920 and runs: "The fact is the lower classes are detestable." The remainder follow the first in reproducing stereotypes standard to upper-class and upper-middle class life in the early 20th century: "imbeciles should certainly be killed"; "Jews" are greasy; a "crowd" is both an ontological "mass" and is, again, "detestable"; "Germans" are akin to vermin; some "baboon faced intellectuals" mix with "sad green dressed negroes and negresses, looking like chimpanzees" at a peace conference; Kensington High St. revolts one's stomach with its innumerable "women of incredible mediocrity, drab as dishwater".
Antisemitism
Though accused of antisemitism, the treatment of Judaism and Jews by Woolf is far from straightforward. She was happily married to a Jewish man (Leonard Woolf) but often wrote about Jewish characters using stereotypes and generalisations. For instance, she described some of the Jewish characters in her work in terms that suggested they were physically repulsive or dirty. On the other hand, she could criticise her own views: "How I hated marrying a Jew — how I hated their nasal voices and their oriental jewellery, and their noses and their wattles — what a snob I was: for they have immense vitality, and I think I like that quality best of all" (Letter to Ethel Smyth 1930). These attitudes have been construed to reflect, not so much antisemitism, but tribalism; she married outside her social grouping, and Leonard Woolf, too, expressed misgivings about marrying a gentile. Leonard, "a penniless Jew from Putney", lacked the material status of the Stephens and their circle.
While travelling on a cruise to Portugal, she protested at finding "a great many Portuguese Jews on board, and other repulsive objects, but we keep clear of them". Furthermore, she wrote in her diary: "I do not like the Jewish voice; I do not like the Jewish laugh." Her 1938 short story The Duchess and the Jeweller (originally titled The Duchess and the Jew) has been considered antisemitic.
Yet Woolf and her husband Leonard came to despise and fear the 1930s fascism and antisemitism. Her 1938 book Three Guineas was an indictment of fascism and what Woolf described as a recurring propensity among patriarchal societies to enforce repressive societal mores by violence.
Sexuality
The Bloomsbury Group held very progressive views regarding sexuality and shucked the austere strictness of Victorian society. The majority of its members were homosexual or bisexual.
Virginia was most likely a lesbian, some debate that she was bisexual. However she had several affairs with women, the most notable being with Vita Sackville-West which inspired Orlando: A Biography. The two of them remained lovers for a decade and stayed close friends for the rest of Virginia's life. Virginia had said to Vita she disliked masculinity
Among her other notable affairs were Sibyl Colefax, Lady Ottoline Morrell and Mary Hutchinson. Some surmise that she may have fallen in love with Madge Symonds, the wife of one of her uncles. Madge Symonds was described as one of Virginia's early loves in Vita's diary She also fell in love with Violet Dickinson although there is some confusion as to whether the two consummated their relationship.
In regards to relationships with men, Virginia was averse to sex with them, blaming the sexual abuse perpetrated upon her and her sister by her half-brothers when they were children and teens. This is one of the reasons she initially declined marriage proposals from her future husband, Leonard. She even went as far as to tell him that she was not attracted to him, but that she did love him and finally agreed to marriage. Virginia preferred female lovers to male lovers, for the most part, based on her aversion to sex with men. This aversion to relations with men influenced her writing especially when considering her sexual abuse as a child.
Leonard became the love of her life and even though their sexual relationship was questionable, they loved each other deeply and formed a strong, supportive and prolific marriage which led to the formation of their publishing house as well as several of her writings. Neither was faithful to the other sexually, but they were faithful in their love and respect for each other.
Modern scholarship and interpretations
Though at least one biography of Virginia Woolf appeared in her lifetime, the first authoritative study of her life was published in 1972 by her nephew Quentin Bell. Hermione Lee's 1996 biography Virginia Woolf provides a thorough and authoritative examination of Woolf's life and work, which she discussed in an interview in 1997. In 2001, Louise DeSalvo and Mitchell A. Leaska edited The Letters of Vita Sackville-West and Virginia Woolf. Julia Briggs's Virginia Woolf: An Inner Life (2005) focuses on Woolf's writing, including her novels and her commentary on the creative process, to illuminate her life. The sociologist Pierre Bourdieu also uses Woolf's literature to understand and analyse gender domination. Woolf biographer Gillian Gill notes that Woolf's traumatic experience of sexual abuse by her half-brothers during her childhood influenced her advocacy of protection of vulnerable children from similar experiences.
Virginia Woolf and her mother
The intense scrutiny of Virginia Woolf's literary output (see Bibliography) has led to speculation as to her mother's influence, including psychoanalytic studies of mother and daughter. Woolf states that, "my first memory, and in fact it is the most important of all my memories" is of her mother. Her memories of her mother are memories of an obsession, starting with her first major breakdown on her mother's death in 1895, the loss having a profound lifelong effect. In many ways, her mother's profound influence on Virginia Woolf is conveyed in the latter's recollections, "there she is; beautiful, emphatic ... closer than any of the living are, lighting our random lives as with a burning torch, infinitely noble and delightful to her children".
Woolf described her mother as an "invisible presence" in her life, and Ellen Rosenman argues that the mother-daughter relationship is a constant in Woolf's writing. She describes how Woolf's modernism needs to be viewed in relationship to her ambivalence towards her Victorian mother, the centre of the former's female identity, and her voyage to her own sense of autonomy. To Woolf, "Saint Julia" was both a martyr whose perfectionism was intimidating and a source of deprivation, by her absences real and virtual and premature death. Julia's influence and memory pervades Woolf's life and work. "She has haunted me", she wrote.
Historical feminism
According to the 2007 book Feminism: From Mary Wollstonecraft to Betty Friedan by Bhaskar A. Shukla, "Recently, studies of Virginia Woolf have focused on feminist and lesbian themes in her work, such as in the 1997 collection of critical essays, Virginia Woolf: Lesbian Readings, edited by Eileen Barrett and Patricia Cramer." In 1928, Woolf took a grassroots approach to informing and inspiring feminism. She addressed undergraduate women at the ODTAA Society at Girton College, Cambridge and the Arts Society at Newnham College with two papers that eventually became A Room of One's Own (1929).
Woolf's best-known nonfiction works, A Room of One's Own (1929) and Three Guineas (1938), examine the difficulties that female writers and intellectuals faced because men held disproportionate legal and economic power, as well as the future of women in education and society. In The Second Sex (1949), Simone de Beauvoir counts, of all women who ever lived, only three female writers—Emily Brontë, Woolf and "sometimes" Katherine Mansfield— have explored "the given".
In popular culture
Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? is a 1962 play by Edward Albee. It examines the structure of the marriage of an American middle-aged academic couple, Martha and George. Mike Nichols directed a film version in 1966, starring Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton. Taylor won the 1966 Academy Award for Best Actress for the role.
Me! I'm Afraid of Virginia Woolf, a 1978 TV play, references the title of the Edward Albee play and features an English literature teacher who has a poster of her. It was written by Alan Bennett and directed by Stephen Frears.
The artwork The Dinner Party (1979) features a place setting for Woolf.
The 1996 album Poetic Justice, by British musician Steve Harley, contains a tribute to Woolf, specifically her most adventurous novel, in its closing track: "Riding the Waves (for Virginia Woolf)".
Michael Cunningham's 1998 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel The Hours focused on three generations of women affected by Woolf's novel Mrs Dalloway. In 2002, a film version of the novel was released, starring Nicole Kidman as Woolf. Kidman won the 2003 Academy Award for her portrayal.
Susan Sellers's novel Vanessa and Virginia (2008) explores the close sibling relationship between Woolf and her sister, Vanessa Bell. It was adapted for the stage by Elizabeth Wright in 2010 and first performed by Moving Stories Theatre Company.
Priya Parmar's 2014 novel Vanessa and Her Sister also examined the Stephen sisters' relationship during the early years of their association with what became known as the Bloomsbury Group.
An exhibition on Virginia Woolf was held at the National Portrait Gallery from July to October 2014.
In the 2014 novel The House at the End of Hope Street, Woolf is featured as one of the women who has lived in the titular house.
Virginia is portrayed by both Lydia Leonard and Catherine McCormack in the BBC's three-part drama series Life in Squares (2015).
On 25 January 2018, Google showed a Google doodle celebrating her 136th birthday.
In many Barnes & Noble stores, Woolf is featured in Gary Kelly's Author Mural Panels, an imprint of the Barnes & Noble Author brand that also features other notable authors like Hurston, Tagore, and Kafka.
The 2018 film Vita and Virginia depicts the relationship between Vita Sackville-West and Woolf, portrayed by Gemma Arterton and Elizabeth Debicki respectively.
The 2020 novel Trio by William Boyd follows the life of Elfrida Wing, an alcoholic writer interested in the suicide of Woolf.
Adaptations
A number of Virginia Woolf's works have been adapted for the screen, and her play Freshwater (1935) is the basis for a 1994 chamber opera, Freshwater, by Andy Vores. The final segment of the 2018 London Unplugged is adapted from her short story Kew Gardens. Septimus and Clarissa, a stage adaptation of Mrs. Dalloway was created and produced by the New York-based ensemble Ripe Time in 2011 at the Baruch Performing Arts Center. It was adapted by Ellen McLaughlin, and directed and devised by Rachel Dickstein. It was nominated for a 2012 Drama League award for Outstanding Production, a Drama Desk nomination for Outstanding Score (Gina Leishman) and a Joe A. Calloway Award nomination for outstanding direction (Rachel Dickstein.)
Legacy
Virginia Woolf is known for her contributions to 20th-century literature and her essays, as well as the influence she has had on literary, particularly feminist criticism. A number of authors have stated that their work was influenced by her, including Margaret Atwood, Michael Cunningham, Gabriel García Márquez, and Toni Morrison. Her iconic image is instantly recognisable from the Beresford portrait of her at twenty (at the top of this page) to the Beck and Macgregor portrait in her mother's dress in Vogue at 44 (see image) or Man Ray's cover of Time magazine (see image) at 55. More postcards of Woolf are sold by the National Portrait Gallery, London than any other person. Her image is ubiquitous, and can be found on products ranging from tea towels to T-shirts.
Virginia Woolf is studied around the world, with organisations such as the Virginia Woolf Society, and The Virginia Woolf Society of Japan. In addition, trusts—such as the Asham Trust—encourage writers in her honour. Although she had no descendants, a number of her extended family are notable.
Monuments and memorials
In 2013, Woolf was honoured by her alma mater of King's College London with the opening of the Virginia Woolf Building on Kingsway, with a plaque commemorating her time there and her contributions (see image), together with this exhibit depicting her accompanied by a quotation "London itself perpetually attracts, stimulates, gives me a play & a story & a poem" from her 1926 diary. Busts of Virginia Woolf have been erected at her home in Rodmell, Sussex and at Tavistock Square, London where she lived between 1924 and 1939.
In 2014, she was one of the inaugural honorees in the Rainbow Honor Walk, a walk of fame in San Francisco's Castro neighbourhood noting LGBTQ people who have "made significant contributions in their fields".
Woolf Works, a women's co-working space in Singapore, opened in 2014 and was named after her in tribute to the essay A Room of One's Own; it also has many other things named after it (see the essay's article).
A campaign was launched in 2018 by Aurora Metro Arts and Media to erect a statue of Woolf in Richmond, where she lived for 10 years. The proposed statue shows her reclining on a bench overlooking the river Thames.
Family trees
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Notes
References
Bibliography
Books and theses
see also The Second Sex
see also Survey of London
(Review)
Biography: Virginia Woolf
Vol. I: Virginia Stephen 1882 to 1912. London: Hogarth Press. 1972.
Vol. II: Virginia Woolf 1912 to 1941. London: Hogarth Press. 1972.
(Review)
(Review)
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(additional excerpts)
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(excerpt - Chapter 1)
(Review)
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(Illustrations of Woolf's London homes are excerpted at .)
Mental health
additional excerpts
(summary)
see also Touched with Fire
Biography: Other
(Review)
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also Internet archive
also available through MOMA here
Literary commentary
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additional excerpt
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Bloomsbury
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Chapters and contributions
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Articles
Journals
(text also available here)
Dictionaries and encyclopaedias
Newspapers and magazines
archived version
archived version
with excerpt
Websites and documents
(includes invitation to first performance in 1935 and Lucio Ruotolo's introduction to the 1976 Hogarth Press edition)
Blogs
British Library
Literary commentary
British Library
Virginia Woolf's homes and venues
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Virginia Woolf biography
Timelines
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Genealogy
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Images
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Maps
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Audiovisual media
see also Life in Squares
excerpt
Selected online texts
Audiofiles
Archival material
Bibliography notes
Bibliography references
External links
Virginia Woolf Papers at the Mortimer Rare Book Collection, Smith College Special Collections
1882 births
1941 suicides
19th-century English women
19th-century English people
19th-century English writers
20th-century British short story writers
20th-century English women writers
20th-century English novelists
20th-century essayists
20th-century non-fiction writers
Alumni of King's College London
Bisexual women
Bisexual writers
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British autobiographers
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Pipe smokers | false | [
"Talland () is a hamlet and ecclesiastical parish between Looe and Polperro on the south coast of Cornwall (the parish includes the eastern part of the village of Polperro, where there is a chapel of ease and formerly also the town of West Looe). It is in the civil parish of Polperro and consists of a church, the Old Vicarage and a few houses.\n\nOn Talland Bay are two sheltered shingle beaches, Talland Sand and Rotterdam Beach, and the bay was once well known as a landing spot for smugglers. There are several small beaches in Talland Bay, served by a small car park and café. There is also Talland Bay Hotel. Two towers mark one end of a nautical measured mile, the other end is marked by two towers near Hannafore, West Looe.\n\nTalland Parish Church\n\nThe church at Talland, dramatically located on the cliff-top, is dedicated to St Tallan and as such is unique in Britain. Unusually it has a detached bell-tower on the south side which was joined to the main body of the church in the 15th century. There survives old woodwork in its fine wagon roofs; and the many benchends (partly ca. 1520, the rest ca. 1600) are of the usual Cornish type and among the finest examples of these.\n\nLandscape and development\nThe environment, one of the most unspoiled in south-west England, is a designated Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty and a Heritage Coast. In October 2007 Caradon District Council granted planning permission for the building of 40 houses costing between £285,000 and £350,000. This controversial development is supposedly in keeping with the local area.\n\nTalland Barton Farmland has been designated a Site of Special Scientific Interest for its assemblage of nationally rare and nationally scarce mosses; in particular for the many-fruited beardless moss (Weissia multicapsularis), which is known from only two sites worldwide.\n\nHistory and antiquities\nAn important source for the history is Jonathan Couch's History of Polperro, (1871), issued after his death by his son, Thomas Quiller Couch and abridgements of it have been issued many times since: see History of Polperro\n\nTalland Bay has been the scene of many shipwrecks including that of a French trawler, the Marguerite, in March 1922. Two private boats performed a dramatic rescue and all 21 people were saved. The remains of the ship's boiler can still be clearly seen on the beach at low tide.\n\nA stone cross was found in the 1920s at East Waylands Farm as part of farm buildings. On May 12, 1930 it was erected at Portlooe Cross, a road junction northeast of Portlooe Farm.\n\nWell-known occasional residents\nThe television presenters Richard Madeley and Judy Finnigan own a holiday home in Talland.\n\nReferences\n\n Talland Church 500 Celebrations: Souvenir Programme (1490-1990).\n\nExternal links\n\n Community website\n The Marguerite shipwreck\n Genealogical information\n Cornwall Record Office Online Catalogue for Talland\n\nHamlets in Cornwall\nPolperro",
"Talland Bay () is west of the town of Looe in Cornwall. On Talland Bay are two sheltered shingle beaches, Talland Sand and Rotterdam Beach, and the bay was once well known as a landing spot for smugglers. It has also been the scene of many shipwrecks including that of a French trawler, the Marguerite, in March 1922. Two private boats performed a dramatic rescue and all 21 people were saved. The remains of the ship's boiler can still be clearly seen on the beach at low tide.\n\nThe hamlet of Talland with Talland Parish Church is nearby. Celebrity couple Richard Madeley and Judy Finnigan have a home in Talland Bay, There are several nautical measured miles around the British Isles including the mile between Talland Bay and Hannafore.\n\nLandscape and development\nThe area is one of the most unspoiled sections of the south west coast and is both a designated Area of Outstanding Beauty and a Heritage Coast, but in October 2007, Caradon District Council granted planning permission for a controversial development of 40 new homes costing between £285,000 and £350,000 after more than 100 local people lodged their objections.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n\n Community website\n The Marguerite shipwreck\n\nBays of Cornwall\nPolperro"
]
|
[
"Virginia Woolf",
"Talland House (1882-1894)",
"Where is Talland House?",
") at St. Ives."
]
| C_2448e986735e46eb8b47624e648fd3f5_1 | Is that where Virginia lived? | 2 | Is Talland House where Virginia Woolf lived? | Virginia Woolf | Leslie Stephen was in the habit of hiking in Cornwall, and in the spring of 1881 he came across a large white house in St. Ives, Cornwall, and took out a lease on it that September. Although it had limited amenities, its main attraction was the view overlooking Porthminster Bay towards the Godrevy Lighthouse, which the young Virginia could see from the upper windows and was to be the central figure in her To the Lighthouse (1927). It was a large square house, with a terraced garden, divided by hedges, sloping down towards the sea. Each year between 1882 and 1894 from mid-July to mid-September the Stephen's leased Talland House as a summer residence. Leslie Stephen, who referred to it thus: "a pocket-paradise", described it as "The pleasantest of my memories... refer to our summers, all of which were passed in Cornwall, especially to the thirteen summers (1882-1894) at St. Ives. There we bought the lease of Talland House: a small but roomy house, with a garden of an acre or two all up and down hill, with quaint little terraces divided by hedges of escallonia, a grape-house and kitchen-garden and a so-called 'orchard' beyond". It was in Leslie's words, a place of "intense domestic happiness". Virginia herself described the house in great detail: In both London and Cornwall, Julia was perpetually entertaining, and was notorious for her manipulation of her guests' lives, constantly matchmaking in the belief everyone should be married, the domestic equivalence of her philanthropy. As her husband observed "My Julia was of course, though with all due reserve, a bit of a matchmaker". While Cornwall was supposed to be a summer respite, Julia Stephen soon immersed herself in the work of caring for the sick and poor there, as well as in London. Both at Hyde Park Gate and Talland House, the family mingled with much of the country's literary and artistic circles. Frequent guests included literary figures such as Henry James and George Meredith, as well as James Russell Lowell, and the children were exposed to much more intellectual conversations than their mother's at Little Holland House. The family did not return, following Julia Stephen's death in May 1895. For the children it was the highlight of the year, and Virginia's most vivid childhood memories were not of London but of Cornwall. In a diary entry of 22 March 1921, she described why she felt so connected to Talland House, looking back to a summer day in August 1890. "Why am I so incredibly and incurably romantic about Cornwall? One's past, I suppose; I see children running in the garden ... The sound of the sea at night ... almost forty years of life, all built on that, permeated by that: so much I could never explain". Cornwall inspired aspects of her work, in particular the "St Ives Trilogy" of Jacob's Room (1922), To the Lighthouse (1927), and The Waves (1931). CANNOTANSWER | Both at Hyde Park Gate and Talland House, the family mingled with much of the | Adeline Virginia Woolf (; ; 25 January 1882 28 March 1941) was an English writer, considered one of the most important modernist 20th-century authors and a pioneer in the use of stream of consciousness as a narrative device.
Woolf was born into an affluent household in South Kensington, London, the seventh child of Julia Prinsep Jackson and Leslie Stephen in a blended family of eight which included the modernist painter Vanessa Bell. She was home-schooled in English classics and Victorian literature from a young age. From 1897 to 1901, she attended the Ladies' Department of King's College London, where she studied classics and history and came into contact with early reformers of women's higher education and the women's rights movement.
Encouraged by her father, Woolf began writing professionally in 1900. After her father's death in 1904, the Stephen family moved from Kensington to the more bohemian Bloomsbury, where, in conjunction with the brothers' intellectual friends, they formed the artistic and literary Bloomsbury Group. In 1912, she married Leonard Woolf, and in 1917, the couple founded the Hogarth Press, which published much of her work. They rented a home in Sussex and moved there permanently in 1940. Woolf had romantic relationships with women, including Vita Sackville-West, who also published her books through Hogarth Press. Both women's literature became inspired by their relationship, which lasted until Woolf's death.
During the inter-war period, Woolf was an important part of London's literary and artistic society. In 1915, she had published her first novel, The Voyage Out, through her half-brother's publishing house, Gerald Duckworth and Company. Her best-known works include the novels Mrs Dalloway (1925), To the Lighthouse (1927) and Orlando (1928). She is also known for her essays, including A Room of One's Own (1929). Woolf became one of the central subjects of the 1970s movement of feminist criticism and her works have since attracted much attention and widespread commentary for "inspiring feminism". Her works have been translated into more than 50 languages. A large body of literature is dedicated to her life and work, and she has been the subject of plays, novels and films. Woolf is commemorated today by statues, societies dedicated to her work and a building at the University of London.
Throughout her life, Woolf was troubled by mental illness. She was institutionalised several times and attempted suicide at least twice. According to Dalsimer (2004) her illness was characterized by symptoms that today would be diagnosed as bipolar disorder, for which there was no effective intervention during her lifetime. In 1941, at age 59, Woolf died by drowning herself in the River Ouse at Lewes.
Life
Family of origin
Virginia Woolf was born Adeline Virginia Stephen on 25 January 1882 at 22 Hyde Park Gate in South Kensington, London, to Julia (née Jackson) (1846–1895) and Leslie Stephen (1832–1904), writer, historian, essayist, biographer and mountaineer. Julia Jackson was born in 1846 in Calcutta, British India, to John Jackson and Maria "Mia" Theodosia Pattle, from two Anglo-Indian families. John Jackson FRCS was the third son of George Jackson and Mary Howard of Bengal, a physician who spent 25 years with the Bengal Medical Service and East India Company and a professor at the fledgling Calcutta Medical College. While John Jackson was an almost invisible presence, the Pattle family were famous beauties, and moved in the upper circles of Bengali society. The seven Pattle sisters married into important families. Julia Margaret Cameron was a celebrated photographer, while Virginia married Earl Somers, and their daughter, Julia Jackson's cousin, was Lady Henry Somerset, the temperance leader. Julia moved to England with her mother at the age of two and spent much of her early life with another of her mother's sisters, Sarah Monckton Pattle. Sarah and her husband Henry Thoby Prinsep, conducted an artistic and literary salon at Little Holland House where she came into contact with a number of Pre-Raphaelite painters such as Edward Burne-Jones, for whom she modelled.
Julia was the youngest of three sisters, and Adeline Virginia was named after her mother's eldest sister Adeline Maria Jackson (1837–1881) and her mother's aunt Virginia Pattle (see Pattle family tree). Because of the tragedy of her aunt Adeline's death the previous year, the family never used Virginia's first name. The Jacksons were a well educated, literary and artistic proconsular middle-class family. In 1867, Julia Jackson married Herbert Duckworth, a barrister, but within three years was left a widow with three infant children. She was devastated and entered a prolonged period of mourning, abandoning her faith and turning to nursing and philanthropy. Julia and Herbert Duckworth had three children:
George (5 March 1868 – 27 April 1934), a senior civil servant, married Lady Margaret Herbert in 1904
Stella (30 May 1869 – 19 July 1897), died aged 28
Gerald (29 October 1870 – 28 September 1937), founder of Duckworth Publishing, married Cecil Alice Scott-Chad in 1921
Leslie Stephen was born in 1832 in South Kensington to Sir James and Lady Jane Catherine Stephen (née Venn), daughter of John Venn, rector of Clapham. The Venns were the centre of the evangelical Clapham Sect. Sir James Stephen was the under secretary at the Colonial Office, and with another Clapham member, William Wilberforce, was responsible for the passage of the Slavery Abolition Bill in 1833. In 1849 he was appointed Regius Professor of Modern History at Cambridge University. As a family of educators, lawyers, and writers the Stephens represented the elite intellectual aristocracy. While his family were distinguished and intellectual, they were less colourful and aristocratic than Julia Jackson's. A graduate and fellow of Cambridge University he renounced his faith and position to move to London where he became a notable man of letters. In addition, he was a rambler and mountaineer, described as a "gaunt figure with the ragged red brown beard...a formidable man, with an immensely high forehead, steely-blue eyes, and a long pointed nose." In the same year as Julia Jackson's marriage, he wed Harriet Marian (Minny) Thackeray (1840–1875), youngest daughter of William Makepeace Thackeray, who bore him a daughter, Laura (1870–1945), but died in childbirth in 1875. Laura was developmentally disabled and eventually institutionalised.
The widowed Julia Duckworth knew Leslie Stephen through her friendship with Minny's elder sister Anne (Anny) Isabella Ritchie and had developed an interest in his agnostic writings. She was present the night Minny died and later, tended to Leslie Stephen and helped him move next door to her on Hyde Park Gate so Laura could have some companionship with her own children. Both were preoccupied with mourning and although they developed a close friendship and intense correspondence, agreed it would go no further. Leslie Stephen proposed to her in 1877, an offer she declined, but when Anny married later that year she accepted him and they were married on 26 March 1878. He and Laura then moved next door into Julia's house, where they lived till his death in 1904. Julia was 32 and Leslie was 46.
Their first child, Vanessa, was born on 30 May 1879. Julia, having presented her husband with a child and now having five children to care for, decided to limit her family's growth. However, despite the fact that the couple took "precautions", "contraception was a very imperfect art in the nineteenth century": it resulted in the birth of three more children over the next four years.
22 Hyde Park Gate (1882–1904)
1882–1895
Virginia Woolf provides insight into her early life in her autobiographical essays, including Reminiscences (1908), 22 Hyde Park Gate (1921), and A Sketch of the Past (1940). Other essays that provide insight into this period include Leslie Stephen (1932). She also alludes to her childhood in her fictional writing. In To the Lighthouse (1927), her depiction of the life of the Ramsays in the Hebrides is an only thinly disguised account of the Stephens in Cornwall and the Godrevy Lighthouse they would visit there. However, Woolf's understanding of her mother and family evolved considerably between 1907 and 1940, in which the somewhat distant, yet revered figure of her mother becomes more nuanced and filled in.
In February 1891, with her sister Vanessa, Woolf began the Hyde Park Gate News, chronicling life and events within the Stephen family, and modelled on the popular magazine Tit-Bits. Initially, this was mainly Vanessa's and Thoby's articles, but very soon Virginia became the main contributor, with Vanessa as editor. Their mother's response when it first appeared was "Rather clever I think". Virginia would run the Hyde Park Gate News until 1895, the time of her mother's death. The following year the Stephen sisters also used photography to supplement their insights, as did Stella Duckworth. Vanessa Bell's 1892 portrait of her sister and parents in the Library at Talland House (see image) was one of the family's favourites and was written about lovingly in Leslie Stephen's memoir. In 1897 ("the first really lived year of my life)" Virginia began her first diary, which she kept for the next twelve years, and a notebook in 1909.
Virginia was, as she describes it, "born into a large connection, born not of rich parents, but of well-to-do parents, born into a very communicative, literate, letter writing, visiting, articulate, late nineteenth century world." It was a well-connected family consisting of six children, with two half brothers and a half sister (the Duckworths, from her mother's first marriage), another half sister, Laura (from her father's first marriage), and an older sister, Vanessa, and brother Thoby. The following year, another brother Adrian followed. The disabled Laura Stephen lived with the family until she was institutionalised in 1891. Julia and Leslie had four children together:
Vanessa "Nessa" (30 May 1879 – 1961), married Clive Bell in 1907
Thoby (9 September 1880 – 1906), founded Bloomsbury Group
Virginia "Jinny"/"Ginia" (25 January 1882 – 1941), married Leonard Woolf in 1912
Adrian (27 October 1883 – 1948), married Karin Costelloe in 1914
Virginia was born at 22 Hyde Park Gate and lived there until her father's death in 1904. Number 22 Hyde Park Gate, South Kensington, lay at the south-east end of Hyde Park Gate, a narrow cul-de-sac running south from Kensington Road, just west of the Royal Albert Hall, and opposite Kensington Gardens and Hyde Park, where the family regularly took their walks (see Map; Street plan). Built in 1846 by Henry Payne of Hammersmith as one of a row of single-family townhouses for the upper middle class, it soon became too small for their expanding family. At the time of their marriage, it consisted of a basement, two storeys, and an attic. In July 1886 Leslie Stephen obtained the services of J. W. Penfold, an architect, to add additional living space above and behind the existing structure. The substantial renovations added a new top floor (see image of red brick extension), with three bedrooms and a study for himself, converted the original attic into rooms, and added the first bathroom. It was a tall but narrow townhouse, that at that time had no running water. Virginia would later describe it as "a very tall house on the left-hand side near the bottom which begins by being stucco and ends by being red brick; which is so high and yet—as I can say now that we have sold it—so rickety that it seems as if a very high wind would topple it over."
The servants worked "downstairs" in the basement. The ground floor had a drawing room, separated by a curtain from the servant's pantry and a library. Above this on the first floor were Julia and Leslie's bedrooms. On the next floor were the Duckworth children's rooms, and above them, the day and night nurseries of the Stephen children occupied two further floors. Finally, in the attic, under the eaves, were the servants' bedrooms, accessed by a back staircase. Life at 22 Hyde Park Gate was also divided symbolically; as Virginia put it, "The division in our lives was curious. Downstairs there was pure convention: upstairs pure intellect. But there was no connection between them", the worlds typified by George Duckworth and Leslie Stephen. Their mother, it seems, was the only one who could span this divide. The house was described as dimly lit and crowded with furniture and paintings. Within it, the younger Stephens formed a close-knit group. Despite this, the children still held their grievances. Virginia envied Adrian for being their mother's favourite. Virginia and Vanessa's status as creatives (writing and art respectively) caused a rivalry between them at times. Life in London differed sharply from their summers in Cornwall, their outdoor activities consisting mainly of walks in nearby Kensington Gardens, where they would play hide-and-seek and sail their boats on the Round Pond, while indoors, it revolved around their lessons.
Leslie Stephen's eminence as an editor, critic, and biographer, and his connection to William Thackeray, meant his children were raised in an environment filled with the influences of a Victorian literary society. Henry James, George Henry Lewes, Alfred Lord Tennyson, Thomas Hardy, Edward Burne-Jones, and Virginia's honorary godfather, James Russell Lowell, were among the visitors to the house. Julia Stephen was equally well connected. Her aunt was a pioneering early photographer, Julia Margaret Cameron, who was also a visitor to the Stephen household. The two Stephen sisters, Vanessa and Virginia, were almost three years apart in age. Virginia christened her older sister "the saint" and was far more inclined to exhibit her cleverness than her more reserved sister. Virginia resented the domesticity Victorian tradition forced on them far more than her sister. They also competed for Thoby's affections. Virginia would later confess her ambivalence over this rivalry to Duncan Grant in 1917: "indeed one of the concealed worms of my life has been a sister's jealousy – of a sister I mean; and to feed this I have invented such a myth about her that I scarce know one from t'other."
Virginia showed an early affinity for writing. Although both parents disapproved of formal education for females, writing was considered a respectable profession for women, and her father encouraged her in this respect. Later, she would describe this as "ever since I was a little creature, scribbling a story in the manner of Hawthorne on the green plush sofa in the drawing room at St. Ives while the grown-ups dined". By the age of five, she was writing letters and could tell her father a story every night. Later, she, Vanessa, and Adrian would develop the tradition of inventing a serial about their next-door neighbours, every night in the nursery, or in the case of St. Ives, of spirits that resided in the garden. It was her fascination with books that formed the strongest bond between her and her father. For her tenth birthday, she received an ink-stand, a blotter, drawing book and a box of writing implements.
Talland House (1882–1894)
Leslie Stephen was in the habit of hiking in Cornwall, and in the spring of 1881 he came across a large white house in St Ives, Cornwall, and took out a lease on it that September. Although it had limited amenities, its main attraction was the view overlooking Porthminster Bay towards the Godrevy Lighthouse, which the young Virginia could see from the upper windows and was to be the central figure in her To the Lighthouse (1927). It was a large square house, with a terraced garden, divided by hedges, sloping down towards the sea. Each year between 1882 and 1894 from mid-July to mid-September the Stephen family leased Talland House as a summer residence. Leslie Stephen, who referred to it thus: "a pocket-paradise", described it as "The pleasantest of my memories... refer to our summers, all of which were passed in Cornwall, especially to the thirteen summers (1882–1894) at St Ives. There we bought the lease of Talland House: a small but roomy house, with a garden of an acre or two all up and down hill, with quaint little terraces divided by hedges of escallonia, a grape-house and kitchen-garden and a so-called 'orchard' beyond". It was in Leslie's words, a place of "intense domestic happiness". Virginia herself described the house in great detail:
In both London and Cornwall, Julia was perpetually entertaining, and was notorious for her manipulation of her guests' lives, constantly matchmaking in the belief everyone should be married, the domestic equivalence of her philanthropy. As her husband observed, "My Julia was of course, though with all due reserve, a bit of a matchmaker." Amongst their guests in 1893 were the Brookes, whose children, including Rupert Brooke, played with the Stephen children. Rupert and his group of Cambridge Neo-pagans would come to play an important role in their lives in the years before the First World War. While Cornwall was supposed to be a summer respite, Julia Stephen soon immersed herself in the work of caring for the sick and poor there, as well as in London. Both at Hyde Park Gate and Talland House, the family mingled with much of the country's literary and artistic circles. Frequent guests included literary figures such as Henry James and George Meredith, as well as James Russell Lowell, and the children were exposed to much more intellectual conversations than at their mother's Little Holland House. The family did not return, following Julia Stephen's death in May 1895.
For the children, it was the highlight of the year, and Virginia's most vivid childhood memories were not of London but of Cornwall. In a diary entry of 22 March 1921, she described why she felt so connected to Talland House, looking back to a summer day in August 1890. "Why am I so incredibly and incurably romantic about Cornwall? One's past, I suppose; I see children running in the garden … The sound of the sea at night … almost forty years of life, all built on that, permeated by that: so much I could never explain". Cornwall inspired aspects of her work, in particular the "St Ives Trilogy" of Jacob's Room (1922), To the Lighthouse (1927), and The Waves (1931).
1895–1904
Julia Stephen fell ill with influenza in February 1895, and never properly recovered, dying on 5 May, when Virginia was 13. It was a pivotal moment in her life and the beginning of her struggles with mental illness. Essentially, her life had fallen apart. The Duckworths were travelling abroad at the time of their mother's death, and Stella returned immediately to take charge and assume her role. That summer, rather than return to the memories of St Ives, the Stephens went to Freshwater, Isle of Wight, where some of their mother's relatives lived. It was there that Virginia had the first of her many nervous breakdowns, and Vanessa was forced to assume some of her mother's role in caring for Virginia's mental state. Stella became engaged to Jack Hills the following year and they were married on 10 April 1897, making Virginia even more dependent on her older sister.
George Duckworth also assumed some of their mother's role, taking upon himself the task of bringing them out into society. First Vanessa, then Virginia, in both cases an equal disaster, for it was not a rite of passage that resonated with either girl and attracted a scathing critique by Virginia regarding the conventional expectations of young upper-class women: "Society in those days was a perfectly competent, perfectly complacent, ruthless machine. A girl had no chance against its fangs. No other desires – say to paint, or to write – could be taken seriously". Rather her priorities were to escape from the Victorian conventionality of the downstairs drawing room to a "room of one's own" to pursue her writing aspirations. She would revisit this criticism in her depiction of Mrs. Ramsay stating the duties of a Victorian mother in To the Lighthouse "an unmarried woman has missed the best of life".
The death of Stella Duckworth on 19 July 1897, after a long illness, was a further blow to Virginia's sense of self, and the family dynamics. Woolf described the period following the death of both her mother and Stella as "1897–1904 – the seven unhappy years", referring to "the lash of a random unheeding flail that pointlessly and brutally killed the two people who should, normally and naturally, have made those years, not perhaps happy but normal and natural". In April 1902, their father became ill, and although he underwent surgery later that year he never fully recovered, dying on 22 February 1904. Virginia's father's death precipitated a further breakdown. Later, Virginia would describe this time as one in which she was dealt successive blows as a "broken chrysalis" with wings still creased. Chrysalis occurs many times in Woolf's writing but the "broken chrysalis" was an image that became a metaphor for those exploring the relationship between Woolf and grief. At his death, Leslie Stephen's net worth was £15,715 6s. 6d. (probate 23 March 1904)
Education
In the late 19th century, education was sharply divided along gender lines, a tradition that Virginia would note and condemn in her writing. Boys were sent to school, and in upper-middle-class families such as the Stephens, it involved private boys schools, often boarding schools, and university. Girls, if they were afforded the luxury of education, received it from their parents, governesses, and tutors. Virginia was educated by her parents who shared the duty. There was a small classroom off the back of the drawing room, with its many windows, which they found perfect for quiet writing and painting. Julia taught the children Latin, French, and history, while Leslie taught them mathematics. They also received piano lessons. Supplementing their lessons was the children's unrestricted access to Leslie Stephen's vast library, exposing them to much of the literary canon, resulting in a greater depth of reading than any of their Cambridge contemporaries, Virginia's reading being described as "greedy". Later, she would recall After public school, the boys in the family all attended Cambridge University. The girls derived some indirect benefit from this, as the boys introduced them to their friends. Another source was the conversation of their father's friends, to whom they were exposed. Leslie Stephen described his circle as "most of the literary people of mark...clever young writers and barristers, chiefly of the radical persuasion...we used to meet on Wednesday and Sunday evenings, to smoke and drink and discuss the universe and the reform movement".
Later, between the ages of 15 and 19, Virginia was able to pursue higher education. She took courses of study, some at degree level, in beginning and advanced Ancient Greek, intermediate Latin and German, together with continental and English history at the Ladies' Department of King's College London at nearby 13 Kensington Square between 1897 and 1901. She studied Greek under the eminent scholar George Charles Winter Warr, professor of Classical Literature at King's. In addition she had private tutoring in German, Greek, and Latin. One of her Greek tutors was Clara Pater (1899–1900), who taught at King's. Another was Janet Case, who involved her in the women's rights movement, and whose obituary Virginia would later write in 1937. Her experiences led to her 1925 essay "On Not Knowing Greek". Her time at King's also brought her into contact with some of the early reformers of women's higher education such as the principal of the Ladies' Department, Lilian Faithfull (one of the so-called steamboat ladies), in addition to Pater. Her sister Vanessa also enrolled at the Ladies' Department (1899–1901). Although the Stephen girls could not attend Cambridge, they were to be profoundly influenced by their brothers' experiences there. When Thoby went to Trinity in 1899, he befriended a circle of young men, including Clive Bell, Lytton Strachey, Leonard Woolf (whom Virginia would later marry), and Saxon Sydney-Turner, whom he would soon introduce to his sisters at the Trinity May Ball in 1900. These men formed a reading group they named the Midnight Society.
Relationships with family
Although Virginia expressed the opinion her father was her favourite parent, and although she had only turned thirteen when her mother died, she was profoundly influenced by her mother throughout her life. It was Virginia who famously stated that "for we think back through our mothers if we are women", and invoked the image of her mother repeatedly throughout her life in her diaries, her letters and a number of her autobiographical essays, including Reminiscences (1908), 22 Hyde Park Gate (1921) and A Sketch of the Past (1940), frequently evoking her memories with the words "I see her ...". She also alludes to her childhood in her fictional writing. In To the Lighthouse (1927), the artist, Lily Briscoe, attempts to paint Mrs. Ramsay, a complex character based on Julia Stephen, and repeatedly comments on the fact that she was "astonishingly beautiful". Her depiction of the life of the Ramsays in the Hebrides is an only thinly disguised account of the Stephens in Cornwall and the Godrevy Lighthouse they would visit there. However, Woolf's understanding of her mother and family evolved considerably between 1907 and 1940, in which the somewhat distant, yet revered figure becomes more nuanced and complete.
While her father painted Julia Stephen's work in terms of reverence, Woolf drew a sharp distinction between her mother's work and "the mischievous philanthropy which other women practise so complacently and often with such disastrous results." She describes her degree of sympathy, engagement, judgement, and decisiveness, and her sense of both irony and the absurd. She recalls trying to recapture "the clear round voice, or the sight of the beautiful figure, so upright and distinct, in its long shabby cloak, with the head held at a certain angle, so that the eye looked straight out at you." Julia Stephen dealt with her husband's depressions and his need for attention, which created resentment in her children, boosted his self-confidence, nursed her parents in their final illness, and had many commitments outside the home that would eventually wear her down. Her frequent absences and the demands of her husband instilled a sense of insecurity in her children that had a lasting effect on her daughters. In considering the demands on her mother, Woolf described her father as "fifteen years her elder, difficult, exacting, dependent on her," and reflected that it was at the expense of the amount of attention she could spare her young children: "a general presence rather than a particular person to a child." She reflected that she rarely ever spent a moment alone with her mother: "someone was always interrupting." Woolf was ambivalent about it, yet eager to separate herself from this model of utter selflessness. In To the Lighthouse, she describes it as "boasting of her capacity to surround and protect, there was scarcely a shell of herself left for her to know herself by; all was so lavished and spent." At the same time, she admired the strengths of her mother's womanly ideals. Given Julia's frequent absences and commitments, the young Stephen children became increasingly dependent on Stella Duckworth, who emulated her mother's selflessness; as Woolf wrote, "Stella was always the beautiful attendant handmaid ... making it the central duty of her life."
Julia Stephen greatly admired her husband's intellect. As Woolf observed "she never belittled her own works, thinking them, if properly discharged, of equal, though other, importance with her husband's." She believed with certainty in her role as the centre of her activities, and the person who held everything together, with a firm sense of what was important and valuing devotion. Of the two parents, Julia's "nervous energy dominated the family". While Virginia identified most closely with her father, Vanessa stated her mother was her favourite parent. Angelica Garnett recalls how Virginia asked Vanessa which parent she preferred, although Vanessa considered it a question that "one ought not to ask", she was unequivocal in answering "Mother" yet the centrality of her mother to Virginia's world is expressed in this description of her "Certainly there she was, in the very centre of that great Cathedral space which was childhood; there she was from the very first". Virginia observed that her half-sister, Stella, the oldest daughter, led a life of total subservience to her mother, incorporating her ideals of love and service. Virginia quickly learned, that like her father, being ill was the only reliable way of gaining the attention of her mother, who prided herself on her sickroom nursing.
Another issue the children had to deal with was Leslie Stephen's temper, Woolf describing him as "the tyrant father". Eventually, she became deeply ambivalent about him. He had given her his ring on her eighteenth birthday and she had a deep emotional attachment as his literary heir, writing about her "great devotion for him". Yet, like Vanessa, she also saw him as victimiser and tyrant. She had a lasting ambivalence towards him through her life, albeit one that evolved. Her adolescent image was of an "Eminent Victorian" and tyrant but as she grew older she began to realise how much of him was in her: "I have been dipping into old letters and father's memoirs....so candid and reasonable and transparent—and had such a fastidious delicate mind, educated, and transparent," she wrote 22 December 1940. She was in turn both fascinated and condemnatory of Leslie Stephen: "She [her mother] has haunted me: but then, so did that old wretch my father. . . . I was more like him than her, I think; and therefore more critical: but he was an adorable man, and somehow, tremendous."
Sexual abuse
Woolf stated that she first remembers being molested by Gerald Duckworth when she was six years old. It has been suggested that this led to a lifetime of sexual fear and resistance to
masculine authority. Against a background of over-committed and distant parents, suggestions that this was a dysfunctional family must be evaluated. These include evidence of sexual abuse of the Stephen girls by their older Duckworth half-brothers, and by their cousin, James Kenneth Stephen (1859–1892), at least of Stella Duckworth. Laura is also thought to have been abused. The most graphic account is by Louise DeSalvo, but other authors and reviewers have been more cautious. Virginia's accounts of being continually sexually abused during the time that she lived at 22 Hyde Park Gate, have been cited by some critics as a possible cause of her mental health issues, although there are likely to be a number of contributing factors. Lee states that, "The evidence is strong enough, and yet ambiguous enough, to open the way for conflicting psychobiographical interpretations that draw quite different shapes of Virginia Woolf's interior life".
Bloomsbury (1904–1940)
Gordon Square (1904–1907)
On their father's death, the Stephens' first instinct was to escape from the dark house of yet more mourning, and this they did immediately, accompanied by George, travelling to Manorbier, on the coast of Pembrokeshire on 27 February. There, they spent a month, and it was there that Virginia first came to realise her destiny was as a writer, as she recalls in her diary of 3 September 1922. They then further pursued their newfound freedom by spending April in Italy and France, where they met up with Clive Bell again. Virginia then suffered her second nervous breakdown, and first suicidal attempt on 10 May, and convalesced over the next three months.
Before their father died, the Stephens had discussed the need to leave South Kensington in the West End, with its tragic memories and their parents' relations. George Duckworth was 35, his brother Gerald 33. The Stephen children were now between 24 and 20. Virginia was 22. Vanessa and Adrian decided to sell 22 Hyde Park Gate in respectable South Kensington and move to Bloomsbury. Bohemian Bloomsbury, with its characteristic leafy squares seemed sufficiently far away, geographically and socially, and was a much cheaper neighbourhood rentwise. They had not inherited much and they were unsure about their finances. Also, Bloomsbury was close to the Slade School which Vanessa was then attending. While Gerald was quite happy to move on and find himself a bachelor establishment, George who had always assumed the role of quasi-parent decided to accompany them, much to their dismay. It was then that Lady Margaret Herbert appeared on the scene, George proposed, was accepted and married in September, leaving the Stephens to their own devices.
Vanessa found a house at 46 Gordon Square in Bloomsbury, and they moved in November, to be joined by Virginia now sufficiently recovered. It was at Gordon Square that the Stephens began to regularly entertain Thoby's intellectual friends in March 1905. The circle, which largely came from the Cambridge Apostles, included writers (Saxon Sydney-Turner, Lytton Strachey) and critics (Clive Bell, Desmond MacCarthy) with Thursday evening "At Homes" that became known as the Thursday Club, a vision of recreating Trinity College ("Cambridge in London"). This circle formed the nucleus of the intellectual circle of writers and artists known as the Bloomsbury Group. Later, it would include John Maynard Keynes (1907), Duncan Grant (1908), E.M. Forster (1910), Roger Fry (1910), Leonard Woolf (1911), and David Garnett (1914).
In 1905, Virginia and Adrian visited Portugal and Spain. Clive Bell proposed to Vanessa, but was declined, while Virginia began teaching evening classes at Morley College and Vanessa added another event to their calendar with the Friday Club, dedicated to the discussion of and later exhibition of the fine arts. This introduced some new people into their circle, including Vanessa's friends from the Royal Academy and Slade, such as Henry Lamb and Gwen Darwin (who became secretary), but also the eighteen-year-old Katherine Laird ("Ka") Cox (1887–1938), who was about to go up to Newnham. Although Virginia did not actually meet Ka until much later, Ka would come to play an important part in her life. Ka and others brought the Bloomsbury Group into contact with another, slightly younger, group of Cambridge intellectuals to whom the Stephen sisters gave the name "Neo-pagans". The Friday Club continued until 1913.
The following year, 1906, Virginia suffered two further losses. Her cherished brother Thoby, who was only 26, died of typhoid, following a trip they had all taken to Greece, and immediately afterward Vanessa accepted Clive's third proposal. Vanessa and Clive were married in February 1907 and as a couple, their interest in avant-garde art would have an important influence on Woolf's further development as an author. With Vanessa's marriage, Virginia and Adrian needed to find a new home.
Fitzroy Square (1907–1911)
Virginia moved into 29 Fitzroy Square in April 1907, a house on the west side of the street, formerly occupied by George Bernard Shaw. It was in Fitzrovia, immediately to the west of Bloomsbury but still relatively close to her sister at Gordon Square. The two sisters continued to travel together, visiting Paris in March. Adrian was now to play a much larger part in Virginia's life, and they resumed the Thursday Club in October at their new home, while Gordon Square became the venue for the Play Reading Society in December. During this period, the group began to increasingly explore progressive ideas, first in speech, and then in conduct, Vanessa proclaiming in 1910 a libertarian society with sexual freedom for all.
Meanwhile, Virginia began work on her first novel, Melymbrosia, that eventually became The Voyage Out (1915). Vanessa's first child, Julian was born in February 1908, and in September Virginia accompanied the Bells to Italy and France. It was during this time that Virginia's rivalry with her sister resurfaced, flirting with Clive, which he reciprocated, and which lasted on and off from 1908 to 1914, by which time her sister's marriage was breaking down. On 17 February 1909, Lytton Strachey proposed to Virginia and she accepted, but he then withdrew the offer.
It was while she was at Fitzroy Square that the question arose of Virginia needing a quiet country retreat, and she required a six-week rest cure and sought the countryside away from London as much as possible. In December, she and Adrian stayed at Lewes and started exploring the area of Sussex around the town. She started to want a place of her own, like St Ives, but closer to London. She soon found a property in nearby Firle (see below), maintaining a relationship with that area for the rest of her life.
Dreadnought hoax 1910
Several members of the group attained notoriety in 1910 with the Dreadnought hoax, which Virginia participated in disguised as a male Abyssinian royal. Her complete 1940 talk on the hoax was discovered and is published in the memoirs collected in the expanded edition of The Platform of Time (2008).
Brunswick Square (1911–1912)
In October 1911, the lease on Fitzroy Square was running out and Virginia and Adrian decided to give up their home on Fitzroy Square in favour of a different living arrangement, moving to a four-storied house at 38 Brunswick Square in Bloomsbury proper in November. Virginia saw it as a new opportunity: "We are going to try all kinds of experiments," she told Ottoline Morrell. Adrian occupied the second floor, with Maynard Keynes and Duncan Grant sharing the ground floor. This arrangement for a single woman was considered scandalous, and George Duckworth was horrified. The house was adjacent to the Foundling Hospital, much to Virginia's amusement as an unchaperoned single woman. Originally, Ka Cox was supposed to share in the arrangements, but opposition came from Rupert Brooke, who was involved with her and pressured her to abandon the idea. At the house, Duncan Grant decorated Adrian Stephen's rooms (see image).
Marriage (1912–1941)
Leonard Woolf was one of Thoby Stephen's friends at Trinity College, Cambridge, and noticed the Stephen sisters in Thoby's rooms there on their visits to the May Ball in 1900 and 1901. He recalls them in "white dresses and large hats, with parasols in their hands, their beauty literally took one's breath away". To him, they were silent, "formidable and alarming".
Woolf did not meet Virginia formally till 17 November 1904 when he dined with the Stephens at Gordon Square, to say goodbye before leaving to take up a position with the civil service in Ceylon, although she was aware of him through Thoby's stories. At that visit he noted that she was perfectly silent throughout the meal, and looked ill. In 1909, Lytton Strachey suggested to Woolf he should make her an offer of marriage. He did so, but received no answer. In June 1911, he returned to London on a one-year leave, but did not go back to Ceylon. In England again, Leonard renewed his contacts with family and friends. Three weeks after arriving he dined with Vanessa and Clive Bell at Gordon Square on 3 July, where they were later joined by Virginia and other members of what would later be called "Bloomsbury", and Leonard dates the group's formation to that night. In September, Virginia asked Leonard to join her at Little Talland House at Firle in Sussex for a long weekend. After that weekend, they began seeing each other more frequently.
On 4 December 1911, Leonard moved into the ménage on Brunswick Square, occupying a bedroom and sitting room on the fourth floor, and started to see Virginia constantly and by the end of the month had decided he was in love with her. On 11 January 1912, he proposed to her; she asked for time to consider, so he asked for an extension of his leave and, on being refused, offered his resignation on 25 April, effective 20 May. He continued to pursue Virginia, and in a letter of 1 May 1912 (which see) she explained why she did not favour a marriage. However, on 29 May, Virginia told Leonard that she wished to marry him, and they were married on 10 August at the St Pancras Register Office. It was during this time that Leonard first became aware of Virginia's precarious mental state. The Woolfs continued to live at Brunswick Square until October 1912, when they moved to a small flat at 13 Clifford's Inn, further to the east (subsequently demolished). Despite his low material status (Woolf referring to Leonard during their engagement as a "penniless Jew"), the couple shared a close bond. Indeed, in 1937, Woolf wrote in her diary: "Love-making—after 25 years can't bear to be separate ... you see it is enormous pleasure being wanted: a wife. And our marriage so complete." However, Virginia made a suicide attempt in 1913.
In October 1914, Leonard and Virginia Woolf moved away from Bloomsbury and central London to Richmond, living at 17 The Green, a home discussed by Leonard in his autobiography Beginning Again (1964). In early March 1915, the couple moved again, to nearby Hogarth House, Paradise Road, after which they named their publishing house. Virginia's first novel, The Voyage Out was published in 1915, followed by another suicide attempt. Despite the introduction of conscription in 1916, Leonard was exempted on medical grounds.
Between 1924 and 1940, the Woolfs returned to Bloomsbury, taking out a ten-year lease at 52 Tavistock Square, from where they ran the Hogarth Press from the basement, where Virginia also had her writing room, and is commemorated with a bust of her in the square (see illustration). 1925 saw the publication of Mrs Dalloway in May followed by her collapse while at Charleston in August. In 1927, her next novel, To the Lighthouse, was published, and the following year she lectured on Women & Fiction at Cambridge University and published Orlando in October. Her two Cambridge lectures then became the basis for her major essay A Room of One's Own in 1929. Virginia wrote only one drama, Freshwater, based on her great-aunt Julia Margaret Cameron, and produced at her sister's studio on Fitzroy Street in 1935. 1936 saw another collapse of her health following the completion of The Years.
The Woolf's final residence in London was at 37 Mecklenburgh Square (1939–1940), destroyed during the Blitz in September 1940; a month later their previous home on Tavistock Square was also destroyed. After that, they made Sussex their permanent home. For descriptions and illustrations of all Virginia Woolf's London homes, see Jean Moorcroft Wilson's book Virginia Woolf, Life and London: A Biography of Place (pub. Cecil Woolf, 1987).
Hogarth Press (1917–1938)
Virginia had taken up book-binding as a pastime in October 1901, at the age of 19, and the Woolfs had been discussing setting up a publishing house for some time, and at the end of 1916 started making plans. Having discovered that they were not eligible to enroll in the St Bride School of Printing, they started purchasing supplies after seeking advice from the Excelsior Printing Supply Company on Farringdon Road in March 1917, and soon they had a printing press set up on their dining room table at Hogarth House, and the Hogarth Press was born.
Their first publication was Two Stories in July 1917, inscribed Publication No. 1, and consisted of two short stories, "The Mark on the Wall" by Virginia Woolf and Three Jews by Leonard Woolf. The work consisted of 32 pages, hand bound and sewn, and illustrated by woodcuts designed by Dora Carrington. The illustrations were a success, leading Virginia to remark that the press was "specially good at printing pictures, and we see that we must make a practice of always having pictures." (13 July 1917) The process took two and a half months with a production run of 150 copies. Other short short stories followed, including Kew Gardens (1919) with a woodblock by Vanessa Bell as frontispiece. Subsequently, Bell added further illustrations, adorning each page of the text.
The press subsequently published Virginia's novels along with works by T.S. Eliot, Laurens van der Post, and others. The Press also commissioned works by contemporary artists, including Dora Carrington and Vanessa Bell. Woolf believed that to break free of a patriarchal society women writers needed a "room of their own" to develop and often fantasised about an "Outsider's Society" where women writers would create a virtual private space for themselves via their writings to develop a feminist critique of society. Though Woolf never created the "Outsider's society", the Hogarth Press was the closest approximation as the Woolfs chose to publish books by writers that took unconventional points of view to form a reading community. Initially the press concentrated on small experimental publications, of little interest to large commercial publishers. Until 1930, Woolf often helped her husband print the Hogarth books as the money for employees was not there. Virginia relinquished her interest in 1938, following a third attempted suicide. After it was bombed in September 1940, the press was moved to Letchworth for the remainder of the war. Both the Woolfs were internationalists and pacifists who believed that promoting understanding between peoples was the best way to avoid another world war and chose quite consciously to publish works by foreign authors of whom the British reading public were unaware. The first non-British author to be published was the Soviet writer Maxim Gorky, the book Reminiscences of Leo Nikolaiovich Tolstoy in 1920, dealing with his friendship with Count Leo Tolstoy.
Memoir Club (1920–1941)
1920 saw a postwar reconstitution of the Bloomsbury Group, under the title of the Memoir Club, which as the name suggests focussed on self-writing, in the manner of Proust's A La Recherche, and inspired some of the more influential books of the 20th century. The Group, which had been scattered by the war, was reconvened by Mary ('Molly') MacCarthy who called them "Bloomsberries", and operated under rules derived from the Cambridge Apostles, an elite university debating society that a number of them had been members of. These rules emphasised candour and openness. Among the 125 memoirs presented, Virginia contributed three that were published posthumously in 1976, in the autobiographical anthology Moments of Being. These were 22 Hyde Park Gate (1921), Old Bloomsbury (1922) and Am I a Snob? (1936).
Vita Sackville-West (1922–1941)
The ethos of the Bloomsbury group encouraged a liberal approach to sexuality, and on 14 December 1922 Woolf met the writer and gardener Vita Sackville-West, wife of Harold Nicolson, while dining with Clive Bell. Writing in her diary the next day, she referred to meeting "the lovely gifted aristocratic Sackville West". At the time, Sackville-West was the more successful writer as both poet and novelist, commercially and critically, and it was not until after Woolf's death that she became considered the better writer. After a tentative start, they began a sexual relationship, which, according to Sackville-West in a letter to her husband on 17 August 1926, was only twice consummated. The relationship reached its peak between 1925 and 1928, evolving into more of a friendship through the 1930s, though Woolf was also inclined to brag of her affairs with other women within her intimate circle, such as Sibyl Colefax and Comtesse de Polignac. This period of intimacy was to prove fruitful for both authors, Woolf producing three novels, To the Lighthouse (1927), Orlando (1928), and The Waves (1931) as well as a number of essays, including "Mr. Bennett and Mrs. Brown" (1924) and "A Letter to a Young Poet" (1932).
Sackville-West worked tirelessly to lift Woolf's self-esteem, encouraging her not to view herself as a quasi-reclusive inclined to sickness who should hide herself away from the world, but rather offered praise for her liveliness and wit, her health, her intelligence and achievements as a writer. Sackville-West led Woolf to reappraise herself, developing a more positive self-image, and the feeling that her writings were the products of her strengths rather than her weakness. Starting at the age of 15, Woolf had believed the diagnosis by her father and his doctor that reading and writing were deleterious to her nervous condition, requiring a regime of physical labour such as gardening to prevent a total nervous collapse. This led Woolf to spend much time obsessively engaging in such physical labour.
Sackville-West was the first to argue to Woolf she had been misdiagnosed, and that it was far better to engage in reading and writing to calm her nerves—advice that was taken. Under the influence of Sackville-West, Woolf learned to deal with her nervous ailments by switching between various forms of intellectual activities such as reading, writing and book reviews, instead of spending her time in physical activities that sapped her strength and worsened her nerves. Sackville-West chose the financially struggling Hogarth Press as her publisher to assist the Woolfs financially. Seducers in Ecuador, the first of the novels by Sackville-West published by Hogarth, was not a success, selling only 1500 copies in its first year, but the next Sackville-West novel they published, The Edwardians, was a best-seller that sold 30,000 copies in its first six months. Sackville-West's novels, though not typical of the Hogarth Press, saved Hogarth, taking them from the red into the black. However, Woolf was not always appreciative of the fact that it was Sackville-West's books that kept the Hogarth Press profitable, writing dismissively in 1933 of her "servant girl" novels. The financial security allowed by the good sales of Sackville-West's novels in turn allowed Woolf to engage in more experimental work, such as The Waves, as Woolf had to be cautious when she depended upon Hogarth entirely for her income.
In 1928, Woolf presented Sackville-West with Orlando, a fantastical biography in which the eponymous hero's life spans three centuries and both sexes. It was published in October, shortly after the two women spent a week travelling together in France, that September. Nigel Nicolson, Vita Sackville-West's son, wrote, "The effect of Vita on Virginia is all contained in Orlando, the longest and most charming love letter in literature, in which she explores Vita, weaves her in and out of the centuries, tosses her from one sex to the other, plays with her, dresses her in furs, lace and emeralds, teases her, flirts with her, drops a veil of mist around her." After their affair ended, the two women remained friends until Woolf's death in 1941. Virginia Woolf also remained close to her surviving siblings, Adrian and Vanessa; Thoby had died of typhoid fever at the age of 26.
Sussex (1911–1941)
Virginia was needing a country retreat to escape to, and on 24 December 1910, she found a house for rent in Firle, Sussex, near Lewes (see Map). She obtained a lease and took possession of the house the following month, naming it 'Little Talland House', after their childhood home in Cornwall, although it was actually a new red gabled villa on the main street opposite the village hall. The lease was a short one, and in October, she and Leonard Woolf found Asham House at Asheham a few miles to the west, while walking along the Ouse from Firle. The house, at the end of a tree-lined road was a strange beautiful Regency-Gothic house in a lonely location. She described it as "flat, pale, serene, yellow-washed", without electricity or water and allegedly haunted. She took out a five-year lease jointly with Vanessa in the New Year, and they moved into it in February 1912, holding a house warming party on the 9th.
It was at Asham that the Woolfs spent their wedding night later that year. At Asham, she recorded the events of the weekends and holidays they spent there in her Asham Diary, part of which was later published as A Writer's Diary in 1953. In terms of creative writing, The Voyage Out was completed there, and much of Night and Day. Asham provided Woolf with well needed relief from the pace of London life and was where she found a happiness that she expressed in her diary of 5 May 1919 "Oh, but how happy we've been at Asheham! It was a most melodious time. Everything went so freely; – but I can't analyse all the sources of my joy". Asham was also the inspiration for A Haunted House (1921–1944), and was painted by members of the Bloomsbury Group, including Vanessa Bell and Roger Fry. It was during these times at Asham that Ka Cox (seen here) started to devote herself to Virginia and become very useful.
While at Asham Leonard and Virginia found a farmhouse in 1916, that was to let, about four miles away, which they thought would be ideal for her sister. Eventually, Vanessa came down to inspect it, and moved in in October of that year, taking it as a summer home for her family. The Charleston Farmhouse was to become the summer gathering place for the literary and artistic circle of the Bloomsbury Group.
After the end of the war, in 1918, the Woolfs were given a year's notice by the landlord, who needed the house. In mid-1919, "in despair", they purchased "a very strange little house" for £300, the Round House in Pipe Passage, Lewes, a converted windmill. No sooner had they bought the Round House, than Monk's House in nearby Rodmell, came up for auction, a weatherboarded house with oak beamed rooms, said to be 15th or 16th century. The Leonards favoured the latter because of its orchard and garden, and sold the Round House, to purchase Monk's House for £700. Monk's House also lacked water and electricity, but came with an acre of garden, and had a view across the Ouse towards the hills of the South Downs. Leonard Woolf describes this view (and the amenities) as being unchanged since the days of Chaucer. From 1940, it became their permanent home after their London home was bombed, and Virginia continued to live there until her death. Meanwhile, Vanessa made Charleston her permanent home in 1936. It was at Monk's House that Virginia completed Between the Acts in early 1941, followed by a further breakdown directly resulting in her suicide on 28 March 1941, the novel being published posthumously later that year.
The Neo-pagans (1911–1912)
During her time in Firle, Virginia became better acquainted with Rupert Brooke and his group of Neo-Pagans, pursuing socialism, vegetarianism, exercising outdoors and alternative life styles, including social nudity. They were influenced by the ethos of Bedales, Fabianism and Shelley. The women wore sandals, socks, open neck shirts and head-scarves. Although she had some reservations, Woolf was involved with their activities for a while, fascinated by their bucolic innocence in contrast to the sceptical intellectualism of Bloomsbury, which earned her the nickname "The Goat" from her brother Adrian. While Woolf liked to make much of a weekend she spent with Brooke at the vicarage in Grantchester, including swimming in the pool there, it appears to have been principally a literary assignation. They also shared a psychiatrist in the name of Maurice Craig. Through the Neo-Pagans, she finally met Ka Cox on a weekend in Oxford in January 1911, who had been part of the Friday Club circle and now became her friend and played an important part in dealing with her illnesses. Virginia nicknamed her "Bruin". At the same time, she found herself dragged into a triangular relationship involving Ka, Jacques Raverat and Gwen Darwin. She became resentful of the other couple, Jacques and Gwen, who married later in 1911, not the outcome Virginia had predicted or desired. They would later be referred to in both To the Lighthouse and The Years. The exclusion she felt evoked memories of both Stella Duckworth's marriage and her triangular involvement with Vanessa and Clive.
The two groups eventually fell out. Brooke pressured Ka into withdrawing from joining Virginia's ménage on Brunswick Square in late 1911, calling it a "bawdy-house" and by the end of 1912 he had vehemently turned against Bloomsbury. Later, she would write sardonically about Brooke, whose premature death resulted in his idealisation, and express regret about "the Neo-Paganism at that stage of my life". Virginia was deeply disappointed when Ka married William Edward Arnold-Forster in 1918, and became increasingly critical of her.
Mental health
Much examination has been made of Woolf's mental health (e.g., see Mental health bibliography). From the age of 13, following the death of her mother, Woolf suffered periodic mood swings from severe depression to manic excitement, including psychotic episodes, which the family referred to as her "madness". However, as Hermione Lee points out, Woolf was not "mad"; she was merely a woman who suffered from and struggled with illness for much of her relatively short life, a woman of "exceptional courage, intelligence and stoicism", who made the best use, and achieved the best understanding she could of that illness.
Psychiatrists today contend that her illness constitutes bipolar disorder (manic-depressive illness). Her mother's death in 1895, "the greatest disaster that could happen", precipitated a crisis of alternating excitability and depression accompanied by irrational fears, for which their family doctor, Dr. Seton, prescribed rest, stopping lessons and writing, and regular walks supervised by Stella. Yet just two years later, Stella too was dead, bringing on her next crisis in 1897, and her first expressed wish for death at the age of fifteen, writing in her diary that October that "death would be shorter & less painful". She then stopped keeping a diary for some time. This was a scenario she would later recreate in "Time Passes" (To the Lighthouse, 1927).
The death of her father in 1904 provoked her most alarming collapse, on 10 May, when she threw herself out a window and she was briefly institutionalised under the care of her father's friend, the eminent psychiatrist George Savage. Savage blamed her education—frowned on by many at the time as unsuitable for women—for her illness. She spent time recovering at the house of Stella's friend Violet Dickinson, and at her aunt Caroline's house in Cambridge, and by January 1905, Dr. Savage considered her "cured". Violet, seventeen years older than Virginia, became one of her closest friends and one of her more effective nurses. She characterised it as a "romantic friendship" (Letter to Violet 4 May 1903). Her brother Thoby's death in 1906 marked a "decade of deaths” that ended her childhood and adolescence. Gordon (2004) writes: "Ghostly voices spoke to her with increasing urgency, perhaps more real than the people who lived by her side. When voices of the dead urged her to impossible things, they drove her mad but, controlled, they became the material of fiction..."
On Dr. Savage's recommendation, Virginia spent three short periods in 1910, 1912, and 1913 at Burley House at 15 Cambridge Park, Twickenham (see image), described as "a private nursing home for women with nervous disorder" run by Miss Jean Thomas. By the end of February 1910, she was becoming increasingly restless, and Dr. Savage suggested being away from London. Vanessa rented Moat House, outside Canterbury, in June, but there was no improvement, so Dr. Savage sent her to Burley for a "rest cure". This involved partial isolation, deprivation of literature, and force-feeding, and after six weeks she was able to convalesce in Cornwall and Dorset during the autumn.
She loathed the experience; writing to her sister on 28 July, she described how she found the phony religious atmosphere stifling and the institution ugly, and informed Vanessa that to escape "I shall soon have to jump out of a window." The threat of being sent back would later lead to her contemplating suicide. Despite her protests, Savage would refer her back in 1912 for insomnia and in 1913 for depression.
On emerging from Burley House in September 1913, she sought further opinions from two other physicians on the 13th: Maurice Wright, and Henry Head, who had been Henry James's physician. Both recommended she return to Burley House. Distraught, she returned home and attempted suicide by taking an overdose of 100 grains of veronal (a barbiturate) and nearly dying: she was found by Ka Cox, who summoned help.
On recovery, she went to Dalingridge Hall, George Duckworth's home in East Grinstead, Sussex, to convalesce on 30 September, accompanied by Ka Cox and a nurse, returning to Asham on 18 November with Cox and Janet Case. She remained unstable over the next two years, with another incident involving veronal that she claimed was an "accident", and consulted another psychiatrist in April 1914, Maurice Craig, who explained that she was not sufficiently psychotic to be certified or committed to an institution.
The rest of the summer of 1914 went better for her, and they moved to Richmond, but in February 1915, just as The Voyage Out was due to be published, she relapsed once more, and remained in poor health for most of that year. Then, despite Miss Thomas's gloomy prognosis, she began to recover, following 20 years of ill health. Nevertheless, there was a feeling among those around her that she was now permanently changed, and not for the better.
Over the rest of her life, she suffered recurrent bouts of depression. In 1940, a number of factors appeared to overwhelm her. Her biography of Roger Fry had been published in July, and she had been disappointed in its reception. The horrors of war depressed her, and their London homes had been destroyed in the Blitz in September and October. Woolf had completed Between the Acts (published posthumously in 1941) in November, and completing a novel was frequently accompanied by exhaustion. Her health became increasingly a matter of concern, culminating in her decision to end her life on 28 March 1941.
Though this instability would frequently affect her social life, she was able to continue her literary productivity with few interruptions throughout her life. Woolf herself provides not only a vivid picture of her symptoms in her diaries and letters, but also her response to the demons that haunted her and at times made her long for death: "But it is always a question whether I wish to avoid these glooms... These 9 weeks give one a plunge into deep waters... One goes down into the well & nothing protects one from the assault of truth."
Psychiatry had little to offer Woolf, but she recognised that writing was one of the behaviours that enabled her to cope with her illness: "The only way I keep afloat... is by working... Directly I stop working I feel that I am sinking down, down. And as usual, I feel that if I sink further I shall reach the truth." Sinking under water was Woolf's metaphor for both the effects of depression and psychosis— but also for finding truth, and ultimately was her choice of death.
Throughout her life, Woolf struggled, without success, to find meaning in her illness: on the one hand, an impediment, on the other, something she visualised as an essential part of who she was, and a necessary condition of her art. Her experiences informed her work, such as the character of Septimus Warren Smith in Mrs Dalloway (1925), who, like Woolf, was haunted by the dead, and ultimately takes his own life rather than be admitted to a sanitorium.
Leonard Woolf relates how during the 30 years they were married, they consulted many doctors in the Harley Street area, and although they were given a diagnosis of neurasthenia, he felt they had little understanding of the causes or nature. The proposed solution was simple—as long as she lived a quiet life without any physical or mental exertion, she was well. On the other hand, any mental, emotional, or physical strain resulted in a reappearance of her symptoms, beginning with a headache, followed by insomnia and thoughts that started to race. Her remedy was simple: to retire to bed in a darkened room, eat, and drink plenty of milk, following which the symptoms slowly subsided.
Modern scholars, including her nephew and biographer, Quentin Bell, have suggested her breakdowns and subsequent recurring depressive periods were influenced by the sexual abuse which she and her sister Vanessa were subjected to by their half-brothers George and Gerald Duckworth (which Woolf recalls in her autobiographical essays "A Sketch of the Past" and "22 Hyde Park Gate") (see Sexual abuse). Biographers point out that when Stella died in 1897, there was no counterbalance to control George's predation, and his nighttime prowling. Virginia describes him as her first lover, "The old ladies of Kensington and Belgravia never knew that George Duckworth was not only father and mother, brother and sister to those poor Stephen girls; he was their lover also."
It is likely that other factors also played a part. It has been suggested that they include genetic predisposition, for both trauma and family history have been implicated in bipolar disorder. Virginia's father, Leslie Stephen, suffered from depression, and her half-sister Laura was institutionalised. Many of Virginia's symptoms, including persistent headache, insomnia, irritability, and anxiety, resembled of her father's. Another factor is the pressure she placed upon herself in her work; for instance, her breakdown of 1913 was at least partly triggered by the need to finish The Voyage Out.
Virginia herself hinted that her illness was related to how she saw the repressed position of women in society, when she wrote in A Room of One's Own that had Shakespeare had a sister of equal genius, she "would certainly have gone crazed, shot herself, or ended her days in some lonely cottage outside the village, half witch, half wizard, feared and mocked at". These inspirations emerged from what Woolf referred to as her lava of madness, describing her time at Burley in a 1930 letter to Ethel Smyth:
Thomas Caramagno and others, in discussing her illness, oppose the "neurotic-genius" way of looking at mental illness, where creativity and mental illness are conceptualised as linked rather than antithetical. Stephen Trombley describes Woolf as having a confrontational relationship with her doctors, and possibly being a woman who is a "victim of male medicine", referring to the lack of understanding, particularly at the time, about mental illness.
Death
After completing the manuscript of her last novel (posthumously published), Between the Acts (1941), Woolf fell into a depression similar to one which she had earlier experienced. The onset of World War II, the destruction of her London home during the Blitz, and the cool reception given to her biography of her late friend Roger Fry all worsened her condition until she was unable to work. When Leonard enlisted in the Home Guard, Virginia disapproved. She held fast to her pacifism and criticised her husband for wearing what she considered to be "the silly uniform of the Home Guard".
After World War II began, Woolf's diary indicates that she was obsessed with death, which figured more and more as her mood darkened. On 28 March 1941, Woolf drowned herself by filling her overcoat pockets with stones and walking into the River Ouse near her home. Her body was not found until 18 April. Her husband buried her cremated remains beneath an elm tree in the garden of Monk's House, their home in Rodmell, Sussex.
In her suicide note, addressed to her husband, she wrote:
Work
Woolf is considered to be one of the more important 20th century novelists. A modernist, she was one of the pioneers of using stream of consciousness as a narrative device, alongside contemporaries such as Marcel Proust, Dorothy Richardson and James Joyce. Woolf's reputation was at its greatest during the 1930s, but declined considerably following World War II. The growth of feminist criticism in the 1970s helped re-establish her reputation.
Virginia submitted her first article in 1890, to a competition in Tit-Bits. Although it was rejected, this shipboard romance by the 8-year-old would presage her first novel 25 years later, as would contributions to the Hyde Park News, such as the model letter "to show young people the right way to express what is in their hearts", a subtle commentary on her mother's legendary matchmaking. She transitioned from juvenilia to professional journalism in 1904 at the age of 22. Violet Dickinson introduced her to Mrs. Lyttelton, the editor of the Women's Supplement of The Guardian, a Church of England newspaper. Invited to submit a 1,500-word article, Virginia sent Lyttelton a review of W.D. Howells' The Son of Royal Langbirth and an essay about her visit to Haworth that year, Haworth, November 1904. The review was published anonymously on 4 December, and the essay on the 21st. In 1905, Woolf began writing for The Times Literary Supplement.
Woolf would go on to publish novels and essays as a public intellectual to both critical and popular acclaim. Much of her work was self-published through the Hogarth Press. "Virginia Woolf's peculiarities as a fiction writer have tended to obscure her central strength: she is arguably the major lyrical novelist in the English language. Her novels are highly experimental: a narrative, frequently uneventful and commonplace, is refracted—and sometimes almost dissolved—in the characters' receptive consciousness. Intense lyricism and stylistic virtuosity fuse to create a world overabundant with auditory and visual impressions." "The intensity of Virginia Woolf's poetic vision elevates the ordinary, sometimes banal settings"—often wartime environments—"of most of her novels."
Fiction and drama
Novels
Her first novel, The Voyage Out, was published in 1915 at the age of 33, by her half-brother's imprint, Gerald Duckworth and Company Ltd. This novel was originally titled Melymbrosia, but Woolf repeatedly changed the draft. An earlier version of The Voyage Out has been reconstructed by Woolf scholar Louise DeSalvo and is now available to the public under the intended title. DeSalvo argues that many of the changes Woolf made in the text were in response to changes in her own life. The novel is set on a ship bound for South America, and a group of young Edwardians onboard and their various mismatched yearnings and misunderstandings. In the novel are hints of themes that would emerge in later work, including the gap between preceding thought and the spoken word that follows, and the lack of concordance between expression and underlying intention, together with how these reveal to us aspects of the nature of love.
"Mrs Dalloway (1925) centres on the efforts of Clarissa Dalloway, a middle-aged society woman, to organise a party, even as her life is paralleled with that of Septimus Warren Smith, a working-class veteran who has returned from the First World War bearing deep psychological scars".
"To the Lighthouse (1927) is set on two days ten years apart. The plot centres on the Ramsay family's anticipation of and reflection upon a visit to a lighthouse and the connected familial tensions. One of the primary themes of the novel is the struggle in the creative process that beset painter Lily Briscoe while she struggles to paint in the midst of the family drama. The novel is also a meditation upon the lives of a nation's inhabitants in the midst of war, and of the people left behind." It also explores the passage of time, and how women are forced by society to allow men to take emotional strength from them.
Orlando: A Biography (1928) is one of Virginia Woolf's lightest novels. A parodic biography of a young nobleman who lives for three centuries without ageing much past thirty (but who does abruptly turn into a woman), the book is in part a portrait of Woolf's lover Vita Sackville-West. It was meant to console Vita for the loss of her ancestral home, Knole House, though it is also a satirical treatment of Vita and her work. In Orlando, the techniques of historical biographers are being ridiculed; the character of a pompous biographer is being assumed for it to be mocked.
"The Waves (1931) presents a group of six friends whose reflections, which are closer to recitatives than to interior monologues proper, create a wave-like atmosphere that is more akin to a prose poem than to a plot-centred novel".
Flush: A Biography (1933) is a part-fiction, part-biography of the cocker spaniel owned by Victorian poet Elizabeth Barrett Browning. The book is written from the dog's point of view. Woolf was inspired to write this book from the success of the Rudolf Besier play The Barretts of Wimpole Street. In the play, Flush is on stage for much of the action. The play was produced for the first time in 1932 by the actress Katharine Cornell.
The Years (1936), traces the history of the genteel Pargiter family from the 1880s to the "present day" of the mid-1930s. The novel had its origin in a lecture Woolf gave to the National Society for Women's Service in 1931, an edited version of which would later be published as "Professions for Women". Woolf first thought of making this lecture the basis of a new book-length essay on women, this time taking a broader view of their economic and social life, rather than focusing on women as artists, as the first book had. She soon jettisoned the theoretical framework of her "novel-essay" and began to rework the book solely as a fictional narrative, but some of the non-fiction material she first intended for this book was later used in Three Guineas (1938).
"Her last work, Between the Acts (1941), sums up and magnifies Woolf's chief preoccupations: the transformation of life through art, sexual ambivalence, and meditation on the themes of flux of time and life, presented simultaneously as corrosion and rejuvenation—all set in a highly imaginative and symbolic narrative encompassing almost all of English history." This book is the most lyrical of all her works, not only in feeling but in style, being chiefly written in verse. While Woolf's work can be understood as consistently in dialogue with the Bloomsbury Group, particularly its tendency (informed by G.E. Moore, among others) towards doctrinaire rationalism, it is not a simple recapitulation of the coterie's ideals.
Themes
Woolf's fiction has been studied for its insight into many themes including war, shell shock, witchcraft, and the role of social class in contemporary modern British society. In the postwar Mrs Dalloway (1925), Woolf addresses the moral dilemma of war and its effects and provides an authentic voice for soldiers returning from World War I, suffering from shell shock, in the person of Septimus Smith. In A Room of One's Own (1929) Woolf equates historical accusations of witchcraft with creativity and genius among women "When, however, one reads of a witch being ducked, of a woman possessed by devils...then I think we are on the track of a lost novelist, a suppressed poet, of some mute and inglorious Jane Austen". Throughout her work Woolf tried to evaluate the degree to which her privileged background framed the lens through which she viewed class. She both examined her own position as someone who would be considered an elitist snob, but attacked the class structure of Britain as she found it. In her 1936 essay Am I a Snob?, she examined her values and those of the privileged circle she existed in. She concluded she was, and subsequent critics and supporters have tried to deal with the dilemma of being both elite and a social critic.
The sea is a recurring motif in Woolf's work. Noting Woolf's early memory of listening to waves break in Cornwall, Katharine Smyth writes in The Paris Review that "the radiance [of] cresting water would be consecrated again and again in her writing, saturating not only essays, diaries, and letters but also Jacob’s Room, The Waves, and To the Lighthouse." Patrizia A. Muscogiuri explains that "seascapes, sailing, diving and the sea itself are aspects of nature and of human beings’ relationship with it which frequently inspired Virginia Woolf's writing." This trope is deeply embedded in her texts’ structure and grammar; James Antoniou notes in Sydney Morning Herald how "Woolf made a virtue of the semicolon, the shape and function of which resembles the wave, her most famous motif."
Despite the considerable conceptual difficulties, given Woolf's idiosyncratic use of language, her works have been translated into over 50 languages. Some writers, such as the Belgian Marguerite Yourcenar, had rather tense encounters with her, while others, such as the Argentinian Jorge Luis Borges, produced versions that were highly controversial.
Drama
Virginia Woolf researched the life of her great-aunt, the photographer Julia Margaret Cameron, publishing her findings in an essay titled "Pattledom" (1925), and later in her introduction to her 1926 edition of Cameron's photographs. She had begun work on a play based on an episode in Cameron's life in 1923, but abandoned it. Finally it was performed on 18 January 1935 at the studio of her sister, Vanessa Bell on Fitzroy Street in 1935. Woolf directed it herself, and the cast were mainly members of the Bloomsbury Group, including herself. Freshwater is a short three act comedy satirising the Victorian era, only performed once in Woolf's lifetime. Beneath the comedic elements, there is an exploration of both generational change and artistic freedom. Both Cameron and Woolf fought against the class and gender dynamics of Victorianism and the play shows links to both To the Lighthouse and A Room of One's Own that would follow.
Non-fiction
Woolf wrote a body of autobiographical work and more than 500 essays and reviews, some of which, like A Room of One's Own (1929) were of book length. Not all were published in her lifetime. Shortly after her death, Leonard Woolf produced an edited edition of unpublished essays titled The Moment and other Essays, published by the Hogarth Press in 1947. Many of these were originally lectures that she gave, and several more volumes of essays followed, such as The Captain's Death Bed: and other essays (1950).
A Room of One's Own
Among Woolf's non-fiction works, one of the best known is A Room of One's Own (1929), a book-length essay. Considered a key work of feminist literary criticism, it was written following two lectures she delivered on "Women and Fiction" at Cambridge University the previous year. In it, she examines the historical disempowerment women have faced in many spheres, including social, educational and financial. One of her more famous dicta is contained within the book "A woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction". Much of her argument ("to show you how I arrived at this opinion about the room and the money") is developed through the "unsolved problems" of women and fiction writing to arrive at her conclusion, although she claimed that was only "an opinion upon one minor point". In doing so, she states a good deal about the nature of women and fiction, employing a quasi-fictional style as she examines where women writers failed because of lack of resources and opportunities, examining along the way the experiences of the Brontës, George Eliot and George Sand, as well as the fictional character of Shakespeare's sister, equipped with the same genius but not position. She contrasted these women who accepted a deferential status with Jane Austen, who wrote entirely as a woman.
Influences
Michel Lackey argues that a major influence on Woolf, from 1912 onward, was Russian literature and Woolf adopted many of its aesthetic conventions. The style of Fyodor Dostoyevsky with his depiction of a fluid mind in operation helped to influence Woolf's writings about a "discontinuous writing process", though Woolf objected to Dostoyevsky's obsession with "psychological extremity" and the "tumultuous flux of emotions" in his characters together with his right-wing, monarchist politics as Dostoyevsky was an ardent supporter of the autocracy of the Russian Empire. In contrast to her objections to Dostoyevsky's "exaggerated emotional pitch", Woolf found much to admire in the work of Anton Chekhov and Leo Tolstoy. Woolf admired Chekhov for his stories of ordinary people living their lives, doing banal things and plots that had no neat endings. From Tolstoy, Woolf drew lessons about how a novelist should depict a character's psychological state and the interior tension within. Lackey notes that, from Ivan Turgenev, Woolf drew the lessons that there are multiple "I's" when writing a novel, and the novelist needed to balance those multiple versions of him- or herself to balance the "mundane facts" of a story vs. the writer's overarching vision, which required a "total passion" for art.
The American writer Henry David Thoreau also influenced Woolf. In a 1917 essay, she praised Thoreau for his statement "The millions are awake enough for physical labor, but only one in hundreds of millions is awake enough to a poetic or divine life. To be awake is to be alive." They both aimed to capture 'the moment'––as Walter Pater says, "to burn always with this hard, gem-like flame." Woolf praised Thoreau for his "simplicity" in finding "a way for setting free the delicate and complicated machinery of the soul". Like Thoreau, Woolf believed that it was silence that set the mind free to really contemplate and understand the world. Both authors believed in a certain transcendental, mystical approach to life and writing, where even banal things could be capable of generating deep emotions if one had enough silence and the presence of mind to appreciate them. Woolf and Thoreau were both concerned with the difficulty of human relationships in the modern age. Other notable influences include William Shakespeare, George Eliot, Leo Tolstoy, Marcel Proust, Anton Chekhov, Emily Brontë, Daniel Defoe, James Joyce, and E.M. Forster.
List of selected publications
see , ,
Novels
see also The Voyage Out & Complete text
see also Night and Day & Complete text
see also Jacob's Room & Complete text
see also Mrs Dalloway & Complete text
see also To the Lighthouse & Complete text, also Texts at Woolf Online
see also Orlando: A Biography & Complete text
see also The Waves & Complete text
see also Between the Acts & Complete text
Short stories
see also A Haunted House and Other Short Stories & Complete text
see also The Mark on the Wall & Complete text
see also Kew Gardens & Complete text
Cross-genre
see also Flush: A Biography & Complete text
Drama
see also Freshwater
Biography
see also Roger Fry: A Biography & Complete text
Essays
see also A Room of One's Own & Complete text
see also Mr. Bennett and Mrs. Brown & Complete text
see also A Letter to a Young Poet & Complete text
see also Three Guineas & Complete text
Essay collections
(Review)
(Review)
Complete text
(Review)
First American edition published by Harcourt, Brace and Company, New York, 1950.
& also here
— (1934). "Walter Sickert: A Conversation".
Contributions
(Digital edition)
Autobiographical writing
(Review)
(see Moments of Being)
, in (excerpts)
, in
(excerpts – 1st ed.)
Memoir Club Contributions
Diaries and notebooks
Letters
(Review)
Photograph albums
List of Album Guides
Album 1 MS Thr 557 (1863–1938)
Album 2 MS Thr 559 (1909–1922)
Album 3 MS Thr 560 (1890–1933)
Album 4 MS Thr 561 (1890–1947)
Album 5 MS Thr 562 (1892–1938)
Album 6 MS Thr 563 (1850–1900)
Collections
Views
In her lifetime, Woolf was outspoken on many topics that were considered controversial, some of which are now considered progressive, others regressive. She was an ardent feminist at a time when women's rights were barely recognised, and anti-colonialist, anti-imperialist and a pacifist when chauvinism was popular. On the other hand, she has been criticised for views on class and race in her private writings and published works. Like many of her contemporaries, some of her writing is now considered offensive. As a result, she is considered polarising, a revolutionary feminist and socialist hero or a purveyor of hate speech.
Works such as A Room of One's Own (1929) and Three Guineas (1938) are frequently taught as icons of feminist literature in courses that would be very critical of some of her views expressed elsewhere. She has also been the recipient of considerable homophobic and misogynist criticism.
Humanist views
Virginia Woolf was born into a non-religious family and is regarded, along with her fellow Bloomsberries E.M. Forster and G.E. Moore, as a humanist. Both her parents were prominent agnostic atheists. Her father, Leslie Stephen, had become famous in polite society for his writings which expressed and publicised reasons to doubt the veracity of religion. Stephen was also President of the West London Ethical Society, an early humanist organisation, and helped to found the Union of Ethical Societies in 1896. Woolf's mother, Julia Stephen, wrote the book Agnostic Women (1880), which argued that agnosticism (defined here as something more like atheism) could be a highly moral approach to life.
Woolf was a critic of Christianity. In a letter to Ethel Smyth, she gave a scathing denunciation of the religion, seeing it as self-righteous "egotism" and stating "my Jew [Leonard] has more religion in one toenail—more human love, in one hair". Woolf stated in her private letters that she thought of herself as an atheist.
Controversies
Hermione Lee cites a number of extracts from Woolf's writings that many, including Lee, would consider offensive, and these criticisms can be traced back as far as those of Wyndham Lewis and Q.D. Leavis in the 1920s and 1930s. Other authors provide more nuanced contextual interpretations, and stress the complexity of her character and the apparent inherent contradictions in analysing her apparent flaws. She could certainly be off-hand, rude and even cruel in her dealings with other authors, translators and biographers, such as her treatment of Ruth Gruber. Some authors, particularly postcolonial feminists dismiss her (and modernist authors in general) as privileged, elitist, classist, racist, and antisemitic.
Woolf's tendentious expressions, including prejudicial feelings against disabled people, have often been the topic of academic criticism:
The first quotation is from a diary entry of September 1920 and runs: "The fact is the lower classes are detestable." The remainder follow the first in reproducing stereotypes standard to upper-class and upper-middle class life in the early 20th century: "imbeciles should certainly be killed"; "Jews" are greasy; a "crowd" is both an ontological "mass" and is, again, "detestable"; "Germans" are akin to vermin; some "baboon faced intellectuals" mix with "sad green dressed negroes and negresses, looking like chimpanzees" at a peace conference; Kensington High St. revolts one's stomach with its innumerable "women of incredible mediocrity, drab as dishwater".
Antisemitism
Though accused of antisemitism, the treatment of Judaism and Jews by Woolf is far from straightforward. She was happily married to a Jewish man (Leonard Woolf) but often wrote about Jewish characters using stereotypes and generalisations. For instance, she described some of the Jewish characters in her work in terms that suggested they were physically repulsive or dirty. On the other hand, she could criticise her own views: "How I hated marrying a Jew — how I hated their nasal voices and their oriental jewellery, and their noses and their wattles — what a snob I was: for they have immense vitality, and I think I like that quality best of all" (Letter to Ethel Smyth 1930). These attitudes have been construed to reflect, not so much antisemitism, but tribalism; she married outside her social grouping, and Leonard Woolf, too, expressed misgivings about marrying a gentile. Leonard, "a penniless Jew from Putney", lacked the material status of the Stephens and their circle.
While travelling on a cruise to Portugal, she protested at finding "a great many Portuguese Jews on board, and other repulsive objects, but we keep clear of them". Furthermore, she wrote in her diary: "I do not like the Jewish voice; I do not like the Jewish laugh." Her 1938 short story The Duchess and the Jeweller (originally titled The Duchess and the Jew) has been considered antisemitic.
Yet Woolf and her husband Leonard came to despise and fear the 1930s fascism and antisemitism. Her 1938 book Three Guineas was an indictment of fascism and what Woolf described as a recurring propensity among patriarchal societies to enforce repressive societal mores by violence.
Sexuality
The Bloomsbury Group held very progressive views regarding sexuality and shucked the austere strictness of Victorian society. The majority of its members were homosexual or bisexual.
Virginia was most likely a lesbian, some debate that she was bisexual. However she had several affairs with women, the most notable being with Vita Sackville-West which inspired Orlando: A Biography. The two of them remained lovers for a decade and stayed close friends for the rest of Virginia's life. Virginia had said to Vita she disliked masculinity
Among her other notable affairs were Sibyl Colefax, Lady Ottoline Morrell and Mary Hutchinson. Some surmise that she may have fallen in love with Madge Symonds, the wife of one of her uncles. Madge Symonds was described as one of Virginia's early loves in Vita's diary She also fell in love with Violet Dickinson although there is some confusion as to whether the two consummated their relationship.
In regards to relationships with men, Virginia was averse to sex with them, blaming the sexual abuse perpetrated upon her and her sister by her half-brothers when they were children and teens. This is one of the reasons she initially declined marriage proposals from her future husband, Leonard. She even went as far as to tell him that she was not attracted to him, but that she did love him and finally agreed to marriage. Virginia preferred female lovers to male lovers, for the most part, based on her aversion to sex with men. This aversion to relations with men influenced her writing especially when considering her sexual abuse as a child.
Leonard became the love of her life and even though their sexual relationship was questionable, they loved each other deeply and formed a strong, supportive and prolific marriage which led to the formation of their publishing house as well as several of her writings. Neither was faithful to the other sexually, but they were faithful in their love and respect for each other.
Modern scholarship and interpretations
Though at least one biography of Virginia Woolf appeared in her lifetime, the first authoritative study of her life was published in 1972 by her nephew Quentin Bell. Hermione Lee's 1996 biography Virginia Woolf provides a thorough and authoritative examination of Woolf's life and work, which she discussed in an interview in 1997. In 2001, Louise DeSalvo and Mitchell A. Leaska edited The Letters of Vita Sackville-West and Virginia Woolf. Julia Briggs's Virginia Woolf: An Inner Life (2005) focuses on Woolf's writing, including her novels and her commentary on the creative process, to illuminate her life. The sociologist Pierre Bourdieu also uses Woolf's literature to understand and analyse gender domination. Woolf biographer Gillian Gill notes that Woolf's traumatic experience of sexual abuse by her half-brothers during her childhood influenced her advocacy of protection of vulnerable children from similar experiences.
Virginia Woolf and her mother
The intense scrutiny of Virginia Woolf's literary output (see Bibliography) has led to speculation as to her mother's influence, including psychoanalytic studies of mother and daughter. Woolf states that, "my first memory, and in fact it is the most important of all my memories" is of her mother. Her memories of her mother are memories of an obsession, starting with her first major breakdown on her mother's death in 1895, the loss having a profound lifelong effect. In many ways, her mother's profound influence on Virginia Woolf is conveyed in the latter's recollections, "there she is; beautiful, emphatic ... closer than any of the living are, lighting our random lives as with a burning torch, infinitely noble and delightful to her children".
Woolf described her mother as an "invisible presence" in her life, and Ellen Rosenman argues that the mother-daughter relationship is a constant in Woolf's writing. She describes how Woolf's modernism needs to be viewed in relationship to her ambivalence towards her Victorian mother, the centre of the former's female identity, and her voyage to her own sense of autonomy. To Woolf, "Saint Julia" was both a martyr whose perfectionism was intimidating and a source of deprivation, by her absences real and virtual and premature death. Julia's influence and memory pervades Woolf's life and work. "She has haunted me", she wrote.
Historical feminism
According to the 2007 book Feminism: From Mary Wollstonecraft to Betty Friedan by Bhaskar A. Shukla, "Recently, studies of Virginia Woolf have focused on feminist and lesbian themes in her work, such as in the 1997 collection of critical essays, Virginia Woolf: Lesbian Readings, edited by Eileen Barrett and Patricia Cramer." In 1928, Woolf took a grassroots approach to informing and inspiring feminism. She addressed undergraduate women at the ODTAA Society at Girton College, Cambridge and the Arts Society at Newnham College with two papers that eventually became A Room of One's Own (1929).
Woolf's best-known nonfiction works, A Room of One's Own (1929) and Three Guineas (1938), examine the difficulties that female writers and intellectuals faced because men held disproportionate legal and economic power, as well as the future of women in education and society. In The Second Sex (1949), Simone de Beauvoir counts, of all women who ever lived, only three female writers—Emily Brontë, Woolf and "sometimes" Katherine Mansfield— have explored "the given".
In popular culture
Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? is a 1962 play by Edward Albee. It examines the structure of the marriage of an American middle-aged academic couple, Martha and George. Mike Nichols directed a film version in 1966, starring Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton. Taylor won the 1966 Academy Award for Best Actress for the role.
Me! I'm Afraid of Virginia Woolf, a 1978 TV play, references the title of the Edward Albee play and features an English literature teacher who has a poster of her. It was written by Alan Bennett and directed by Stephen Frears.
The artwork The Dinner Party (1979) features a place setting for Woolf.
The 1996 album Poetic Justice, by British musician Steve Harley, contains a tribute to Woolf, specifically her most adventurous novel, in its closing track: "Riding the Waves (for Virginia Woolf)".
Michael Cunningham's 1998 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel The Hours focused on three generations of women affected by Woolf's novel Mrs Dalloway. In 2002, a film version of the novel was released, starring Nicole Kidman as Woolf. Kidman won the 2003 Academy Award for her portrayal.
Susan Sellers's novel Vanessa and Virginia (2008) explores the close sibling relationship between Woolf and her sister, Vanessa Bell. It was adapted for the stage by Elizabeth Wright in 2010 and first performed by Moving Stories Theatre Company.
Priya Parmar's 2014 novel Vanessa and Her Sister also examined the Stephen sisters' relationship during the early years of their association with what became known as the Bloomsbury Group.
An exhibition on Virginia Woolf was held at the National Portrait Gallery from July to October 2014.
In the 2014 novel The House at the End of Hope Street, Woolf is featured as one of the women who has lived in the titular house.
Virginia is portrayed by both Lydia Leonard and Catherine McCormack in the BBC's three-part drama series Life in Squares (2015).
On 25 January 2018, Google showed a Google doodle celebrating her 136th birthday.
In many Barnes & Noble stores, Woolf is featured in Gary Kelly's Author Mural Panels, an imprint of the Barnes & Noble Author brand that also features other notable authors like Hurston, Tagore, and Kafka.
The 2018 film Vita and Virginia depicts the relationship between Vita Sackville-West and Woolf, portrayed by Gemma Arterton and Elizabeth Debicki respectively.
The 2020 novel Trio by William Boyd follows the life of Elfrida Wing, an alcoholic writer interested in the suicide of Woolf.
Adaptations
A number of Virginia Woolf's works have been adapted for the screen, and her play Freshwater (1935) is the basis for a 1994 chamber opera, Freshwater, by Andy Vores. The final segment of the 2018 London Unplugged is adapted from her short story Kew Gardens. Septimus and Clarissa, a stage adaptation of Mrs. Dalloway was created and produced by the New York-based ensemble Ripe Time in 2011 at the Baruch Performing Arts Center. It was adapted by Ellen McLaughlin, and directed and devised by Rachel Dickstein. It was nominated for a 2012 Drama League award for Outstanding Production, a Drama Desk nomination for Outstanding Score (Gina Leishman) and a Joe A. Calloway Award nomination for outstanding direction (Rachel Dickstein.)
Legacy
Virginia Woolf is known for her contributions to 20th-century literature and her essays, as well as the influence she has had on literary, particularly feminist criticism. A number of authors have stated that their work was influenced by her, including Margaret Atwood, Michael Cunningham, Gabriel García Márquez, and Toni Morrison. Her iconic image is instantly recognisable from the Beresford portrait of her at twenty (at the top of this page) to the Beck and Macgregor portrait in her mother's dress in Vogue at 44 (see image) or Man Ray's cover of Time magazine (see image) at 55. More postcards of Woolf are sold by the National Portrait Gallery, London than any other person. Her image is ubiquitous, and can be found on products ranging from tea towels to T-shirts.
Virginia Woolf is studied around the world, with organisations such as the Virginia Woolf Society, and The Virginia Woolf Society of Japan. In addition, trusts—such as the Asham Trust—encourage writers in her honour. Although she had no descendants, a number of her extended family are notable.
Monuments and memorials
In 2013, Woolf was honoured by her alma mater of King's College London with the opening of the Virginia Woolf Building on Kingsway, with a plaque commemorating her time there and her contributions (see image), together with this exhibit depicting her accompanied by a quotation "London itself perpetually attracts, stimulates, gives me a play & a story & a poem" from her 1926 diary. Busts of Virginia Woolf have been erected at her home in Rodmell, Sussex and at Tavistock Square, London where she lived between 1924 and 1939.
In 2014, she was one of the inaugural honorees in the Rainbow Honor Walk, a walk of fame in San Francisco's Castro neighbourhood noting LGBTQ people who have "made significant contributions in their fields".
Woolf Works, a women's co-working space in Singapore, opened in 2014 and was named after her in tribute to the essay A Room of One's Own; it also has many other things named after it (see the essay's article).
A campaign was launched in 2018 by Aurora Metro Arts and Media to erect a statue of Woolf in Richmond, where she lived for 10 years. The proposed statue shows her reclining on a bench overlooking the river Thames.
Family trees
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Notes
References
Bibliography
Books and theses
see also The Second Sex
see also Survey of London
(Review)
Biography: Virginia Woolf
Vol. I: Virginia Stephen 1882 to 1912. London: Hogarth Press. 1972.
Vol. II: Virginia Woolf 1912 to 1941. London: Hogarth Press. 1972.
(Review)
(Review)
(Review)
(additional excerpts)
(Review)
(excerpt - Chapter 1)
(Review)
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(Review)
(Illustrations of Woolf's London homes are excerpted at .)
Mental health
additional excerpts
(summary)
see also Touched with Fire
Biography: Other
(Review)
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(Review)
(Review)
(Review)
also Internet archive
also available through MOMA here
Literary commentary
(additional excerpts)
(Review)
additional excerpt
(Review)
(Review)
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Bloomsbury
(additional excerpts)
(Review)
Chapters and contributions
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Articles
Journals
(text also available here)
Dictionaries and encyclopaedias
Newspapers and magazines
archived version
archived version
with excerpt
Websites and documents
(includes invitation to first performance in 1935 and Lucio Ruotolo's introduction to the 1976 Hogarth Press edition)
Blogs
British Library
Literary commentary
British Library
Virginia Woolf's homes and venues
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Virginia Woolf biography
Timelines
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Genealogy
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Images
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Maps
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Audiovisual media
see also Life in Squares
excerpt
Selected online texts
Audiofiles
Archival material
Bibliography notes
Bibliography references
External links
Virginia Woolf Papers at the Mortimer Rare Book Collection, Smith College Special Collections
1882 births
1941 suicides
19th-century English women
19th-century English people
19th-century English writers
20th-century British short story writers
20th-century English women writers
20th-century English novelists
20th-century essayists
20th-century non-fiction writers
Alumni of King's College London
Bisexual women
Bisexual writers
Bloomsbury Group
Bloomsbury Group biographers
British anti-fascists
British atheists
British autobiographers
British diarists
British essayists
British humanists
British memoirists
British pacifists
British secularists
British socialists
British cultural critics
British women dramatists and playwrights
British women essayists
British women short story writers
Critics of Christianity
Critics of Judaism
Critics of new religious movements
Critics of religions
English anti-fascists
English atheists
English autobiographers
English diarists
English essayists
English humanists
English memoirists
English pacifists
English socialists
English women dramatists and playwrights
English women novelists
LGBT memoirists
LGBT writers from England
Mental health activists
Modernist women writers
Modernist writers
People from Kensington
People with bipolar disorder
British social commentators
Social critics
Stephen-Bell family
Suicides by drowning in England
Women diarists
British women memoirists
Writers about activism and social change
Writers from London
20th-century memoirists
Dreadnought hoax
English feminist writers
Atheist feminists
People from Firle
British feminists
English feminists
Lost Generation writers
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"The Dr. Albert Johnson House is a historical house located at 814 Duke Street in the Bottoms neighborhood of Alexandria, Virginia, United States. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places on January 16, 2004.\n\nA 19th century building in the Italianate townhouse style, it is noted for being the place where Dr. Albert Johnson, one of the first licensed African-American physicians in Alexandria once lived and held his practice.\n\nThe townhouse is a two-story, north facing building which consists of three bays, a side-hall building with a raised basement. It underwent renovation in 1974.\n\nSee also\nNational Register of Historic Places listings in Alexandria, Virginia\n\nReferences\n\nHouses in Alexandria, Virginia\nHouses on the National Register of Historic Places in Virginia\nNational Register of Historic Places in Alexandria, Virginia",
"Alanton is an older, upscale, residential neighborhood in the northern part of Virginia Beach, Virginia, United States. The community was named for Alan McCullough, a prominent Virginia architect, but developed by his father. It is bordered by Baycliff and Cape Henry Collegiate School. Alanton Elementary is located within Alanton. Lynnhaven Middle School and First Colonial High School are the schools zoned for Alanton.\n\nHistory\nAlan McCullough and his family purchased a piece of land in the early 1920s. The architect and his family lived in one of only three houses there at the time. Louisa Venable Kyle was one of the first residents to move to Alanton and lived on Woodhouse Road.\n\nReferences\n\nCommunities in Virginia Beach, Virginia"
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| C_2448e986735e46eb8b47624e648fd3f5_1 | Who did the family mingle with? | 3 | Who did Virginia Woolf's family mingle with? | Virginia Woolf | Leslie Stephen was in the habit of hiking in Cornwall, and in the spring of 1881 he came across a large white house in St. Ives, Cornwall, and took out a lease on it that September. Although it had limited amenities, its main attraction was the view overlooking Porthminster Bay towards the Godrevy Lighthouse, which the young Virginia could see from the upper windows and was to be the central figure in her To the Lighthouse (1927). It was a large square house, with a terraced garden, divided by hedges, sloping down towards the sea. Each year between 1882 and 1894 from mid-July to mid-September the Stephen's leased Talland House as a summer residence. Leslie Stephen, who referred to it thus: "a pocket-paradise", described it as "The pleasantest of my memories... refer to our summers, all of which were passed in Cornwall, especially to the thirteen summers (1882-1894) at St. Ives. There we bought the lease of Talland House: a small but roomy house, with a garden of an acre or two all up and down hill, with quaint little terraces divided by hedges of escallonia, a grape-house and kitchen-garden and a so-called 'orchard' beyond". It was in Leslie's words, a place of "intense domestic happiness". Virginia herself described the house in great detail: In both London and Cornwall, Julia was perpetually entertaining, and was notorious for her manipulation of her guests' lives, constantly matchmaking in the belief everyone should be married, the domestic equivalence of her philanthropy. As her husband observed "My Julia was of course, though with all due reserve, a bit of a matchmaker". While Cornwall was supposed to be a summer respite, Julia Stephen soon immersed herself in the work of caring for the sick and poor there, as well as in London. Both at Hyde Park Gate and Talland House, the family mingled with much of the country's literary and artistic circles. Frequent guests included literary figures such as Henry James and George Meredith, as well as James Russell Lowell, and the children were exposed to much more intellectual conversations than their mother's at Little Holland House. The family did not return, following Julia Stephen's death in May 1895. For the children it was the highlight of the year, and Virginia's most vivid childhood memories were not of London but of Cornwall. In a diary entry of 22 March 1921, she described why she felt so connected to Talland House, looking back to a summer day in August 1890. "Why am I so incredibly and incurably romantic about Cornwall? One's past, I suppose; I see children running in the garden ... The sound of the sea at night ... almost forty years of life, all built on that, permeated by that: so much I could never explain". Cornwall inspired aspects of her work, in particular the "St Ives Trilogy" of Jacob's Room (1922), To the Lighthouse (1927), and The Waves (1931). CANNOTANSWER | the family mingled with much of the country's literary and artistic circles. Frequent guests included | Adeline Virginia Woolf (; ; 25 January 1882 28 March 1941) was an English writer, considered one of the most important modernist 20th-century authors and a pioneer in the use of stream of consciousness as a narrative device.
Woolf was born into an affluent household in South Kensington, London, the seventh child of Julia Prinsep Jackson and Leslie Stephen in a blended family of eight which included the modernist painter Vanessa Bell. She was home-schooled in English classics and Victorian literature from a young age. From 1897 to 1901, she attended the Ladies' Department of King's College London, where she studied classics and history and came into contact with early reformers of women's higher education and the women's rights movement.
Encouraged by her father, Woolf began writing professionally in 1900. After her father's death in 1904, the Stephen family moved from Kensington to the more bohemian Bloomsbury, where, in conjunction with the brothers' intellectual friends, they formed the artistic and literary Bloomsbury Group. In 1912, she married Leonard Woolf, and in 1917, the couple founded the Hogarth Press, which published much of her work. They rented a home in Sussex and moved there permanently in 1940. Woolf had romantic relationships with women, including Vita Sackville-West, who also published her books through Hogarth Press. Both women's literature became inspired by their relationship, which lasted until Woolf's death.
During the inter-war period, Woolf was an important part of London's literary and artistic society. In 1915, she had published her first novel, The Voyage Out, through her half-brother's publishing house, Gerald Duckworth and Company. Her best-known works include the novels Mrs Dalloway (1925), To the Lighthouse (1927) and Orlando (1928). She is also known for her essays, including A Room of One's Own (1929). Woolf became one of the central subjects of the 1970s movement of feminist criticism and her works have since attracted much attention and widespread commentary for "inspiring feminism". Her works have been translated into more than 50 languages. A large body of literature is dedicated to her life and work, and she has been the subject of plays, novels and films. Woolf is commemorated today by statues, societies dedicated to her work and a building at the University of London.
Throughout her life, Woolf was troubled by mental illness. She was institutionalised several times and attempted suicide at least twice. According to Dalsimer (2004) her illness was characterized by symptoms that today would be diagnosed as bipolar disorder, for which there was no effective intervention during her lifetime. In 1941, at age 59, Woolf died by drowning herself in the River Ouse at Lewes.
Life
Family of origin
Virginia Woolf was born Adeline Virginia Stephen on 25 January 1882 at 22 Hyde Park Gate in South Kensington, London, to Julia (née Jackson) (1846–1895) and Leslie Stephen (1832–1904), writer, historian, essayist, biographer and mountaineer. Julia Jackson was born in 1846 in Calcutta, British India, to John Jackson and Maria "Mia" Theodosia Pattle, from two Anglo-Indian families. John Jackson FRCS was the third son of George Jackson and Mary Howard of Bengal, a physician who spent 25 years with the Bengal Medical Service and East India Company and a professor at the fledgling Calcutta Medical College. While John Jackson was an almost invisible presence, the Pattle family were famous beauties, and moved in the upper circles of Bengali society. The seven Pattle sisters married into important families. Julia Margaret Cameron was a celebrated photographer, while Virginia married Earl Somers, and their daughter, Julia Jackson's cousin, was Lady Henry Somerset, the temperance leader. Julia moved to England with her mother at the age of two and spent much of her early life with another of her mother's sisters, Sarah Monckton Pattle. Sarah and her husband Henry Thoby Prinsep, conducted an artistic and literary salon at Little Holland House where she came into contact with a number of Pre-Raphaelite painters such as Edward Burne-Jones, for whom she modelled.
Julia was the youngest of three sisters, and Adeline Virginia was named after her mother's eldest sister Adeline Maria Jackson (1837–1881) and her mother's aunt Virginia Pattle (see Pattle family tree). Because of the tragedy of her aunt Adeline's death the previous year, the family never used Virginia's first name. The Jacksons were a well educated, literary and artistic proconsular middle-class family. In 1867, Julia Jackson married Herbert Duckworth, a barrister, but within three years was left a widow with three infant children. She was devastated and entered a prolonged period of mourning, abandoning her faith and turning to nursing and philanthropy. Julia and Herbert Duckworth had three children:
George (5 March 1868 – 27 April 1934), a senior civil servant, married Lady Margaret Herbert in 1904
Stella (30 May 1869 – 19 July 1897), died aged 28
Gerald (29 October 1870 – 28 September 1937), founder of Duckworth Publishing, married Cecil Alice Scott-Chad in 1921
Leslie Stephen was born in 1832 in South Kensington to Sir James and Lady Jane Catherine Stephen (née Venn), daughter of John Venn, rector of Clapham. The Venns were the centre of the evangelical Clapham Sect. Sir James Stephen was the under secretary at the Colonial Office, and with another Clapham member, William Wilberforce, was responsible for the passage of the Slavery Abolition Bill in 1833. In 1849 he was appointed Regius Professor of Modern History at Cambridge University. As a family of educators, lawyers, and writers the Stephens represented the elite intellectual aristocracy. While his family were distinguished and intellectual, they were less colourful and aristocratic than Julia Jackson's. A graduate and fellow of Cambridge University he renounced his faith and position to move to London where he became a notable man of letters. In addition, he was a rambler and mountaineer, described as a "gaunt figure with the ragged red brown beard...a formidable man, with an immensely high forehead, steely-blue eyes, and a long pointed nose." In the same year as Julia Jackson's marriage, he wed Harriet Marian (Minny) Thackeray (1840–1875), youngest daughter of William Makepeace Thackeray, who bore him a daughter, Laura (1870–1945), but died in childbirth in 1875. Laura was developmentally disabled and eventually institutionalised.
The widowed Julia Duckworth knew Leslie Stephen through her friendship with Minny's elder sister Anne (Anny) Isabella Ritchie and had developed an interest in his agnostic writings. She was present the night Minny died and later, tended to Leslie Stephen and helped him move next door to her on Hyde Park Gate so Laura could have some companionship with her own children. Both were preoccupied with mourning and although they developed a close friendship and intense correspondence, agreed it would go no further. Leslie Stephen proposed to her in 1877, an offer she declined, but when Anny married later that year she accepted him and they were married on 26 March 1878. He and Laura then moved next door into Julia's house, where they lived till his death in 1904. Julia was 32 and Leslie was 46.
Their first child, Vanessa, was born on 30 May 1879. Julia, having presented her husband with a child and now having five children to care for, decided to limit her family's growth. However, despite the fact that the couple took "precautions", "contraception was a very imperfect art in the nineteenth century": it resulted in the birth of three more children over the next four years.
22 Hyde Park Gate (1882–1904)
1882–1895
Virginia Woolf provides insight into her early life in her autobiographical essays, including Reminiscences (1908), 22 Hyde Park Gate (1921), and A Sketch of the Past (1940). Other essays that provide insight into this period include Leslie Stephen (1932). She also alludes to her childhood in her fictional writing. In To the Lighthouse (1927), her depiction of the life of the Ramsays in the Hebrides is an only thinly disguised account of the Stephens in Cornwall and the Godrevy Lighthouse they would visit there. However, Woolf's understanding of her mother and family evolved considerably between 1907 and 1940, in which the somewhat distant, yet revered figure of her mother becomes more nuanced and filled in.
In February 1891, with her sister Vanessa, Woolf began the Hyde Park Gate News, chronicling life and events within the Stephen family, and modelled on the popular magazine Tit-Bits. Initially, this was mainly Vanessa's and Thoby's articles, but very soon Virginia became the main contributor, with Vanessa as editor. Their mother's response when it first appeared was "Rather clever I think". Virginia would run the Hyde Park Gate News until 1895, the time of her mother's death. The following year the Stephen sisters also used photography to supplement their insights, as did Stella Duckworth. Vanessa Bell's 1892 portrait of her sister and parents in the Library at Talland House (see image) was one of the family's favourites and was written about lovingly in Leslie Stephen's memoir. In 1897 ("the first really lived year of my life)" Virginia began her first diary, which she kept for the next twelve years, and a notebook in 1909.
Virginia was, as she describes it, "born into a large connection, born not of rich parents, but of well-to-do parents, born into a very communicative, literate, letter writing, visiting, articulate, late nineteenth century world." It was a well-connected family consisting of six children, with two half brothers and a half sister (the Duckworths, from her mother's first marriage), another half sister, Laura (from her father's first marriage), and an older sister, Vanessa, and brother Thoby. The following year, another brother Adrian followed. The disabled Laura Stephen lived with the family until she was institutionalised in 1891. Julia and Leslie had four children together:
Vanessa "Nessa" (30 May 1879 – 1961), married Clive Bell in 1907
Thoby (9 September 1880 – 1906), founded Bloomsbury Group
Virginia "Jinny"/"Ginia" (25 January 1882 – 1941), married Leonard Woolf in 1912
Adrian (27 October 1883 – 1948), married Karin Costelloe in 1914
Virginia was born at 22 Hyde Park Gate and lived there until her father's death in 1904. Number 22 Hyde Park Gate, South Kensington, lay at the south-east end of Hyde Park Gate, a narrow cul-de-sac running south from Kensington Road, just west of the Royal Albert Hall, and opposite Kensington Gardens and Hyde Park, where the family regularly took their walks (see Map; Street plan). Built in 1846 by Henry Payne of Hammersmith as one of a row of single-family townhouses for the upper middle class, it soon became too small for their expanding family. At the time of their marriage, it consisted of a basement, two storeys, and an attic. In July 1886 Leslie Stephen obtained the services of J. W. Penfold, an architect, to add additional living space above and behind the existing structure. The substantial renovations added a new top floor (see image of red brick extension), with three bedrooms and a study for himself, converted the original attic into rooms, and added the first bathroom. It was a tall but narrow townhouse, that at that time had no running water. Virginia would later describe it as "a very tall house on the left-hand side near the bottom which begins by being stucco and ends by being red brick; which is so high and yet—as I can say now that we have sold it—so rickety that it seems as if a very high wind would topple it over."
The servants worked "downstairs" in the basement. The ground floor had a drawing room, separated by a curtain from the servant's pantry and a library. Above this on the first floor were Julia and Leslie's bedrooms. On the next floor were the Duckworth children's rooms, and above them, the day and night nurseries of the Stephen children occupied two further floors. Finally, in the attic, under the eaves, were the servants' bedrooms, accessed by a back staircase. Life at 22 Hyde Park Gate was also divided symbolically; as Virginia put it, "The division in our lives was curious. Downstairs there was pure convention: upstairs pure intellect. But there was no connection between them", the worlds typified by George Duckworth and Leslie Stephen. Their mother, it seems, was the only one who could span this divide. The house was described as dimly lit and crowded with furniture and paintings. Within it, the younger Stephens formed a close-knit group. Despite this, the children still held their grievances. Virginia envied Adrian for being their mother's favourite. Virginia and Vanessa's status as creatives (writing and art respectively) caused a rivalry between them at times. Life in London differed sharply from their summers in Cornwall, their outdoor activities consisting mainly of walks in nearby Kensington Gardens, where they would play hide-and-seek and sail their boats on the Round Pond, while indoors, it revolved around their lessons.
Leslie Stephen's eminence as an editor, critic, and biographer, and his connection to William Thackeray, meant his children were raised in an environment filled with the influences of a Victorian literary society. Henry James, George Henry Lewes, Alfred Lord Tennyson, Thomas Hardy, Edward Burne-Jones, and Virginia's honorary godfather, James Russell Lowell, were among the visitors to the house. Julia Stephen was equally well connected. Her aunt was a pioneering early photographer, Julia Margaret Cameron, who was also a visitor to the Stephen household. The two Stephen sisters, Vanessa and Virginia, were almost three years apart in age. Virginia christened her older sister "the saint" and was far more inclined to exhibit her cleverness than her more reserved sister. Virginia resented the domesticity Victorian tradition forced on them far more than her sister. They also competed for Thoby's affections. Virginia would later confess her ambivalence over this rivalry to Duncan Grant in 1917: "indeed one of the concealed worms of my life has been a sister's jealousy – of a sister I mean; and to feed this I have invented such a myth about her that I scarce know one from t'other."
Virginia showed an early affinity for writing. Although both parents disapproved of formal education for females, writing was considered a respectable profession for women, and her father encouraged her in this respect. Later, she would describe this as "ever since I was a little creature, scribbling a story in the manner of Hawthorne on the green plush sofa in the drawing room at St. Ives while the grown-ups dined". By the age of five, she was writing letters and could tell her father a story every night. Later, she, Vanessa, and Adrian would develop the tradition of inventing a serial about their next-door neighbours, every night in the nursery, or in the case of St. Ives, of spirits that resided in the garden. It was her fascination with books that formed the strongest bond between her and her father. For her tenth birthday, she received an ink-stand, a blotter, drawing book and a box of writing implements.
Talland House (1882–1894)
Leslie Stephen was in the habit of hiking in Cornwall, and in the spring of 1881 he came across a large white house in St Ives, Cornwall, and took out a lease on it that September. Although it had limited amenities, its main attraction was the view overlooking Porthminster Bay towards the Godrevy Lighthouse, which the young Virginia could see from the upper windows and was to be the central figure in her To the Lighthouse (1927). It was a large square house, with a terraced garden, divided by hedges, sloping down towards the sea. Each year between 1882 and 1894 from mid-July to mid-September the Stephen family leased Talland House as a summer residence. Leslie Stephen, who referred to it thus: "a pocket-paradise", described it as "The pleasantest of my memories... refer to our summers, all of which were passed in Cornwall, especially to the thirteen summers (1882–1894) at St Ives. There we bought the lease of Talland House: a small but roomy house, with a garden of an acre or two all up and down hill, with quaint little terraces divided by hedges of escallonia, a grape-house and kitchen-garden and a so-called 'orchard' beyond". It was in Leslie's words, a place of "intense domestic happiness". Virginia herself described the house in great detail:
In both London and Cornwall, Julia was perpetually entertaining, and was notorious for her manipulation of her guests' lives, constantly matchmaking in the belief everyone should be married, the domestic equivalence of her philanthropy. As her husband observed, "My Julia was of course, though with all due reserve, a bit of a matchmaker." Amongst their guests in 1893 were the Brookes, whose children, including Rupert Brooke, played with the Stephen children. Rupert and his group of Cambridge Neo-pagans would come to play an important role in their lives in the years before the First World War. While Cornwall was supposed to be a summer respite, Julia Stephen soon immersed herself in the work of caring for the sick and poor there, as well as in London. Both at Hyde Park Gate and Talland House, the family mingled with much of the country's literary and artistic circles. Frequent guests included literary figures such as Henry James and George Meredith, as well as James Russell Lowell, and the children were exposed to much more intellectual conversations than at their mother's Little Holland House. The family did not return, following Julia Stephen's death in May 1895.
For the children, it was the highlight of the year, and Virginia's most vivid childhood memories were not of London but of Cornwall. In a diary entry of 22 March 1921, she described why she felt so connected to Talland House, looking back to a summer day in August 1890. "Why am I so incredibly and incurably romantic about Cornwall? One's past, I suppose; I see children running in the garden … The sound of the sea at night … almost forty years of life, all built on that, permeated by that: so much I could never explain". Cornwall inspired aspects of her work, in particular the "St Ives Trilogy" of Jacob's Room (1922), To the Lighthouse (1927), and The Waves (1931).
1895–1904
Julia Stephen fell ill with influenza in February 1895, and never properly recovered, dying on 5 May, when Virginia was 13. It was a pivotal moment in her life and the beginning of her struggles with mental illness. Essentially, her life had fallen apart. The Duckworths were travelling abroad at the time of their mother's death, and Stella returned immediately to take charge and assume her role. That summer, rather than return to the memories of St Ives, the Stephens went to Freshwater, Isle of Wight, where some of their mother's relatives lived. It was there that Virginia had the first of her many nervous breakdowns, and Vanessa was forced to assume some of her mother's role in caring for Virginia's mental state. Stella became engaged to Jack Hills the following year and they were married on 10 April 1897, making Virginia even more dependent on her older sister.
George Duckworth also assumed some of their mother's role, taking upon himself the task of bringing them out into society. First Vanessa, then Virginia, in both cases an equal disaster, for it was not a rite of passage that resonated with either girl and attracted a scathing critique by Virginia regarding the conventional expectations of young upper-class women: "Society in those days was a perfectly competent, perfectly complacent, ruthless machine. A girl had no chance against its fangs. No other desires – say to paint, or to write – could be taken seriously". Rather her priorities were to escape from the Victorian conventionality of the downstairs drawing room to a "room of one's own" to pursue her writing aspirations. She would revisit this criticism in her depiction of Mrs. Ramsay stating the duties of a Victorian mother in To the Lighthouse "an unmarried woman has missed the best of life".
The death of Stella Duckworth on 19 July 1897, after a long illness, was a further blow to Virginia's sense of self, and the family dynamics. Woolf described the period following the death of both her mother and Stella as "1897–1904 – the seven unhappy years", referring to "the lash of a random unheeding flail that pointlessly and brutally killed the two people who should, normally and naturally, have made those years, not perhaps happy but normal and natural". In April 1902, their father became ill, and although he underwent surgery later that year he never fully recovered, dying on 22 February 1904. Virginia's father's death precipitated a further breakdown. Later, Virginia would describe this time as one in which she was dealt successive blows as a "broken chrysalis" with wings still creased. Chrysalis occurs many times in Woolf's writing but the "broken chrysalis" was an image that became a metaphor for those exploring the relationship between Woolf and grief. At his death, Leslie Stephen's net worth was £15,715 6s. 6d. (probate 23 March 1904)
Education
In the late 19th century, education was sharply divided along gender lines, a tradition that Virginia would note and condemn in her writing. Boys were sent to school, and in upper-middle-class families such as the Stephens, it involved private boys schools, often boarding schools, and university. Girls, if they were afforded the luxury of education, received it from their parents, governesses, and tutors. Virginia was educated by her parents who shared the duty. There was a small classroom off the back of the drawing room, with its many windows, which they found perfect for quiet writing and painting. Julia taught the children Latin, French, and history, while Leslie taught them mathematics. They also received piano lessons. Supplementing their lessons was the children's unrestricted access to Leslie Stephen's vast library, exposing them to much of the literary canon, resulting in a greater depth of reading than any of their Cambridge contemporaries, Virginia's reading being described as "greedy". Later, she would recall After public school, the boys in the family all attended Cambridge University. The girls derived some indirect benefit from this, as the boys introduced them to their friends. Another source was the conversation of their father's friends, to whom they were exposed. Leslie Stephen described his circle as "most of the literary people of mark...clever young writers and barristers, chiefly of the radical persuasion...we used to meet on Wednesday and Sunday evenings, to smoke and drink and discuss the universe and the reform movement".
Later, between the ages of 15 and 19, Virginia was able to pursue higher education. She took courses of study, some at degree level, in beginning and advanced Ancient Greek, intermediate Latin and German, together with continental and English history at the Ladies' Department of King's College London at nearby 13 Kensington Square between 1897 and 1901. She studied Greek under the eminent scholar George Charles Winter Warr, professor of Classical Literature at King's. In addition she had private tutoring in German, Greek, and Latin. One of her Greek tutors was Clara Pater (1899–1900), who taught at King's. Another was Janet Case, who involved her in the women's rights movement, and whose obituary Virginia would later write in 1937. Her experiences led to her 1925 essay "On Not Knowing Greek". Her time at King's also brought her into contact with some of the early reformers of women's higher education such as the principal of the Ladies' Department, Lilian Faithfull (one of the so-called steamboat ladies), in addition to Pater. Her sister Vanessa also enrolled at the Ladies' Department (1899–1901). Although the Stephen girls could not attend Cambridge, they were to be profoundly influenced by their brothers' experiences there. When Thoby went to Trinity in 1899, he befriended a circle of young men, including Clive Bell, Lytton Strachey, Leonard Woolf (whom Virginia would later marry), and Saxon Sydney-Turner, whom he would soon introduce to his sisters at the Trinity May Ball in 1900. These men formed a reading group they named the Midnight Society.
Relationships with family
Although Virginia expressed the opinion her father was her favourite parent, and although she had only turned thirteen when her mother died, she was profoundly influenced by her mother throughout her life. It was Virginia who famously stated that "for we think back through our mothers if we are women", and invoked the image of her mother repeatedly throughout her life in her diaries, her letters and a number of her autobiographical essays, including Reminiscences (1908), 22 Hyde Park Gate (1921) and A Sketch of the Past (1940), frequently evoking her memories with the words "I see her ...". She also alludes to her childhood in her fictional writing. In To the Lighthouse (1927), the artist, Lily Briscoe, attempts to paint Mrs. Ramsay, a complex character based on Julia Stephen, and repeatedly comments on the fact that she was "astonishingly beautiful". Her depiction of the life of the Ramsays in the Hebrides is an only thinly disguised account of the Stephens in Cornwall and the Godrevy Lighthouse they would visit there. However, Woolf's understanding of her mother and family evolved considerably between 1907 and 1940, in which the somewhat distant, yet revered figure becomes more nuanced and complete.
While her father painted Julia Stephen's work in terms of reverence, Woolf drew a sharp distinction between her mother's work and "the mischievous philanthropy which other women practise so complacently and often with such disastrous results." She describes her degree of sympathy, engagement, judgement, and decisiveness, and her sense of both irony and the absurd. She recalls trying to recapture "the clear round voice, or the sight of the beautiful figure, so upright and distinct, in its long shabby cloak, with the head held at a certain angle, so that the eye looked straight out at you." Julia Stephen dealt with her husband's depressions and his need for attention, which created resentment in her children, boosted his self-confidence, nursed her parents in their final illness, and had many commitments outside the home that would eventually wear her down. Her frequent absences and the demands of her husband instilled a sense of insecurity in her children that had a lasting effect on her daughters. In considering the demands on her mother, Woolf described her father as "fifteen years her elder, difficult, exacting, dependent on her," and reflected that it was at the expense of the amount of attention she could spare her young children: "a general presence rather than a particular person to a child." She reflected that she rarely ever spent a moment alone with her mother: "someone was always interrupting." Woolf was ambivalent about it, yet eager to separate herself from this model of utter selflessness. In To the Lighthouse, she describes it as "boasting of her capacity to surround and protect, there was scarcely a shell of herself left for her to know herself by; all was so lavished and spent." At the same time, she admired the strengths of her mother's womanly ideals. Given Julia's frequent absences and commitments, the young Stephen children became increasingly dependent on Stella Duckworth, who emulated her mother's selflessness; as Woolf wrote, "Stella was always the beautiful attendant handmaid ... making it the central duty of her life."
Julia Stephen greatly admired her husband's intellect. As Woolf observed "she never belittled her own works, thinking them, if properly discharged, of equal, though other, importance with her husband's." She believed with certainty in her role as the centre of her activities, and the person who held everything together, with a firm sense of what was important and valuing devotion. Of the two parents, Julia's "nervous energy dominated the family". While Virginia identified most closely with her father, Vanessa stated her mother was her favourite parent. Angelica Garnett recalls how Virginia asked Vanessa which parent she preferred, although Vanessa considered it a question that "one ought not to ask", she was unequivocal in answering "Mother" yet the centrality of her mother to Virginia's world is expressed in this description of her "Certainly there she was, in the very centre of that great Cathedral space which was childhood; there she was from the very first". Virginia observed that her half-sister, Stella, the oldest daughter, led a life of total subservience to her mother, incorporating her ideals of love and service. Virginia quickly learned, that like her father, being ill was the only reliable way of gaining the attention of her mother, who prided herself on her sickroom nursing.
Another issue the children had to deal with was Leslie Stephen's temper, Woolf describing him as "the tyrant father". Eventually, she became deeply ambivalent about him. He had given her his ring on her eighteenth birthday and she had a deep emotional attachment as his literary heir, writing about her "great devotion for him". Yet, like Vanessa, she also saw him as victimiser and tyrant. She had a lasting ambivalence towards him through her life, albeit one that evolved. Her adolescent image was of an "Eminent Victorian" and tyrant but as she grew older she began to realise how much of him was in her: "I have been dipping into old letters and father's memoirs....so candid and reasonable and transparent—and had such a fastidious delicate mind, educated, and transparent," she wrote 22 December 1940. She was in turn both fascinated and condemnatory of Leslie Stephen: "She [her mother] has haunted me: but then, so did that old wretch my father. . . . I was more like him than her, I think; and therefore more critical: but he was an adorable man, and somehow, tremendous."
Sexual abuse
Woolf stated that she first remembers being molested by Gerald Duckworth when she was six years old. It has been suggested that this led to a lifetime of sexual fear and resistance to
masculine authority. Against a background of over-committed and distant parents, suggestions that this was a dysfunctional family must be evaluated. These include evidence of sexual abuse of the Stephen girls by their older Duckworth half-brothers, and by their cousin, James Kenneth Stephen (1859–1892), at least of Stella Duckworth. Laura is also thought to have been abused. The most graphic account is by Louise DeSalvo, but other authors and reviewers have been more cautious. Virginia's accounts of being continually sexually abused during the time that she lived at 22 Hyde Park Gate, have been cited by some critics as a possible cause of her mental health issues, although there are likely to be a number of contributing factors. Lee states that, "The evidence is strong enough, and yet ambiguous enough, to open the way for conflicting psychobiographical interpretations that draw quite different shapes of Virginia Woolf's interior life".
Bloomsbury (1904–1940)
Gordon Square (1904–1907)
On their father's death, the Stephens' first instinct was to escape from the dark house of yet more mourning, and this they did immediately, accompanied by George, travelling to Manorbier, on the coast of Pembrokeshire on 27 February. There, they spent a month, and it was there that Virginia first came to realise her destiny was as a writer, as she recalls in her diary of 3 September 1922. They then further pursued their newfound freedom by spending April in Italy and France, where they met up with Clive Bell again. Virginia then suffered her second nervous breakdown, and first suicidal attempt on 10 May, and convalesced over the next three months.
Before their father died, the Stephens had discussed the need to leave South Kensington in the West End, with its tragic memories and their parents' relations. George Duckworth was 35, his brother Gerald 33. The Stephen children were now between 24 and 20. Virginia was 22. Vanessa and Adrian decided to sell 22 Hyde Park Gate in respectable South Kensington and move to Bloomsbury. Bohemian Bloomsbury, with its characteristic leafy squares seemed sufficiently far away, geographically and socially, and was a much cheaper neighbourhood rentwise. They had not inherited much and they were unsure about their finances. Also, Bloomsbury was close to the Slade School which Vanessa was then attending. While Gerald was quite happy to move on and find himself a bachelor establishment, George who had always assumed the role of quasi-parent decided to accompany them, much to their dismay. It was then that Lady Margaret Herbert appeared on the scene, George proposed, was accepted and married in September, leaving the Stephens to their own devices.
Vanessa found a house at 46 Gordon Square in Bloomsbury, and they moved in November, to be joined by Virginia now sufficiently recovered. It was at Gordon Square that the Stephens began to regularly entertain Thoby's intellectual friends in March 1905. The circle, which largely came from the Cambridge Apostles, included writers (Saxon Sydney-Turner, Lytton Strachey) and critics (Clive Bell, Desmond MacCarthy) with Thursday evening "At Homes" that became known as the Thursday Club, a vision of recreating Trinity College ("Cambridge in London"). This circle formed the nucleus of the intellectual circle of writers and artists known as the Bloomsbury Group. Later, it would include John Maynard Keynes (1907), Duncan Grant (1908), E.M. Forster (1910), Roger Fry (1910), Leonard Woolf (1911), and David Garnett (1914).
In 1905, Virginia and Adrian visited Portugal and Spain. Clive Bell proposed to Vanessa, but was declined, while Virginia began teaching evening classes at Morley College and Vanessa added another event to their calendar with the Friday Club, dedicated to the discussion of and later exhibition of the fine arts. This introduced some new people into their circle, including Vanessa's friends from the Royal Academy and Slade, such as Henry Lamb and Gwen Darwin (who became secretary), but also the eighteen-year-old Katherine Laird ("Ka") Cox (1887–1938), who was about to go up to Newnham. Although Virginia did not actually meet Ka until much later, Ka would come to play an important part in her life. Ka and others brought the Bloomsbury Group into contact with another, slightly younger, group of Cambridge intellectuals to whom the Stephen sisters gave the name "Neo-pagans". The Friday Club continued until 1913.
The following year, 1906, Virginia suffered two further losses. Her cherished brother Thoby, who was only 26, died of typhoid, following a trip they had all taken to Greece, and immediately afterward Vanessa accepted Clive's third proposal. Vanessa and Clive were married in February 1907 and as a couple, their interest in avant-garde art would have an important influence on Woolf's further development as an author. With Vanessa's marriage, Virginia and Adrian needed to find a new home.
Fitzroy Square (1907–1911)
Virginia moved into 29 Fitzroy Square in April 1907, a house on the west side of the street, formerly occupied by George Bernard Shaw. It was in Fitzrovia, immediately to the west of Bloomsbury but still relatively close to her sister at Gordon Square. The two sisters continued to travel together, visiting Paris in March. Adrian was now to play a much larger part in Virginia's life, and they resumed the Thursday Club in October at their new home, while Gordon Square became the venue for the Play Reading Society in December. During this period, the group began to increasingly explore progressive ideas, first in speech, and then in conduct, Vanessa proclaiming in 1910 a libertarian society with sexual freedom for all.
Meanwhile, Virginia began work on her first novel, Melymbrosia, that eventually became The Voyage Out (1915). Vanessa's first child, Julian was born in February 1908, and in September Virginia accompanied the Bells to Italy and France. It was during this time that Virginia's rivalry with her sister resurfaced, flirting with Clive, which he reciprocated, and which lasted on and off from 1908 to 1914, by which time her sister's marriage was breaking down. On 17 February 1909, Lytton Strachey proposed to Virginia and she accepted, but he then withdrew the offer.
It was while she was at Fitzroy Square that the question arose of Virginia needing a quiet country retreat, and she required a six-week rest cure and sought the countryside away from London as much as possible. In December, she and Adrian stayed at Lewes and started exploring the area of Sussex around the town. She started to want a place of her own, like St Ives, but closer to London. She soon found a property in nearby Firle (see below), maintaining a relationship with that area for the rest of her life.
Dreadnought hoax 1910
Several members of the group attained notoriety in 1910 with the Dreadnought hoax, which Virginia participated in disguised as a male Abyssinian royal. Her complete 1940 talk on the hoax was discovered and is published in the memoirs collected in the expanded edition of The Platform of Time (2008).
Brunswick Square (1911–1912)
In October 1911, the lease on Fitzroy Square was running out and Virginia and Adrian decided to give up their home on Fitzroy Square in favour of a different living arrangement, moving to a four-storied house at 38 Brunswick Square in Bloomsbury proper in November. Virginia saw it as a new opportunity: "We are going to try all kinds of experiments," she told Ottoline Morrell. Adrian occupied the second floor, with Maynard Keynes and Duncan Grant sharing the ground floor. This arrangement for a single woman was considered scandalous, and George Duckworth was horrified. The house was adjacent to the Foundling Hospital, much to Virginia's amusement as an unchaperoned single woman. Originally, Ka Cox was supposed to share in the arrangements, but opposition came from Rupert Brooke, who was involved with her and pressured her to abandon the idea. At the house, Duncan Grant decorated Adrian Stephen's rooms (see image).
Marriage (1912–1941)
Leonard Woolf was one of Thoby Stephen's friends at Trinity College, Cambridge, and noticed the Stephen sisters in Thoby's rooms there on their visits to the May Ball in 1900 and 1901. He recalls them in "white dresses and large hats, with parasols in their hands, their beauty literally took one's breath away". To him, they were silent, "formidable and alarming".
Woolf did not meet Virginia formally till 17 November 1904 when he dined with the Stephens at Gordon Square, to say goodbye before leaving to take up a position with the civil service in Ceylon, although she was aware of him through Thoby's stories. At that visit he noted that she was perfectly silent throughout the meal, and looked ill. In 1909, Lytton Strachey suggested to Woolf he should make her an offer of marriage. He did so, but received no answer. In June 1911, he returned to London on a one-year leave, but did not go back to Ceylon. In England again, Leonard renewed his contacts with family and friends. Three weeks after arriving he dined with Vanessa and Clive Bell at Gordon Square on 3 July, where they were later joined by Virginia and other members of what would later be called "Bloomsbury", and Leonard dates the group's formation to that night. In September, Virginia asked Leonard to join her at Little Talland House at Firle in Sussex for a long weekend. After that weekend, they began seeing each other more frequently.
On 4 December 1911, Leonard moved into the ménage on Brunswick Square, occupying a bedroom and sitting room on the fourth floor, and started to see Virginia constantly and by the end of the month had decided he was in love with her. On 11 January 1912, he proposed to her; she asked for time to consider, so he asked for an extension of his leave and, on being refused, offered his resignation on 25 April, effective 20 May. He continued to pursue Virginia, and in a letter of 1 May 1912 (which see) she explained why she did not favour a marriage. However, on 29 May, Virginia told Leonard that she wished to marry him, and they were married on 10 August at the St Pancras Register Office. It was during this time that Leonard first became aware of Virginia's precarious mental state. The Woolfs continued to live at Brunswick Square until October 1912, when they moved to a small flat at 13 Clifford's Inn, further to the east (subsequently demolished). Despite his low material status (Woolf referring to Leonard during their engagement as a "penniless Jew"), the couple shared a close bond. Indeed, in 1937, Woolf wrote in her diary: "Love-making—after 25 years can't bear to be separate ... you see it is enormous pleasure being wanted: a wife. And our marriage so complete." However, Virginia made a suicide attempt in 1913.
In October 1914, Leonard and Virginia Woolf moved away from Bloomsbury and central London to Richmond, living at 17 The Green, a home discussed by Leonard in his autobiography Beginning Again (1964). In early March 1915, the couple moved again, to nearby Hogarth House, Paradise Road, after which they named their publishing house. Virginia's first novel, The Voyage Out was published in 1915, followed by another suicide attempt. Despite the introduction of conscription in 1916, Leonard was exempted on medical grounds.
Between 1924 and 1940, the Woolfs returned to Bloomsbury, taking out a ten-year lease at 52 Tavistock Square, from where they ran the Hogarth Press from the basement, where Virginia also had her writing room, and is commemorated with a bust of her in the square (see illustration). 1925 saw the publication of Mrs Dalloway in May followed by her collapse while at Charleston in August. In 1927, her next novel, To the Lighthouse, was published, and the following year she lectured on Women & Fiction at Cambridge University and published Orlando in October. Her two Cambridge lectures then became the basis for her major essay A Room of One's Own in 1929. Virginia wrote only one drama, Freshwater, based on her great-aunt Julia Margaret Cameron, and produced at her sister's studio on Fitzroy Street in 1935. 1936 saw another collapse of her health following the completion of The Years.
The Woolf's final residence in London was at 37 Mecklenburgh Square (1939–1940), destroyed during the Blitz in September 1940; a month later their previous home on Tavistock Square was also destroyed. After that, they made Sussex their permanent home. For descriptions and illustrations of all Virginia Woolf's London homes, see Jean Moorcroft Wilson's book Virginia Woolf, Life and London: A Biography of Place (pub. Cecil Woolf, 1987).
Hogarth Press (1917–1938)
Virginia had taken up book-binding as a pastime in October 1901, at the age of 19, and the Woolfs had been discussing setting up a publishing house for some time, and at the end of 1916 started making plans. Having discovered that they were not eligible to enroll in the St Bride School of Printing, they started purchasing supplies after seeking advice from the Excelsior Printing Supply Company on Farringdon Road in March 1917, and soon they had a printing press set up on their dining room table at Hogarth House, and the Hogarth Press was born.
Their first publication was Two Stories in July 1917, inscribed Publication No. 1, and consisted of two short stories, "The Mark on the Wall" by Virginia Woolf and Three Jews by Leonard Woolf. The work consisted of 32 pages, hand bound and sewn, and illustrated by woodcuts designed by Dora Carrington. The illustrations were a success, leading Virginia to remark that the press was "specially good at printing pictures, and we see that we must make a practice of always having pictures." (13 July 1917) The process took two and a half months with a production run of 150 copies. Other short short stories followed, including Kew Gardens (1919) with a woodblock by Vanessa Bell as frontispiece. Subsequently, Bell added further illustrations, adorning each page of the text.
The press subsequently published Virginia's novels along with works by T.S. Eliot, Laurens van der Post, and others. The Press also commissioned works by contemporary artists, including Dora Carrington and Vanessa Bell. Woolf believed that to break free of a patriarchal society women writers needed a "room of their own" to develop and often fantasised about an "Outsider's Society" where women writers would create a virtual private space for themselves via their writings to develop a feminist critique of society. Though Woolf never created the "Outsider's society", the Hogarth Press was the closest approximation as the Woolfs chose to publish books by writers that took unconventional points of view to form a reading community. Initially the press concentrated on small experimental publications, of little interest to large commercial publishers. Until 1930, Woolf often helped her husband print the Hogarth books as the money for employees was not there. Virginia relinquished her interest in 1938, following a third attempted suicide. After it was bombed in September 1940, the press was moved to Letchworth for the remainder of the war. Both the Woolfs were internationalists and pacifists who believed that promoting understanding between peoples was the best way to avoid another world war and chose quite consciously to publish works by foreign authors of whom the British reading public were unaware. The first non-British author to be published was the Soviet writer Maxim Gorky, the book Reminiscences of Leo Nikolaiovich Tolstoy in 1920, dealing with his friendship with Count Leo Tolstoy.
Memoir Club (1920–1941)
1920 saw a postwar reconstitution of the Bloomsbury Group, under the title of the Memoir Club, which as the name suggests focussed on self-writing, in the manner of Proust's A La Recherche, and inspired some of the more influential books of the 20th century. The Group, which had been scattered by the war, was reconvened by Mary ('Molly') MacCarthy who called them "Bloomsberries", and operated under rules derived from the Cambridge Apostles, an elite university debating society that a number of them had been members of. These rules emphasised candour and openness. Among the 125 memoirs presented, Virginia contributed three that were published posthumously in 1976, in the autobiographical anthology Moments of Being. These were 22 Hyde Park Gate (1921), Old Bloomsbury (1922) and Am I a Snob? (1936).
Vita Sackville-West (1922–1941)
The ethos of the Bloomsbury group encouraged a liberal approach to sexuality, and on 14 December 1922 Woolf met the writer and gardener Vita Sackville-West, wife of Harold Nicolson, while dining with Clive Bell. Writing in her diary the next day, she referred to meeting "the lovely gifted aristocratic Sackville West". At the time, Sackville-West was the more successful writer as both poet and novelist, commercially and critically, and it was not until after Woolf's death that she became considered the better writer. After a tentative start, they began a sexual relationship, which, according to Sackville-West in a letter to her husband on 17 August 1926, was only twice consummated. The relationship reached its peak between 1925 and 1928, evolving into more of a friendship through the 1930s, though Woolf was also inclined to brag of her affairs with other women within her intimate circle, such as Sibyl Colefax and Comtesse de Polignac. This period of intimacy was to prove fruitful for both authors, Woolf producing three novels, To the Lighthouse (1927), Orlando (1928), and The Waves (1931) as well as a number of essays, including "Mr. Bennett and Mrs. Brown" (1924) and "A Letter to a Young Poet" (1932).
Sackville-West worked tirelessly to lift Woolf's self-esteem, encouraging her not to view herself as a quasi-reclusive inclined to sickness who should hide herself away from the world, but rather offered praise for her liveliness and wit, her health, her intelligence and achievements as a writer. Sackville-West led Woolf to reappraise herself, developing a more positive self-image, and the feeling that her writings were the products of her strengths rather than her weakness. Starting at the age of 15, Woolf had believed the diagnosis by her father and his doctor that reading and writing were deleterious to her nervous condition, requiring a regime of physical labour such as gardening to prevent a total nervous collapse. This led Woolf to spend much time obsessively engaging in such physical labour.
Sackville-West was the first to argue to Woolf she had been misdiagnosed, and that it was far better to engage in reading and writing to calm her nerves—advice that was taken. Under the influence of Sackville-West, Woolf learned to deal with her nervous ailments by switching between various forms of intellectual activities such as reading, writing and book reviews, instead of spending her time in physical activities that sapped her strength and worsened her nerves. Sackville-West chose the financially struggling Hogarth Press as her publisher to assist the Woolfs financially. Seducers in Ecuador, the first of the novels by Sackville-West published by Hogarth, was not a success, selling only 1500 copies in its first year, but the next Sackville-West novel they published, The Edwardians, was a best-seller that sold 30,000 copies in its first six months. Sackville-West's novels, though not typical of the Hogarth Press, saved Hogarth, taking them from the red into the black. However, Woolf was not always appreciative of the fact that it was Sackville-West's books that kept the Hogarth Press profitable, writing dismissively in 1933 of her "servant girl" novels. The financial security allowed by the good sales of Sackville-West's novels in turn allowed Woolf to engage in more experimental work, such as The Waves, as Woolf had to be cautious when she depended upon Hogarth entirely for her income.
In 1928, Woolf presented Sackville-West with Orlando, a fantastical biography in which the eponymous hero's life spans three centuries and both sexes. It was published in October, shortly after the two women spent a week travelling together in France, that September. Nigel Nicolson, Vita Sackville-West's son, wrote, "The effect of Vita on Virginia is all contained in Orlando, the longest and most charming love letter in literature, in which she explores Vita, weaves her in and out of the centuries, tosses her from one sex to the other, plays with her, dresses her in furs, lace and emeralds, teases her, flirts with her, drops a veil of mist around her." After their affair ended, the two women remained friends until Woolf's death in 1941. Virginia Woolf also remained close to her surviving siblings, Adrian and Vanessa; Thoby had died of typhoid fever at the age of 26.
Sussex (1911–1941)
Virginia was needing a country retreat to escape to, and on 24 December 1910, she found a house for rent in Firle, Sussex, near Lewes (see Map). She obtained a lease and took possession of the house the following month, naming it 'Little Talland House', after their childhood home in Cornwall, although it was actually a new red gabled villa on the main street opposite the village hall. The lease was a short one, and in October, she and Leonard Woolf found Asham House at Asheham a few miles to the west, while walking along the Ouse from Firle. The house, at the end of a tree-lined road was a strange beautiful Regency-Gothic house in a lonely location. She described it as "flat, pale, serene, yellow-washed", without electricity or water and allegedly haunted. She took out a five-year lease jointly with Vanessa in the New Year, and they moved into it in February 1912, holding a house warming party on the 9th.
It was at Asham that the Woolfs spent their wedding night later that year. At Asham, she recorded the events of the weekends and holidays they spent there in her Asham Diary, part of which was later published as A Writer's Diary in 1953. In terms of creative writing, The Voyage Out was completed there, and much of Night and Day. Asham provided Woolf with well needed relief from the pace of London life and was where she found a happiness that she expressed in her diary of 5 May 1919 "Oh, but how happy we've been at Asheham! It was a most melodious time. Everything went so freely; – but I can't analyse all the sources of my joy". Asham was also the inspiration for A Haunted House (1921–1944), and was painted by members of the Bloomsbury Group, including Vanessa Bell and Roger Fry. It was during these times at Asham that Ka Cox (seen here) started to devote herself to Virginia and become very useful.
While at Asham Leonard and Virginia found a farmhouse in 1916, that was to let, about four miles away, which they thought would be ideal for her sister. Eventually, Vanessa came down to inspect it, and moved in in October of that year, taking it as a summer home for her family. The Charleston Farmhouse was to become the summer gathering place for the literary and artistic circle of the Bloomsbury Group.
After the end of the war, in 1918, the Woolfs were given a year's notice by the landlord, who needed the house. In mid-1919, "in despair", they purchased "a very strange little house" for £300, the Round House in Pipe Passage, Lewes, a converted windmill. No sooner had they bought the Round House, than Monk's House in nearby Rodmell, came up for auction, a weatherboarded house with oak beamed rooms, said to be 15th or 16th century. The Leonards favoured the latter because of its orchard and garden, and sold the Round House, to purchase Monk's House for £700. Monk's House also lacked water and electricity, but came with an acre of garden, and had a view across the Ouse towards the hills of the South Downs. Leonard Woolf describes this view (and the amenities) as being unchanged since the days of Chaucer. From 1940, it became their permanent home after their London home was bombed, and Virginia continued to live there until her death. Meanwhile, Vanessa made Charleston her permanent home in 1936. It was at Monk's House that Virginia completed Between the Acts in early 1941, followed by a further breakdown directly resulting in her suicide on 28 March 1941, the novel being published posthumously later that year.
The Neo-pagans (1911–1912)
During her time in Firle, Virginia became better acquainted with Rupert Brooke and his group of Neo-Pagans, pursuing socialism, vegetarianism, exercising outdoors and alternative life styles, including social nudity. They were influenced by the ethos of Bedales, Fabianism and Shelley. The women wore sandals, socks, open neck shirts and head-scarves. Although she had some reservations, Woolf was involved with their activities for a while, fascinated by their bucolic innocence in contrast to the sceptical intellectualism of Bloomsbury, which earned her the nickname "The Goat" from her brother Adrian. While Woolf liked to make much of a weekend she spent with Brooke at the vicarage in Grantchester, including swimming in the pool there, it appears to have been principally a literary assignation. They also shared a psychiatrist in the name of Maurice Craig. Through the Neo-Pagans, she finally met Ka Cox on a weekend in Oxford in January 1911, who had been part of the Friday Club circle and now became her friend and played an important part in dealing with her illnesses. Virginia nicknamed her "Bruin". At the same time, she found herself dragged into a triangular relationship involving Ka, Jacques Raverat and Gwen Darwin. She became resentful of the other couple, Jacques and Gwen, who married later in 1911, not the outcome Virginia had predicted or desired. They would later be referred to in both To the Lighthouse and The Years. The exclusion she felt evoked memories of both Stella Duckworth's marriage and her triangular involvement with Vanessa and Clive.
The two groups eventually fell out. Brooke pressured Ka into withdrawing from joining Virginia's ménage on Brunswick Square in late 1911, calling it a "bawdy-house" and by the end of 1912 he had vehemently turned against Bloomsbury. Later, she would write sardonically about Brooke, whose premature death resulted in his idealisation, and express regret about "the Neo-Paganism at that stage of my life". Virginia was deeply disappointed when Ka married William Edward Arnold-Forster in 1918, and became increasingly critical of her.
Mental health
Much examination has been made of Woolf's mental health (e.g., see Mental health bibliography). From the age of 13, following the death of her mother, Woolf suffered periodic mood swings from severe depression to manic excitement, including psychotic episodes, which the family referred to as her "madness". However, as Hermione Lee points out, Woolf was not "mad"; she was merely a woman who suffered from and struggled with illness for much of her relatively short life, a woman of "exceptional courage, intelligence and stoicism", who made the best use, and achieved the best understanding she could of that illness.
Psychiatrists today contend that her illness constitutes bipolar disorder (manic-depressive illness). Her mother's death in 1895, "the greatest disaster that could happen", precipitated a crisis of alternating excitability and depression accompanied by irrational fears, for which their family doctor, Dr. Seton, prescribed rest, stopping lessons and writing, and regular walks supervised by Stella. Yet just two years later, Stella too was dead, bringing on her next crisis in 1897, and her first expressed wish for death at the age of fifteen, writing in her diary that October that "death would be shorter & less painful". She then stopped keeping a diary for some time. This was a scenario she would later recreate in "Time Passes" (To the Lighthouse, 1927).
The death of her father in 1904 provoked her most alarming collapse, on 10 May, when she threw herself out a window and she was briefly institutionalised under the care of her father's friend, the eminent psychiatrist George Savage. Savage blamed her education—frowned on by many at the time as unsuitable for women—for her illness. She spent time recovering at the house of Stella's friend Violet Dickinson, and at her aunt Caroline's house in Cambridge, and by January 1905, Dr. Savage considered her "cured". Violet, seventeen years older than Virginia, became one of her closest friends and one of her more effective nurses. She characterised it as a "romantic friendship" (Letter to Violet 4 May 1903). Her brother Thoby's death in 1906 marked a "decade of deaths” that ended her childhood and adolescence. Gordon (2004) writes: "Ghostly voices spoke to her with increasing urgency, perhaps more real than the people who lived by her side. When voices of the dead urged her to impossible things, they drove her mad but, controlled, they became the material of fiction..."
On Dr. Savage's recommendation, Virginia spent three short periods in 1910, 1912, and 1913 at Burley House at 15 Cambridge Park, Twickenham (see image), described as "a private nursing home for women with nervous disorder" run by Miss Jean Thomas. By the end of February 1910, she was becoming increasingly restless, and Dr. Savage suggested being away from London. Vanessa rented Moat House, outside Canterbury, in June, but there was no improvement, so Dr. Savage sent her to Burley for a "rest cure". This involved partial isolation, deprivation of literature, and force-feeding, and after six weeks she was able to convalesce in Cornwall and Dorset during the autumn.
She loathed the experience; writing to her sister on 28 July, she described how she found the phony religious atmosphere stifling and the institution ugly, and informed Vanessa that to escape "I shall soon have to jump out of a window." The threat of being sent back would later lead to her contemplating suicide. Despite her protests, Savage would refer her back in 1912 for insomnia and in 1913 for depression.
On emerging from Burley House in September 1913, she sought further opinions from two other physicians on the 13th: Maurice Wright, and Henry Head, who had been Henry James's physician. Both recommended she return to Burley House. Distraught, she returned home and attempted suicide by taking an overdose of 100 grains of veronal (a barbiturate) and nearly dying: she was found by Ka Cox, who summoned help.
On recovery, she went to Dalingridge Hall, George Duckworth's home in East Grinstead, Sussex, to convalesce on 30 September, accompanied by Ka Cox and a nurse, returning to Asham on 18 November with Cox and Janet Case. She remained unstable over the next two years, with another incident involving veronal that she claimed was an "accident", and consulted another psychiatrist in April 1914, Maurice Craig, who explained that she was not sufficiently psychotic to be certified or committed to an institution.
The rest of the summer of 1914 went better for her, and they moved to Richmond, but in February 1915, just as The Voyage Out was due to be published, she relapsed once more, and remained in poor health for most of that year. Then, despite Miss Thomas's gloomy prognosis, she began to recover, following 20 years of ill health. Nevertheless, there was a feeling among those around her that she was now permanently changed, and not for the better.
Over the rest of her life, she suffered recurrent bouts of depression. In 1940, a number of factors appeared to overwhelm her. Her biography of Roger Fry had been published in July, and she had been disappointed in its reception. The horrors of war depressed her, and their London homes had been destroyed in the Blitz in September and October. Woolf had completed Between the Acts (published posthumously in 1941) in November, and completing a novel was frequently accompanied by exhaustion. Her health became increasingly a matter of concern, culminating in her decision to end her life on 28 March 1941.
Though this instability would frequently affect her social life, she was able to continue her literary productivity with few interruptions throughout her life. Woolf herself provides not only a vivid picture of her symptoms in her diaries and letters, but also her response to the demons that haunted her and at times made her long for death: "But it is always a question whether I wish to avoid these glooms... These 9 weeks give one a plunge into deep waters... One goes down into the well & nothing protects one from the assault of truth."
Psychiatry had little to offer Woolf, but she recognised that writing was one of the behaviours that enabled her to cope with her illness: "The only way I keep afloat... is by working... Directly I stop working I feel that I am sinking down, down. And as usual, I feel that if I sink further I shall reach the truth." Sinking under water was Woolf's metaphor for both the effects of depression and psychosis— but also for finding truth, and ultimately was her choice of death.
Throughout her life, Woolf struggled, without success, to find meaning in her illness: on the one hand, an impediment, on the other, something she visualised as an essential part of who she was, and a necessary condition of her art. Her experiences informed her work, such as the character of Septimus Warren Smith in Mrs Dalloway (1925), who, like Woolf, was haunted by the dead, and ultimately takes his own life rather than be admitted to a sanitorium.
Leonard Woolf relates how during the 30 years they were married, they consulted many doctors in the Harley Street area, and although they were given a diagnosis of neurasthenia, he felt they had little understanding of the causes or nature. The proposed solution was simple—as long as she lived a quiet life without any physical or mental exertion, she was well. On the other hand, any mental, emotional, or physical strain resulted in a reappearance of her symptoms, beginning with a headache, followed by insomnia and thoughts that started to race. Her remedy was simple: to retire to bed in a darkened room, eat, and drink plenty of milk, following which the symptoms slowly subsided.
Modern scholars, including her nephew and biographer, Quentin Bell, have suggested her breakdowns and subsequent recurring depressive periods were influenced by the sexual abuse which she and her sister Vanessa were subjected to by their half-brothers George and Gerald Duckworth (which Woolf recalls in her autobiographical essays "A Sketch of the Past" and "22 Hyde Park Gate") (see Sexual abuse). Biographers point out that when Stella died in 1897, there was no counterbalance to control George's predation, and his nighttime prowling. Virginia describes him as her first lover, "The old ladies of Kensington and Belgravia never knew that George Duckworth was not only father and mother, brother and sister to those poor Stephen girls; he was their lover also."
It is likely that other factors also played a part. It has been suggested that they include genetic predisposition, for both trauma and family history have been implicated in bipolar disorder. Virginia's father, Leslie Stephen, suffered from depression, and her half-sister Laura was institutionalised. Many of Virginia's symptoms, including persistent headache, insomnia, irritability, and anxiety, resembled of her father's. Another factor is the pressure she placed upon herself in her work; for instance, her breakdown of 1913 was at least partly triggered by the need to finish The Voyage Out.
Virginia herself hinted that her illness was related to how she saw the repressed position of women in society, when she wrote in A Room of One's Own that had Shakespeare had a sister of equal genius, she "would certainly have gone crazed, shot herself, or ended her days in some lonely cottage outside the village, half witch, half wizard, feared and mocked at". These inspirations emerged from what Woolf referred to as her lava of madness, describing her time at Burley in a 1930 letter to Ethel Smyth:
Thomas Caramagno and others, in discussing her illness, oppose the "neurotic-genius" way of looking at mental illness, where creativity and mental illness are conceptualised as linked rather than antithetical. Stephen Trombley describes Woolf as having a confrontational relationship with her doctors, and possibly being a woman who is a "victim of male medicine", referring to the lack of understanding, particularly at the time, about mental illness.
Death
After completing the manuscript of her last novel (posthumously published), Between the Acts (1941), Woolf fell into a depression similar to one which she had earlier experienced. The onset of World War II, the destruction of her London home during the Blitz, and the cool reception given to her biography of her late friend Roger Fry all worsened her condition until she was unable to work. When Leonard enlisted in the Home Guard, Virginia disapproved. She held fast to her pacifism and criticised her husband for wearing what she considered to be "the silly uniform of the Home Guard".
After World War II began, Woolf's diary indicates that she was obsessed with death, which figured more and more as her mood darkened. On 28 March 1941, Woolf drowned herself by filling her overcoat pockets with stones and walking into the River Ouse near her home. Her body was not found until 18 April. Her husband buried her cremated remains beneath an elm tree in the garden of Monk's House, their home in Rodmell, Sussex.
In her suicide note, addressed to her husband, she wrote:
Work
Woolf is considered to be one of the more important 20th century novelists. A modernist, she was one of the pioneers of using stream of consciousness as a narrative device, alongside contemporaries such as Marcel Proust, Dorothy Richardson and James Joyce. Woolf's reputation was at its greatest during the 1930s, but declined considerably following World War II. The growth of feminist criticism in the 1970s helped re-establish her reputation.
Virginia submitted her first article in 1890, to a competition in Tit-Bits. Although it was rejected, this shipboard romance by the 8-year-old would presage her first novel 25 years later, as would contributions to the Hyde Park News, such as the model letter "to show young people the right way to express what is in their hearts", a subtle commentary on her mother's legendary matchmaking. She transitioned from juvenilia to professional journalism in 1904 at the age of 22. Violet Dickinson introduced her to Mrs. Lyttelton, the editor of the Women's Supplement of The Guardian, a Church of England newspaper. Invited to submit a 1,500-word article, Virginia sent Lyttelton a review of W.D. Howells' The Son of Royal Langbirth and an essay about her visit to Haworth that year, Haworth, November 1904. The review was published anonymously on 4 December, and the essay on the 21st. In 1905, Woolf began writing for The Times Literary Supplement.
Woolf would go on to publish novels and essays as a public intellectual to both critical and popular acclaim. Much of her work was self-published through the Hogarth Press. "Virginia Woolf's peculiarities as a fiction writer have tended to obscure her central strength: she is arguably the major lyrical novelist in the English language. Her novels are highly experimental: a narrative, frequently uneventful and commonplace, is refracted—and sometimes almost dissolved—in the characters' receptive consciousness. Intense lyricism and stylistic virtuosity fuse to create a world overabundant with auditory and visual impressions." "The intensity of Virginia Woolf's poetic vision elevates the ordinary, sometimes banal settings"—often wartime environments—"of most of her novels."
Fiction and drama
Novels
Her first novel, The Voyage Out, was published in 1915 at the age of 33, by her half-brother's imprint, Gerald Duckworth and Company Ltd. This novel was originally titled Melymbrosia, but Woolf repeatedly changed the draft. An earlier version of The Voyage Out has been reconstructed by Woolf scholar Louise DeSalvo and is now available to the public under the intended title. DeSalvo argues that many of the changes Woolf made in the text were in response to changes in her own life. The novel is set on a ship bound for South America, and a group of young Edwardians onboard and their various mismatched yearnings and misunderstandings. In the novel are hints of themes that would emerge in later work, including the gap between preceding thought and the spoken word that follows, and the lack of concordance between expression and underlying intention, together with how these reveal to us aspects of the nature of love.
"Mrs Dalloway (1925) centres on the efforts of Clarissa Dalloway, a middle-aged society woman, to organise a party, even as her life is paralleled with that of Septimus Warren Smith, a working-class veteran who has returned from the First World War bearing deep psychological scars".
"To the Lighthouse (1927) is set on two days ten years apart. The plot centres on the Ramsay family's anticipation of and reflection upon a visit to a lighthouse and the connected familial tensions. One of the primary themes of the novel is the struggle in the creative process that beset painter Lily Briscoe while she struggles to paint in the midst of the family drama. The novel is also a meditation upon the lives of a nation's inhabitants in the midst of war, and of the people left behind." It also explores the passage of time, and how women are forced by society to allow men to take emotional strength from them.
Orlando: A Biography (1928) is one of Virginia Woolf's lightest novels. A parodic biography of a young nobleman who lives for three centuries without ageing much past thirty (but who does abruptly turn into a woman), the book is in part a portrait of Woolf's lover Vita Sackville-West. It was meant to console Vita for the loss of her ancestral home, Knole House, though it is also a satirical treatment of Vita and her work. In Orlando, the techniques of historical biographers are being ridiculed; the character of a pompous biographer is being assumed for it to be mocked.
"The Waves (1931) presents a group of six friends whose reflections, which are closer to recitatives than to interior monologues proper, create a wave-like atmosphere that is more akin to a prose poem than to a plot-centred novel".
Flush: A Biography (1933) is a part-fiction, part-biography of the cocker spaniel owned by Victorian poet Elizabeth Barrett Browning. The book is written from the dog's point of view. Woolf was inspired to write this book from the success of the Rudolf Besier play The Barretts of Wimpole Street. In the play, Flush is on stage for much of the action. The play was produced for the first time in 1932 by the actress Katharine Cornell.
The Years (1936), traces the history of the genteel Pargiter family from the 1880s to the "present day" of the mid-1930s. The novel had its origin in a lecture Woolf gave to the National Society for Women's Service in 1931, an edited version of which would later be published as "Professions for Women". Woolf first thought of making this lecture the basis of a new book-length essay on women, this time taking a broader view of their economic and social life, rather than focusing on women as artists, as the first book had. She soon jettisoned the theoretical framework of her "novel-essay" and began to rework the book solely as a fictional narrative, but some of the non-fiction material she first intended for this book was later used in Three Guineas (1938).
"Her last work, Between the Acts (1941), sums up and magnifies Woolf's chief preoccupations: the transformation of life through art, sexual ambivalence, and meditation on the themes of flux of time and life, presented simultaneously as corrosion and rejuvenation—all set in a highly imaginative and symbolic narrative encompassing almost all of English history." This book is the most lyrical of all her works, not only in feeling but in style, being chiefly written in verse. While Woolf's work can be understood as consistently in dialogue with the Bloomsbury Group, particularly its tendency (informed by G.E. Moore, among others) towards doctrinaire rationalism, it is not a simple recapitulation of the coterie's ideals.
Themes
Woolf's fiction has been studied for its insight into many themes including war, shell shock, witchcraft, and the role of social class in contemporary modern British society. In the postwar Mrs Dalloway (1925), Woolf addresses the moral dilemma of war and its effects and provides an authentic voice for soldiers returning from World War I, suffering from shell shock, in the person of Septimus Smith. In A Room of One's Own (1929) Woolf equates historical accusations of witchcraft with creativity and genius among women "When, however, one reads of a witch being ducked, of a woman possessed by devils...then I think we are on the track of a lost novelist, a suppressed poet, of some mute and inglorious Jane Austen". Throughout her work Woolf tried to evaluate the degree to which her privileged background framed the lens through which she viewed class. She both examined her own position as someone who would be considered an elitist snob, but attacked the class structure of Britain as she found it. In her 1936 essay Am I a Snob?, she examined her values and those of the privileged circle she existed in. She concluded she was, and subsequent critics and supporters have tried to deal with the dilemma of being both elite and a social critic.
The sea is a recurring motif in Woolf's work. Noting Woolf's early memory of listening to waves break in Cornwall, Katharine Smyth writes in The Paris Review that "the radiance [of] cresting water would be consecrated again and again in her writing, saturating not only essays, diaries, and letters but also Jacob’s Room, The Waves, and To the Lighthouse." Patrizia A. Muscogiuri explains that "seascapes, sailing, diving and the sea itself are aspects of nature and of human beings’ relationship with it which frequently inspired Virginia Woolf's writing." This trope is deeply embedded in her texts’ structure and grammar; James Antoniou notes in Sydney Morning Herald how "Woolf made a virtue of the semicolon, the shape and function of which resembles the wave, her most famous motif."
Despite the considerable conceptual difficulties, given Woolf's idiosyncratic use of language, her works have been translated into over 50 languages. Some writers, such as the Belgian Marguerite Yourcenar, had rather tense encounters with her, while others, such as the Argentinian Jorge Luis Borges, produced versions that were highly controversial.
Drama
Virginia Woolf researched the life of her great-aunt, the photographer Julia Margaret Cameron, publishing her findings in an essay titled "Pattledom" (1925), and later in her introduction to her 1926 edition of Cameron's photographs. She had begun work on a play based on an episode in Cameron's life in 1923, but abandoned it. Finally it was performed on 18 January 1935 at the studio of her sister, Vanessa Bell on Fitzroy Street in 1935. Woolf directed it herself, and the cast were mainly members of the Bloomsbury Group, including herself. Freshwater is a short three act comedy satirising the Victorian era, only performed once in Woolf's lifetime. Beneath the comedic elements, there is an exploration of both generational change and artistic freedom. Both Cameron and Woolf fought against the class and gender dynamics of Victorianism and the play shows links to both To the Lighthouse and A Room of One's Own that would follow.
Non-fiction
Woolf wrote a body of autobiographical work and more than 500 essays and reviews, some of which, like A Room of One's Own (1929) were of book length. Not all were published in her lifetime. Shortly after her death, Leonard Woolf produced an edited edition of unpublished essays titled The Moment and other Essays, published by the Hogarth Press in 1947. Many of these were originally lectures that she gave, and several more volumes of essays followed, such as The Captain's Death Bed: and other essays (1950).
A Room of One's Own
Among Woolf's non-fiction works, one of the best known is A Room of One's Own (1929), a book-length essay. Considered a key work of feminist literary criticism, it was written following two lectures she delivered on "Women and Fiction" at Cambridge University the previous year. In it, she examines the historical disempowerment women have faced in many spheres, including social, educational and financial. One of her more famous dicta is contained within the book "A woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction". Much of her argument ("to show you how I arrived at this opinion about the room and the money") is developed through the "unsolved problems" of women and fiction writing to arrive at her conclusion, although she claimed that was only "an opinion upon one minor point". In doing so, she states a good deal about the nature of women and fiction, employing a quasi-fictional style as she examines where women writers failed because of lack of resources and opportunities, examining along the way the experiences of the Brontës, George Eliot and George Sand, as well as the fictional character of Shakespeare's sister, equipped with the same genius but not position. She contrasted these women who accepted a deferential status with Jane Austen, who wrote entirely as a woman.
Influences
Michel Lackey argues that a major influence on Woolf, from 1912 onward, was Russian literature and Woolf adopted many of its aesthetic conventions. The style of Fyodor Dostoyevsky with his depiction of a fluid mind in operation helped to influence Woolf's writings about a "discontinuous writing process", though Woolf objected to Dostoyevsky's obsession with "psychological extremity" and the "tumultuous flux of emotions" in his characters together with his right-wing, monarchist politics as Dostoyevsky was an ardent supporter of the autocracy of the Russian Empire. In contrast to her objections to Dostoyevsky's "exaggerated emotional pitch", Woolf found much to admire in the work of Anton Chekhov and Leo Tolstoy. Woolf admired Chekhov for his stories of ordinary people living their lives, doing banal things and plots that had no neat endings. From Tolstoy, Woolf drew lessons about how a novelist should depict a character's psychological state and the interior tension within. Lackey notes that, from Ivan Turgenev, Woolf drew the lessons that there are multiple "I's" when writing a novel, and the novelist needed to balance those multiple versions of him- or herself to balance the "mundane facts" of a story vs. the writer's overarching vision, which required a "total passion" for art.
The American writer Henry David Thoreau also influenced Woolf. In a 1917 essay, she praised Thoreau for his statement "The millions are awake enough for physical labor, but only one in hundreds of millions is awake enough to a poetic or divine life. To be awake is to be alive." They both aimed to capture 'the moment'––as Walter Pater says, "to burn always with this hard, gem-like flame." Woolf praised Thoreau for his "simplicity" in finding "a way for setting free the delicate and complicated machinery of the soul". Like Thoreau, Woolf believed that it was silence that set the mind free to really contemplate and understand the world. Both authors believed in a certain transcendental, mystical approach to life and writing, where even banal things could be capable of generating deep emotions if one had enough silence and the presence of mind to appreciate them. Woolf and Thoreau were both concerned with the difficulty of human relationships in the modern age. Other notable influences include William Shakespeare, George Eliot, Leo Tolstoy, Marcel Proust, Anton Chekhov, Emily Brontë, Daniel Defoe, James Joyce, and E.M. Forster.
List of selected publications
see , ,
Novels
see also The Voyage Out & Complete text
see also Night and Day & Complete text
see also Jacob's Room & Complete text
see also Mrs Dalloway & Complete text
see also To the Lighthouse & Complete text, also Texts at Woolf Online
see also Orlando: A Biography & Complete text
see also The Waves & Complete text
see also Between the Acts & Complete text
Short stories
see also A Haunted House and Other Short Stories & Complete text
see also The Mark on the Wall & Complete text
see also Kew Gardens & Complete text
Cross-genre
see also Flush: A Biography & Complete text
Drama
see also Freshwater
Biography
see also Roger Fry: A Biography & Complete text
Essays
see also A Room of One's Own & Complete text
see also Mr. Bennett and Mrs. Brown & Complete text
see also A Letter to a Young Poet & Complete text
see also Three Guineas & Complete text
Essay collections
(Review)
(Review)
Complete text
(Review)
First American edition published by Harcourt, Brace and Company, New York, 1950.
& also here
— (1934). "Walter Sickert: A Conversation".
Contributions
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Memoir Club Contributions
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Album 1 MS Thr 557 (1863–1938)
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In her lifetime, Woolf was outspoken on many topics that were considered controversial, some of which are now considered progressive, others regressive. She was an ardent feminist at a time when women's rights were barely recognised, and anti-colonialist, anti-imperialist and a pacifist when chauvinism was popular. On the other hand, she has been criticised for views on class and race in her private writings and published works. Like many of her contemporaries, some of her writing is now considered offensive. As a result, she is considered polarising, a revolutionary feminist and socialist hero or a purveyor of hate speech.
Works such as A Room of One's Own (1929) and Three Guineas (1938) are frequently taught as icons of feminist literature in courses that would be very critical of some of her views expressed elsewhere. She has also been the recipient of considerable homophobic and misogynist criticism.
Humanist views
Virginia Woolf was born into a non-religious family and is regarded, along with her fellow Bloomsberries E.M. Forster and G.E. Moore, as a humanist. Both her parents were prominent agnostic atheists. Her father, Leslie Stephen, had become famous in polite society for his writings which expressed and publicised reasons to doubt the veracity of religion. Stephen was also President of the West London Ethical Society, an early humanist organisation, and helped to found the Union of Ethical Societies in 1896. Woolf's mother, Julia Stephen, wrote the book Agnostic Women (1880), which argued that agnosticism (defined here as something more like atheism) could be a highly moral approach to life.
Woolf was a critic of Christianity. In a letter to Ethel Smyth, she gave a scathing denunciation of the religion, seeing it as self-righteous "egotism" and stating "my Jew [Leonard] has more religion in one toenail—more human love, in one hair". Woolf stated in her private letters that she thought of herself as an atheist.
Controversies
Hermione Lee cites a number of extracts from Woolf's writings that many, including Lee, would consider offensive, and these criticisms can be traced back as far as those of Wyndham Lewis and Q.D. Leavis in the 1920s and 1930s. Other authors provide more nuanced contextual interpretations, and stress the complexity of her character and the apparent inherent contradictions in analysing her apparent flaws. She could certainly be off-hand, rude and even cruel in her dealings with other authors, translators and biographers, such as her treatment of Ruth Gruber. Some authors, particularly postcolonial feminists dismiss her (and modernist authors in general) as privileged, elitist, classist, racist, and antisemitic.
Woolf's tendentious expressions, including prejudicial feelings against disabled people, have often been the topic of academic criticism:
The first quotation is from a diary entry of September 1920 and runs: "The fact is the lower classes are detestable." The remainder follow the first in reproducing stereotypes standard to upper-class and upper-middle class life in the early 20th century: "imbeciles should certainly be killed"; "Jews" are greasy; a "crowd" is both an ontological "mass" and is, again, "detestable"; "Germans" are akin to vermin; some "baboon faced intellectuals" mix with "sad green dressed negroes and negresses, looking like chimpanzees" at a peace conference; Kensington High St. revolts one's stomach with its innumerable "women of incredible mediocrity, drab as dishwater".
Antisemitism
Though accused of antisemitism, the treatment of Judaism and Jews by Woolf is far from straightforward. She was happily married to a Jewish man (Leonard Woolf) but often wrote about Jewish characters using stereotypes and generalisations. For instance, she described some of the Jewish characters in her work in terms that suggested they were physically repulsive or dirty. On the other hand, she could criticise her own views: "How I hated marrying a Jew — how I hated their nasal voices and their oriental jewellery, and their noses and their wattles — what a snob I was: for they have immense vitality, and I think I like that quality best of all" (Letter to Ethel Smyth 1930). These attitudes have been construed to reflect, not so much antisemitism, but tribalism; she married outside her social grouping, and Leonard Woolf, too, expressed misgivings about marrying a gentile. Leonard, "a penniless Jew from Putney", lacked the material status of the Stephens and their circle.
While travelling on a cruise to Portugal, she protested at finding "a great many Portuguese Jews on board, and other repulsive objects, but we keep clear of them". Furthermore, she wrote in her diary: "I do not like the Jewish voice; I do not like the Jewish laugh." Her 1938 short story The Duchess and the Jeweller (originally titled The Duchess and the Jew) has been considered antisemitic.
Yet Woolf and her husband Leonard came to despise and fear the 1930s fascism and antisemitism. Her 1938 book Three Guineas was an indictment of fascism and what Woolf described as a recurring propensity among patriarchal societies to enforce repressive societal mores by violence.
Sexuality
The Bloomsbury Group held very progressive views regarding sexuality and shucked the austere strictness of Victorian society. The majority of its members were homosexual or bisexual.
Virginia was most likely a lesbian, some debate that she was bisexual. However she had several affairs with women, the most notable being with Vita Sackville-West which inspired Orlando: A Biography. The two of them remained lovers for a decade and stayed close friends for the rest of Virginia's life. Virginia had said to Vita she disliked masculinity
Among her other notable affairs were Sibyl Colefax, Lady Ottoline Morrell and Mary Hutchinson. Some surmise that she may have fallen in love with Madge Symonds, the wife of one of her uncles. Madge Symonds was described as one of Virginia's early loves in Vita's diary She also fell in love with Violet Dickinson although there is some confusion as to whether the two consummated their relationship.
In regards to relationships with men, Virginia was averse to sex with them, blaming the sexual abuse perpetrated upon her and her sister by her half-brothers when they were children and teens. This is one of the reasons she initially declined marriage proposals from her future husband, Leonard. She even went as far as to tell him that she was not attracted to him, but that she did love him and finally agreed to marriage. Virginia preferred female lovers to male lovers, for the most part, based on her aversion to sex with men. This aversion to relations with men influenced her writing especially when considering her sexual abuse as a child.
Leonard became the love of her life and even though their sexual relationship was questionable, they loved each other deeply and formed a strong, supportive and prolific marriage which led to the formation of their publishing house as well as several of her writings. Neither was faithful to the other sexually, but they were faithful in their love and respect for each other.
Modern scholarship and interpretations
Though at least one biography of Virginia Woolf appeared in her lifetime, the first authoritative study of her life was published in 1972 by her nephew Quentin Bell. Hermione Lee's 1996 biography Virginia Woolf provides a thorough and authoritative examination of Woolf's life and work, which she discussed in an interview in 1997. In 2001, Louise DeSalvo and Mitchell A. Leaska edited The Letters of Vita Sackville-West and Virginia Woolf. Julia Briggs's Virginia Woolf: An Inner Life (2005) focuses on Woolf's writing, including her novels and her commentary on the creative process, to illuminate her life. The sociologist Pierre Bourdieu also uses Woolf's literature to understand and analyse gender domination. Woolf biographer Gillian Gill notes that Woolf's traumatic experience of sexual abuse by her half-brothers during her childhood influenced her advocacy of protection of vulnerable children from similar experiences.
Virginia Woolf and her mother
The intense scrutiny of Virginia Woolf's literary output (see Bibliography) has led to speculation as to her mother's influence, including psychoanalytic studies of mother and daughter. Woolf states that, "my first memory, and in fact it is the most important of all my memories" is of her mother. Her memories of her mother are memories of an obsession, starting with her first major breakdown on her mother's death in 1895, the loss having a profound lifelong effect. In many ways, her mother's profound influence on Virginia Woolf is conveyed in the latter's recollections, "there she is; beautiful, emphatic ... closer than any of the living are, lighting our random lives as with a burning torch, infinitely noble and delightful to her children".
Woolf described her mother as an "invisible presence" in her life, and Ellen Rosenman argues that the mother-daughter relationship is a constant in Woolf's writing. She describes how Woolf's modernism needs to be viewed in relationship to her ambivalence towards her Victorian mother, the centre of the former's female identity, and her voyage to her own sense of autonomy. To Woolf, "Saint Julia" was both a martyr whose perfectionism was intimidating and a source of deprivation, by her absences real and virtual and premature death. Julia's influence and memory pervades Woolf's life and work. "She has haunted me", she wrote.
Historical feminism
According to the 2007 book Feminism: From Mary Wollstonecraft to Betty Friedan by Bhaskar A. Shukla, "Recently, studies of Virginia Woolf have focused on feminist and lesbian themes in her work, such as in the 1997 collection of critical essays, Virginia Woolf: Lesbian Readings, edited by Eileen Barrett and Patricia Cramer." In 1928, Woolf took a grassroots approach to informing and inspiring feminism. She addressed undergraduate women at the ODTAA Society at Girton College, Cambridge and the Arts Society at Newnham College with two papers that eventually became A Room of One's Own (1929).
Woolf's best-known nonfiction works, A Room of One's Own (1929) and Three Guineas (1938), examine the difficulties that female writers and intellectuals faced because men held disproportionate legal and economic power, as well as the future of women in education and society. In The Second Sex (1949), Simone de Beauvoir counts, of all women who ever lived, only three female writers—Emily Brontë, Woolf and "sometimes" Katherine Mansfield— have explored "the given".
In popular culture
Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? is a 1962 play by Edward Albee. It examines the structure of the marriage of an American middle-aged academic couple, Martha and George. Mike Nichols directed a film version in 1966, starring Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton. Taylor won the 1966 Academy Award for Best Actress for the role.
Me! I'm Afraid of Virginia Woolf, a 1978 TV play, references the title of the Edward Albee play and features an English literature teacher who has a poster of her. It was written by Alan Bennett and directed by Stephen Frears.
The artwork The Dinner Party (1979) features a place setting for Woolf.
The 1996 album Poetic Justice, by British musician Steve Harley, contains a tribute to Woolf, specifically her most adventurous novel, in its closing track: "Riding the Waves (for Virginia Woolf)".
Michael Cunningham's 1998 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel The Hours focused on three generations of women affected by Woolf's novel Mrs Dalloway. In 2002, a film version of the novel was released, starring Nicole Kidman as Woolf. Kidman won the 2003 Academy Award for her portrayal.
Susan Sellers's novel Vanessa and Virginia (2008) explores the close sibling relationship between Woolf and her sister, Vanessa Bell. It was adapted for the stage by Elizabeth Wright in 2010 and first performed by Moving Stories Theatre Company.
Priya Parmar's 2014 novel Vanessa and Her Sister also examined the Stephen sisters' relationship during the early years of their association with what became known as the Bloomsbury Group.
An exhibition on Virginia Woolf was held at the National Portrait Gallery from July to October 2014.
In the 2014 novel The House at the End of Hope Street, Woolf is featured as one of the women who has lived in the titular house.
Virginia is portrayed by both Lydia Leonard and Catherine McCormack in the BBC's three-part drama series Life in Squares (2015).
On 25 January 2018, Google showed a Google doodle celebrating her 136th birthday.
In many Barnes & Noble stores, Woolf is featured in Gary Kelly's Author Mural Panels, an imprint of the Barnes & Noble Author brand that also features other notable authors like Hurston, Tagore, and Kafka.
The 2018 film Vita and Virginia depicts the relationship between Vita Sackville-West and Woolf, portrayed by Gemma Arterton and Elizabeth Debicki respectively.
The 2020 novel Trio by William Boyd follows the life of Elfrida Wing, an alcoholic writer interested in the suicide of Woolf.
Adaptations
A number of Virginia Woolf's works have been adapted for the screen, and her play Freshwater (1935) is the basis for a 1994 chamber opera, Freshwater, by Andy Vores. The final segment of the 2018 London Unplugged is adapted from her short story Kew Gardens. Septimus and Clarissa, a stage adaptation of Mrs. Dalloway was created and produced by the New York-based ensemble Ripe Time in 2011 at the Baruch Performing Arts Center. It was adapted by Ellen McLaughlin, and directed and devised by Rachel Dickstein. It was nominated for a 2012 Drama League award for Outstanding Production, a Drama Desk nomination for Outstanding Score (Gina Leishman) and a Joe A. Calloway Award nomination for outstanding direction (Rachel Dickstein.)
Legacy
Virginia Woolf is known for her contributions to 20th-century literature and her essays, as well as the influence she has had on literary, particularly feminist criticism. A number of authors have stated that their work was influenced by her, including Margaret Atwood, Michael Cunningham, Gabriel García Márquez, and Toni Morrison. Her iconic image is instantly recognisable from the Beresford portrait of her at twenty (at the top of this page) to the Beck and Macgregor portrait in her mother's dress in Vogue at 44 (see image) or Man Ray's cover of Time magazine (see image) at 55. More postcards of Woolf are sold by the National Portrait Gallery, London than any other person. Her image is ubiquitous, and can be found on products ranging from tea towels to T-shirts.
Virginia Woolf is studied around the world, with organisations such as the Virginia Woolf Society, and The Virginia Woolf Society of Japan. In addition, trusts—such as the Asham Trust—encourage writers in her honour. Although she had no descendants, a number of her extended family are notable.
Monuments and memorials
In 2013, Woolf was honoured by her alma mater of King's College London with the opening of the Virginia Woolf Building on Kingsway, with a plaque commemorating her time there and her contributions (see image), together with this exhibit depicting her accompanied by a quotation "London itself perpetually attracts, stimulates, gives me a play & a story & a poem" from her 1926 diary. Busts of Virginia Woolf have been erected at her home in Rodmell, Sussex and at Tavistock Square, London where she lived between 1924 and 1939.
In 2014, she was one of the inaugural honorees in the Rainbow Honor Walk, a walk of fame in San Francisco's Castro neighbourhood noting LGBTQ people who have "made significant contributions in their fields".
Woolf Works, a women's co-working space in Singapore, opened in 2014 and was named after her in tribute to the essay A Room of One's Own; it also has many other things named after it (see the essay's article).
A campaign was launched in 2018 by Aurora Metro Arts and Media to erect a statue of Woolf in Richmond, where she lived for 10 years. The proposed statue shows her reclining on a bench overlooking the river Thames.
Family trees
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Notes
References
Bibliography
Books and theses
see also The Second Sex
see also Survey of London
(Review)
Biography: Virginia Woolf
Vol. I: Virginia Stephen 1882 to 1912. London: Hogarth Press. 1972.
Vol. II: Virginia Woolf 1912 to 1941. London: Hogarth Press. 1972.
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Mental health
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Biography: Other
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also Internet archive
also available through MOMA here
Literary commentary
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Bloomsbury
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Chapters and contributions
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Articles
Journals
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Dictionaries and encyclopaedias
Newspapers and magazines
archived version
archived version
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Websites and documents
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Blogs
British Library
Literary commentary
British Library
Virginia Woolf's homes and venues
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Virginia Woolf biography
Timelines
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Genealogy
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Images
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Maps
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Audiovisual media
see also Life in Squares
excerpt
Selected online texts
Audiofiles
Archival material
Bibliography notes
Bibliography references
External links
Virginia Woolf Papers at the Mortimer Rare Book Collection, Smith College Special Collections
1882 births
1941 suicides
19th-century English women
19th-century English people
19th-century English writers
20th-century British short story writers
20th-century English women writers
20th-century English novelists
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Alumni of King's College London
Bisexual women
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Pipe smokers | true | [
"Christian Mingle is an online dating service that caters to Christian singles. The service is one of a number of demographically focused online match-making websites operated by Spark Networks. \n\nBecause of the focus on relationships between Christian singles, Christian Mingle is considered a special-interest online personals site. Former CEO Adam Berger has referred to this type of service as \"niche\" dating.\n\nHistory\nChristian Mingle was launched in 2001 by Spark Networks. The site has over 16 million members. \n\nIn the 2013 Webby Awards, Christian Mingle was an honoree in the Religion & Spirituality category. The site also received the Editor's Top Pick - Christian Award from DatingSiteReviews.com in 2015.\n\nIn 2013, the company authorized the repurchase of $5 million of its outstanding common stock.\n\nChristian Mingle launched its dating app in late 2014.\n\nIn July 2016, Christian Mingle began accommodating gay men and women as the result of a non-discrimination lawsuit. Previously, the site had only allowed users to choose either \"man seeking woman\" or \"woman seeking man.\" The change removed this profile designation and allowed users the option to see either opposite-sex or same-sex matches.\n\nMembers\nChristian Mingle members may choose whether to specify the Christian denomination to which they belong. Some of the available denomination options are: Anglican/Episcopalian, Apostolic, Baptist, Catholic, Lutheran, Methodist, Orthodox, Pentecostal, Presbyterian, Seventh-day Adventist, and Southern Baptist. Members can also choose options such as ''Interdenominational'', ''Non-denominational'', or ''Not sure yet'.\n\nMembers can also search the site for free, though a subscription is required to communicate with other members.\n\nFilm \nChristian Mingle The Movie (a 2014 American faith-based romantic comedy film) stars Lacey Chabert as a woman who signs up to Christian Mingle in order to meet a man.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n \n\nOnline dating services of the United States\nOnline dating for specific interests\nChristian websites",
"Joni and Gina's Wedding is an interactive dinner theater comedy, conceived by Marianne Basford and written by Ann Lippert and Marianne Basford under the production company name Hilarity Ensues. It was originally produced by Basford and directed by Lippert. Audience members are \"wedding guests\" who mingle with actors posing as members of an eclectic wedding party.\n\nThe show opened on June 29, 2002 at the Oxwood Inn in Van Nuys, California, and subsequent productions have had successful runs at venues such as the Palms, the Hollywood Improv, the legendary El Cid and Oil Can Harry's. Celebrities such as Alison Arngrim (“Nasty Nellie” Oleson) from Little House on the Prairie and comedian/activist Robin Tyler have appeared in productions. A portion of the proceeds were donated to the Equality Campaign, which helps to fight against U.S. constitutional amendments that discriminate against same-sex marriage.\n\nThe plot involves an all-American military family joining an overbearing Jewish family as they attend their gay daughters' wedding and wild reception. The party begins as wedding guests arrive and mingle at the bar area where appetizers and cocktails are served. Family members also mingle and greet patrons who are soon escorted into the “church” for the almost holy union of the two young lovers: Joni Gottlieb, a Jewish sports enthusiast, and Gina Spaulding, the independent daughter of a rigid military family. After dinner, wedding cake and champagne are served; the real fun begins. Guests participate in a not-so-traditional bouquet toss, learn to line dance, dance the Hora and have many surprises. The three-ring circus ends as everyone participates in a sing-a-long finale.\n\nIn 2004 Joni and Gina's Wedding won the Curve magazine Theater Award for being a positive presence in lesbian theater.\n\nReferences\n\nAmerican plays\nLGBT-related plays\nJews and Judaism in fiction\n2002 plays\nDinner theatre"
]
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]
| C_2448e986735e46eb8b47624e648fd3f5_1 | Are there any other interesting aspects about this article? | 4 | Besides mingling with much of the country's literary and artistic circles are there any other interesting aspects about this article? | Virginia Woolf | Leslie Stephen was in the habit of hiking in Cornwall, and in the spring of 1881 he came across a large white house in St. Ives, Cornwall, and took out a lease on it that September. Although it had limited amenities, its main attraction was the view overlooking Porthminster Bay towards the Godrevy Lighthouse, which the young Virginia could see from the upper windows and was to be the central figure in her To the Lighthouse (1927). It was a large square house, with a terraced garden, divided by hedges, sloping down towards the sea. Each year between 1882 and 1894 from mid-July to mid-September the Stephen's leased Talland House as a summer residence. Leslie Stephen, who referred to it thus: "a pocket-paradise", described it as "The pleasantest of my memories... refer to our summers, all of which were passed in Cornwall, especially to the thirteen summers (1882-1894) at St. Ives. There we bought the lease of Talland House: a small but roomy house, with a garden of an acre or two all up and down hill, with quaint little terraces divided by hedges of escallonia, a grape-house and kitchen-garden and a so-called 'orchard' beyond". It was in Leslie's words, a place of "intense domestic happiness". Virginia herself described the house in great detail: In both London and Cornwall, Julia was perpetually entertaining, and was notorious for her manipulation of her guests' lives, constantly matchmaking in the belief everyone should be married, the domestic equivalence of her philanthropy. As her husband observed "My Julia was of course, though with all due reserve, a bit of a matchmaker". While Cornwall was supposed to be a summer respite, Julia Stephen soon immersed herself in the work of caring for the sick and poor there, as well as in London. Both at Hyde Park Gate and Talland House, the family mingled with much of the country's literary and artistic circles. Frequent guests included literary figures such as Henry James and George Meredith, as well as James Russell Lowell, and the children were exposed to much more intellectual conversations than their mother's at Little Holland House. The family did not return, following Julia Stephen's death in May 1895. For the children it was the highlight of the year, and Virginia's most vivid childhood memories were not of London but of Cornwall. In a diary entry of 22 March 1921, she described why she felt so connected to Talland House, looking back to a summer day in August 1890. "Why am I so incredibly and incurably romantic about Cornwall? One's past, I suppose; I see children running in the garden ... The sound of the sea at night ... almost forty years of life, all built on that, permeated by that: so much I could never explain". Cornwall inspired aspects of her work, in particular the "St Ives Trilogy" of Jacob's Room (1922), To the Lighthouse (1927), and The Waves (1931). CANNOTANSWER | In both London and Cornwall, Julia was perpetually entertaining, and was notorious for her manipulation of her guests' lives, | Adeline Virginia Woolf (; ; 25 January 1882 28 March 1941) was an English writer, considered one of the most important modernist 20th-century authors and a pioneer in the use of stream of consciousness as a narrative device.
Woolf was born into an affluent household in South Kensington, London, the seventh child of Julia Prinsep Jackson and Leslie Stephen in a blended family of eight which included the modernist painter Vanessa Bell. She was home-schooled in English classics and Victorian literature from a young age. From 1897 to 1901, she attended the Ladies' Department of King's College London, where she studied classics and history and came into contact with early reformers of women's higher education and the women's rights movement.
Encouraged by her father, Woolf began writing professionally in 1900. After her father's death in 1904, the Stephen family moved from Kensington to the more bohemian Bloomsbury, where, in conjunction with the brothers' intellectual friends, they formed the artistic and literary Bloomsbury Group. In 1912, she married Leonard Woolf, and in 1917, the couple founded the Hogarth Press, which published much of her work. They rented a home in Sussex and moved there permanently in 1940. Woolf had romantic relationships with women, including Vita Sackville-West, who also published her books through Hogarth Press. Both women's literature became inspired by their relationship, which lasted until Woolf's death.
During the inter-war period, Woolf was an important part of London's literary and artistic society. In 1915, she had published her first novel, The Voyage Out, through her half-brother's publishing house, Gerald Duckworth and Company. Her best-known works include the novels Mrs Dalloway (1925), To the Lighthouse (1927) and Orlando (1928). She is also known for her essays, including A Room of One's Own (1929). Woolf became one of the central subjects of the 1970s movement of feminist criticism and her works have since attracted much attention and widespread commentary for "inspiring feminism". Her works have been translated into more than 50 languages. A large body of literature is dedicated to her life and work, and she has been the subject of plays, novels and films. Woolf is commemorated today by statues, societies dedicated to her work and a building at the University of London.
Throughout her life, Woolf was troubled by mental illness. She was institutionalised several times and attempted suicide at least twice. According to Dalsimer (2004) her illness was characterized by symptoms that today would be diagnosed as bipolar disorder, for which there was no effective intervention during her lifetime. In 1941, at age 59, Woolf died by drowning herself in the River Ouse at Lewes.
Life
Family of origin
Virginia Woolf was born Adeline Virginia Stephen on 25 January 1882 at 22 Hyde Park Gate in South Kensington, London, to Julia (née Jackson) (1846–1895) and Leslie Stephen (1832–1904), writer, historian, essayist, biographer and mountaineer. Julia Jackson was born in 1846 in Calcutta, British India, to John Jackson and Maria "Mia" Theodosia Pattle, from two Anglo-Indian families. John Jackson FRCS was the third son of George Jackson and Mary Howard of Bengal, a physician who spent 25 years with the Bengal Medical Service and East India Company and a professor at the fledgling Calcutta Medical College. While John Jackson was an almost invisible presence, the Pattle family were famous beauties, and moved in the upper circles of Bengali society. The seven Pattle sisters married into important families. Julia Margaret Cameron was a celebrated photographer, while Virginia married Earl Somers, and their daughter, Julia Jackson's cousin, was Lady Henry Somerset, the temperance leader. Julia moved to England with her mother at the age of two and spent much of her early life with another of her mother's sisters, Sarah Monckton Pattle. Sarah and her husband Henry Thoby Prinsep, conducted an artistic and literary salon at Little Holland House where she came into contact with a number of Pre-Raphaelite painters such as Edward Burne-Jones, for whom she modelled.
Julia was the youngest of three sisters, and Adeline Virginia was named after her mother's eldest sister Adeline Maria Jackson (1837–1881) and her mother's aunt Virginia Pattle (see Pattle family tree). Because of the tragedy of her aunt Adeline's death the previous year, the family never used Virginia's first name. The Jacksons were a well educated, literary and artistic proconsular middle-class family. In 1867, Julia Jackson married Herbert Duckworth, a barrister, but within three years was left a widow with three infant children. She was devastated and entered a prolonged period of mourning, abandoning her faith and turning to nursing and philanthropy. Julia and Herbert Duckworth had three children:
George (5 March 1868 – 27 April 1934), a senior civil servant, married Lady Margaret Herbert in 1904
Stella (30 May 1869 – 19 July 1897), died aged 28
Gerald (29 October 1870 – 28 September 1937), founder of Duckworth Publishing, married Cecil Alice Scott-Chad in 1921
Leslie Stephen was born in 1832 in South Kensington to Sir James and Lady Jane Catherine Stephen (née Venn), daughter of John Venn, rector of Clapham. The Venns were the centre of the evangelical Clapham Sect. Sir James Stephen was the under secretary at the Colonial Office, and with another Clapham member, William Wilberforce, was responsible for the passage of the Slavery Abolition Bill in 1833. In 1849 he was appointed Regius Professor of Modern History at Cambridge University. As a family of educators, lawyers, and writers the Stephens represented the elite intellectual aristocracy. While his family were distinguished and intellectual, they were less colourful and aristocratic than Julia Jackson's. A graduate and fellow of Cambridge University he renounced his faith and position to move to London where he became a notable man of letters. In addition, he was a rambler and mountaineer, described as a "gaunt figure with the ragged red brown beard...a formidable man, with an immensely high forehead, steely-blue eyes, and a long pointed nose." In the same year as Julia Jackson's marriage, he wed Harriet Marian (Minny) Thackeray (1840–1875), youngest daughter of William Makepeace Thackeray, who bore him a daughter, Laura (1870–1945), but died in childbirth in 1875. Laura was developmentally disabled and eventually institutionalised.
The widowed Julia Duckworth knew Leslie Stephen through her friendship with Minny's elder sister Anne (Anny) Isabella Ritchie and had developed an interest in his agnostic writings. She was present the night Minny died and later, tended to Leslie Stephen and helped him move next door to her on Hyde Park Gate so Laura could have some companionship with her own children. Both were preoccupied with mourning and although they developed a close friendship and intense correspondence, agreed it would go no further. Leslie Stephen proposed to her in 1877, an offer she declined, but when Anny married later that year she accepted him and they were married on 26 March 1878. He and Laura then moved next door into Julia's house, where they lived till his death in 1904. Julia was 32 and Leslie was 46.
Their first child, Vanessa, was born on 30 May 1879. Julia, having presented her husband with a child and now having five children to care for, decided to limit her family's growth. However, despite the fact that the couple took "precautions", "contraception was a very imperfect art in the nineteenth century": it resulted in the birth of three more children over the next four years.
22 Hyde Park Gate (1882–1904)
1882–1895
Virginia Woolf provides insight into her early life in her autobiographical essays, including Reminiscences (1908), 22 Hyde Park Gate (1921), and A Sketch of the Past (1940). Other essays that provide insight into this period include Leslie Stephen (1932). She also alludes to her childhood in her fictional writing. In To the Lighthouse (1927), her depiction of the life of the Ramsays in the Hebrides is an only thinly disguised account of the Stephens in Cornwall and the Godrevy Lighthouse they would visit there. However, Woolf's understanding of her mother and family evolved considerably between 1907 and 1940, in which the somewhat distant, yet revered figure of her mother becomes more nuanced and filled in.
In February 1891, with her sister Vanessa, Woolf began the Hyde Park Gate News, chronicling life and events within the Stephen family, and modelled on the popular magazine Tit-Bits. Initially, this was mainly Vanessa's and Thoby's articles, but very soon Virginia became the main contributor, with Vanessa as editor. Their mother's response when it first appeared was "Rather clever I think". Virginia would run the Hyde Park Gate News until 1895, the time of her mother's death. The following year the Stephen sisters also used photography to supplement their insights, as did Stella Duckworth. Vanessa Bell's 1892 portrait of her sister and parents in the Library at Talland House (see image) was one of the family's favourites and was written about lovingly in Leslie Stephen's memoir. In 1897 ("the first really lived year of my life)" Virginia began her first diary, which she kept for the next twelve years, and a notebook in 1909.
Virginia was, as she describes it, "born into a large connection, born not of rich parents, but of well-to-do parents, born into a very communicative, literate, letter writing, visiting, articulate, late nineteenth century world." It was a well-connected family consisting of six children, with two half brothers and a half sister (the Duckworths, from her mother's first marriage), another half sister, Laura (from her father's first marriage), and an older sister, Vanessa, and brother Thoby. The following year, another brother Adrian followed. The disabled Laura Stephen lived with the family until she was institutionalised in 1891. Julia and Leslie had four children together:
Vanessa "Nessa" (30 May 1879 – 1961), married Clive Bell in 1907
Thoby (9 September 1880 – 1906), founded Bloomsbury Group
Virginia "Jinny"/"Ginia" (25 January 1882 – 1941), married Leonard Woolf in 1912
Adrian (27 October 1883 – 1948), married Karin Costelloe in 1914
Virginia was born at 22 Hyde Park Gate and lived there until her father's death in 1904. Number 22 Hyde Park Gate, South Kensington, lay at the south-east end of Hyde Park Gate, a narrow cul-de-sac running south from Kensington Road, just west of the Royal Albert Hall, and opposite Kensington Gardens and Hyde Park, where the family regularly took their walks (see Map; Street plan). Built in 1846 by Henry Payne of Hammersmith as one of a row of single-family townhouses for the upper middle class, it soon became too small for their expanding family. At the time of their marriage, it consisted of a basement, two storeys, and an attic. In July 1886 Leslie Stephen obtained the services of J. W. Penfold, an architect, to add additional living space above and behind the existing structure. The substantial renovations added a new top floor (see image of red brick extension), with three bedrooms and a study for himself, converted the original attic into rooms, and added the first bathroom. It was a tall but narrow townhouse, that at that time had no running water. Virginia would later describe it as "a very tall house on the left-hand side near the bottom which begins by being stucco and ends by being red brick; which is so high and yet—as I can say now that we have sold it—so rickety that it seems as if a very high wind would topple it over."
The servants worked "downstairs" in the basement. The ground floor had a drawing room, separated by a curtain from the servant's pantry and a library. Above this on the first floor were Julia and Leslie's bedrooms. On the next floor were the Duckworth children's rooms, and above them, the day and night nurseries of the Stephen children occupied two further floors. Finally, in the attic, under the eaves, were the servants' bedrooms, accessed by a back staircase. Life at 22 Hyde Park Gate was also divided symbolically; as Virginia put it, "The division in our lives was curious. Downstairs there was pure convention: upstairs pure intellect. But there was no connection between them", the worlds typified by George Duckworth and Leslie Stephen. Their mother, it seems, was the only one who could span this divide. The house was described as dimly lit and crowded with furniture and paintings. Within it, the younger Stephens formed a close-knit group. Despite this, the children still held their grievances. Virginia envied Adrian for being their mother's favourite. Virginia and Vanessa's status as creatives (writing and art respectively) caused a rivalry between them at times. Life in London differed sharply from their summers in Cornwall, their outdoor activities consisting mainly of walks in nearby Kensington Gardens, where they would play hide-and-seek and sail their boats on the Round Pond, while indoors, it revolved around their lessons.
Leslie Stephen's eminence as an editor, critic, and biographer, and his connection to William Thackeray, meant his children were raised in an environment filled with the influences of a Victorian literary society. Henry James, George Henry Lewes, Alfred Lord Tennyson, Thomas Hardy, Edward Burne-Jones, and Virginia's honorary godfather, James Russell Lowell, were among the visitors to the house. Julia Stephen was equally well connected. Her aunt was a pioneering early photographer, Julia Margaret Cameron, who was also a visitor to the Stephen household. The two Stephen sisters, Vanessa and Virginia, were almost three years apart in age. Virginia christened her older sister "the saint" and was far more inclined to exhibit her cleverness than her more reserved sister. Virginia resented the domesticity Victorian tradition forced on them far more than her sister. They also competed for Thoby's affections. Virginia would later confess her ambivalence over this rivalry to Duncan Grant in 1917: "indeed one of the concealed worms of my life has been a sister's jealousy – of a sister I mean; and to feed this I have invented such a myth about her that I scarce know one from t'other."
Virginia showed an early affinity for writing. Although both parents disapproved of formal education for females, writing was considered a respectable profession for women, and her father encouraged her in this respect. Later, she would describe this as "ever since I was a little creature, scribbling a story in the manner of Hawthorne on the green plush sofa in the drawing room at St. Ives while the grown-ups dined". By the age of five, she was writing letters and could tell her father a story every night. Later, she, Vanessa, and Adrian would develop the tradition of inventing a serial about their next-door neighbours, every night in the nursery, or in the case of St. Ives, of spirits that resided in the garden. It was her fascination with books that formed the strongest bond between her and her father. For her tenth birthday, she received an ink-stand, a blotter, drawing book and a box of writing implements.
Talland House (1882–1894)
Leslie Stephen was in the habit of hiking in Cornwall, and in the spring of 1881 he came across a large white house in St Ives, Cornwall, and took out a lease on it that September. Although it had limited amenities, its main attraction was the view overlooking Porthminster Bay towards the Godrevy Lighthouse, which the young Virginia could see from the upper windows and was to be the central figure in her To the Lighthouse (1927). It was a large square house, with a terraced garden, divided by hedges, sloping down towards the sea. Each year between 1882 and 1894 from mid-July to mid-September the Stephen family leased Talland House as a summer residence. Leslie Stephen, who referred to it thus: "a pocket-paradise", described it as "The pleasantest of my memories... refer to our summers, all of which were passed in Cornwall, especially to the thirteen summers (1882–1894) at St Ives. There we bought the lease of Talland House: a small but roomy house, with a garden of an acre or two all up and down hill, with quaint little terraces divided by hedges of escallonia, a grape-house and kitchen-garden and a so-called 'orchard' beyond". It was in Leslie's words, a place of "intense domestic happiness". Virginia herself described the house in great detail:
In both London and Cornwall, Julia was perpetually entertaining, and was notorious for her manipulation of her guests' lives, constantly matchmaking in the belief everyone should be married, the domestic equivalence of her philanthropy. As her husband observed, "My Julia was of course, though with all due reserve, a bit of a matchmaker." Amongst their guests in 1893 were the Brookes, whose children, including Rupert Brooke, played with the Stephen children. Rupert and his group of Cambridge Neo-pagans would come to play an important role in their lives in the years before the First World War. While Cornwall was supposed to be a summer respite, Julia Stephen soon immersed herself in the work of caring for the sick and poor there, as well as in London. Both at Hyde Park Gate and Talland House, the family mingled with much of the country's literary and artistic circles. Frequent guests included literary figures such as Henry James and George Meredith, as well as James Russell Lowell, and the children were exposed to much more intellectual conversations than at their mother's Little Holland House. The family did not return, following Julia Stephen's death in May 1895.
For the children, it was the highlight of the year, and Virginia's most vivid childhood memories were not of London but of Cornwall. In a diary entry of 22 March 1921, she described why she felt so connected to Talland House, looking back to a summer day in August 1890. "Why am I so incredibly and incurably romantic about Cornwall? One's past, I suppose; I see children running in the garden … The sound of the sea at night … almost forty years of life, all built on that, permeated by that: so much I could never explain". Cornwall inspired aspects of her work, in particular the "St Ives Trilogy" of Jacob's Room (1922), To the Lighthouse (1927), and The Waves (1931).
1895–1904
Julia Stephen fell ill with influenza in February 1895, and never properly recovered, dying on 5 May, when Virginia was 13. It was a pivotal moment in her life and the beginning of her struggles with mental illness. Essentially, her life had fallen apart. The Duckworths were travelling abroad at the time of their mother's death, and Stella returned immediately to take charge and assume her role. That summer, rather than return to the memories of St Ives, the Stephens went to Freshwater, Isle of Wight, where some of their mother's relatives lived. It was there that Virginia had the first of her many nervous breakdowns, and Vanessa was forced to assume some of her mother's role in caring for Virginia's mental state. Stella became engaged to Jack Hills the following year and they were married on 10 April 1897, making Virginia even more dependent on her older sister.
George Duckworth also assumed some of their mother's role, taking upon himself the task of bringing them out into society. First Vanessa, then Virginia, in both cases an equal disaster, for it was not a rite of passage that resonated with either girl and attracted a scathing critique by Virginia regarding the conventional expectations of young upper-class women: "Society in those days was a perfectly competent, perfectly complacent, ruthless machine. A girl had no chance against its fangs. No other desires – say to paint, or to write – could be taken seriously". Rather her priorities were to escape from the Victorian conventionality of the downstairs drawing room to a "room of one's own" to pursue her writing aspirations. She would revisit this criticism in her depiction of Mrs. Ramsay stating the duties of a Victorian mother in To the Lighthouse "an unmarried woman has missed the best of life".
The death of Stella Duckworth on 19 July 1897, after a long illness, was a further blow to Virginia's sense of self, and the family dynamics. Woolf described the period following the death of both her mother and Stella as "1897–1904 – the seven unhappy years", referring to "the lash of a random unheeding flail that pointlessly and brutally killed the two people who should, normally and naturally, have made those years, not perhaps happy but normal and natural". In April 1902, their father became ill, and although he underwent surgery later that year he never fully recovered, dying on 22 February 1904. Virginia's father's death precipitated a further breakdown. Later, Virginia would describe this time as one in which she was dealt successive blows as a "broken chrysalis" with wings still creased. Chrysalis occurs many times in Woolf's writing but the "broken chrysalis" was an image that became a metaphor for those exploring the relationship between Woolf and grief. At his death, Leslie Stephen's net worth was £15,715 6s. 6d. (probate 23 March 1904)
Education
In the late 19th century, education was sharply divided along gender lines, a tradition that Virginia would note and condemn in her writing. Boys were sent to school, and in upper-middle-class families such as the Stephens, it involved private boys schools, often boarding schools, and university. Girls, if they were afforded the luxury of education, received it from their parents, governesses, and tutors. Virginia was educated by her parents who shared the duty. There was a small classroom off the back of the drawing room, with its many windows, which they found perfect for quiet writing and painting. Julia taught the children Latin, French, and history, while Leslie taught them mathematics. They also received piano lessons. Supplementing their lessons was the children's unrestricted access to Leslie Stephen's vast library, exposing them to much of the literary canon, resulting in a greater depth of reading than any of their Cambridge contemporaries, Virginia's reading being described as "greedy". Later, she would recall After public school, the boys in the family all attended Cambridge University. The girls derived some indirect benefit from this, as the boys introduced them to their friends. Another source was the conversation of their father's friends, to whom they were exposed. Leslie Stephen described his circle as "most of the literary people of mark...clever young writers and barristers, chiefly of the radical persuasion...we used to meet on Wednesday and Sunday evenings, to smoke and drink and discuss the universe and the reform movement".
Later, between the ages of 15 and 19, Virginia was able to pursue higher education. She took courses of study, some at degree level, in beginning and advanced Ancient Greek, intermediate Latin and German, together with continental and English history at the Ladies' Department of King's College London at nearby 13 Kensington Square between 1897 and 1901. She studied Greek under the eminent scholar George Charles Winter Warr, professor of Classical Literature at King's. In addition she had private tutoring in German, Greek, and Latin. One of her Greek tutors was Clara Pater (1899–1900), who taught at King's. Another was Janet Case, who involved her in the women's rights movement, and whose obituary Virginia would later write in 1937. Her experiences led to her 1925 essay "On Not Knowing Greek". Her time at King's also brought her into contact with some of the early reformers of women's higher education such as the principal of the Ladies' Department, Lilian Faithfull (one of the so-called steamboat ladies), in addition to Pater. Her sister Vanessa also enrolled at the Ladies' Department (1899–1901). Although the Stephen girls could not attend Cambridge, they were to be profoundly influenced by their brothers' experiences there. When Thoby went to Trinity in 1899, he befriended a circle of young men, including Clive Bell, Lytton Strachey, Leonard Woolf (whom Virginia would later marry), and Saxon Sydney-Turner, whom he would soon introduce to his sisters at the Trinity May Ball in 1900. These men formed a reading group they named the Midnight Society.
Relationships with family
Although Virginia expressed the opinion her father was her favourite parent, and although she had only turned thirteen when her mother died, she was profoundly influenced by her mother throughout her life. It was Virginia who famously stated that "for we think back through our mothers if we are women", and invoked the image of her mother repeatedly throughout her life in her diaries, her letters and a number of her autobiographical essays, including Reminiscences (1908), 22 Hyde Park Gate (1921) and A Sketch of the Past (1940), frequently evoking her memories with the words "I see her ...". She also alludes to her childhood in her fictional writing. In To the Lighthouse (1927), the artist, Lily Briscoe, attempts to paint Mrs. Ramsay, a complex character based on Julia Stephen, and repeatedly comments on the fact that she was "astonishingly beautiful". Her depiction of the life of the Ramsays in the Hebrides is an only thinly disguised account of the Stephens in Cornwall and the Godrevy Lighthouse they would visit there. However, Woolf's understanding of her mother and family evolved considerably between 1907 and 1940, in which the somewhat distant, yet revered figure becomes more nuanced and complete.
While her father painted Julia Stephen's work in terms of reverence, Woolf drew a sharp distinction between her mother's work and "the mischievous philanthropy which other women practise so complacently and often with such disastrous results." She describes her degree of sympathy, engagement, judgement, and decisiveness, and her sense of both irony and the absurd. She recalls trying to recapture "the clear round voice, or the sight of the beautiful figure, so upright and distinct, in its long shabby cloak, with the head held at a certain angle, so that the eye looked straight out at you." Julia Stephen dealt with her husband's depressions and his need for attention, which created resentment in her children, boosted his self-confidence, nursed her parents in their final illness, and had many commitments outside the home that would eventually wear her down. Her frequent absences and the demands of her husband instilled a sense of insecurity in her children that had a lasting effect on her daughters. In considering the demands on her mother, Woolf described her father as "fifteen years her elder, difficult, exacting, dependent on her," and reflected that it was at the expense of the amount of attention she could spare her young children: "a general presence rather than a particular person to a child." She reflected that she rarely ever spent a moment alone with her mother: "someone was always interrupting." Woolf was ambivalent about it, yet eager to separate herself from this model of utter selflessness. In To the Lighthouse, she describes it as "boasting of her capacity to surround and protect, there was scarcely a shell of herself left for her to know herself by; all was so lavished and spent." At the same time, she admired the strengths of her mother's womanly ideals. Given Julia's frequent absences and commitments, the young Stephen children became increasingly dependent on Stella Duckworth, who emulated her mother's selflessness; as Woolf wrote, "Stella was always the beautiful attendant handmaid ... making it the central duty of her life."
Julia Stephen greatly admired her husband's intellect. As Woolf observed "she never belittled her own works, thinking them, if properly discharged, of equal, though other, importance with her husband's." She believed with certainty in her role as the centre of her activities, and the person who held everything together, with a firm sense of what was important and valuing devotion. Of the two parents, Julia's "nervous energy dominated the family". While Virginia identified most closely with her father, Vanessa stated her mother was her favourite parent. Angelica Garnett recalls how Virginia asked Vanessa which parent she preferred, although Vanessa considered it a question that "one ought not to ask", she was unequivocal in answering "Mother" yet the centrality of her mother to Virginia's world is expressed in this description of her "Certainly there she was, in the very centre of that great Cathedral space which was childhood; there she was from the very first". Virginia observed that her half-sister, Stella, the oldest daughter, led a life of total subservience to her mother, incorporating her ideals of love and service. Virginia quickly learned, that like her father, being ill was the only reliable way of gaining the attention of her mother, who prided herself on her sickroom nursing.
Another issue the children had to deal with was Leslie Stephen's temper, Woolf describing him as "the tyrant father". Eventually, she became deeply ambivalent about him. He had given her his ring on her eighteenth birthday and she had a deep emotional attachment as his literary heir, writing about her "great devotion for him". Yet, like Vanessa, she also saw him as victimiser and tyrant. She had a lasting ambivalence towards him through her life, albeit one that evolved. Her adolescent image was of an "Eminent Victorian" and tyrant but as she grew older she began to realise how much of him was in her: "I have been dipping into old letters and father's memoirs....so candid and reasonable and transparent—and had such a fastidious delicate mind, educated, and transparent," she wrote 22 December 1940. She was in turn both fascinated and condemnatory of Leslie Stephen: "She [her mother] has haunted me: but then, so did that old wretch my father. . . . I was more like him than her, I think; and therefore more critical: but he was an adorable man, and somehow, tremendous."
Sexual abuse
Woolf stated that she first remembers being molested by Gerald Duckworth when she was six years old. It has been suggested that this led to a lifetime of sexual fear and resistance to
masculine authority. Against a background of over-committed and distant parents, suggestions that this was a dysfunctional family must be evaluated. These include evidence of sexual abuse of the Stephen girls by their older Duckworth half-brothers, and by their cousin, James Kenneth Stephen (1859–1892), at least of Stella Duckworth. Laura is also thought to have been abused. The most graphic account is by Louise DeSalvo, but other authors and reviewers have been more cautious. Virginia's accounts of being continually sexually abused during the time that she lived at 22 Hyde Park Gate, have been cited by some critics as a possible cause of her mental health issues, although there are likely to be a number of contributing factors. Lee states that, "The evidence is strong enough, and yet ambiguous enough, to open the way for conflicting psychobiographical interpretations that draw quite different shapes of Virginia Woolf's interior life".
Bloomsbury (1904–1940)
Gordon Square (1904–1907)
On their father's death, the Stephens' first instinct was to escape from the dark house of yet more mourning, and this they did immediately, accompanied by George, travelling to Manorbier, on the coast of Pembrokeshire on 27 February. There, they spent a month, and it was there that Virginia first came to realise her destiny was as a writer, as she recalls in her diary of 3 September 1922. They then further pursued their newfound freedom by spending April in Italy and France, where they met up with Clive Bell again. Virginia then suffered her second nervous breakdown, and first suicidal attempt on 10 May, and convalesced over the next three months.
Before their father died, the Stephens had discussed the need to leave South Kensington in the West End, with its tragic memories and their parents' relations. George Duckworth was 35, his brother Gerald 33. The Stephen children were now between 24 and 20. Virginia was 22. Vanessa and Adrian decided to sell 22 Hyde Park Gate in respectable South Kensington and move to Bloomsbury. Bohemian Bloomsbury, with its characteristic leafy squares seemed sufficiently far away, geographically and socially, and was a much cheaper neighbourhood rentwise. They had not inherited much and they were unsure about their finances. Also, Bloomsbury was close to the Slade School which Vanessa was then attending. While Gerald was quite happy to move on and find himself a bachelor establishment, George who had always assumed the role of quasi-parent decided to accompany them, much to their dismay. It was then that Lady Margaret Herbert appeared on the scene, George proposed, was accepted and married in September, leaving the Stephens to their own devices.
Vanessa found a house at 46 Gordon Square in Bloomsbury, and they moved in November, to be joined by Virginia now sufficiently recovered. It was at Gordon Square that the Stephens began to regularly entertain Thoby's intellectual friends in March 1905. The circle, which largely came from the Cambridge Apostles, included writers (Saxon Sydney-Turner, Lytton Strachey) and critics (Clive Bell, Desmond MacCarthy) with Thursday evening "At Homes" that became known as the Thursday Club, a vision of recreating Trinity College ("Cambridge in London"). This circle formed the nucleus of the intellectual circle of writers and artists known as the Bloomsbury Group. Later, it would include John Maynard Keynes (1907), Duncan Grant (1908), E.M. Forster (1910), Roger Fry (1910), Leonard Woolf (1911), and David Garnett (1914).
In 1905, Virginia and Adrian visited Portugal and Spain. Clive Bell proposed to Vanessa, but was declined, while Virginia began teaching evening classes at Morley College and Vanessa added another event to their calendar with the Friday Club, dedicated to the discussion of and later exhibition of the fine arts. This introduced some new people into their circle, including Vanessa's friends from the Royal Academy and Slade, such as Henry Lamb and Gwen Darwin (who became secretary), but also the eighteen-year-old Katherine Laird ("Ka") Cox (1887–1938), who was about to go up to Newnham. Although Virginia did not actually meet Ka until much later, Ka would come to play an important part in her life. Ka and others brought the Bloomsbury Group into contact with another, slightly younger, group of Cambridge intellectuals to whom the Stephen sisters gave the name "Neo-pagans". The Friday Club continued until 1913.
The following year, 1906, Virginia suffered two further losses. Her cherished brother Thoby, who was only 26, died of typhoid, following a trip they had all taken to Greece, and immediately afterward Vanessa accepted Clive's third proposal. Vanessa and Clive were married in February 1907 and as a couple, their interest in avant-garde art would have an important influence on Woolf's further development as an author. With Vanessa's marriage, Virginia and Adrian needed to find a new home.
Fitzroy Square (1907–1911)
Virginia moved into 29 Fitzroy Square in April 1907, a house on the west side of the street, formerly occupied by George Bernard Shaw. It was in Fitzrovia, immediately to the west of Bloomsbury but still relatively close to her sister at Gordon Square. The two sisters continued to travel together, visiting Paris in March. Adrian was now to play a much larger part in Virginia's life, and they resumed the Thursday Club in October at their new home, while Gordon Square became the venue for the Play Reading Society in December. During this period, the group began to increasingly explore progressive ideas, first in speech, and then in conduct, Vanessa proclaiming in 1910 a libertarian society with sexual freedom for all.
Meanwhile, Virginia began work on her first novel, Melymbrosia, that eventually became The Voyage Out (1915). Vanessa's first child, Julian was born in February 1908, and in September Virginia accompanied the Bells to Italy and France. It was during this time that Virginia's rivalry with her sister resurfaced, flirting with Clive, which he reciprocated, and which lasted on and off from 1908 to 1914, by which time her sister's marriage was breaking down. On 17 February 1909, Lytton Strachey proposed to Virginia and she accepted, but he then withdrew the offer.
It was while she was at Fitzroy Square that the question arose of Virginia needing a quiet country retreat, and she required a six-week rest cure and sought the countryside away from London as much as possible. In December, she and Adrian stayed at Lewes and started exploring the area of Sussex around the town. She started to want a place of her own, like St Ives, but closer to London. She soon found a property in nearby Firle (see below), maintaining a relationship with that area for the rest of her life.
Dreadnought hoax 1910
Several members of the group attained notoriety in 1910 with the Dreadnought hoax, which Virginia participated in disguised as a male Abyssinian royal. Her complete 1940 talk on the hoax was discovered and is published in the memoirs collected in the expanded edition of The Platform of Time (2008).
Brunswick Square (1911–1912)
In October 1911, the lease on Fitzroy Square was running out and Virginia and Adrian decided to give up their home on Fitzroy Square in favour of a different living arrangement, moving to a four-storied house at 38 Brunswick Square in Bloomsbury proper in November. Virginia saw it as a new opportunity: "We are going to try all kinds of experiments," she told Ottoline Morrell. Adrian occupied the second floor, with Maynard Keynes and Duncan Grant sharing the ground floor. This arrangement for a single woman was considered scandalous, and George Duckworth was horrified. The house was adjacent to the Foundling Hospital, much to Virginia's amusement as an unchaperoned single woman. Originally, Ka Cox was supposed to share in the arrangements, but opposition came from Rupert Brooke, who was involved with her and pressured her to abandon the idea. At the house, Duncan Grant decorated Adrian Stephen's rooms (see image).
Marriage (1912–1941)
Leonard Woolf was one of Thoby Stephen's friends at Trinity College, Cambridge, and noticed the Stephen sisters in Thoby's rooms there on their visits to the May Ball in 1900 and 1901. He recalls them in "white dresses and large hats, with parasols in their hands, their beauty literally took one's breath away". To him, they were silent, "formidable and alarming".
Woolf did not meet Virginia formally till 17 November 1904 when he dined with the Stephens at Gordon Square, to say goodbye before leaving to take up a position with the civil service in Ceylon, although she was aware of him through Thoby's stories. At that visit he noted that she was perfectly silent throughout the meal, and looked ill. In 1909, Lytton Strachey suggested to Woolf he should make her an offer of marriage. He did so, but received no answer. In June 1911, he returned to London on a one-year leave, but did not go back to Ceylon. In England again, Leonard renewed his contacts with family and friends. Three weeks after arriving he dined with Vanessa and Clive Bell at Gordon Square on 3 July, where they were later joined by Virginia and other members of what would later be called "Bloomsbury", and Leonard dates the group's formation to that night. In September, Virginia asked Leonard to join her at Little Talland House at Firle in Sussex for a long weekend. After that weekend, they began seeing each other more frequently.
On 4 December 1911, Leonard moved into the ménage on Brunswick Square, occupying a bedroom and sitting room on the fourth floor, and started to see Virginia constantly and by the end of the month had decided he was in love with her. On 11 January 1912, he proposed to her; she asked for time to consider, so he asked for an extension of his leave and, on being refused, offered his resignation on 25 April, effective 20 May. He continued to pursue Virginia, and in a letter of 1 May 1912 (which see) she explained why she did not favour a marriage. However, on 29 May, Virginia told Leonard that she wished to marry him, and they were married on 10 August at the St Pancras Register Office. It was during this time that Leonard first became aware of Virginia's precarious mental state. The Woolfs continued to live at Brunswick Square until October 1912, when they moved to a small flat at 13 Clifford's Inn, further to the east (subsequently demolished). Despite his low material status (Woolf referring to Leonard during their engagement as a "penniless Jew"), the couple shared a close bond. Indeed, in 1937, Woolf wrote in her diary: "Love-making—after 25 years can't bear to be separate ... you see it is enormous pleasure being wanted: a wife. And our marriage so complete." However, Virginia made a suicide attempt in 1913.
In October 1914, Leonard and Virginia Woolf moved away from Bloomsbury and central London to Richmond, living at 17 The Green, a home discussed by Leonard in his autobiography Beginning Again (1964). In early March 1915, the couple moved again, to nearby Hogarth House, Paradise Road, after which they named their publishing house. Virginia's first novel, The Voyage Out was published in 1915, followed by another suicide attempt. Despite the introduction of conscription in 1916, Leonard was exempted on medical grounds.
Between 1924 and 1940, the Woolfs returned to Bloomsbury, taking out a ten-year lease at 52 Tavistock Square, from where they ran the Hogarth Press from the basement, where Virginia also had her writing room, and is commemorated with a bust of her in the square (see illustration). 1925 saw the publication of Mrs Dalloway in May followed by her collapse while at Charleston in August. In 1927, her next novel, To the Lighthouse, was published, and the following year she lectured on Women & Fiction at Cambridge University and published Orlando in October. Her two Cambridge lectures then became the basis for her major essay A Room of One's Own in 1929. Virginia wrote only one drama, Freshwater, based on her great-aunt Julia Margaret Cameron, and produced at her sister's studio on Fitzroy Street in 1935. 1936 saw another collapse of her health following the completion of The Years.
The Woolf's final residence in London was at 37 Mecklenburgh Square (1939–1940), destroyed during the Blitz in September 1940; a month later their previous home on Tavistock Square was also destroyed. After that, they made Sussex their permanent home. For descriptions and illustrations of all Virginia Woolf's London homes, see Jean Moorcroft Wilson's book Virginia Woolf, Life and London: A Biography of Place (pub. Cecil Woolf, 1987).
Hogarth Press (1917–1938)
Virginia had taken up book-binding as a pastime in October 1901, at the age of 19, and the Woolfs had been discussing setting up a publishing house for some time, and at the end of 1916 started making plans. Having discovered that they were not eligible to enroll in the St Bride School of Printing, they started purchasing supplies after seeking advice from the Excelsior Printing Supply Company on Farringdon Road in March 1917, and soon they had a printing press set up on their dining room table at Hogarth House, and the Hogarth Press was born.
Their first publication was Two Stories in July 1917, inscribed Publication No. 1, and consisted of two short stories, "The Mark on the Wall" by Virginia Woolf and Three Jews by Leonard Woolf. The work consisted of 32 pages, hand bound and sewn, and illustrated by woodcuts designed by Dora Carrington. The illustrations were a success, leading Virginia to remark that the press was "specially good at printing pictures, and we see that we must make a practice of always having pictures." (13 July 1917) The process took two and a half months with a production run of 150 copies. Other short short stories followed, including Kew Gardens (1919) with a woodblock by Vanessa Bell as frontispiece. Subsequently, Bell added further illustrations, adorning each page of the text.
The press subsequently published Virginia's novels along with works by T.S. Eliot, Laurens van der Post, and others. The Press also commissioned works by contemporary artists, including Dora Carrington and Vanessa Bell. Woolf believed that to break free of a patriarchal society women writers needed a "room of their own" to develop and often fantasised about an "Outsider's Society" where women writers would create a virtual private space for themselves via their writings to develop a feminist critique of society. Though Woolf never created the "Outsider's society", the Hogarth Press was the closest approximation as the Woolfs chose to publish books by writers that took unconventional points of view to form a reading community. Initially the press concentrated on small experimental publications, of little interest to large commercial publishers. Until 1930, Woolf often helped her husband print the Hogarth books as the money for employees was not there. Virginia relinquished her interest in 1938, following a third attempted suicide. After it was bombed in September 1940, the press was moved to Letchworth for the remainder of the war. Both the Woolfs were internationalists and pacifists who believed that promoting understanding between peoples was the best way to avoid another world war and chose quite consciously to publish works by foreign authors of whom the British reading public were unaware. The first non-British author to be published was the Soviet writer Maxim Gorky, the book Reminiscences of Leo Nikolaiovich Tolstoy in 1920, dealing with his friendship with Count Leo Tolstoy.
Memoir Club (1920–1941)
1920 saw a postwar reconstitution of the Bloomsbury Group, under the title of the Memoir Club, which as the name suggests focussed on self-writing, in the manner of Proust's A La Recherche, and inspired some of the more influential books of the 20th century. The Group, which had been scattered by the war, was reconvened by Mary ('Molly') MacCarthy who called them "Bloomsberries", and operated under rules derived from the Cambridge Apostles, an elite university debating society that a number of them had been members of. These rules emphasised candour and openness. Among the 125 memoirs presented, Virginia contributed three that were published posthumously in 1976, in the autobiographical anthology Moments of Being. These were 22 Hyde Park Gate (1921), Old Bloomsbury (1922) and Am I a Snob? (1936).
Vita Sackville-West (1922–1941)
The ethos of the Bloomsbury group encouraged a liberal approach to sexuality, and on 14 December 1922 Woolf met the writer and gardener Vita Sackville-West, wife of Harold Nicolson, while dining with Clive Bell. Writing in her diary the next day, she referred to meeting "the lovely gifted aristocratic Sackville West". At the time, Sackville-West was the more successful writer as both poet and novelist, commercially and critically, and it was not until after Woolf's death that she became considered the better writer. After a tentative start, they began a sexual relationship, which, according to Sackville-West in a letter to her husband on 17 August 1926, was only twice consummated. The relationship reached its peak between 1925 and 1928, evolving into more of a friendship through the 1930s, though Woolf was also inclined to brag of her affairs with other women within her intimate circle, such as Sibyl Colefax and Comtesse de Polignac. This period of intimacy was to prove fruitful for both authors, Woolf producing three novels, To the Lighthouse (1927), Orlando (1928), and The Waves (1931) as well as a number of essays, including "Mr. Bennett and Mrs. Brown" (1924) and "A Letter to a Young Poet" (1932).
Sackville-West worked tirelessly to lift Woolf's self-esteem, encouraging her not to view herself as a quasi-reclusive inclined to sickness who should hide herself away from the world, but rather offered praise for her liveliness and wit, her health, her intelligence and achievements as a writer. Sackville-West led Woolf to reappraise herself, developing a more positive self-image, and the feeling that her writings were the products of her strengths rather than her weakness. Starting at the age of 15, Woolf had believed the diagnosis by her father and his doctor that reading and writing were deleterious to her nervous condition, requiring a regime of physical labour such as gardening to prevent a total nervous collapse. This led Woolf to spend much time obsessively engaging in such physical labour.
Sackville-West was the first to argue to Woolf she had been misdiagnosed, and that it was far better to engage in reading and writing to calm her nerves—advice that was taken. Under the influence of Sackville-West, Woolf learned to deal with her nervous ailments by switching between various forms of intellectual activities such as reading, writing and book reviews, instead of spending her time in physical activities that sapped her strength and worsened her nerves. Sackville-West chose the financially struggling Hogarth Press as her publisher to assist the Woolfs financially. Seducers in Ecuador, the first of the novels by Sackville-West published by Hogarth, was not a success, selling only 1500 copies in its first year, but the next Sackville-West novel they published, The Edwardians, was a best-seller that sold 30,000 copies in its first six months. Sackville-West's novels, though not typical of the Hogarth Press, saved Hogarth, taking them from the red into the black. However, Woolf was not always appreciative of the fact that it was Sackville-West's books that kept the Hogarth Press profitable, writing dismissively in 1933 of her "servant girl" novels. The financial security allowed by the good sales of Sackville-West's novels in turn allowed Woolf to engage in more experimental work, such as The Waves, as Woolf had to be cautious when she depended upon Hogarth entirely for her income.
In 1928, Woolf presented Sackville-West with Orlando, a fantastical biography in which the eponymous hero's life spans three centuries and both sexes. It was published in October, shortly after the two women spent a week travelling together in France, that September. Nigel Nicolson, Vita Sackville-West's son, wrote, "The effect of Vita on Virginia is all contained in Orlando, the longest and most charming love letter in literature, in which she explores Vita, weaves her in and out of the centuries, tosses her from one sex to the other, plays with her, dresses her in furs, lace and emeralds, teases her, flirts with her, drops a veil of mist around her." After their affair ended, the two women remained friends until Woolf's death in 1941. Virginia Woolf also remained close to her surviving siblings, Adrian and Vanessa; Thoby had died of typhoid fever at the age of 26.
Sussex (1911–1941)
Virginia was needing a country retreat to escape to, and on 24 December 1910, she found a house for rent in Firle, Sussex, near Lewes (see Map). She obtained a lease and took possession of the house the following month, naming it 'Little Talland House', after their childhood home in Cornwall, although it was actually a new red gabled villa on the main street opposite the village hall. The lease was a short one, and in October, she and Leonard Woolf found Asham House at Asheham a few miles to the west, while walking along the Ouse from Firle. The house, at the end of a tree-lined road was a strange beautiful Regency-Gothic house in a lonely location. She described it as "flat, pale, serene, yellow-washed", without electricity or water and allegedly haunted. She took out a five-year lease jointly with Vanessa in the New Year, and they moved into it in February 1912, holding a house warming party on the 9th.
It was at Asham that the Woolfs spent their wedding night later that year. At Asham, she recorded the events of the weekends and holidays they spent there in her Asham Diary, part of which was later published as A Writer's Diary in 1953. In terms of creative writing, The Voyage Out was completed there, and much of Night and Day. Asham provided Woolf with well needed relief from the pace of London life and was where she found a happiness that she expressed in her diary of 5 May 1919 "Oh, but how happy we've been at Asheham! It was a most melodious time. Everything went so freely; – but I can't analyse all the sources of my joy". Asham was also the inspiration for A Haunted House (1921–1944), and was painted by members of the Bloomsbury Group, including Vanessa Bell and Roger Fry. It was during these times at Asham that Ka Cox (seen here) started to devote herself to Virginia and become very useful.
While at Asham Leonard and Virginia found a farmhouse in 1916, that was to let, about four miles away, which they thought would be ideal for her sister. Eventually, Vanessa came down to inspect it, and moved in in October of that year, taking it as a summer home for her family. The Charleston Farmhouse was to become the summer gathering place for the literary and artistic circle of the Bloomsbury Group.
After the end of the war, in 1918, the Woolfs were given a year's notice by the landlord, who needed the house. In mid-1919, "in despair", they purchased "a very strange little house" for £300, the Round House in Pipe Passage, Lewes, a converted windmill. No sooner had they bought the Round House, than Monk's House in nearby Rodmell, came up for auction, a weatherboarded house with oak beamed rooms, said to be 15th or 16th century. The Leonards favoured the latter because of its orchard and garden, and sold the Round House, to purchase Monk's House for £700. Monk's House also lacked water and electricity, but came with an acre of garden, and had a view across the Ouse towards the hills of the South Downs. Leonard Woolf describes this view (and the amenities) as being unchanged since the days of Chaucer. From 1940, it became their permanent home after their London home was bombed, and Virginia continued to live there until her death. Meanwhile, Vanessa made Charleston her permanent home in 1936. It was at Monk's House that Virginia completed Between the Acts in early 1941, followed by a further breakdown directly resulting in her suicide on 28 March 1941, the novel being published posthumously later that year.
The Neo-pagans (1911–1912)
During her time in Firle, Virginia became better acquainted with Rupert Brooke and his group of Neo-Pagans, pursuing socialism, vegetarianism, exercising outdoors and alternative life styles, including social nudity. They were influenced by the ethos of Bedales, Fabianism and Shelley. The women wore sandals, socks, open neck shirts and head-scarves. Although she had some reservations, Woolf was involved with their activities for a while, fascinated by their bucolic innocence in contrast to the sceptical intellectualism of Bloomsbury, which earned her the nickname "The Goat" from her brother Adrian. While Woolf liked to make much of a weekend she spent with Brooke at the vicarage in Grantchester, including swimming in the pool there, it appears to have been principally a literary assignation. They also shared a psychiatrist in the name of Maurice Craig. Through the Neo-Pagans, she finally met Ka Cox on a weekend in Oxford in January 1911, who had been part of the Friday Club circle and now became her friend and played an important part in dealing with her illnesses. Virginia nicknamed her "Bruin". At the same time, she found herself dragged into a triangular relationship involving Ka, Jacques Raverat and Gwen Darwin. She became resentful of the other couple, Jacques and Gwen, who married later in 1911, not the outcome Virginia had predicted or desired. They would later be referred to in both To the Lighthouse and The Years. The exclusion she felt evoked memories of both Stella Duckworth's marriage and her triangular involvement with Vanessa and Clive.
The two groups eventually fell out. Brooke pressured Ka into withdrawing from joining Virginia's ménage on Brunswick Square in late 1911, calling it a "bawdy-house" and by the end of 1912 he had vehemently turned against Bloomsbury. Later, she would write sardonically about Brooke, whose premature death resulted in his idealisation, and express regret about "the Neo-Paganism at that stage of my life". Virginia was deeply disappointed when Ka married William Edward Arnold-Forster in 1918, and became increasingly critical of her.
Mental health
Much examination has been made of Woolf's mental health (e.g., see Mental health bibliography). From the age of 13, following the death of her mother, Woolf suffered periodic mood swings from severe depression to manic excitement, including psychotic episodes, which the family referred to as her "madness". However, as Hermione Lee points out, Woolf was not "mad"; she was merely a woman who suffered from and struggled with illness for much of her relatively short life, a woman of "exceptional courage, intelligence and stoicism", who made the best use, and achieved the best understanding she could of that illness.
Psychiatrists today contend that her illness constitutes bipolar disorder (manic-depressive illness). Her mother's death in 1895, "the greatest disaster that could happen", precipitated a crisis of alternating excitability and depression accompanied by irrational fears, for which their family doctor, Dr. Seton, prescribed rest, stopping lessons and writing, and regular walks supervised by Stella. Yet just two years later, Stella too was dead, bringing on her next crisis in 1897, and her first expressed wish for death at the age of fifteen, writing in her diary that October that "death would be shorter & less painful". She then stopped keeping a diary for some time. This was a scenario she would later recreate in "Time Passes" (To the Lighthouse, 1927).
The death of her father in 1904 provoked her most alarming collapse, on 10 May, when she threw herself out a window and she was briefly institutionalised under the care of her father's friend, the eminent psychiatrist George Savage. Savage blamed her education—frowned on by many at the time as unsuitable for women—for her illness. She spent time recovering at the house of Stella's friend Violet Dickinson, and at her aunt Caroline's house in Cambridge, and by January 1905, Dr. Savage considered her "cured". Violet, seventeen years older than Virginia, became one of her closest friends and one of her more effective nurses. She characterised it as a "romantic friendship" (Letter to Violet 4 May 1903). Her brother Thoby's death in 1906 marked a "decade of deaths” that ended her childhood and adolescence. Gordon (2004) writes: "Ghostly voices spoke to her with increasing urgency, perhaps more real than the people who lived by her side. When voices of the dead urged her to impossible things, they drove her mad but, controlled, they became the material of fiction..."
On Dr. Savage's recommendation, Virginia spent three short periods in 1910, 1912, and 1913 at Burley House at 15 Cambridge Park, Twickenham (see image), described as "a private nursing home for women with nervous disorder" run by Miss Jean Thomas. By the end of February 1910, she was becoming increasingly restless, and Dr. Savage suggested being away from London. Vanessa rented Moat House, outside Canterbury, in June, but there was no improvement, so Dr. Savage sent her to Burley for a "rest cure". This involved partial isolation, deprivation of literature, and force-feeding, and after six weeks she was able to convalesce in Cornwall and Dorset during the autumn.
She loathed the experience; writing to her sister on 28 July, she described how she found the phony religious atmosphere stifling and the institution ugly, and informed Vanessa that to escape "I shall soon have to jump out of a window." The threat of being sent back would later lead to her contemplating suicide. Despite her protests, Savage would refer her back in 1912 for insomnia and in 1913 for depression.
On emerging from Burley House in September 1913, she sought further opinions from two other physicians on the 13th: Maurice Wright, and Henry Head, who had been Henry James's physician. Both recommended she return to Burley House. Distraught, she returned home and attempted suicide by taking an overdose of 100 grains of veronal (a barbiturate) and nearly dying: she was found by Ka Cox, who summoned help.
On recovery, she went to Dalingridge Hall, George Duckworth's home in East Grinstead, Sussex, to convalesce on 30 September, accompanied by Ka Cox and a nurse, returning to Asham on 18 November with Cox and Janet Case. She remained unstable over the next two years, with another incident involving veronal that she claimed was an "accident", and consulted another psychiatrist in April 1914, Maurice Craig, who explained that she was not sufficiently psychotic to be certified or committed to an institution.
The rest of the summer of 1914 went better for her, and they moved to Richmond, but in February 1915, just as The Voyage Out was due to be published, she relapsed once more, and remained in poor health for most of that year. Then, despite Miss Thomas's gloomy prognosis, she began to recover, following 20 years of ill health. Nevertheless, there was a feeling among those around her that she was now permanently changed, and not for the better.
Over the rest of her life, she suffered recurrent bouts of depression. In 1940, a number of factors appeared to overwhelm her. Her biography of Roger Fry had been published in July, and she had been disappointed in its reception. The horrors of war depressed her, and their London homes had been destroyed in the Blitz in September and October. Woolf had completed Between the Acts (published posthumously in 1941) in November, and completing a novel was frequently accompanied by exhaustion. Her health became increasingly a matter of concern, culminating in her decision to end her life on 28 March 1941.
Though this instability would frequently affect her social life, she was able to continue her literary productivity with few interruptions throughout her life. Woolf herself provides not only a vivid picture of her symptoms in her diaries and letters, but also her response to the demons that haunted her and at times made her long for death: "But it is always a question whether I wish to avoid these glooms... These 9 weeks give one a plunge into deep waters... One goes down into the well & nothing protects one from the assault of truth."
Psychiatry had little to offer Woolf, but she recognised that writing was one of the behaviours that enabled her to cope with her illness: "The only way I keep afloat... is by working... Directly I stop working I feel that I am sinking down, down. And as usual, I feel that if I sink further I shall reach the truth." Sinking under water was Woolf's metaphor for both the effects of depression and psychosis— but also for finding truth, and ultimately was her choice of death.
Throughout her life, Woolf struggled, without success, to find meaning in her illness: on the one hand, an impediment, on the other, something she visualised as an essential part of who she was, and a necessary condition of her art. Her experiences informed her work, such as the character of Septimus Warren Smith in Mrs Dalloway (1925), who, like Woolf, was haunted by the dead, and ultimately takes his own life rather than be admitted to a sanitorium.
Leonard Woolf relates how during the 30 years they were married, they consulted many doctors in the Harley Street area, and although they were given a diagnosis of neurasthenia, he felt they had little understanding of the causes or nature. The proposed solution was simple—as long as she lived a quiet life without any physical or mental exertion, she was well. On the other hand, any mental, emotional, or physical strain resulted in a reappearance of her symptoms, beginning with a headache, followed by insomnia and thoughts that started to race. Her remedy was simple: to retire to bed in a darkened room, eat, and drink plenty of milk, following which the symptoms slowly subsided.
Modern scholars, including her nephew and biographer, Quentin Bell, have suggested her breakdowns and subsequent recurring depressive periods were influenced by the sexual abuse which she and her sister Vanessa were subjected to by their half-brothers George and Gerald Duckworth (which Woolf recalls in her autobiographical essays "A Sketch of the Past" and "22 Hyde Park Gate") (see Sexual abuse). Biographers point out that when Stella died in 1897, there was no counterbalance to control George's predation, and his nighttime prowling. Virginia describes him as her first lover, "The old ladies of Kensington and Belgravia never knew that George Duckworth was not only father and mother, brother and sister to those poor Stephen girls; he was their lover also."
It is likely that other factors also played a part. It has been suggested that they include genetic predisposition, for both trauma and family history have been implicated in bipolar disorder. Virginia's father, Leslie Stephen, suffered from depression, and her half-sister Laura was institutionalised. Many of Virginia's symptoms, including persistent headache, insomnia, irritability, and anxiety, resembled of her father's. Another factor is the pressure she placed upon herself in her work; for instance, her breakdown of 1913 was at least partly triggered by the need to finish The Voyage Out.
Virginia herself hinted that her illness was related to how she saw the repressed position of women in society, when she wrote in A Room of One's Own that had Shakespeare had a sister of equal genius, she "would certainly have gone crazed, shot herself, or ended her days in some lonely cottage outside the village, half witch, half wizard, feared and mocked at". These inspirations emerged from what Woolf referred to as her lava of madness, describing her time at Burley in a 1930 letter to Ethel Smyth:
Thomas Caramagno and others, in discussing her illness, oppose the "neurotic-genius" way of looking at mental illness, where creativity and mental illness are conceptualised as linked rather than antithetical. Stephen Trombley describes Woolf as having a confrontational relationship with her doctors, and possibly being a woman who is a "victim of male medicine", referring to the lack of understanding, particularly at the time, about mental illness.
Death
After completing the manuscript of her last novel (posthumously published), Between the Acts (1941), Woolf fell into a depression similar to one which she had earlier experienced. The onset of World War II, the destruction of her London home during the Blitz, and the cool reception given to her biography of her late friend Roger Fry all worsened her condition until she was unable to work. When Leonard enlisted in the Home Guard, Virginia disapproved. She held fast to her pacifism and criticised her husband for wearing what she considered to be "the silly uniform of the Home Guard".
After World War II began, Woolf's diary indicates that she was obsessed with death, which figured more and more as her mood darkened. On 28 March 1941, Woolf drowned herself by filling her overcoat pockets with stones and walking into the River Ouse near her home. Her body was not found until 18 April. Her husband buried her cremated remains beneath an elm tree in the garden of Monk's House, their home in Rodmell, Sussex.
In her suicide note, addressed to her husband, she wrote:
Work
Woolf is considered to be one of the more important 20th century novelists. A modernist, she was one of the pioneers of using stream of consciousness as a narrative device, alongside contemporaries such as Marcel Proust, Dorothy Richardson and James Joyce. Woolf's reputation was at its greatest during the 1930s, but declined considerably following World War II. The growth of feminist criticism in the 1970s helped re-establish her reputation.
Virginia submitted her first article in 1890, to a competition in Tit-Bits. Although it was rejected, this shipboard romance by the 8-year-old would presage her first novel 25 years later, as would contributions to the Hyde Park News, such as the model letter "to show young people the right way to express what is in their hearts", a subtle commentary on her mother's legendary matchmaking. She transitioned from juvenilia to professional journalism in 1904 at the age of 22. Violet Dickinson introduced her to Mrs. Lyttelton, the editor of the Women's Supplement of The Guardian, a Church of England newspaper. Invited to submit a 1,500-word article, Virginia sent Lyttelton a review of W.D. Howells' The Son of Royal Langbirth and an essay about her visit to Haworth that year, Haworth, November 1904. The review was published anonymously on 4 December, and the essay on the 21st. In 1905, Woolf began writing for The Times Literary Supplement.
Woolf would go on to publish novels and essays as a public intellectual to both critical and popular acclaim. Much of her work was self-published through the Hogarth Press. "Virginia Woolf's peculiarities as a fiction writer have tended to obscure her central strength: she is arguably the major lyrical novelist in the English language. Her novels are highly experimental: a narrative, frequently uneventful and commonplace, is refracted—and sometimes almost dissolved—in the characters' receptive consciousness. Intense lyricism and stylistic virtuosity fuse to create a world overabundant with auditory and visual impressions." "The intensity of Virginia Woolf's poetic vision elevates the ordinary, sometimes banal settings"—often wartime environments—"of most of her novels."
Fiction and drama
Novels
Her first novel, The Voyage Out, was published in 1915 at the age of 33, by her half-brother's imprint, Gerald Duckworth and Company Ltd. This novel was originally titled Melymbrosia, but Woolf repeatedly changed the draft. An earlier version of The Voyage Out has been reconstructed by Woolf scholar Louise DeSalvo and is now available to the public under the intended title. DeSalvo argues that many of the changes Woolf made in the text were in response to changes in her own life. The novel is set on a ship bound for South America, and a group of young Edwardians onboard and their various mismatched yearnings and misunderstandings. In the novel are hints of themes that would emerge in later work, including the gap between preceding thought and the spoken word that follows, and the lack of concordance between expression and underlying intention, together with how these reveal to us aspects of the nature of love.
"Mrs Dalloway (1925) centres on the efforts of Clarissa Dalloway, a middle-aged society woman, to organise a party, even as her life is paralleled with that of Septimus Warren Smith, a working-class veteran who has returned from the First World War bearing deep psychological scars".
"To the Lighthouse (1927) is set on two days ten years apart. The plot centres on the Ramsay family's anticipation of and reflection upon a visit to a lighthouse and the connected familial tensions. One of the primary themes of the novel is the struggle in the creative process that beset painter Lily Briscoe while she struggles to paint in the midst of the family drama. The novel is also a meditation upon the lives of a nation's inhabitants in the midst of war, and of the people left behind." It also explores the passage of time, and how women are forced by society to allow men to take emotional strength from them.
Orlando: A Biography (1928) is one of Virginia Woolf's lightest novels. A parodic biography of a young nobleman who lives for three centuries without ageing much past thirty (but who does abruptly turn into a woman), the book is in part a portrait of Woolf's lover Vita Sackville-West. It was meant to console Vita for the loss of her ancestral home, Knole House, though it is also a satirical treatment of Vita and her work. In Orlando, the techniques of historical biographers are being ridiculed; the character of a pompous biographer is being assumed for it to be mocked.
"The Waves (1931) presents a group of six friends whose reflections, which are closer to recitatives than to interior monologues proper, create a wave-like atmosphere that is more akin to a prose poem than to a plot-centred novel".
Flush: A Biography (1933) is a part-fiction, part-biography of the cocker spaniel owned by Victorian poet Elizabeth Barrett Browning. The book is written from the dog's point of view. Woolf was inspired to write this book from the success of the Rudolf Besier play The Barretts of Wimpole Street. In the play, Flush is on stage for much of the action. The play was produced for the first time in 1932 by the actress Katharine Cornell.
The Years (1936), traces the history of the genteel Pargiter family from the 1880s to the "present day" of the mid-1930s. The novel had its origin in a lecture Woolf gave to the National Society for Women's Service in 1931, an edited version of which would later be published as "Professions for Women". Woolf first thought of making this lecture the basis of a new book-length essay on women, this time taking a broader view of their economic and social life, rather than focusing on women as artists, as the first book had. She soon jettisoned the theoretical framework of her "novel-essay" and began to rework the book solely as a fictional narrative, but some of the non-fiction material she first intended for this book was later used in Three Guineas (1938).
"Her last work, Between the Acts (1941), sums up and magnifies Woolf's chief preoccupations: the transformation of life through art, sexual ambivalence, and meditation on the themes of flux of time and life, presented simultaneously as corrosion and rejuvenation—all set in a highly imaginative and symbolic narrative encompassing almost all of English history." This book is the most lyrical of all her works, not only in feeling but in style, being chiefly written in verse. While Woolf's work can be understood as consistently in dialogue with the Bloomsbury Group, particularly its tendency (informed by G.E. Moore, among others) towards doctrinaire rationalism, it is not a simple recapitulation of the coterie's ideals.
Themes
Woolf's fiction has been studied for its insight into many themes including war, shell shock, witchcraft, and the role of social class in contemporary modern British society. In the postwar Mrs Dalloway (1925), Woolf addresses the moral dilemma of war and its effects and provides an authentic voice for soldiers returning from World War I, suffering from shell shock, in the person of Septimus Smith. In A Room of One's Own (1929) Woolf equates historical accusations of witchcraft with creativity and genius among women "When, however, one reads of a witch being ducked, of a woman possessed by devils...then I think we are on the track of a lost novelist, a suppressed poet, of some mute and inglorious Jane Austen". Throughout her work Woolf tried to evaluate the degree to which her privileged background framed the lens through which she viewed class. She both examined her own position as someone who would be considered an elitist snob, but attacked the class structure of Britain as she found it. In her 1936 essay Am I a Snob?, she examined her values and those of the privileged circle she existed in. She concluded she was, and subsequent critics and supporters have tried to deal with the dilemma of being both elite and a social critic.
The sea is a recurring motif in Woolf's work. Noting Woolf's early memory of listening to waves break in Cornwall, Katharine Smyth writes in The Paris Review that "the radiance [of] cresting water would be consecrated again and again in her writing, saturating not only essays, diaries, and letters but also Jacob’s Room, The Waves, and To the Lighthouse." Patrizia A. Muscogiuri explains that "seascapes, sailing, diving and the sea itself are aspects of nature and of human beings’ relationship with it which frequently inspired Virginia Woolf's writing." This trope is deeply embedded in her texts’ structure and grammar; James Antoniou notes in Sydney Morning Herald how "Woolf made a virtue of the semicolon, the shape and function of which resembles the wave, her most famous motif."
Despite the considerable conceptual difficulties, given Woolf's idiosyncratic use of language, her works have been translated into over 50 languages. Some writers, such as the Belgian Marguerite Yourcenar, had rather tense encounters with her, while others, such as the Argentinian Jorge Luis Borges, produced versions that were highly controversial.
Drama
Virginia Woolf researched the life of her great-aunt, the photographer Julia Margaret Cameron, publishing her findings in an essay titled "Pattledom" (1925), and later in her introduction to her 1926 edition of Cameron's photographs. She had begun work on a play based on an episode in Cameron's life in 1923, but abandoned it. Finally it was performed on 18 January 1935 at the studio of her sister, Vanessa Bell on Fitzroy Street in 1935. Woolf directed it herself, and the cast were mainly members of the Bloomsbury Group, including herself. Freshwater is a short three act comedy satirising the Victorian era, only performed once in Woolf's lifetime. Beneath the comedic elements, there is an exploration of both generational change and artistic freedom. Both Cameron and Woolf fought against the class and gender dynamics of Victorianism and the play shows links to both To the Lighthouse and A Room of One's Own that would follow.
Non-fiction
Woolf wrote a body of autobiographical work and more than 500 essays and reviews, some of which, like A Room of One's Own (1929) were of book length. Not all were published in her lifetime. Shortly after her death, Leonard Woolf produced an edited edition of unpublished essays titled The Moment and other Essays, published by the Hogarth Press in 1947. Many of these were originally lectures that she gave, and several more volumes of essays followed, such as The Captain's Death Bed: and other essays (1950).
A Room of One's Own
Among Woolf's non-fiction works, one of the best known is A Room of One's Own (1929), a book-length essay. Considered a key work of feminist literary criticism, it was written following two lectures she delivered on "Women and Fiction" at Cambridge University the previous year. In it, she examines the historical disempowerment women have faced in many spheres, including social, educational and financial. One of her more famous dicta is contained within the book "A woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction". Much of her argument ("to show you how I arrived at this opinion about the room and the money") is developed through the "unsolved problems" of women and fiction writing to arrive at her conclusion, although she claimed that was only "an opinion upon one minor point". In doing so, she states a good deal about the nature of women and fiction, employing a quasi-fictional style as she examines where women writers failed because of lack of resources and opportunities, examining along the way the experiences of the Brontës, George Eliot and George Sand, as well as the fictional character of Shakespeare's sister, equipped with the same genius but not position. She contrasted these women who accepted a deferential status with Jane Austen, who wrote entirely as a woman.
Influences
Michel Lackey argues that a major influence on Woolf, from 1912 onward, was Russian literature and Woolf adopted many of its aesthetic conventions. The style of Fyodor Dostoyevsky with his depiction of a fluid mind in operation helped to influence Woolf's writings about a "discontinuous writing process", though Woolf objected to Dostoyevsky's obsession with "psychological extremity" and the "tumultuous flux of emotions" in his characters together with his right-wing, monarchist politics as Dostoyevsky was an ardent supporter of the autocracy of the Russian Empire. In contrast to her objections to Dostoyevsky's "exaggerated emotional pitch", Woolf found much to admire in the work of Anton Chekhov and Leo Tolstoy. Woolf admired Chekhov for his stories of ordinary people living their lives, doing banal things and plots that had no neat endings. From Tolstoy, Woolf drew lessons about how a novelist should depict a character's psychological state and the interior tension within. Lackey notes that, from Ivan Turgenev, Woolf drew the lessons that there are multiple "I's" when writing a novel, and the novelist needed to balance those multiple versions of him- or herself to balance the "mundane facts" of a story vs. the writer's overarching vision, which required a "total passion" for art.
The American writer Henry David Thoreau also influenced Woolf. In a 1917 essay, she praised Thoreau for his statement "The millions are awake enough for physical labor, but only one in hundreds of millions is awake enough to a poetic or divine life. To be awake is to be alive." They both aimed to capture 'the moment'––as Walter Pater says, "to burn always with this hard, gem-like flame." Woolf praised Thoreau for his "simplicity" in finding "a way for setting free the delicate and complicated machinery of the soul". Like Thoreau, Woolf believed that it was silence that set the mind free to really contemplate and understand the world. Both authors believed in a certain transcendental, mystical approach to life and writing, where even banal things could be capable of generating deep emotions if one had enough silence and the presence of mind to appreciate them. Woolf and Thoreau were both concerned with the difficulty of human relationships in the modern age. Other notable influences include William Shakespeare, George Eliot, Leo Tolstoy, Marcel Proust, Anton Chekhov, Emily Brontë, Daniel Defoe, James Joyce, and E.M. Forster.
List of selected publications
see , ,
Novels
see also The Voyage Out & Complete text
see also Night and Day & Complete text
see also Jacob's Room & Complete text
see also Mrs Dalloway & Complete text
see also To the Lighthouse & Complete text, also Texts at Woolf Online
see also Orlando: A Biography & Complete text
see also The Waves & Complete text
see also Between the Acts & Complete text
Short stories
see also A Haunted House and Other Short Stories & Complete text
see also The Mark on the Wall & Complete text
see also Kew Gardens & Complete text
Cross-genre
see also Flush: A Biography & Complete text
Drama
see also Freshwater
Biography
see also Roger Fry: A Biography & Complete text
Essays
see also A Room of One's Own & Complete text
see also Mr. Bennett and Mrs. Brown & Complete text
see also A Letter to a Young Poet & Complete text
see also Three Guineas & Complete text
Essay collections
(Review)
(Review)
Complete text
(Review)
First American edition published by Harcourt, Brace and Company, New York, 1950.
& also here
— (1934). "Walter Sickert: A Conversation".
Contributions
(Digital edition)
Autobiographical writing
(Review)
(see Moments of Being)
, in (excerpts)
, in
(excerpts – 1st ed.)
Memoir Club Contributions
Diaries and notebooks
Letters
(Review)
Photograph albums
List of Album Guides
Album 1 MS Thr 557 (1863–1938)
Album 2 MS Thr 559 (1909–1922)
Album 3 MS Thr 560 (1890–1933)
Album 4 MS Thr 561 (1890–1947)
Album 5 MS Thr 562 (1892–1938)
Album 6 MS Thr 563 (1850–1900)
Collections
Views
In her lifetime, Woolf was outspoken on many topics that were considered controversial, some of which are now considered progressive, others regressive. She was an ardent feminist at a time when women's rights were barely recognised, and anti-colonialist, anti-imperialist and a pacifist when chauvinism was popular. On the other hand, she has been criticised for views on class and race in her private writings and published works. Like many of her contemporaries, some of her writing is now considered offensive. As a result, she is considered polarising, a revolutionary feminist and socialist hero or a purveyor of hate speech.
Works such as A Room of One's Own (1929) and Three Guineas (1938) are frequently taught as icons of feminist literature in courses that would be very critical of some of her views expressed elsewhere. She has also been the recipient of considerable homophobic and misogynist criticism.
Humanist views
Virginia Woolf was born into a non-religious family and is regarded, along with her fellow Bloomsberries E.M. Forster and G.E. Moore, as a humanist. Both her parents were prominent agnostic atheists. Her father, Leslie Stephen, had become famous in polite society for his writings which expressed and publicised reasons to doubt the veracity of religion. Stephen was also President of the West London Ethical Society, an early humanist organisation, and helped to found the Union of Ethical Societies in 1896. Woolf's mother, Julia Stephen, wrote the book Agnostic Women (1880), which argued that agnosticism (defined here as something more like atheism) could be a highly moral approach to life.
Woolf was a critic of Christianity. In a letter to Ethel Smyth, she gave a scathing denunciation of the religion, seeing it as self-righteous "egotism" and stating "my Jew [Leonard] has more religion in one toenail—more human love, in one hair". Woolf stated in her private letters that she thought of herself as an atheist.
Controversies
Hermione Lee cites a number of extracts from Woolf's writings that many, including Lee, would consider offensive, and these criticisms can be traced back as far as those of Wyndham Lewis and Q.D. Leavis in the 1920s and 1930s. Other authors provide more nuanced contextual interpretations, and stress the complexity of her character and the apparent inherent contradictions in analysing her apparent flaws. She could certainly be off-hand, rude and even cruel in her dealings with other authors, translators and biographers, such as her treatment of Ruth Gruber. Some authors, particularly postcolonial feminists dismiss her (and modernist authors in general) as privileged, elitist, classist, racist, and antisemitic.
Woolf's tendentious expressions, including prejudicial feelings against disabled people, have often been the topic of academic criticism:
The first quotation is from a diary entry of September 1920 and runs: "The fact is the lower classes are detestable." The remainder follow the first in reproducing stereotypes standard to upper-class and upper-middle class life in the early 20th century: "imbeciles should certainly be killed"; "Jews" are greasy; a "crowd" is both an ontological "mass" and is, again, "detestable"; "Germans" are akin to vermin; some "baboon faced intellectuals" mix with "sad green dressed negroes and negresses, looking like chimpanzees" at a peace conference; Kensington High St. revolts one's stomach with its innumerable "women of incredible mediocrity, drab as dishwater".
Antisemitism
Though accused of antisemitism, the treatment of Judaism and Jews by Woolf is far from straightforward. She was happily married to a Jewish man (Leonard Woolf) but often wrote about Jewish characters using stereotypes and generalisations. For instance, she described some of the Jewish characters in her work in terms that suggested they were physically repulsive or dirty. On the other hand, she could criticise her own views: "How I hated marrying a Jew — how I hated their nasal voices and their oriental jewellery, and their noses and their wattles — what a snob I was: for they have immense vitality, and I think I like that quality best of all" (Letter to Ethel Smyth 1930). These attitudes have been construed to reflect, not so much antisemitism, but tribalism; she married outside her social grouping, and Leonard Woolf, too, expressed misgivings about marrying a gentile. Leonard, "a penniless Jew from Putney", lacked the material status of the Stephens and their circle.
While travelling on a cruise to Portugal, she protested at finding "a great many Portuguese Jews on board, and other repulsive objects, but we keep clear of them". Furthermore, she wrote in her diary: "I do not like the Jewish voice; I do not like the Jewish laugh." Her 1938 short story The Duchess and the Jeweller (originally titled The Duchess and the Jew) has been considered antisemitic.
Yet Woolf and her husband Leonard came to despise and fear the 1930s fascism and antisemitism. Her 1938 book Three Guineas was an indictment of fascism and what Woolf described as a recurring propensity among patriarchal societies to enforce repressive societal mores by violence.
Sexuality
The Bloomsbury Group held very progressive views regarding sexuality and shucked the austere strictness of Victorian society. The majority of its members were homosexual or bisexual.
Virginia was most likely a lesbian, some debate that she was bisexual. However she had several affairs with women, the most notable being with Vita Sackville-West which inspired Orlando: A Biography. The two of them remained lovers for a decade and stayed close friends for the rest of Virginia's life. Virginia had said to Vita she disliked masculinity
Among her other notable affairs were Sibyl Colefax, Lady Ottoline Morrell and Mary Hutchinson. Some surmise that she may have fallen in love with Madge Symonds, the wife of one of her uncles. Madge Symonds was described as one of Virginia's early loves in Vita's diary She also fell in love with Violet Dickinson although there is some confusion as to whether the two consummated their relationship.
In regards to relationships with men, Virginia was averse to sex with them, blaming the sexual abuse perpetrated upon her and her sister by her half-brothers when they were children and teens. This is one of the reasons she initially declined marriage proposals from her future husband, Leonard. She even went as far as to tell him that she was not attracted to him, but that she did love him and finally agreed to marriage. Virginia preferred female lovers to male lovers, for the most part, based on her aversion to sex with men. This aversion to relations with men influenced her writing especially when considering her sexual abuse as a child.
Leonard became the love of her life and even though their sexual relationship was questionable, they loved each other deeply and formed a strong, supportive and prolific marriage which led to the formation of their publishing house as well as several of her writings. Neither was faithful to the other sexually, but they were faithful in their love and respect for each other.
Modern scholarship and interpretations
Though at least one biography of Virginia Woolf appeared in her lifetime, the first authoritative study of her life was published in 1972 by her nephew Quentin Bell. Hermione Lee's 1996 biography Virginia Woolf provides a thorough and authoritative examination of Woolf's life and work, which she discussed in an interview in 1997. In 2001, Louise DeSalvo and Mitchell A. Leaska edited The Letters of Vita Sackville-West and Virginia Woolf. Julia Briggs's Virginia Woolf: An Inner Life (2005) focuses on Woolf's writing, including her novels and her commentary on the creative process, to illuminate her life. The sociologist Pierre Bourdieu also uses Woolf's literature to understand and analyse gender domination. Woolf biographer Gillian Gill notes that Woolf's traumatic experience of sexual abuse by her half-brothers during her childhood influenced her advocacy of protection of vulnerable children from similar experiences.
Virginia Woolf and her mother
The intense scrutiny of Virginia Woolf's literary output (see Bibliography) has led to speculation as to her mother's influence, including psychoanalytic studies of mother and daughter. Woolf states that, "my first memory, and in fact it is the most important of all my memories" is of her mother. Her memories of her mother are memories of an obsession, starting with her first major breakdown on her mother's death in 1895, the loss having a profound lifelong effect. In many ways, her mother's profound influence on Virginia Woolf is conveyed in the latter's recollections, "there she is; beautiful, emphatic ... closer than any of the living are, lighting our random lives as with a burning torch, infinitely noble and delightful to her children".
Woolf described her mother as an "invisible presence" in her life, and Ellen Rosenman argues that the mother-daughter relationship is a constant in Woolf's writing. She describes how Woolf's modernism needs to be viewed in relationship to her ambivalence towards her Victorian mother, the centre of the former's female identity, and her voyage to her own sense of autonomy. To Woolf, "Saint Julia" was both a martyr whose perfectionism was intimidating and a source of deprivation, by her absences real and virtual and premature death. Julia's influence and memory pervades Woolf's life and work. "She has haunted me", she wrote.
Historical feminism
According to the 2007 book Feminism: From Mary Wollstonecraft to Betty Friedan by Bhaskar A. Shukla, "Recently, studies of Virginia Woolf have focused on feminist and lesbian themes in her work, such as in the 1997 collection of critical essays, Virginia Woolf: Lesbian Readings, edited by Eileen Barrett and Patricia Cramer." In 1928, Woolf took a grassroots approach to informing and inspiring feminism. She addressed undergraduate women at the ODTAA Society at Girton College, Cambridge and the Arts Society at Newnham College with two papers that eventually became A Room of One's Own (1929).
Woolf's best-known nonfiction works, A Room of One's Own (1929) and Three Guineas (1938), examine the difficulties that female writers and intellectuals faced because men held disproportionate legal and economic power, as well as the future of women in education and society. In The Second Sex (1949), Simone de Beauvoir counts, of all women who ever lived, only three female writers—Emily Brontë, Woolf and "sometimes" Katherine Mansfield— have explored "the given".
In popular culture
Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? is a 1962 play by Edward Albee. It examines the structure of the marriage of an American middle-aged academic couple, Martha and George. Mike Nichols directed a film version in 1966, starring Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton. Taylor won the 1966 Academy Award for Best Actress for the role.
Me! I'm Afraid of Virginia Woolf, a 1978 TV play, references the title of the Edward Albee play and features an English literature teacher who has a poster of her. It was written by Alan Bennett and directed by Stephen Frears.
The artwork The Dinner Party (1979) features a place setting for Woolf.
The 1996 album Poetic Justice, by British musician Steve Harley, contains a tribute to Woolf, specifically her most adventurous novel, in its closing track: "Riding the Waves (for Virginia Woolf)".
Michael Cunningham's 1998 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel The Hours focused on three generations of women affected by Woolf's novel Mrs Dalloway. In 2002, a film version of the novel was released, starring Nicole Kidman as Woolf. Kidman won the 2003 Academy Award for her portrayal.
Susan Sellers's novel Vanessa and Virginia (2008) explores the close sibling relationship between Woolf and her sister, Vanessa Bell. It was adapted for the stage by Elizabeth Wright in 2010 and first performed by Moving Stories Theatre Company.
Priya Parmar's 2014 novel Vanessa and Her Sister also examined the Stephen sisters' relationship during the early years of their association with what became known as the Bloomsbury Group.
An exhibition on Virginia Woolf was held at the National Portrait Gallery from July to October 2014.
In the 2014 novel The House at the End of Hope Street, Woolf is featured as one of the women who has lived in the titular house.
Virginia is portrayed by both Lydia Leonard and Catherine McCormack in the BBC's three-part drama series Life in Squares (2015).
On 25 January 2018, Google showed a Google doodle celebrating her 136th birthday.
In many Barnes & Noble stores, Woolf is featured in Gary Kelly's Author Mural Panels, an imprint of the Barnes & Noble Author brand that also features other notable authors like Hurston, Tagore, and Kafka.
The 2018 film Vita and Virginia depicts the relationship between Vita Sackville-West and Woolf, portrayed by Gemma Arterton and Elizabeth Debicki respectively.
The 2020 novel Trio by William Boyd follows the life of Elfrida Wing, an alcoholic writer interested in the suicide of Woolf.
Adaptations
A number of Virginia Woolf's works have been adapted for the screen, and her play Freshwater (1935) is the basis for a 1994 chamber opera, Freshwater, by Andy Vores. The final segment of the 2018 London Unplugged is adapted from her short story Kew Gardens. Septimus and Clarissa, a stage adaptation of Mrs. Dalloway was created and produced by the New York-based ensemble Ripe Time in 2011 at the Baruch Performing Arts Center. It was adapted by Ellen McLaughlin, and directed and devised by Rachel Dickstein. It was nominated for a 2012 Drama League award for Outstanding Production, a Drama Desk nomination for Outstanding Score (Gina Leishman) and a Joe A. Calloway Award nomination for outstanding direction (Rachel Dickstein.)
Legacy
Virginia Woolf is known for her contributions to 20th-century literature and her essays, as well as the influence she has had on literary, particularly feminist criticism. A number of authors have stated that their work was influenced by her, including Margaret Atwood, Michael Cunningham, Gabriel García Márquez, and Toni Morrison. Her iconic image is instantly recognisable from the Beresford portrait of her at twenty (at the top of this page) to the Beck and Macgregor portrait in her mother's dress in Vogue at 44 (see image) or Man Ray's cover of Time magazine (see image) at 55. More postcards of Woolf are sold by the National Portrait Gallery, London than any other person. Her image is ubiquitous, and can be found on products ranging from tea towels to T-shirts.
Virginia Woolf is studied around the world, with organisations such as the Virginia Woolf Society, and The Virginia Woolf Society of Japan. In addition, trusts—such as the Asham Trust—encourage writers in her honour. Although she had no descendants, a number of her extended family are notable.
Monuments and memorials
In 2013, Woolf was honoured by her alma mater of King's College London with the opening of the Virginia Woolf Building on Kingsway, with a plaque commemorating her time there and her contributions (see image), together with this exhibit depicting her accompanied by a quotation "London itself perpetually attracts, stimulates, gives me a play & a story & a poem" from her 1926 diary. Busts of Virginia Woolf have been erected at her home in Rodmell, Sussex and at Tavistock Square, London where she lived between 1924 and 1939.
In 2014, she was one of the inaugural honorees in the Rainbow Honor Walk, a walk of fame in San Francisco's Castro neighbourhood noting LGBTQ people who have "made significant contributions in their fields".
Woolf Works, a women's co-working space in Singapore, opened in 2014 and was named after her in tribute to the essay A Room of One's Own; it also has many other things named after it (see the essay's article).
A campaign was launched in 2018 by Aurora Metro Arts and Media to erect a statue of Woolf in Richmond, where she lived for 10 years. The proposed statue shows her reclining on a bench overlooking the river Thames.
Family trees
see , , ,
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Notes
References
Bibliography
Books and theses
see also The Second Sex
see also Survey of London
(Review)
Biography: Virginia Woolf
Vol. I: Virginia Stephen 1882 to 1912. London: Hogarth Press. 1972.
Vol. II: Virginia Woolf 1912 to 1941. London: Hogarth Press. 1972.
(Review)
(Review)
(Review)
(additional excerpts)
(Review)
(excerpt - Chapter 1)
(Review)
(Review)
(Review)
(Illustrations of Woolf's London homes are excerpted at .)
Mental health
additional excerpts
(summary)
see also Touched with Fire
Biography: Other
(Review)
(Review)
(Review)
(Review)
(Review)
(Review)
also Internet archive
also available through MOMA here
Literary commentary
(additional excerpts)
(Review)
additional excerpt
(Review)
(Review)
(Review)
Bloomsbury
(additional excerpts)
(Review)
Chapters and contributions
, in
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Articles
Journals
(text also available here)
Dictionaries and encyclopaedias
Newspapers and magazines
archived version
archived version
with excerpt
Websites and documents
(includes invitation to first performance in 1935 and Lucio Ruotolo's introduction to the 1976 Hogarth Press edition)
Blogs
British Library
Literary commentary
British Library
Virginia Woolf's homes and venues
, in
, in
Virginia Woolf biography
Timelines
, in
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Genealogy
, in
Images
, in
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Maps
, in
Audiovisual media
see also Life in Squares
excerpt
Selected online texts
Audiofiles
Archival material
Bibliography notes
Bibliography references
External links
Virginia Woolf Papers at the Mortimer Rare Book Collection, Smith College Special Collections
1882 births
1941 suicides
19th-century English women
19th-century English people
19th-century English writers
20th-century British short story writers
20th-century English women writers
20th-century English novelists
20th-century essayists
20th-century non-fiction writers
Alumni of King's College London
Bisexual women
Bisexual writers
Bloomsbury Group
Bloomsbury Group biographers
British anti-fascists
British atheists
British autobiographers
British diarists
British essayists
British humanists
British memoirists
British pacifists
British secularists
British socialists
British cultural critics
British women dramatists and playwrights
British women essayists
British women short story writers
Critics of Christianity
Critics of Judaism
Critics of new religious movements
Critics of religions
English anti-fascists
English atheists
English autobiographers
English diarists
English essayists
English humanists
English memoirists
English pacifists
English socialists
English women dramatists and playwrights
English women novelists
LGBT memoirists
LGBT writers from England
Mental health activists
Modernist women writers
Modernist writers
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People with bipolar disorder
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Social critics
Stephen-Bell family
Suicides by drowning in England
Women diarists
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Writers about activism and social change
Writers from London
20th-century memoirists
Dreadnought hoax
English feminist writers
Atheist feminists
People from Firle
British feminists
English feminists
Lost Generation writers
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"
]
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[
"Virginia Woolf",
"Talland House (1882-1894)",
"Where is Talland House?",
") at St. Ives.",
"Is that where Virginia lived?",
"Both at Hyde Park Gate and Talland House, the family mingled with much of the",
"Who did the family mingle with?",
"the family mingled with much of the country's literary and artistic circles. Frequent guests included",
"Are there any other interesting aspects about this article?",
"In both London and Cornwall, Julia was perpetually entertaining, and was notorious for her manipulation of her guests' lives,"
]
| C_2448e986735e46eb8b47624e648fd3f5_1 | Did they entertain anyone famous? | 5 | Did the Woolf family entertain anyone famous? | Virginia Woolf | Leslie Stephen was in the habit of hiking in Cornwall, and in the spring of 1881 he came across a large white house in St. Ives, Cornwall, and took out a lease on it that September. Although it had limited amenities, its main attraction was the view overlooking Porthminster Bay towards the Godrevy Lighthouse, which the young Virginia could see from the upper windows and was to be the central figure in her To the Lighthouse (1927). It was a large square house, with a terraced garden, divided by hedges, sloping down towards the sea. Each year between 1882 and 1894 from mid-July to mid-September the Stephen's leased Talland House as a summer residence. Leslie Stephen, who referred to it thus: "a pocket-paradise", described it as "The pleasantest of my memories... refer to our summers, all of which were passed in Cornwall, especially to the thirteen summers (1882-1894) at St. Ives. There we bought the lease of Talland House: a small but roomy house, with a garden of an acre or two all up and down hill, with quaint little terraces divided by hedges of escallonia, a grape-house and kitchen-garden and a so-called 'orchard' beyond". It was in Leslie's words, a place of "intense domestic happiness". Virginia herself described the house in great detail: In both London and Cornwall, Julia was perpetually entertaining, and was notorious for her manipulation of her guests' lives, constantly matchmaking in the belief everyone should be married, the domestic equivalence of her philanthropy. As her husband observed "My Julia was of course, though with all due reserve, a bit of a matchmaker". While Cornwall was supposed to be a summer respite, Julia Stephen soon immersed herself in the work of caring for the sick and poor there, as well as in London. Both at Hyde Park Gate and Talland House, the family mingled with much of the country's literary and artistic circles. Frequent guests included literary figures such as Henry James and George Meredith, as well as James Russell Lowell, and the children were exposed to much more intellectual conversations than their mother's at Little Holland House. The family did not return, following Julia Stephen's death in May 1895. For the children it was the highlight of the year, and Virginia's most vivid childhood memories were not of London but of Cornwall. In a diary entry of 22 March 1921, she described why she felt so connected to Talland House, looking back to a summer day in August 1890. "Why am I so incredibly and incurably romantic about Cornwall? One's past, I suppose; I see children running in the garden ... The sound of the sea at night ... almost forty years of life, all built on that, permeated by that: so much I could never explain". Cornwall inspired aspects of her work, in particular the "St Ives Trilogy" of Jacob's Room (1922), To the Lighthouse (1927), and The Waves (1931). CANNOTANSWER | Frequent guests included literary figures such as Henry James and George Meredith, as well as James Russell Lowell, and the children were exposed to | Adeline Virginia Woolf (; ; 25 January 1882 28 March 1941) was an English writer, considered one of the most important modernist 20th-century authors and a pioneer in the use of stream of consciousness as a narrative device.
Woolf was born into an affluent household in South Kensington, London, the seventh child of Julia Prinsep Jackson and Leslie Stephen in a blended family of eight which included the modernist painter Vanessa Bell. She was home-schooled in English classics and Victorian literature from a young age. From 1897 to 1901, she attended the Ladies' Department of King's College London, where she studied classics and history and came into contact with early reformers of women's higher education and the women's rights movement.
Encouraged by her father, Woolf began writing professionally in 1900. After her father's death in 1904, the Stephen family moved from Kensington to the more bohemian Bloomsbury, where, in conjunction with the brothers' intellectual friends, they formed the artistic and literary Bloomsbury Group. In 1912, she married Leonard Woolf, and in 1917, the couple founded the Hogarth Press, which published much of her work. They rented a home in Sussex and moved there permanently in 1940. Woolf had romantic relationships with women, including Vita Sackville-West, who also published her books through Hogarth Press. Both women's literature became inspired by their relationship, which lasted until Woolf's death.
During the inter-war period, Woolf was an important part of London's literary and artistic society. In 1915, she had published her first novel, The Voyage Out, through her half-brother's publishing house, Gerald Duckworth and Company. Her best-known works include the novels Mrs Dalloway (1925), To the Lighthouse (1927) and Orlando (1928). She is also known for her essays, including A Room of One's Own (1929). Woolf became one of the central subjects of the 1970s movement of feminist criticism and her works have since attracted much attention and widespread commentary for "inspiring feminism". Her works have been translated into more than 50 languages. A large body of literature is dedicated to her life and work, and she has been the subject of plays, novels and films. Woolf is commemorated today by statues, societies dedicated to her work and a building at the University of London.
Throughout her life, Woolf was troubled by mental illness. She was institutionalised several times and attempted suicide at least twice. According to Dalsimer (2004) her illness was characterized by symptoms that today would be diagnosed as bipolar disorder, for which there was no effective intervention during her lifetime. In 1941, at age 59, Woolf died by drowning herself in the River Ouse at Lewes.
Life
Family of origin
Virginia Woolf was born Adeline Virginia Stephen on 25 January 1882 at 22 Hyde Park Gate in South Kensington, London, to Julia (née Jackson) (1846–1895) and Leslie Stephen (1832–1904), writer, historian, essayist, biographer and mountaineer. Julia Jackson was born in 1846 in Calcutta, British India, to John Jackson and Maria "Mia" Theodosia Pattle, from two Anglo-Indian families. John Jackson FRCS was the third son of George Jackson and Mary Howard of Bengal, a physician who spent 25 years with the Bengal Medical Service and East India Company and a professor at the fledgling Calcutta Medical College. While John Jackson was an almost invisible presence, the Pattle family were famous beauties, and moved in the upper circles of Bengali society. The seven Pattle sisters married into important families. Julia Margaret Cameron was a celebrated photographer, while Virginia married Earl Somers, and their daughter, Julia Jackson's cousin, was Lady Henry Somerset, the temperance leader. Julia moved to England with her mother at the age of two and spent much of her early life with another of her mother's sisters, Sarah Monckton Pattle. Sarah and her husband Henry Thoby Prinsep, conducted an artistic and literary salon at Little Holland House where she came into contact with a number of Pre-Raphaelite painters such as Edward Burne-Jones, for whom she modelled.
Julia was the youngest of three sisters, and Adeline Virginia was named after her mother's eldest sister Adeline Maria Jackson (1837–1881) and her mother's aunt Virginia Pattle (see Pattle family tree). Because of the tragedy of her aunt Adeline's death the previous year, the family never used Virginia's first name. The Jacksons were a well educated, literary and artistic proconsular middle-class family. In 1867, Julia Jackson married Herbert Duckworth, a barrister, but within three years was left a widow with three infant children. She was devastated and entered a prolonged period of mourning, abandoning her faith and turning to nursing and philanthropy. Julia and Herbert Duckworth had three children:
George (5 March 1868 – 27 April 1934), a senior civil servant, married Lady Margaret Herbert in 1904
Stella (30 May 1869 – 19 July 1897), died aged 28
Gerald (29 October 1870 – 28 September 1937), founder of Duckworth Publishing, married Cecil Alice Scott-Chad in 1921
Leslie Stephen was born in 1832 in South Kensington to Sir James and Lady Jane Catherine Stephen (née Venn), daughter of John Venn, rector of Clapham. The Venns were the centre of the evangelical Clapham Sect. Sir James Stephen was the under secretary at the Colonial Office, and with another Clapham member, William Wilberforce, was responsible for the passage of the Slavery Abolition Bill in 1833. In 1849 he was appointed Regius Professor of Modern History at Cambridge University. As a family of educators, lawyers, and writers the Stephens represented the elite intellectual aristocracy. While his family were distinguished and intellectual, they were less colourful and aristocratic than Julia Jackson's. A graduate and fellow of Cambridge University he renounced his faith and position to move to London where he became a notable man of letters. In addition, he was a rambler and mountaineer, described as a "gaunt figure with the ragged red brown beard...a formidable man, with an immensely high forehead, steely-blue eyes, and a long pointed nose." In the same year as Julia Jackson's marriage, he wed Harriet Marian (Minny) Thackeray (1840–1875), youngest daughter of William Makepeace Thackeray, who bore him a daughter, Laura (1870–1945), but died in childbirth in 1875. Laura was developmentally disabled and eventually institutionalised.
The widowed Julia Duckworth knew Leslie Stephen through her friendship with Minny's elder sister Anne (Anny) Isabella Ritchie and had developed an interest in his agnostic writings. She was present the night Minny died and later, tended to Leslie Stephen and helped him move next door to her on Hyde Park Gate so Laura could have some companionship with her own children. Both were preoccupied with mourning and although they developed a close friendship and intense correspondence, agreed it would go no further. Leslie Stephen proposed to her in 1877, an offer she declined, but when Anny married later that year she accepted him and they were married on 26 March 1878. He and Laura then moved next door into Julia's house, where they lived till his death in 1904. Julia was 32 and Leslie was 46.
Their first child, Vanessa, was born on 30 May 1879. Julia, having presented her husband with a child and now having five children to care for, decided to limit her family's growth. However, despite the fact that the couple took "precautions", "contraception was a very imperfect art in the nineteenth century": it resulted in the birth of three more children over the next four years.
22 Hyde Park Gate (1882–1904)
1882–1895
Virginia Woolf provides insight into her early life in her autobiographical essays, including Reminiscences (1908), 22 Hyde Park Gate (1921), and A Sketch of the Past (1940). Other essays that provide insight into this period include Leslie Stephen (1932). She also alludes to her childhood in her fictional writing. In To the Lighthouse (1927), her depiction of the life of the Ramsays in the Hebrides is an only thinly disguised account of the Stephens in Cornwall and the Godrevy Lighthouse they would visit there. However, Woolf's understanding of her mother and family evolved considerably between 1907 and 1940, in which the somewhat distant, yet revered figure of her mother becomes more nuanced and filled in.
In February 1891, with her sister Vanessa, Woolf began the Hyde Park Gate News, chronicling life and events within the Stephen family, and modelled on the popular magazine Tit-Bits. Initially, this was mainly Vanessa's and Thoby's articles, but very soon Virginia became the main contributor, with Vanessa as editor. Their mother's response when it first appeared was "Rather clever I think". Virginia would run the Hyde Park Gate News until 1895, the time of her mother's death. The following year the Stephen sisters also used photography to supplement their insights, as did Stella Duckworth. Vanessa Bell's 1892 portrait of her sister and parents in the Library at Talland House (see image) was one of the family's favourites and was written about lovingly in Leslie Stephen's memoir. In 1897 ("the first really lived year of my life)" Virginia began her first diary, which she kept for the next twelve years, and a notebook in 1909.
Virginia was, as she describes it, "born into a large connection, born not of rich parents, but of well-to-do parents, born into a very communicative, literate, letter writing, visiting, articulate, late nineteenth century world." It was a well-connected family consisting of six children, with two half brothers and a half sister (the Duckworths, from her mother's first marriage), another half sister, Laura (from her father's first marriage), and an older sister, Vanessa, and brother Thoby. The following year, another brother Adrian followed. The disabled Laura Stephen lived with the family until she was institutionalised in 1891. Julia and Leslie had four children together:
Vanessa "Nessa" (30 May 1879 – 1961), married Clive Bell in 1907
Thoby (9 September 1880 – 1906), founded Bloomsbury Group
Virginia "Jinny"/"Ginia" (25 January 1882 – 1941), married Leonard Woolf in 1912
Adrian (27 October 1883 – 1948), married Karin Costelloe in 1914
Virginia was born at 22 Hyde Park Gate and lived there until her father's death in 1904. Number 22 Hyde Park Gate, South Kensington, lay at the south-east end of Hyde Park Gate, a narrow cul-de-sac running south from Kensington Road, just west of the Royal Albert Hall, and opposite Kensington Gardens and Hyde Park, where the family regularly took their walks (see Map; Street plan). Built in 1846 by Henry Payne of Hammersmith as one of a row of single-family townhouses for the upper middle class, it soon became too small for their expanding family. At the time of their marriage, it consisted of a basement, two storeys, and an attic. In July 1886 Leslie Stephen obtained the services of J. W. Penfold, an architect, to add additional living space above and behind the existing structure. The substantial renovations added a new top floor (see image of red brick extension), with three bedrooms and a study for himself, converted the original attic into rooms, and added the first bathroom. It was a tall but narrow townhouse, that at that time had no running water. Virginia would later describe it as "a very tall house on the left-hand side near the bottom which begins by being stucco and ends by being red brick; which is so high and yet—as I can say now that we have sold it—so rickety that it seems as if a very high wind would topple it over."
The servants worked "downstairs" in the basement. The ground floor had a drawing room, separated by a curtain from the servant's pantry and a library. Above this on the first floor were Julia and Leslie's bedrooms. On the next floor were the Duckworth children's rooms, and above them, the day and night nurseries of the Stephen children occupied two further floors. Finally, in the attic, under the eaves, were the servants' bedrooms, accessed by a back staircase. Life at 22 Hyde Park Gate was also divided symbolically; as Virginia put it, "The division in our lives was curious. Downstairs there was pure convention: upstairs pure intellect. But there was no connection between them", the worlds typified by George Duckworth and Leslie Stephen. Their mother, it seems, was the only one who could span this divide. The house was described as dimly lit and crowded with furniture and paintings. Within it, the younger Stephens formed a close-knit group. Despite this, the children still held their grievances. Virginia envied Adrian for being their mother's favourite. Virginia and Vanessa's status as creatives (writing and art respectively) caused a rivalry between them at times. Life in London differed sharply from their summers in Cornwall, their outdoor activities consisting mainly of walks in nearby Kensington Gardens, where they would play hide-and-seek and sail their boats on the Round Pond, while indoors, it revolved around their lessons.
Leslie Stephen's eminence as an editor, critic, and biographer, and his connection to William Thackeray, meant his children were raised in an environment filled with the influences of a Victorian literary society. Henry James, George Henry Lewes, Alfred Lord Tennyson, Thomas Hardy, Edward Burne-Jones, and Virginia's honorary godfather, James Russell Lowell, were among the visitors to the house. Julia Stephen was equally well connected. Her aunt was a pioneering early photographer, Julia Margaret Cameron, who was also a visitor to the Stephen household. The two Stephen sisters, Vanessa and Virginia, were almost three years apart in age. Virginia christened her older sister "the saint" and was far more inclined to exhibit her cleverness than her more reserved sister. Virginia resented the domesticity Victorian tradition forced on them far more than her sister. They also competed for Thoby's affections. Virginia would later confess her ambivalence over this rivalry to Duncan Grant in 1917: "indeed one of the concealed worms of my life has been a sister's jealousy – of a sister I mean; and to feed this I have invented such a myth about her that I scarce know one from t'other."
Virginia showed an early affinity for writing. Although both parents disapproved of formal education for females, writing was considered a respectable profession for women, and her father encouraged her in this respect. Later, she would describe this as "ever since I was a little creature, scribbling a story in the manner of Hawthorne on the green plush sofa in the drawing room at St. Ives while the grown-ups dined". By the age of five, she was writing letters and could tell her father a story every night. Later, she, Vanessa, and Adrian would develop the tradition of inventing a serial about their next-door neighbours, every night in the nursery, or in the case of St. Ives, of spirits that resided in the garden. It was her fascination with books that formed the strongest bond between her and her father. For her tenth birthday, she received an ink-stand, a blotter, drawing book and a box of writing implements.
Talland House (1882–1894)
Leslie Stephen was in the habit of hiking in Cornwall, and in the spring of 1881 he came across a large white house in St Ives, Cornwall, and took out a lease on it that September. Although it had limited amenities, its main attraction was the view overlooking Porthminster Bay towards the Godrevy Lighthouse, which the young Virginia could see from the upper windows and was to be the central figure in her To the Lighthouse (1927). It was a large square house, with a terraced garden, divided by hedges, sloping down towards the sea. Each year between 1882 and 1894 from mid-July to mid-September the Stephen family leased Talland House as a summer residence. Leslie Stephen, who referred to it thus: "a pocket-paradise", described it as "The pleasantest of my memories... refer to our summers, all of which were passed in Cornwall, especially to the thirteen summers (1882–1894) at St Ives. There we bought the lease of Talland House: a small but roomy house, with a garden of an acre or two all up and down hill, with quaint little terraces divided by hedges of escallonia, a grape-house and kitchen-garden and a so-called 'orchard' beyond". It was in Leslie's words, a place of "intense domestic happiness". Virginia herself described the house in great detail:
In both London and Cornwall, Julia was perpetually entertaining, and was notorious for her manipulation of her guests' lives, constantly matchmaking in the belief everyone should be married, the domestic equivalence of her philanthropy. As her husband observed, "My Julia was of course, though with all due reserve, a bit of a matchmaker." Amongst their guests in 1893 were the Brookes, whose children, including Rupert Brooke, played with the Stephen children. Rupert and his group of Cambridge Neo-pagans would come to play an important role in their lives in the years before the First World War. While Cornwall was supposed to be a summer respite, Julia Stephen soon immersed herself in the work of caring for the sick and poor there, as well as in London. Both at Hyde Park Gate and Talland House, the family mingled with much of the country's literary and artistic circles. Frequent guests included literary figures such as Henry James and George Meredith, as well as James Russell Lowell, and the children were exposed to much more intellectual conversations than at their mother's Little Holland House. The family did not return, following Julia Stephen's death in May 1895.
For the children, it was the highlight of the year, and Virginia's most vivid childhood memories were not of London but of Cornwall. In a diary entry of 22 March 1921, she described why she felt so connected to Talland House, looking back to a summer day in August 1890. "Why am I so incredibly and incurably romantic about Cornwall? One's past, I suppose; I see children running in the garden … The sound of the sea at night … almost forty years of life, all built on that, permeated by that: so much I could never explain". Cornwall inspired aspects of her work, in particular the "St Ives Trilogy" of Jacob's Room (1922), To the Lighthouse (1927), and The Waves (1931).
1895–1904
Julia Stephen fell ill with influenza in February 1895, and never properly recovered, dying on 5 May, when Virginia was 13. It was a pivotal moment in her life and the beginning of her struggles with mental illness. Essentially, her life had fallen apart. The Duckworths were travelling abroad at the time of their mother's death, and Stella returned immediately to take charge and assume her role. That summer, rather than return to the memories of St Ives, the Stephens went to Freshwater, Isle of Wight, where some of their mother's relatives lived. It was there that Virginia had the first of her many nervous breakdowns, and Vanessa was forced to assume some of her mother's role in caring for Virginia's mental state. Stella became engaged to Jack Hills the following year and they were married on 10 April 1897, making Virginia even more dependent on her older sister.
George Duckworth also assumed some of their mother's role, taking upon himself the task of bringing them out into society. First Vanessa, then Virginia, in both cases an equal disaster, for it was not a rite of passage that resonated with either girl and attracted a scathing critique by Virginia regarding the conventional expectations of young upper-class women: "Society in those days was a perfectly competent, perfectly complacent, ruthless machine. A girl had no chance against its fangs. No other desires – say to paint, or to write – could be taken seriously". Rather her priorities were to escape from the Victorian conventionality of the downstairs drawing room to a "room of one's own" to pursue her writing aspirations. She would revisit this criticism in her depiction of Mrs. Ramsay stating the duties of a Victorian mother in To the Lighthouse "an unmarried woman has missed the best of life".
The death of Stella Duckworth on 19 July 1897, after a long illness, was a further blow to Virginia's sense of self, and the family dynamics. Woolf described the period following the death of both her mother and Stella as "1897–1904 – the seven unhappy years", referring to "the lash of a random unheeding flail that pointlessly and brutally killed the two people who should, normally and naturally, have made those years, not perhaps happy but normal and natural". In April 1902, their father became ill, and although he underwent surgery later that year he never fully recovered, dying on 22 February 1904. Virginia's father's death precipitated a further breakdown. Later, Virginia would describe this time as one in which she was dealt successive blows as a "broken chrysalis" with wings still creased. Chrysalis occurs many times in Woolf's writing but the "broken chrysalis" was an image that became a metaphor for those exploring the relationship between Woolf and grief. At his death, Leslie Stephen's net worth was £15,715 6s. 6d. (probate 23 March 1904)
Education
In the late 19th century, education was sharply divided along gender lines, a tradition that Virginia would note and condemn in her writing. Boys were sent to school, and in upper-middle-class families such as the Stephens, it involved private boys schools, often boarding schools, and university. Girls, if they were afforded the luxury of education, received it from their parents, governesses, and tutors. Virginia was educated by her parents who shared the duty. There was a small classroom off the back of the drawing room, with its many windows, which they found perfect for quiet writing and painting. Julia taught the children Latin, French, and history, while Leslie taught them mathematics. They also received piano lessons. Supplementing their lessons was the children's unrestricted access to Leslie Stephen's vast library, exposing them to much of the literary canon, resulting in a greater depth of reading than any of their Cambridge contemporaries, Virginia's reading being described as "greedy". Later, she would recall After public school, the boys in the family all attended Cambridge University. The girls derived some indirect benefit from this, as the boys introduced them to their friends. Another source was the conversation of their father's friends, to whom they were exposed. Leslie Stephen described his circle as "most of the literary people of mark...clever young writers and barristers, chiefly of the radical persuasion...we used to meet on Wednesday and Sunday evenings, to smoke and drink and discuss the universe and the reform movement".
Later, between the ages of 15 and 19, Virginia was able to pursue higher education. She took courses of study, some at degree level, in beginning and advanced Ancient Greek, intermediate Latin and German, together with continental and English history at the Ladies' Department of King's College London at nearby 13 Kensington Square between 1897 and 1901. She studied Greek under the eminent scholar George Charles Winter Warr, professor of Classical Literature at King's. In addition she had private tutoring in German, Greek, and Latin. One of her Greek tutors was Clara Pater (1899–1900), who taught at King's. Another was Janet Case, who involved her in the women's rights movement, and whose obituary Virginia would later write in 1937. Her experiences led to her 1925 essay "On Not Knowing Greek". Her time at King's also brought her into contact with some of the early reformers of women's higher education such as the principal of the Ladies' Department, Lilian Faithfull (one of the so-called steamboat ladies), in addition to Pater. Her sister Vanessa also enrolled at the Ladies' Department (1899–1901). Although the Stephen girls could not attend Cambridge, they were to be profoundly influenced by their brothers' experiences there. When Thoby went to Trinity in 1899, he befriended a circle of young men, including Clive Bell, Lytton Strachey, Leonard Woolf (whom Virginia would later marry), and Saxon Sydney-Turner, whom he would soon introduce to his sisters at the Trinity May Ball in 1900. These men formed a reading group they named the Midnight Society.
Relationships with family
Although Virginia expressed the opinion her father was her favourite parent, and although she had only turned thirteen when her mother died, she was profoundly influenced by her mother throughout her life. It was Virginia who famously stated that "for we think back through our mothers if we are women", and invoked the image of her mother repeatedly throughout her life in her diaries, her letters and a number of her autobiographical essays, including Reminiscences (1908), 22 Hyde Park Gate (1921) and A Sketch of the Past (1940), frequently evoking her memories with the words "I see her ...". She also alludes to her childhood in her fictional writing. In To the Lighthouse (1927), the artist, Lily Briscoe, attempts to paint Mrs. Ramsay, a complex character based on Julia Stephen, and repeatedly comments on the fact that she was "astonishingly beautiful". Her depiction of the life of the Ramsays in the Hebrides is an only thinly disguised account of the Stephens in Cornwall and the Godrevy Lighthouse they would visit there. However, Woolf's understanding of her mother and family evolved considerably between 1907 and 1940, in which the somewhat distant, yet revered figure becomes more nuanced and complete.
While her father painted Julia Stephen's work in terms of reverence, Woolf drew a sharp distinction between her mother's work and "the mischievous philanthropy which other women practise so complacently and often with such disastrous results." She describes her degree of sympathy, engagement, judgement, and decisiveness, and her sense of both irony and the absurd. She recalls trying to recapture "the clear round voice, or the sight of the beautiful figure, so upright and distinct, in its long shabby cloak, with the head held at a certain angle, so that the eye looked straight out at you." Julia Stephen dealt with her husband's depressions and his need for attention, which created resentment in her children, boosted his self-confidence, nursed her parents in their final illness, and had many commitments outside the home that would eventually wear her down. Her frequent absences and the demands of her husband instilled a sense of insecurity in her children that had a lasting effect on her daughters. In considering the demands on her mother, Woolf described her father as "fifteen years her elder, difficult, exacting, dependent on her," and reflected that it was at the expense of the amount of attention she could spare her young children: "a general presence rather than a particular person to a child." She reflected that she rarely ever spent a moment alone with her mother: "someone was always interrupting." Woolf was ambivalent about it, yet eager to separate herself from this model of utter selflessness. In To the Lighthouse, she describes it as "boasting of her capacity to surround and protect, there was scarcely a shell of herself left for her to know herself by; all was so lavished and spent." At the same time, she admired the strengths of her mother's womanly ideals. Given Julia's frequent absences and commitments, the young Stephen children became increasingly dependent on Stella Duckworth, who emulated her mother's selflessness; as Woolf wrote, "Stella was always the beautiful attendant handmaid ... making it the central duty of her life."
Julia Stephen greatly admired her husband's intellect. As Woolf observed "she never belittled her own works, thinking them, if properly discharged, of equal, though other, importance with her husband's." She believed with certainty in her role as the centre of her activities, and the person who held everything together, with a firm sense of what was important and valuing devotion. Of the two parents, Julia's "nervous energy dominated the family". While Virginia identified most closely with her father, Vanessa stated her mother was her favourite parent. Angelica Garnett recalls how Virginia asked Vanessa which parent she preferred, although Vanessa considered it a question that "one ought not to ask", she was unequivocal in answering "Mother" yet the centrality of her mother to Virginia's world is expressed in this description of her "Certainly there she was, in the very centre of that great Cathedral space which was childhood; there she was from the very first". Virginia observed that her half-sister, Stella, the oldest daughter, led a life of total subservience to her mother, incorporating her ideals of love and service. Virginia quickly learned, that like her father, being ill was the only reliable way of gaining the attention of her mother, who prided herself on her sickroom nursing.
Another issue the children had to deal with was Leslie Stephen's temper, Woolf describing him as "the tyrant father". Eventually, she became deeply ambivalent about him. He had given her his ring on her eighteenth birthday and she had a deep emotional attachment as his literary heir, writing about her "great devotion for him". Yet, like Vanessa, she also saw him as victimiser and tyrant. She had a lasting ambivalence towards him through her life, albeit one that evolved. Her adolescent image was of an "Eminent Victorian" and tyrant but as she grew older she began to realise how much of him was in her: "I have been dipping into old letters and father's memoirs....so candid and reasonable and transparent—and had such a fastidious delicate mind, educated, and transparent," she wrote 22 December 1940. She was in turn both fascinated and condemnatory of Leslie Stephen: "She [her mother] has haunted me: but then, so did that old wretch my father. . . . I was more like him than her, I think; and therefore more critical: but he was an adorable man, and somehow, tremendous."
Sexual abuse
Woolf stated that she first remembers being molested by Gerald Duckworth when she was six years old. It has been suggested that this led to a lifetime of sexual fear and resistance to
masculine authority. Against a background of over-committed and distant parents, suggestions that this was a dysfunctional family must be evaluated. These include evidence of sexual abuse of the Stephen girls by their older Duckworth half-brothers, and by their cousin, James Kenneth Stephen (1859–1892), at least of Stella Duckworth. Laura is also thought to have been abused. The most graphic account is by Louise DeSalvo, but other authors and reviewers have been more cautious. Virginia's accounts of being continually sexually abused during the time that she lived at 22 Hyde Park Gate, have been cited by some critics as a possible cause of her mental health issues, although there are likely to be a number of contributing factors. Lee states that, "The evidence is strong enough, and yet ambiguous enough, to open the way for conflicting psychobiographical interpretations that draw quite different shapes of Virginia Woolf's interior life".
Bloomsbury (1904–1940)
Gordon Square (1904–1907)
On their father's death, the Stephens' first instinct was to escape from the dark house of yet more mourning, and this they did immediately, accompanied by George, travelling to Manorbier, on the coast of Pembrokeshire on 27 February. There, they spent a month, and it was there that Virginia first came to realise her destiny was as a writer, as she recalls in her diary of 3 September 1922. They then further pursued their newfound freedom by spending April in Italy and France, where they met up with Clive Bell again. Virginia then suffered her second nervous breakdown, and first suicidal attempt on 10 May, and convalesced over the next three months.
Before their father died, the Stephens had discussed the need to leave South Kensington in the West End, with its tragic memories and their parents' relations. George Duckworth was 35, his brother Gerald 33. The Stephen children were now between 24 and 20. Virginia was 22. Vanessa and Adrian decided to sell 22 Hyde Park Gate in respectable South Kensington and move to Bloomsbury. Bohemian Bloomsbury, with its characteristic leafy squares seemed sufficiently far away, geographically and socially, and was a much cheaper neighbourhood rentwise. They had not inherited much and they were unsure about their finances. Also, Bloomsbury was close to the Slade School which Vanessa was then attending. While Gerald was quite happy to move on and find himself a bachelor establishment, George who had always assumed the role of quasi-parent decided to accompany them, much to their dismay. It was then that Lady Margaret Herbert appeared on the scene, George proposed, was accepted and married in September, leaving the Stephens to their own devices.
Vanessa found a house at 46 Gordon Square in Bloomsbury, and they moved in November, to be joined by Virginia now sufficiently recovered. It was at Gordon Square that the Stephens began to regularly entertain Thoby's intellectual friends in March 1905. The circle, which largely came from the Cambridge Apostles, included writers (Saxon Sydney-Turner, Lytton Strachey) and critics (Clive Bell, Desmond MacCarthy) with Thursday evening "At Homes" that became known as the Thursday Club, a vision of recreating Trinity College ("Cambridge in London"). This circle formed the nucleus of the intellectual circle of writers and artists known as the Bloomsbury Group. Later, it would include John Maynard Keynes (1907), Duncan Grant (1908), E.M. Forster (1910), Roger Fry (1910), Leonard Woolf (1911), and David Garnett (1914).
In 1905, Virginia and Adrian visited Portugal and Spain. Clive Bell proposed to Vanessa, but was declined, while Virginia began teaching evening classes at Morley College and Vanessa added another event to their calendar with the Friday Club, dedicated to the discussion of and later exhibition of the fine arts. This introduced some new people into their circle, including Vanessa's friends from the Royal Academy and Slade, such as Henry Lamb and Gwen Darwin (who became secretary), but also the eighteen-year-old Katherine Laird ("Ka") Cox (1887–1938), who was about to go up to Newnham. Although Virginia did not actually meet Ka until much later, Ka would come to play an important part in her life. Ka and others brought the Bloomsbury Group into contact with another, slightly younger, group of Cambridge intellectuals to whom the Stephen sisters gave the name "Neo-pagans". The Friday Club continued until 1913.
The following year, 1906, Virginia suffered two further losses. Her cherished brother Thoby, who was only 26, died of typhoid, following a trip they had all taken to Greece, and immediately afterward Vanessa accepted Clive's third proposal. Vanessa and Clive were married in February 1907 and as a couple, their interest in avant-garde art would have an important influence on Woolf's further development as an author. With Vanessa's marriage, Virginia and Adrian needed to find a new home.
Fitzroy Square (1907–1911)
Virginia moved into 29 Fitzroy Square in April 1907, a house on the west side of the street, formerly occupied by George Bernard Shaw. It was in Fitzrovia, immediately to the west of Bloomsbury but still relatively close to her sister at Gordon Square. The two sisters continued to travel together, visiting Paris in March. Adrian was now to play a much larger part in Virginia's life, and they resumed the Thursday Club in October at their new home, while Gordon Square became the venue for the Play Reading Society in December. During this period, the group began to increasingly explore progressive ideas, first in speech, and then in conduct, Vanessa proclaiming in 1910 a libertarian society with sexual freedom for all.
Meanwhile, Virginia began work on her first novel, Melymbrosia, that eventually became The Voyage Out (1915). Vanessa's first child, Julian was born in February 1908, and in September Virginia accompanied the Bells to Italy and France. It was during this time that Virginia's rivalry with her sister resurfaced, flirting with Clive, which he reciprocated, and which lasted on and off from 1908 to 1914, by which time her sister's marriage was breaking down. On 17 February 1909, Lytton Strachey proposed to Virginia and she accepted, but he then withdrew the offer.
It was while she was at Fitzroy Square that the question arose of Virginia needing a quiet country retreat, and she required a six-week rest cure and sought the countryside away from London as much as possible. In December, she and Adrian stayed at Lewes and started exploring the area of Sussex around the town. She started to want a place of her own, like St Ives, but closer to London. She soon found a property in nearby Firle (see below), maintaining a relationship with that area for the rest of her life.
Dreadnought hoax 1910
Several members of the group attained notoriety in 1910 with the Dreadnought hoax, which Virginia participated in disguised as a male Abyssinian royal. Her complete 1940 talk on the hoax was discovered and is published in the memoirs collected in the expanded edition of The Platform of Time (2008).
Brunswick Square (1911–1912)
In October 1911, the lease on Fitzroy Square was running out and Virginia and Adrian decided to give up their home on Fitzroy Square in favour of a different living arrangement, moving to a four-storied house at 38 Brunswick Square in Bloomsbury proper in November. Virginia saw it as a new opportunity: "We are going to try all kinds of experiments," she told Ottoline Morrell. Adrian occupied the second floor, with Maynard Keynes and Duncan Grant sharing the ground floor. This arrangement for a single woman was considered scandalous, and George Duckworth was horrified. The house was adjacent to the Foundling Hospital, much to Virginia's amusement as an unchaperoned single woman. Originally, Ka Cox was supposed to share in the arrangements, but opposition came from Rupert Brooke, who was involved with her and pressured her to abandon the idea. At the house, Duncan Grant decorated Adrian Stephen's rooms (see image).
Marriage (1912–1941)
Leonard Woolf was one of Thoby Stephen's friends at Trinity College, Cambridge, and noticed the Stephen sisters in Thoby's rooms there on their visits to the May Ball in 1900 and 1901. He recalls them in "white dresses and large hats, with parasols in their hands, their beauty literally took one's breath away". To him, they were silent, "formidable and alarming".
Woolf did not meet Virginia formally till 17 November 1904 when he dined with the Stephens at Gordon Square, to say goodbye before leaving to take up a position with the civil service in Ceylon, although she was aware of him through Thoby's stories. At that visit he noted that she was perfectly silent throughout the meal, and looked ill. In 1909, Lytton Strachey suggested to Woolf he should make her an offer of marriage. He did so, but received no answer. In June 1911, he returned to London on a one-year leave, but did not go back to Ceylon. In England again, Leonard renewed his contacts with family and friends. Three weeks after arriving he dined with Vanessa and Clive Bell at Gordon Square on 3 July, where they were later joined by Virginia and other members of what would later be called "Bloomsbury", and Leonard dates the group's formation to that night. In September, Virginia asked Leonard to join her at Little Talland House at Firle in Sussex for a long weekend. After that weekend, they began seeing each other more frequently.
On 4 December 1911, Leonard moved into the ménage on Brunswick Square, occupying a bedroom and sitting room on the fourth floor, and started to see Virginia constantly and by the end of the month had decided he was in love with her. On 11 January 1912, he proposed to her; she asked for time to consider, so he asked for an extension of his leave and, on being refused, offered his resignation on 25 April, effective 20 May. He continued to pursue Virginia, and in a letter of 1 May 1912 (which see) she explained why she did not favour a marriage. However, on 29 May, Virginia told Leonard that she wished to marry him, and they were married on 10 August at the St Pancras Register Office. It was during this time that Leonard first became aware of Virginia's precarious mental state. The Woolfs continued to live at Brunswick Square until October 1912, when they moved to a small flat at 13 Clifford's Inn, further to the east (subsequently demolished). Despite his low material status (Woolf referring to Leonard during their engagement as a "penniless Jew"), the couple shared a close bond. Indeed, in 1937, Woolf wrote in her diary: "Love-making—after 25 years can't bear to be separate ... you see it is enormous pleasure being wanted: a wife. And our marriage so complete." However, Virginia made a suicide attempt in 1913.
In October 1914, Leonard and Virginia Woolf moved away from Bloomsbury and central London to Richmond, living at 17 The Green, a home discussed by Leonard in his autobiography Beginning Again (1964). In early March 1915, the couple moved again, to nearby Hogarth House, Paradise Road, after which they named their publishing house. Virginia's first novel, The Voyage Out was published in 1915, followed by another suicide attempt. Despite the introduction of conscription in 1916, Leonard was exempted on medical grounds.
Between 1924 and 1940, the Woolfs returned to Bloomsbury, taking out a ten-year lease at 52 Tavistock Square, from where they ran the Hogarth Press from the basement, where Virginia also had her writing room, and is commemorated with a bust of her in the square (see illustration). 1925 saw the publication of Mrs Dalloway in May followed by her collapse while at Charleston in August. In 1927, her next novel, To the Lighthouse, was published, and the following year she lectured on Women & Fiction at Cambridge University and published Orlando in October. Her two Cambridge lectures then became the basis for her major essay A Room of One's Own in 1929. Virginia wrote only one drama, Freshwater, based on her great-aunt Julia Margaret Cameron, and produced at her sister's studio on Fitzroy Street in 1935. 1936 saw another collapse of her health following the completion of The Years.
The Woolf's final residence in London was at 37 Mecklenburgh Square (1939–1940), destroyed during the Blitz in September 1940; a month later their previous home on Tavistock Square was also destroyed. After that, they made Sussex their permanent home. For descriptions and illustrations of all Virginia Woolf's London homes, see Jean Moorcroft Wilson's book Virginia Woolf, Life and London: A Biography of Place (pub. Cecil Woolf, 1987).
Hogarth Press (1917–1938)
Virginia had taken up book-binding as a pastime in October 1901, at the age of 19, and the Woolfs had been discussing setting up a publishing house for some time, and at the end of 1916 started making plans. Having discovered that they were not eligible to enroll in the St Bride School of Printing, they started purchasing supplies after seeking advice from the Excelsior Printing Supply Company on Farringdon Road in March 1917, and soon they had a printing press set up on their dining room table at Hogarth House, and the Hogarth Press was born.
Their first publication was Two Stories in July 1917, inscribed Publication No. 1, and consisted of two short stories, "The Mark on the Wall" by Virginia Woolf and Three Jews by Leonard Woolf. The work consisted of 32 pages, hand bound and sewn, and illustrated by woodcuts designed by Dora Carrington. The illustrations were a success, leading Virginia to remark that the press was "specially good at printing pictures, and we see that we must make a practice of always having pictures." (13 July 1917) The process took two and a half months with a production run of 150 copies. Other short short stories followed, including Kew Gardens (1919) with a woodblock by Vanessa Bell as frontispiece. Subsequently, Bell added further illustrations, adorning each page of the text.
The press subsequently published Virginia's novels along with works by T.S. Eliot, Laurens van der Post, and others. The Press also commissioned works by contemporary artists, including Dora Carrington and Vanessa Bell. Woolf believed that to break free of a patriarchal society women writers needed a "room of their own" to develop and often fantasised about an "Outsider's Society" where women writers would create a virtual private space for themselves via their writings to develop a feminist critique of society. Though Woolf never created the "Outsider's society", the Hogarth Press was the closest approximation as the Woolfs chose to publish books by writers that took unconventional points of view to form a reading community. Initially the press concentrated on small experimental publications, of little interest to large commercial publishers. Until 1930, Woolf often helped her husband print the Hogarth books as the money for employees was not there. Virginia relinquished her interest in 1938, following a third attempted suicide. After it was bombed in September 1940, the press was moved to Letchworth for the remainder of the war. Both the Woolfs were internationalists and pacifists who believed that promoting understanding between peoples was the best way to avoid another world war and chose quite consciously to publish works by foreign authors of whom the British reading public were unaware. The first non-British author to be published was the Soviet writer Maxim Gorky, the book Reminiscences of Leo Nikolaiovich Tolstoy in 1920, dealing with his friendship with Count Leo Tolstoy.
Memoir Club (1920–1941)
1920 saw a postwar reconstitution of the Bloomsbury Group, under the title of the Memoir Club, which as the name suggests focussed on self-writing, in the manner of Proust's A La Recherche, and inspired some of the more influential books of the 20th century. The Group, which had been scattered by the war, was reconvened by Mary ('Molly') MacCarthy who called them "Bloomsberries", and operated under rules derived from the Cambridge Apostles, an elite university debating society that a number of them had been members of. These rules emphasised candour and openness. Among the 125 memoirs presented, Virginia contributed three that were published posthumously in 1976, in the autobiographical anthology Moments of Being. These were 22 Hyde Park Gate (1921), Old Bloomsbury (1922) and Am I a Snob? (1936).
Vita Sackville-West (1922–1941)
The ethos of the Bloomsbury group encouraged a liberal approach to sexuality, and on 14 December 1922 Woolf met the writer and gardener Vita Sackville-West, wife of Harold Nicolson, while dining with Clive Bell. Writing in her diary the next day, she referred to meeting "the lovely gifted aristocratic Sackville West". At the time, Sackville-West was the more successful writer as both poet and novelist, commercially and critically, and it was not until after Woolf's death that she became considered the better writer. After a tentative start, they began a sexual relationship, which, according to Sackville-West in a letter to her husband on 17 August 1926, was only twice consummated. The relationship reached its peak between 1925 and 1928, evolving into more of a friendship through the 1930s, though Woolf was also inclined to brag of her affairs with other women within her intimate circle, such as Sibyl Colefax and Comtesse de Polignac. This period of intimacy was to prove fruitful for both authors, Woolf producing three novels, To the Lighthouse (1927), Orlando (1928), and The Waves (1931) as well as a number of essays, including "Mr. Bennett and Mrs. Brown" (1924) and "A Letter to a Young Poet" (1932).
Sackville-West worked tirelessly to lift Woolf's self-esteem, encouraging her not to view herself as a quasi-reclusive inclined to sickness who should hide herself away from the world, but rather offered praise for her liveliness and wit, her health, her intelligence and achievements as a writer. Sackville-West led Woolf to reappraise herself, developing a more positive self-image, and the feeling that her writings were the products of her strengths rather than her weakness. Starting at the age of 15, Woolf had believed the diagnosis by her father and his doctor that reading and writing were deleterious to her nervous condition, requiring a regime of physical labour such as gardening to prevent a total nervous collapse. This led Woolf to spend much time obsessively engaging in such physical labour.
Sackville-West was the first to argue to Woolf she had been misdiagnosed, and that it was far better to engage in reading and writing to calm her nerves—advice that was taken. Under the influence of Sackville-West, Woolf learned to deal with her nervous ailments by switching between various forms of intellectual activities such as reading, writing and book reviews, instead of spending her time in physical activities that sapped her strength and worsened her nerves. Sackville-West chose the financially struggling Hogarth Press as her publisher to assist the Woolfs financially. Seducers in Ecuador, the first of the novels by Sackville-West published by Hogarth, was not a success, selling only 1500 copies in its first year, but the next Sackville-West novel they published, The Edwardians, was a best-seller that sold 30,000 copies in its first six months. Sackville-West's novels, though not typical of the Hogarth Press, saved Hogarth, taking them from the red into the black. However, Woolf was not always appreciative of the fact that it was Sackville-West's books that kept the Hogarth Press profitable, writing dismissively in 1933 of her "servant girl" novels. The financial security allowed by the good sales of Sackville-West's novels in turn allowed Woolf to engage in more experimental work, such as The Waves, as Woolf had to be cautious when she depended upon Hogarth entirely for her income.
In 1928, Woolf presented Sackville-West with Orlando, a fantastical biography in which the eponymous hero's life spans three centuries and both sexes. It was published in October, shortly after the two women spent a week travelling together in France, that September. Nigel Nicolson, Vita Sackville-West's son, wrote, "The effect of Vita on Virginia is all contained in Orlando, the longest and most charming love letter in literature, in which she explores Vita, weaves her in and out of the centuries, tosses her from one sex to the other, plays with her, dresses her in furs, lace and emeralds, teases her, flirts with her, drops a veil of mist around her." After their affair ended, the two women remained friends until Woolf's death in 1941. Virginia Woolf also remained close to her surviving siblings, Adrian and Vanessa; Thoby had died of typhoid fever at the age of 26.
Sussex (1911–1941)
Virginia was needing a country retreat to escape to, and on 24 December 1910, she found a house for rent in Firle, Sussex, near Lewes (see Map). She obtained a lease and took possession of the house the following month, naming it 'Little Talland House', after their childhood home in Cornwall, although it was actually a new red gabled villa on the main street opposite the village hall. The lease was a short one, and in October, she and Leonard Woolf found Asham House at Asheham a few miles to the west, while walking along the Ouse from Firle. The house, at the end of a tree-lined road was a strange beautiful Regency-Gothic house in a lonely location. She described it as "flat, pale, serene, yellow-washed", without electricity or water and allegedly haunted. She took out a five-year lease jointly with Vanessa in the New Year, and they moved into it in February 1912, holding a house warming party on the 9th.
It was at Asham that the Woolfs spent their wedding night later that year. At Asham, she recorded the events of the weekends and holidays they spent there in her Asham Diary, part of which was later published as A Writer's Diary in 1953. In terms of creative writing, The Voyage Out was completed there, and much of Night and Day. Asham provided Woolf with well needed relief from the pace of London life and was where she found a happiness that she expressed in her diary of 5 May 1919 "Oh, but how happy we've been at Asheham! It was a most melodious time. Everything went so freely; – but I can't analyse all the sources of my joy". Asham was also the inspiration for A Haunted House (1921–1944), and was painted by members of the Bloomsbury Group, including Vanessa Bell and Roger Fry. It was during these times at Asham that Ka Cox (seen here) started to devote herself to Virginia and become very useful.
While at Asham Leonard and Virginia found a farmhouse in 1916, that was to let, about four miles away, which they thought would be ideal for her sister. Eventually, Vanessa came down to inspect it, and moved in in October of that year, taking it as a summer home for her family. The Charleston Farmhouse was to become the summer gathering place for the literary and artistic circle of the Bloomsbury Group.
After the end of the war, in 1918, the Woolfs were given a year's notice by the landlord, who needed the house. In mid-1919, "in despair", they purchased "a very strange little house" for £300, the Round House in Pipe Passage, Lewes, a converted windmill. No sooner had they bought the Round House, than Monk's House in nearby Rodmell, came up for auction, a weatherboarded house with oak beamed rooms, said to be 15th or 16th century. The Leonards favoured the latter because of its orchard and garden, and sold the Round House, to purchase Monk's House for £700. Monk's House also lacked water and electricity, but came with an acre of garden, and had a view across the Ouse towards the hills of the South Downs. Leonard Woolf describes this view (and the amenities) as being unchanged since the days of Chaucer. From 1940, it became their permanent home after their London home was bombed, and Virginia continued to live there until her death. Meanwhile, Vanessa made Charleston her permanent home in 1936. It was at Monk's House that Virginia completed Between the Acts in early 1941, followed by a further breakdown directly resulting in her suicide on 28 March 1941, the novel being published posthumously later that year.
The Neo-pagans (1911–1912)
During her time in Firle, Virginia became better acquainted with Rupert Brooke and his group of Neo-Pagans, pursuing socialism, vegetarianism, exercising outdoors and alternative life styles, including social nudity. They were influenced by the ethos of Bedales, Fabianism and Shelley. The women wore sandals, socks, open neck shirts and head-scarves. Although she had some reservations, Woolf was involved with their activities for a while, fascinated by their bucolic innocence in contrast to the sceptical intellectualism of Bloomsbury, which earned her the nickname "The Goat" from her brother Adrian. While Woolf liked to make much of a weekend she spent with Brooke at the vicarage in Grantchester, including swimming in the pool there, it appears to have been principally a literary assignation. They also shared a psychiatrist in the name of Maurice Craig. Through the Neo-Pagans, she finally met Ka Cox on a weekend in Oxford in January 1911, who had been part of the Friday Club circle and now became her friend and played an important part in dealing with her illnesses. Virginia nicknamed her "Bruin". At the same time, she found herself dragged into a triangular relationship involving Ka, Jacques Raverat and Gwen Darwin. She became resentful of the other couple, Jacques and Gwen, who married later in 1911, not the outcome Virginia had predicted or desired. They would later be referred to in both To the Lighthouse and The Years. The exclusion she felt evoked memories of both Stella Duckworth's marriage and her triangular involvement with Vanessa and Clive.
The two groups eventually fell out. Brooke pressured Ka into withdrawing from joining Virginia's ménage on Brunswick Square in late 1911, calling it a "bawdy-house" and by the end of 1912 he had vehemently turned against Bloomsbury. Later, she would write sardonically about Brooke, whose premature death resulted in his idealisation, and express regret about "the Neo-Paganism at that stage of my life". Virginia was deeply disappointed when Ka married William Edward Arnold-Forster in 1918, and became increasingly critical of her.
Mental health
Much examination has been made of Woolf's mental health (e.g., see Mental health bibliography). From the age of 13, following the death of her mother, Woolf suffered periodic mood swings from severe depression to manic excitement, including psychotic episodes, which the family referred to as her "madness". However, as Hermione Lee points out, Woolf was not "mad"; she was merely a woman who suffered from and struggled with illness for much of her relatively short life, a woman of "exceptional courage, intelligence and stoicism", who made the best use, and achieved the best understanding she could of that illness.
Psychiatrists today contend that her illness constitutes bipolar disorder (manic-depressive illness). Her mother's death in 1895, "the greatest disaster that could happen", precipitated a crisis of alternating excitability and depression accompanied by irrational fears, for which their family doctor, Dr. Seton, prescribed rest, stopping lessons and writing, and regular walks supervised by Stella. Yet just two years later, Stella too was dead, bringing on her next crisis in 1897, and her first expressed wish for death at the age of fifteen, writing in her diary that October that "death would be shorter & less painful". She then stopped keeping a diary for some time. This was a scenario she would later recreate in "Time Passes" (To the Lighthouse, 1927).
The death of her father in 1904 provoked her most alarming collapse, on 10 May, when she threw herself out a window and she was briefly institutionalised under the care of her father's friend, the eminent psychiatrist George Savage. Savage blamed her education—frowned on by many at the time as unsuitable for women—for her illness. She spent time recovering at the house of Stella's friend Violet Dickinson, and at her aunt Caroline's house in Cambridge, and by January 1905, Dr. Savage considered her "cured". Violet, seventeen years older than Virginia, became one of her closest friends and one of her more effective nurses. She characterised it as a "romantic friendship" (Letter to Violet 4 May 1903). Her brother Thoby's death in 1906 marked a "decade of deaths” that ended her childhood and adolescence. Gordon (2004) writes: "Ghostly voices spoke to her with increasing urgency, perhaps more real than the people who lived by her side. When voices of the dead urged her to impossible things, they drove her mad but, controlled, they became the material of fiction..."
On Dr. Savage's recommendation, Virginia spent three short periods in 1910, 1912, and 1913 at Burley House at 15 Cambridge Park, Twickenham (see image), described as "a private nursing home for women with nervous disorder" run by Miss Jean Thomas. By the end of February 1910, she was becoming increasingly restless, and Dr. Savage suggested being away from London. Vanessa rented Moat House, outside Canterbury, in June, but there was no improvement, so Dr. Savage sent her to Burley for a "rest cure". This involved partial isolation, deprivation of literature, and force-feeding, and after six weeks she was able to convalesce in Cornwall and Dorset during the autumn.
She loathed the experience; writing to her sister on 28 July, she described how she found the phony religious atmosphere stifling and the institution ugly, and informed Vanessa that to escape "I shall soon have to jump out of a window." The threat of being sent back would later lead to her contemplating suicide. Despite her protests, Savage would refer her back in 1912 for insomnia and in 1913 for depression.
On emerging from Burley House in September 1913, she sought further opinions from two other physicians on the 13th: Maurice Wright, and Henry Head, who had been Henry James's physician. Both recommended she return to Burley House. Distraught, she returned home and attempted suicide by taking an overdose of 100 grains of veronal (a barbiturate) and nearly dying: she was found by Ka Cox, who summoned help.
On recovery, she went to Dalingridge Hall, George Duckworth's home in East Grinstead, Sussex, to convalesce on 30 September, accompanied by Ka Cox and a nurse, returning to Asham on 18 November with Cox and Janet Case. She remained unstable over the next two years, with another incident involving veronal that she claimed was an "accident", and consulted another psychiatrist in April 1914, Maurice Craig, who explained that she was not sufficiently psychotic to be certified or committed to an institution.
The rest of the summer of 1914 went better for her, and they moved to Richmond, but in February 1915, just as The Voyage Out was due to be published, she relapsed once more, and remained in poor health for most of that year. Then, despite Miss Thomas's gloomy prognosis, she began to recover, following 20 years of ill health. Nevertheless, there was a feeling among those around her that she was now permanently changed, and not for the better.
Over the rest of her life, she suffered recurrent bouts of depression. In 1940, a number of factors appeared to overwhelm her. Her biography of Roger Fry had been published in July, and she had been disappointed in its reception. The horrors of war depressed her, and their London homes had been destroyed in the Blitz in September and October. Woolf had completed Between the Acts (published posthumously in 1941) in November, and completing a novel was frequently accompanied by exhaustion. Her health became increasingly a matter of concern, culminating in her decision to end her life on 28 March 1941.
Though this instability would frequently affect her social life, she was able to continue her literary productivity with few interruptions throughout her life. Woolf herself provides not only a vivid picture of her symptoms in her diaries and letters, but also her response to the demons that haunted her and at times made her long for death: "But it is always a question whether I wish to avoid these glooms... These 9 weeks give one a plunge into deep waters... One goes down into the well & nothing protects one from the assault of truth."
Psychiatry had little to offer Woolf, but she recognised that writing was one of the behaviours that enabled her to cope with her illness: "The only way I keep afloat... is by working... Directly I stop working I feel that I am sinking down, down. And as usual, I feel that if I sink further I shall reach the truth." Sinking under water was Woolf's metaphor for both the effects of depression and psychosis— but also for finding truth, and ultimately was her choice of death.
Throughout her life, Woolf struggled, without success, to find meaning in her illness: on the one hand, an impediment, on the other, something she visualised as an essential part of who she was, and a necessary condition of her art. Her experiences informed her work, such as the character of Septimus Warren Smith in Mrs Dalloway (1925), who, like Woolf, was haunted by the dead, and ultimately takes his own life rather than be admitted to a sanitorium.
Leonard Woolf relates how during the 30 years they were married, they consulted many doctors in the Harley Street area, and although they were given a diagnosis of neurasthenia, he felt they had little understanding of the causes or nature. The proposed solution was simple—as long as she lived a quiet life without any physical or mental exertion, she was well. On the other hand, any mental, emotional, or physical strain resulted in a reappearance of her symptoms, beginning with a headache, followed by insomnia and thoughts that started to race. Her remedy was simple: to retire to bed in a darkened room, eat, and drink plenty of milk, following which the symptoms slowly subsided.
Modern scholars, including her nephew and biographer, Quentin Bell, have suggested her breakdowns and subsequent recurring depressive periods were influenced by the sexual abuse which she and her sister Vanessa were subjected to by their half-brothers George and Gerald Duckworth (which Woolf recalls in her autobiographical essays "A Sketch of the Past" and "22 Hyde Park Gate") (see Sexual abuse). Biographers point out that when Stella died in 1897, there was no counterbalance to control George's predation, and his nighttime prowling. Virginia describes him as her first lover, "The old ladies of Kensington and Belgravia never knew that George Duckworth was not only father and mother, brother and sister to those poor Stephen girls; he was their lover also."
It is likely that other factors also played a part. It has been suggested that they include genetic predisposition, for both trauma and family history have been implicated in bipolar disorder. Virginia's father, Leslie Stephen, suffered from depression, and her half-sister Laura was institutionalised. Many of Virginia's symptoms, including persistent headache, insomnia, irritability, and anxiety, resembled of her father's. Another factor is the pressure she placed upon herself in her work; for instance, her breakdown of 1913 was at least partly triggered by the need to finish The Voyage Out.
Virginia herself hinted that her illness was related to how she saw the repressed position of women in society, when she wrote in A Room of One's Own that had Shakespeare had a sister of equal genius, she "would certainly have gone crazed, shot herself, or ended her days in some lonely cottage outside the village, half witch, half wizard, feared and mocked at". These inspirations emerged from what Woolf referred to as her lava of madness, describing her time at Burley in a 1930 letter to Ethel Smyth:
Thomas Caramagno and others, in discussing her illness, oppose the "neurotic-genius" way of looking at mental illness, where creativity and mental illness are conceptualised as linked rather than antithetical. Stephen Trombley describes Woolf as having a confrontational relationship with her doctors, and possibly being a woman who is a "victim of male medicine", referring to the lack of understanding, particularly at the time, about mental illness.
Death
After completing the manuscript of her last novel (posthumously published), Between the Acts (1941), Woolf fell into a depression similar to one which she had earlier experienced. The onset of World War II, the destruction of her London home during the Blitz, and the cool reception given to her biography of her late friend Roger Fry all worsened her condition until she was unable to work. When Leonard enlisted in the Home Guard, Virginia disapproved. She held fast to her pacifism and criticised her husband for wearing what she considered to be "the silly uniform of the Home Guard".
After World War II began, Woolf's diary indicates that she was obsessed with death, which figured more and more as her mood darkened. On 28 March 1941, Woolf drowned herself by filling her overcoat pockets with stones and walking into the River Ouse near her home. Her body was not found until 18 April. Her husband buried her cremated remains beneath an elm tree in the garden of Monk's House, their home in Rodmell, Sussex.
In her suicide note, addressed to her husband, she wrote:
Work
Woolf is considered to be one of the more important 20th century novelists. A modernist, she was one of the pioneers of using stream of consciousness as a narrative device, alongside contemporaries such as Marcel Proust, Dorothy Richardson and James Joyce. Woolf's reputation was at its greatest during the 1930s, but declined considerably following World War II. The growth of feminist criticism in the 1970s helped re-establish her reputation.
Virginia submitted her first article in 1890, to a competition in Tit-Bits. Although it was rejected, this shipboard romance by the 8-year-old would presage her first novel 25 years later, as would contributions to the Hyde Park News, such as the model letter "to show young people the right way to express what is in their hearts", a subtle commentary on her mother's legendary matchmaking. She transitioned from juvenilia to professional journalism in 1904 at the age of 22. Violet Dickinson introduced her to Mrs. Lyttelton, the editor of the Women's Supplement of The Guardian, a Church of England newspaper. Invited to submit a 1,500-word article, Virginia sent Lyttelton a review of W.D. Howells' The Son of Royal Langbirth and an essay about her visit to Haworth that year, Haworth, November 1904. The review was published anonymously on 4 December, and the essay on the 21st. In 1905, Woolf began writing for The Times Literary Supplement.
Woolf would go on to publish novels and essays as a public intellectual to both critical and popular acclaim. Much of her work was self-published through the Hogarth Press. "Virginia Woolf's peculiarities as a fiction writer have tended to obscure her central strength: she is arguably the major lyrical novelist in the English language. Her novels are highly experimental: a narrative, frequently uneventful and commonplace, is refracted—and sometimes almost dissolved—in the characters' receptive consciousness. Intense lyricism and stylistic virtuosity fuse to create a world overabundant with auditory and visual impressions." "The intensity of Virginia Woolf's poetic vision elevates the ordinary, sometimes banal settings"—often wartime environments—"of most of her novels."
Fiction and drama
Novels
Her first novel, The Voyage Out, was published in 1915 at the age of 33, by her half-brother's imprint, Gerald Duckworth and Company Ltd. This novel was originally titled Melymbrosia, but Woolf repeatedly changed the draft. An earlier version of The Voyage Out has been reconstructed by Woolf scholar Louise DeSalvo and is now available to the public under the intended title. DeSalvo argues that many of the changes Woolf made in the text were in response to changes in her own life. The novel is set on a ship bound for South America, and a group of young Edwardians onboard and their various mismatched yearnings and misunderstandings. In the novel are hints of themes that would emerge in later work, including the gap between preceding thought and the spoken word that follows, and the lack of concordance between expression and underlying intention, together with how these reveal to us aspects of the nature of love.
"Mrs Dalloway (1925) centres on the efforts of Clarissa Dalloway, a middle-aged society woman, to organise a party, even as her life is paralleled with that of Septimus Warren Smith, a working-class veteran who has returned from the First World War bearing deep psychological scars".
"To the Lighthouse (1927) is set on two days ten years apart. The plot centres on the Ramsay family's anticipation of and reflection upon a visit to a lighthouse and the connected familial tensions. One of the primary themes of the novel is the struggle in the creative process that beset painter Lily Briscoe while she struggles to paint in the midst of the family drama. The novel is also a meditation upon the lives of a nation's inhabitants in the midst of war, and of the people left behind." It also explores the passage of time, and how women are forced by society to allow men to take emotional strength from them.
Orlando: A Biography (1928) is one of Virginia Woolf's lightest novels. A parodic biography of a young nobleman who lives for three centuries without ageing much past thirty (but who does abruptly turn into a woman), the book is in part a portrait of Woolf's lover Vita Sackville-West. It was meant to console Vita for the loss of her ancestral home, Knole House, though it is also a satirical treatment of Vita and her work. In Orlando, the techniques of historical biographers are being ridiculed; the character of a pompous biographer is being assumed for it to be mocked.
"The Waves (1931) presents a group of six friends whose reflections, which are closer to recitatives than to interior monologues proper, create a wave-like atmosphere that is more akin to a prose poem than to a plot-centred novel".
Flush: A Biography (1933) is a part-fiction, part-biography of the cocker spaniel owned by Victorian poet Elizabeth Barrett Browning. The book is written from the dog's point of view. Woolf was inspired to write this book from the success of the Rudolf Besier play The Barretts of Wimpole Street. In the play, Flush is on stage for much of the action. The play was produced for the first time in 1932 by the actress Katharine Cornell.
The Years (1936), traces the history of the genteel Pargiter family from the 1880s to the "present day" of the mid-1930s. The novel had its origin in a lecture Woolf gave to the National Society for Women's Service in 1931, an edited version of which would later be published as "Professions for Women". Woolf first thought of making this lecture the basis of a new book-length essay on women, this time taking a broader view of their economic and social life, rather than focusing on women as artists, as the first book had. She soon jettisoned the theoretical framework of her "novel-essay" and began to rework the book solely as a fictional narrative, but some of the non-fiction material she first intended for this book was later used in Three Guineas (1938).
"Her last work, Between the Acts (1941), sums up and magnifies Woolf's chief preoccupations: the transformation of life through art, sexual ambivalence, and meditation on the themes of flux of time and life, presented simultaneously as corrosion and rejuvenation—all set in a highly imaginative and symbolic narrative encompassing almost all of English history." This book is the most lyrical of all her works, not only in feeling but in style, being chiefly written in verse. While Woolf's work can be understood as consistently in dialogue with the Bloomsbury Group, particularly its tendency (informed by G.E. Moore, among others) towards doctrinaire rationalism, it is not a simple recapitulation of the coterie's ideals.
Themes
Woolf's fiction has been studied for its insight into many themes including war, shell shock, witchcraft, and the role of social class in contemporary modern British society. In the postwar Mrs Dalloway (1925), Woolf addresses the moral dilemma of war and its effects and provides an authentic voice for soldiers returning from World War I, suffering from shell shock, in the person of Septimus Smith. In A Room of One's Own (1929) Woolf equates historical accusations of witchcraft with creativity and genius among women "When, however, one reads of a witch being ducked, of a woman possessed by devils...then I think we are on the track of a lost novelist, a suppressed poet, of some mute and inglorious Jane Austen". Throughout her work Woolf tried to evaluate the degree to which her privileged background framed the lens through which she viewed class. She both examined her own position as someone who would be considered an elitist snob, but attacked the class structure of Britain as she found it. In her 1936 essay Am I a Snob?, she examined her values and those of the privileged circle she existed in. She concluded she was, and subsequent critics and supporters have tried to deal with the dilemma of being both elite and a social critic.
The sea is a recurring motif in Woolf's work. Noting Woolf's early memory of listening to waves break in Cornwall, Katharine Smyth writes in The Paris Review that "the radiance [of] cresting water would be consecrated again and again in her writing, saturating not only essays, diaries, and letters but also Jacob’s Room, The Waves, and To the Lighthouse." Patrizia A. Muscogiuri explains that "seascapes, sailing, diving and the sea itself are aspects of nature and of human beings’ relationship with it which frequently inspired Virginia Woolf's writing." This trope is deeply embedded in her texts’ structure and grammar; James Antoniou notes in Sydney Morning Herald how "Woolf made a virtue of the semicolon, the shape and function of which resembles the wave, her most famous motif."
Despite the considerable conceptual difficulties, given Woolf's idiosyncratic use of language, her works have been translated into over 50 languages. Some writers, such as the Belgian Marguerite Yourcenar, had rather tense encounters with her, while others, such as the Argentinian Jorge Luis Borges, produced versions that were highly controversial.
Drama
Virginia Woolf researched the life of her great-aunt, the photographer Julia Margaret Cameron, publishing her findings in an essay titled "Pattledom" (1925), and later in her introduction to her 1926 edition of Cameron's photographs. She had begun work on a play based on an episode in Cameron's life in 1923, but abandoned it. Finally it was performed on 18 January 1935 at the studio of her sister, Vanessa Bell on Fitzroy Street in 1935. Woolf directed it herself, and the cast were mainly members of the Bloomsbury Group, including herself. Freshwater is a short three act comedy satirising the Victorian era, only performed once in Woolf's lifetime. Beneath the comedic elements, there is an exploration of both generational change and artistic freedom. Both Cameron and Woolf fought against the class and gender dynamics of Victorianism and the play shows links to both To the Lighthouse and A Room of One's Own that would follow.
Non-fiction
Woolf wrote a body of autobiographical work and more than 500 essays and reviews, some of which, like A Room of One's Own (1929) were of book length. Not all were published in her lifetime. Shortly after her death, Leonard Woolf produced an edited edition of unpublished essays titled The Moment and other Essays, published by the Hogarth Press in 1947. Many of these were originally lectures that she gave, and several more volumes of essays followed, such as The Captain's Death Bed: and other essays (1950).
A Room of One's Own
Among Woolf's non-fiction works, one of the best known is A Room of One's Own (1929), a book-length essay. Considered a key work of feminist literary criticism, it was written following two lectures she delivered on "Women and Fiction" at Cambridge University the previous year. In it, she examines the historical disempowerment women have faced in many spheres, including social, educational and financial. One of her more famous dicta is contained within the book "A woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction". Much of her argument ("to show you how I arrived at this opinion about the room and the money") is developed through the "unsolved problems" of women and fiction writing to arrive at her conclusion, although she claimed that was only "an opinion upon one minor point". In doing so, she states a good deal about the nature of women and fiction, employing a quasi-fictional style as she examines where women writers failed because of lack of resources and opportunities, examining along the way the experiences of the Brontës, George Eliot and George Sand, as well as the fictional character of Shakespeare's sister, equipped with the same genius but not position. She contrasted these women who accepted a deferential status with Jane Austen, who wrote entirely as a woman.
Influences
Michel Lackey argues that a major influence on Woolf, from 1912 onward, was Russian literature and Woolf adopted many of its aesthetic conventions. The style of Fyodor Dostoyevsky with his depiction of a fluid mind in operation helped to influence Woolf's writings about a "discontinuous writing process", though Woolf objected to Dostoyevsky's obsession with "psychological extremity" and the "tumultuous flux of emotions" in his characters together with his right-wing, monarchist politics as Dostoyevsky was an ardent supporter of the autocracy of the Russian Empire. In contrast to her objections to Dostoyevsky's "exaggerated emotional pitch", Woolf found much to admire in the work of Anton Chekhov and Leo Tolstoy. Woolf admired Chekhov for his stories of ordinary people living their lives, doing banal things and plots that had no neat endings. From Tolstoy, Woolf drew lessons about how a novelist should depict a character's psychological state and the interior tension within. Lackey notes that, from Ivan Turgenev, Woolf drew the lessons that there are multiple "I's" when writing a novel, and the novelist needed to balance those multiple versions of him- or herself to balance the "mundane facts" of a story vs. the writer's overarching vision, which required a "total passion" for art.
The American writer Henry David Thoreau also influenced Woolf. In a 1917 essay, she praised Thoreau for his statement "The millions are awake enough for physical labor, but only one in hundreds of millions is awake enough to a poetic or divine life. To be awake is to be alive." They both aimed to capture 'the moment'––as Walter Pater says, "to burn always with this hard, gem-like flame." Woolf praised Thoreau for his "simplicity" in finding "a way for setting free the delicate and complicated machinery of the soul". Like Thoreau, Woolf believed that it was silence that set the mind free to really contemplate and understand the world. Both authors believed in a certain transcendental, mystical approach to life and writing, where even banal things could be capable of generating deep emotions if one had enough silence and the presence of mind to appreciate them. Woolf and Thoreau were both concerned with the difficulty of human relationships in the modern age. Other notable influences include William Shakespeare, George Eliot, Leo Tolstoy, Marcel Proust, Anton Chekhov, Emily Brontë, Daniel Defoe, James Joyce, and E.M. Forster.
List of selected publications
see , ,
Novels
see also The Voyage Out & Complete text
see also Night and Day & Complete text
see also Jacob's Room & Complete text
see also Mrs Dalloway & Complete text
see also To the Lighthouse & Complete text, also Texts at Woolf Online
see also Orlando: A Biography & Complete text
see also The Waves & Complete text
see also Between the Acts & Complete text
Short stories
see also A Haunted House and Other Short Stories & Complete text
see also The Mark on the Wall & Complete text
see also Kew Gardens & Complete text
Cross-genre
see also Flush: A Biography & Complete text
Drama
see also Freshwater
Biography
see also Roger Fry: A Biography & Complete text
Essays
see also A Room of One's Own & Complete text
see also Mr. Bennett and Mrs. Brown & Complete text
see also A Letter to a Young Poet & Complete text
see also Three Guineas & Complete text
Essay collections
(Review)
(Review)
Complete text
(Review)
First American edition published by Harcourt, Brace and Company, New York, 1950.
& also here
— (1934). "Walter Sickert: A Conversation".
Contributions
(Digital edition)
Autobiographical writing
(Review)
(see Moments of Being)
, in (excerpts)
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(excerpts – 1st ed.)
Memoir Club Contributions
Diaries and notebooks
Letters
(Review)
Photograph albums
List of Album Guides
Album 1 MS Thr 557 (1863–1938)
Album 2 MS Thr 559 (1909–1922)
Album 3 MS Thr 560 (1890–1933)
Album 4 MS Thr 561 (1890–1947)
Album 5 MS Thr 562 (1892–1938)
Album 6 MS Thr 563 (1850–1900)
Collections
Views
In her lifetime, Woolf was outspoken on many topics that were considered controversial, some of which are now considered progressive, others regressive. She was an ardent feminist at a time when women's rights were barely recognised, and anti-colonialist, anti-imperialist and a pacifist when chauvinism was popular. On the other hand, she has been criticised for views on class and race in her private writings and published works. Like many of her contemporaries, some of her writing is now considered offensive. As a result, she is considered polarising, a revolutionary feminist and socialist hero or a purveyor of hate speech.
Works such as A Room of One's Own (1929) and Three Guineas (1938) are frequently taught as icons of feminist literature in courses that would be very critical of some of her views expressed elsewhere. She has also been the recipient of considerable homophobic and misogynist criticism.
Humanist views
Virginia Woolf was born into a non-religious family and is regarded, along with her fellow Bloomsberries E.M. Forster and G.E. Moore, as a humanist. Both her parents were prominent agnostic atheists. Her father, Leslie Stephen, had become famous in polite society for his writings which expressed and publicised reasons to doubt the veracity of religion. Stephen was also President of the West London Ethical Society, an early humanist organisation, and helped to found the Union of Ethical Societies in 1896. Woolf's mother, Julia Stephen, wrote the book Agnostic Women (1880), which argued that agnosticism (defined here as something more like atheism) could be a highly moral approach to life.
Woolf was a critic of Christianity. In a letter to Ethel Smyth, she gave a scathing denunciation of the religion, seeing it as self-righteous "egotism" and stating "my Jew [Leonard] has more religion in one toenail—more human love, in one hair". Woolf stated in her private letters that she thought of herself as an atheist.
Controversies
Hermione Lee cites a number of extracts from Woolf's writings that many, including Lee, would consider offensive, and these criticisms can be traced back as far as those of Wyndham Lewis and Q.D. Leavis in the 1920s and 1930s. Other authors provide more nuanced contextual interpretations, and stress the complexity of her character and the apparent inherent contradictions in analysing her apparent flaws. She could certainly be off-hand, rude and even cruel in her dealings with other authors, translators and biographers, such as her treatment of Ruth Gruber. Some authors, particularly postcolonial feminists dismiss her (and modernist authors in general) as privileged, elitist, classist, racist, and antisemitic.
Woolf's tendentious expressions, including prejudicial feelings against disabled people, have often been the topic of academic criticism:
The first quotation is from a diary entry of September 1920 and runs: "The fact is the lower classes are detestable." The remainder follow the first in reproducing stereotypes standard to upper-class and upper-middle class life in the early 20th century: "imbeciles should certainly be killed"; "Jews" are greasy; a "crowd" is both an ontological "mass" and is, again, "detestable"; "Germans" are akin to vermin; some "baboon faced intellectuals" mix with "sad green dressed negroes and negresses, looking like chimpanzees" at a peace conference; Kensington High St. revolts one's stomach with its innumerable "women of incredible mediocrity, drab as dishwater".
Antisemitism
Though accused of antisemitism, the treatment of Judaism and Jews by Woolf is far from straightforward. She was happily married to a Jewish man (Leonard Woolf) but often wrote about Jewish characters using stereotypes and generalisations. For instance, she described some of the Jewish characters in her work in terms that suggested they were physically repulsive or dirty. On the other hand, she could criticise her own views: "How I hated marrying a Jew — how I hated their nasal voices and their oriental jewellery, and their noses and their wattles — what a snob I was: for they have immense vitality, and I think I like that quality best of all" (Letter to Ethel Smyth 1930). These attitudes have been construed to reflect, not so much antisemitism, but tribalism; she married outside her social grouping, and Leonard Woolf, too, expressed misgivings about marrying a gentile. Leonard, "a penniless Jew from Putney", lacked the material status of the Stephens and their circle.
While travelling on a cruise to Portugal, she protested at finding "a great many Portuguese Jews on board, and other repulsive objects, but we keep clear of them". Furthermore, she wrote in her diary: "I do not like the Jewish voice; I do not like the Jewish laugh." Her 1938 short story The Duchess and the Jeweller (originally titled The Duchess and the Jew) has been considered antisemitic.
Yet Woolf and her husband Leonard came to despise and fear the 1930s fascism and antisemitism. Her 1938 book Three Guineas was an indictment of fascism and what Woolf described as a recurring propensity among patriarchal societies to enforce repressive societal mores by violence.
Sexuality
The Bloomsbury Group held very progressive views regarding sexuality and shucked the austere strictness of Victorian society. The majority of its members were homosexual or bisexual.
Virginia was most likely a lesbian, some debate that she was bisexual. However she had several affairs with women, the most notable being with Vita Sackville-West which inspired Orlando: A Biography. The two of them remained lovers for a decade and stayed close friends for the rest of Virginia's life. Virginia had said to Vita she disliked masculinity
Among her other notable affairs were Sibyl Colefax, Lady Ottoline Morrell and Mary Hutchinson. Some surmise that she may have fallen in love with Madge Symonds, the wife of one of her uncles. Madge Symonds was described as one of Virginia's early loves in Vita's diary She also fell in love with Violet Dickinson although there is some confusion as to whether the two consummated their relationship.
In regards to relationships with men, Virginia was averse to sex with them, blaming the sexual abuse perpetrated upon her and her sister by her half-brothers when they were children and teens. This is one of the reasons she initially declined marriage proposals from her future husband, Leonard. She even went as far as to tell him that she was not attracted to him, but that she did love him and finally agreed to marriage. Virginia preferred female lovers to male lovers, for the most part, based on her aversion to sex with men. This aversion to relations with men influenced her writing especially when considering her sexual abuse as a child.
Leonard became the love of her life and even though their sexual relationship was questionable, they loved each other deeply and formed a strong, supportive and prolific marriage which led to the formation of their publishing house as well as several of her writings. Neither was faithful to the other sexually, but they were faithful in their love and respect for each other.
Modern scholarship and interpretations
Though at least one biography of Virginia Woolf appeared in her lifetime, the first authoritative study of her life was published in 1972 by her nephew Quentin Bell. Hermione Lee's 1996 biography Virginia Woolf provides a thorough and authoritative examination of Woolf's life and work, which she discussed in an interview in 1997. In 2001, Louise DeSalvo and Mitchell A. Leaska edited The Letters of Vita Sackville-West and Virginia Woolf. Julia Briggs's Virginia Woolf: An Inner Life (2005) focuses on Woolf's writing, including her novels and her commentary on the creative process, to illuminate her life. The sociologist Pierre Bourdieu also uses Woolf's literature to understand and analyse gender domination. Woolf biographer Gillian Gill notes that Woolf's traumatic experience of sexual abuse by her half-brothers during her childhood influenced her advocacy of protection of vulnerable children from similar experiences.
Virginia Woolf and her mother
The intense scrutiny of Virginia Woolf's literary output (see Bibliography) has led to speculation as to her mother's influence, including psychoanalytic studies of mother and daughter. Woolf states that, "my first memory, and in fact it is the most important of all my memories" is of her mother. Her memories of her mother are memories of an obsession, starting with her first major breakdown on her mother's death in 1895, the loss having a profound lifelong effect. In many ways, her mother's profound influence on Virginia Woolf is conveyed in the latter's recollections, "there she is; beautiful, emphatic ... closer than any of the living are, lighting our random lives as with a burning torch, infinitely noble and delightful to her children".
Woolf described her mother as an "invisible presence" in her life, and Ellen Rosenman argues that the mother-daughter relationship is a constant in Woolf's writing. She describes how Woolf's modernism needs to be viewed in relationship to her ambivalence towards her Victorian mother, the centre of the former's female identity, and her voyage to her own sense of autonomy. To Woolf, "Saint Julia" was both a martyr whose perfectionism was intimidating and a source of deprivation, by her absences real and virtual and premature death. Julia's influence and memory pervades Woolf's life and work. "She has haunted me", she wrote.
Historical feminism
According to the 2007 book Feminism: From Mary Wollstonecraft to Betty Friedan by Bhaskar A. Shukla, "Recently, studies of Virginia Woolf have focused on feminist and lesbian themes in her work, such as in the 1997 collection of critical essays, Virginia Woolf: Lesbian Readings, edited by Eileen Barrett and Patricia Cramer." In 1928, Woolf took a grassroots approach to informing and inspiring feminism. She addressed undergraduate women at the ODTAA Society at Girton College, Cambridge and the Arts Society at Newnham College with two papers that eventually became A Room of One's Own (1929).
Woolf's best-known nonfiction works, A Room of One's Own (1929) and Three Guineas (1938), examine the difficulties that female writers and intellectuals faced because men held disproportionate legal and economic power, as well as the future of women in education and society. In The Second Sex (1949), Simone de Beauvoir counts, of all women who ever lived, only three female writers—Emily Brontë, Woolf and "sometimes" Katherine Mansfield— have explored "the given".
In popular culture
Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? is a 1962 play by Edward Albee. It examines the structure of the marriage of an American middle-aged academic couple, Martha and George. Mike Nichols directed a film version in 1966, starring Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton. Taylor won the 1966 Academy Award for Best Actress for the role.
Me! I'm Afraid of Virginia Woolf, a 1978 TV play, references the title of the Edward Albee play and features an English literature teacher who has a poster of her. It was written by Alan Bennett and directed by Stephen Frears.
The artwork The Dinner Party (1979) features a place setting for Woolf.
The 1996 album Poetic Justice, by British musician Steve Harley, contains a tribute to Woolf, specifically her most adventurous novel, in its closing track: "Riding the Waves (for Virginia Woolf)".
Michael Cunningham's 1998 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel The Hours focused on three generations of women affected by Woolf's novel Mrs Dalloway. In 2002, a film version of the novel was released, starring Nicole Kidman as Woolf. Kidman won the 2003 Academy Award for her portrayal.
Susan Sellers's novel Vanessa and Virginia (2008) explores the close sibling relationship between Woolf and her sister, Vanessa Bell. It was adapted for the stage by Elizabeth Wright in 2010 and first performed by Moving Stories Theatre Company.
Priya Parmar's 2014 novel Vanessa and Her Sister also examined the Stephen sisters' relationship during the early years of their association with what became known as the Bloomsbury Group.
An exhibition on Virginia Woolf was held at the National Portrait Gallery from July to October 2014.
In the 2014 novel The House at the End of Hope Street, Woolf is featured as one of the women who has lived in the titular house.
Virginia is portrayed by both Lydia Leonard and Catherine McCormack in the BBC's three-part drama series Life in Squares (2015).
On 25 January 2018, Google showed a Google doodle celebrating her 136th birthday.
In many Barnes & Noble stores, Woolf is featured in Gary Kelly's Author Mural Panels, an imprint of the Barnes & Noble Author brand that also features other notable authors like Hurston, Tagore, and Kafka.
The 2018 film Vita and Virginia depicts the relationship between Vita Sackville-West and Woolf, portrayed by Gemma Arterton and Elizabeth Debicki respectively.
The 2020 novel Trio by William Boyd follows the life of Elfrida Wing, an alcoholic writer interested in the suicide of Woolf.
Adaptations
A number of Virginia Woolf's works have been adapted for the screen, and her play Freshwater (1935) is the basis for a 1994 chamber opera, Freshwater, by Andy Vores. The final segment of the 2018 London Unplugged is adapted from her short story Kew Gardens. Septimus and Clarissa, a stage adaptation of Mrs. Dalloway was created and produced by the New York-based ensemble Ripe Time in 2011 at the Baruch Performing Arts Center. It was adapted by Ellen McLaughlin, and directed and devised by Rachel Dickstein. It was nominated for a 2012 Drama League award for Outstanding Production, a Drama Desk nomination for Outstanding Score (Gina Leishman) and a Joe A. Calloway Award nomination for outstanding direction (Rachel Dickstein.)
Legacy
Virginia Woolf is known for her contributions to 20th-century literature and her essays, as well as the influence she has had on literary, particularly feminist criticism. A number of authors have stated that their work was influenced by her, including Margaret Atwood, Michael Cunningham, Gabriel García Márquez, and Toni Morrison. Her iconic image is instantly recognisable from the Beresford portrait of her at twenty (at the top of this page) to the Beck and Macgregor portrait in her mother's dress in Vogue at 44 (see image) or Man Ray's cover of Time magazine (see image) at 55. More postcards of Woolf are sold by the National Portrait Gallery, London than any other person. Her image is ubiquitous, and can be found on products ranging from tea towels to T-shirts.
Virginia Woolf is studied around the world, with organisations such as the Virginia Woolf Society, and The Virginia Woolf Society of Japan. In addition, trusts—such as the Asham Trust—encourage writers in her honour. Although she had no descendants, a number of her extended family are notable.
Monuments and memorials
In 2013, Woolf was honoured by her alma mater of King's College London with the opening of the Virginia Woolf Building on Kingsway, with a plaque commemorating her time there and her contributions (see image), together with this exhibit depicting her accompanied by a quotation "London itself perpetually attracts, stimulates, gives me a play & a story & a poem" from her 1926 diary. Busts of Virginia Woolf have been erected at her home in Rodmell, Sussex and at Tavistock Square, London where she lived between 1924 and 1939.
In 2014, she was one of the inaugural honorees in the Rainbow Honor Walk, a walk of fame in San Francisco's Castro neighbourhood noting LGBTQ people who have "made significant contributions in their fields".
Woolf Works, a women's co-working space in Singapore, opened in 2014 and was named after her in tribute to the essay A Room of One's Own; it also has many other things named after it (see the essay's article).
A campaign was launched in 2018 by Aurora Metro Arts and Media to erect a statue of Woolf in Richmond, where she lived for 10 years. The proposed statue shows her reclining on a bench overlooking the river Thames.
Family trees
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Notes
References
Bibliography
Books and theses
see also The Second Sex
see also Survey of London
(Review)
Biography: Virginia Woolf
Vol. I: Virginia Stephen 1882 to 1912. London: Hogarth Press. 1972.
Vol. II: Virginia Woolf 1912 to 1941. London: Hogarth Press. 1972.
(Review)
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(excerpt - Chapter 1)
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(Illustrations of Woolf's London homes are excerpted at .)
Mental health
additional excerpts
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see also Touched with Fire
Biography: Other
(Review)
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also Internet archive
also available through MOMA here
Literary commentary
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Bloomsbury
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Chapters and contributions
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Articles
Journals
(text also available here)
Dictionaries and encyclopaedias
Newspapers and magazines
archived version
archived version
with excerpt
Websites and documents
(includes invitation to first performance in 1935 and Lucio Ruotolo's introduction to the 1976 Hogarth Press edition)
Blogs
British Library
Literary commentary
British Library
Virginia Woolf's homes and venues
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Virginia Woolf biography
Timelines
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Genealogy
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Images
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Maps
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Audiovisual media
see also Life in Squares
excerpt
Selected online texts
Audiofiles
Archival material
Bibliography notes
Bibliography references
External links
Virginia Woolf Papers at the Mortimer Rare Book Collection, Smith College Special Collections
1882 births
1941 suicides
19th-century English women
19th-century English people
19th-century English writers
20th-century British short story writers
20th-century English women writers
20th-century English novelists
20th-century essayists
20th-century non-fiction writers
Alumni of King's College London
Bisexual women
Bisexual writers
Bloomsbury Group
Bloomsbury Group biographers
British anti-fascists
British atheists
British autobiographers
British diarists
British essayists
British humanists
British memoirists
British pacifists
British secularists
British socialists
British cultural critics
British women dramatists and playwrights
British women essayists
British women short story writers
Critics of Christianity
Critics of Judaism
Critics of new religious movements
Critics of religions
English anti-fascists
English atheists
English autobiographers
English diarists
English essayists
English humanists
English memoirists
English pacifists
English socialists
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English women novelists
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Pipe smokers | true | [
"Let Me Entertain You may refer to:\n\nFilm and television\n Let Me Entertain You (2006 TV series), a British daytime variety show\n Let Me Entertain You (2014 TV series), a British entertainment show\n Let Me Entertain You, an Irish TV talent show\n \"Let Me Entertain You\" (Desperate Housewives)\n\nMusic\n\nAlbums\n Let Me Entertain You, a 1996 album by Ann-Margret\n Let Me Entertain You: Carol Burnett Sings, a 2000 album by Carol Burnett\n Let Me Entertain You (Amanda Lear album), a 2016 album by Amanda Lear\n\nSongs\n \"Let Me Entertain You\" (Robbie Williams song)\n \"Let Me Entertain You\" (Gypsy), a song from Gypsy: A Musical Fable by Jule Styne and Stephen Sondheim\n \"Let Me Entertain You\" (Queen song), from the 1978 album Jazz\n \"Let Me Entertain You\", a song by The Controllers\n \"Let Me Entertain You\", a song by Shakespears Sister from Hormonally Yours\n\nOther\n Let Me Entertain You Tour, a 2015 tour by Robbie Williams\n Let Me Entertain You, 1990 autobiography of David Brown",
"\"Did Anyone Approach You?\" is a song by the Norwegian band A-ha. It was the third single to be taken from their 2002 album Lifelines. It was recorded at The Alabaster Room in New York City sometime between June 2001 and January 2002.\n\nTrack listing\n \"Did Anyone Approach You? (Original Album Version)\" (4:11)\n \"Did Anyone Approach You? (Turner Remix)\" (3:43)\n \"Did Anyone Approach You? (Reamped)\" (4:51)\n \"Did Anyone Approach You? (Tore Johansson Remix)\" (5:55)\n \"Afternoon High (Demo Version)\" (4:40)\n \"Did Anyone Approach You? (Video Clip)\" (4:11)\n\nVideo\nThe video was filmed by Lauren Savoy, the wife of A-ha guitarist Paul Waaktaar-Savoy. It was shot at Ullevaal Stadion on 6 June 2002, the first concert on the band's Lifelines tour.\n\nCharts\n\nReferences\n\n2002 singles\nA-ha songs\nSongs written by Paul Waaktaar-Savoy\nWarner Music Group singles\n2002 songs"
]
|
[
"Virginia Woolf",
"Talland House (1882-1894)",
"Where is Talland House?",
") at St. Ives.",
"Is that where Virginia lived?",
"Both at Hyde Park Gate and Talland House, the family mingled with much of the",
"Who did the family mingle with?",
"the family mingled with much of the country's literary and artistic circles. Frequent guests included",
"Are there any other interesting aspects about this article?",
"In both London and Cornwall, Julia was perpetually entertaining, and was notorious for her manipulation of her guests' lives,",
"Did they entertain anyone famous?",
"Frequent guests included literary figures such as Henry James and George Meredith, as well as James Russell Lowell, and the children were exposed to"
]
| C_2448e986735e46eb8b47624e648fd3f5_1 | What were the children exposed to? | 6 | What were the children in the Woolf family exposed to? | Virginia Woolf | Leslie Stephen was in the habit of hiking in Cornwall, and in the spring of 1881 he came across a large white house in St. Ives, Cornwall, and took out a lease on it that September. Although it had limited amenities, its main attraction was the view overlooking Porthminster Bay towards the Godrevy Lighthouse, which the young Virginia could see from the upper windows and was to be the central figure in her To the Lighthouse (1927). It was a large square house, with a terraced garden, divided by hedges, sloping down towards the sea. Each year between 1882 and 1894 from mid-July to mid-September the Stephen's leased Talland House as a summer residence. Leslie Stephen, who referred to it thus: "a pocket-paradise", described it as "The pleasantest of my memories... refer to our summers, all of which were passed in Cornwall, especially to the thirteen summers (1882-1894) at St. Ives. There we bought the lease of Talland House: a small but roomy house, with a garden of an acre or two all up and down hill, with quaint little terraces divided by hedges of escallonia, a grape-house and kitchen-garden and a so-called 'orchard' beyond". It was in Leslie's words, a place of "intense domestic happiness". Virginia herself described the house in great detail: In both London and Cornwall, Julia was perpetually entertaining, and was notorious for her manipulation of her guests' lives, constantly matchmaking in the belief everyone should be married, the domestic equivalence of her philanthropy. As her husband observed "My Julia was of course, though with all due reserve, a bit of a matchmaker". While Cornwall was supposed to be a summer respite, Julia Stephen soon immersed herself in the work of caring for the sick and poor there, as well as in London. Both at Hyde Park Gate and Talland House, the family mingled with much of the country's literary and artistic circles. Frequent guests included literary figures such as Henry James and George Meredith, as well as James Russell Lowell, and the children were exposed to much more intellectual conversations than their mother's at Little Holland House. The family did not return, following Julia Stephen's death in May 1895. For the children it was the highlight of the year, and Virginia's most vivid childhood memories were not of London but of Cornwall. In a diary entry of 22 March 1921, she described why she felt so connected to Talland House, looking back to a summer day in August 1890. "Why am I so incredibly and incurably romantic about Cornwall? One's past, I suppose; I see children running in the garden ... The sound of the sea at night ... almost forty years of life, all built on that, permeated by that: so much I could never explain". Cornwall inspired aspects of her work, in particular the "St Ives Trilogy" of Jacob's Room (1922), To the Lighthouse (1927), and The Waves (1931). CANNOTANSWER | and the children were exposed to much more intellectual conversations than their mother's at | Adeline Virginia Woolf (; ; 25 January 1882 28 March 1941) was an English writer, considered one of the most important modernist 20th-century authors and a pioneer in the use of stream of consciousness as a narrative device.
Woolf was born into an affluent household in South Kensington, London, the seventh child of Julia Prinsep Jackson and Leslie Stephen in a blended family of eight which included the modernist painter Vanessa Bell. She was home-schooled in English classics and Victorian literature from a young age. From 1897 to 1901, she attended the Ladies' Department of King's College London, where she studied classics and history and came into contact with early reformers of women's higher education and the women's rights movement.
Encouraged by her father, Woolf began writing professionally in 1900. After her father's death in 1904, the Stephen family moved from Kensington to the more bohemian Bloomsbury, where, in conjunction with the brothers' intellectual friends, they formed the artistic and literary Bloomsbury Group. In 1912, she married Leonard Woolf, and in 1917, the couple founded the Hogarth Press, which published much of her work. They rented a home in Sussex and moved there permanently in 1940. Woolf had romantic relationships with women, including Vita Sackville-West, who also published her books through Hogarth Press. Both women's literature became inspired by their relationship, which lasted until Woolf's death.
During the inter-war period, Woolf was an important part of London's literary and artistic society. In 1915, she had published her first novel, The Voyage Out, through her half-brother's publishing house, Gerald Duckworth and Company. Her best-known works include the novels Mrs Dalloway (1925), To the Lighthouse (1927) and Orlando (1928). She is also known for her essays, including A Room of One's Own (1929). Woolf became one of the central subjects of the 1970s movement of feminist criticism and her works have since attracted much attention and widespread commentary for "inspiring feminism". Her works have been translated into more than 50 languages. A large body of literature is dedicated to her life and work, and she has been the subject of plays, novels and films. Woolf is commemorated today by statues, societies dedicated to her work and a building at the University of London.
Throughout her life, Woolf was troubled by mental illness. She was institutionalised several times and attempted suicide at least twice. According to Dalsimer (2004) her illness was characterized by symptoms that today would be diagnosed as bipolar disorder, for which there was no effective intervention during her lifetime. In 1941, at age 59, Woolf died by drowning herself in the River Ouse at Lewes.
Life
Family of origin
Virginia Woolf was born Adeline Virginia Stephen on 25 January 1882 at 22 Hyde Park Gate in South Kensington, London, to Julia (née Jackson) (1846–1895) and Leslie Stephen (1832–1904), writer, historian, essayist, biographer and mountaineer. Julia Jackson was born in 1846 in Calcutta, British India, to John Jackson and Maria "Mia" Theodosia Pattle, from two Anglo-Indian families. John Jackson FRCS was the third son of George Jackson and Mary Howard of Bengal, a physician who spent 25 years with the Bengal Medical Service and East India Company and a professor at the fledgling Calcutta Medical College. While John Jackson was an almost invisible presence, the Pattle family were famous beauties, and moved in the upper circles of Bengali society. The seven Pattle sisters married into important families. Julia Margaret Cameron was a celebrated photographer, while Virginia married Earl Somers, and their daughter, Julia Jackson's cousin, was Lady Henry Somerset, the temperance leader. Julia moved to England with her mother at the age of two and spent much of her early life with another of her mother's sisters, Sarah Monckton Pattle. Sarah and her husband Henry Thoby Prinsep, conducted an artistic and literary salon at Little Holland House where she came into contact with a number of Pre-Raphaelite painters such as Edward Burne-Jones, for whom she modelled.
Julia was the youngest of three sisters, and Adeline Virginia was named after her mother's eldest sister Adeline Maria Jackson (1837–1881) and her mother's aunt Virginia Pattle (see Pattle family tree). Because of the tragedy of her aunt Adeline's death the previous year, the family never used Virginia's first name. The Jacksons were a well educated, literary and artistic proconsular middle-class family. In 1867, Julia Jackson married Herbert Duckworth, a barrister, but within three years was left a widow with three infant children. She was devastated and entered a prolonged period of mourning, abandoning her faith and turning to nursing and philanthropy. Julia and Herbert Duckworth had three children:
George (5 March 1868 – 27 April 1934), a senior civil servant, married Lady Margaret Herbert in 1904
Stella (30 May 1869 – 19 July 1897), died aged 28
Gerald (29 October 1870 – 28 September 1937), founder of Duckworth Publishing, married Cecil Alice Scott-Chad in 1921
Leslie Stephen was born in 1832 in South Kensington to Sir James and Lady Jane Catherine Stephen (née Venn), daughter of John Venn, rector of Clapham. The Venns were the centre of the evangelical Clapham Sect. Sir James Stephen was the under secretary at the Colonial Office, and with another Clapham member, William Wilberforce, was responsible for the passage of the Slavery Abolition Bill in 1833. In 1849 he was appointed Regius Professor of Modern History at Cambridge University. As a family of educators, lawyers, and writers the Stephens represented the elite intellectual aristocracy. While his family were distinguished and intellectual, they were less colourful and aristocratic than Julia Jackson's. A graduate and fellow of Cambridge University he renounced his faith and position to move to London where he became a notable man of letters. In addition, he was a rambler and mountaineer, described as a "gaunt figure with the ragged red brown beard...a formidable man, with an immensely high forehead, steely-blue eyes, and a long pointed nose." In the same year as Julia Jackson's marriage, he wed Harriet Marian (Minny) Thackeray (1840–1875), youngest daughter of William Makepeace Thackeray, who bore him a daughter, Laura (1870–1945), but died in childbirth in 1875. Laura was developmentally disabled and eventually institutionalised.
The widowed Julia Duckworth knew Leslie Stephen through her friendship with Minny's elder sister Anne (Anny) Isabella Ritchie and had developed an interest in his agnostic writings. She was present the night Minny died and later, tended to Leslie Stephen and helped him move next door to her on Hyde Park Gate so Laura could have some companionship with her own children. Both were preoccupied with mourning and although they developed a close friendship and intense correspondence, agreed it would go no further. Leslie Stephen proposed to her in 1877, an offer she declined, but when Anny married later that year she accepted him and they were married on 26 March 1878. He and Laura then moved next door into Julia's house, where they lived till his death in 1904. Julia was 32 and Leslie was 46.
Their first child, Vanessa, was born on 30 May 1879. Julia, having presented her husband with a child and now having five children to care for, decided to limit her family's growth. However, despite the fact that the couple took "precautions", "contraception was a very imperfect art in the nineteenth century": it resulted in the birth of three more children over the next four years.
22 Hyde Park Gate (1882–1904)
1882–1895
Virginia Woolf provides insight into her early life in her autobiographical essays, including Reminiscences (1908), 22 Hyde Park Gate (1921), and A Sketch of the Past (1940). Other essays that provide insight into this period include Leslie Stephen (1932). She also alludes to her childhood in her fictional writing. In To the Lighthouse (1927), her depiction of the life of the Ramsays in the Hebrides is an only thinly disguised account of the Stephens in Cornwall and the Godrevy Lighthouse they would visit there. However, Woolf's understanding of her mother and family evolved considerably between 1907 and 1940, in which the somewhat distant, yet revered figure of her mother becomes more nuanced and filled in.
In February 1891, with her sister Vanessa, Woolf began the Hyde Park Gate News, chronicling life and events within the Stephen family, and modelled on the popular magazine Tit-Bits. Initially, this was mainly Vanessa's and Thoby's articles, but very soon Virginia became the main contributor, with Vanessa as editor. Their mother's response when it first appeared was "Rather clever I think". Virginia would run the Hyde Park Gate News until 1895, the time of her mother's death. The following year the Stephen sisters also used photography to supplement their insights, as did Stella Duckworth. Vanessa Bell's 1892 portrait of her sister and parents in the Library at Talland House (see image) was one of the family's favourites and was written about lovingly in Leslie Stephen's memoir. In 1897 ("the first really lived year of my life)" Virginia began her first diary, which she kept for the next twelve years, and a notebook in 1909.
Virginia was, as she describes it, "born into a large connection, born not of rich parents, but of well-to-do parents, born into a very communicative, literate, letter writing, visiting, articulate, late nineteenth century world." It was a well-connected family consisting of six children, with two half brothers and a half sister (the Duckworths, from her mother's first marriage), another half sister, Laura (from her father's first marriage), and an older sister, Vanessa, and brother Thoby. The following year, another brother Adrian followed. The disabled Laura Stephen lived with the family until she was institutionalised in 1891. Julia and Leslie had four children together:
Vanessa "Nessa" (30 May 1879 – 1961), married Clive Bell in 1907
Thoby (9 September 1880 – 1906), founded Bloomsbury Group
Virginia "Jinny"/"Ginia" (25 January 1882 – 1941), married Leonard Woolf in 1912
Adrian (27 October 1883 – 1948), married Karin Costelloe in 1914
Virginia was born at 22 Hyde Park Gate and lived there until her father's death in 1904. Number 22 Hyde Park Gate, South Kensington, lay at the south-east end of Hyde Park Gate, a narrow cul-de-sac running south from Kensington Road, just west of the Royal Albert Hall, and opposite Kensington Gardens and Hyde Park, where the family regularly took their walks (see Map; Street plan). Built in 1846 by Henry Payne of Hammersmith as one of a row of single-family townhouses for the upper middle class, it soon became too small for their expanding family. At the time of their marriage, it consisted of a basement, two storeys, and an attic. In July 1886 Leslie Stephen obtained the services of J. W. Penfold, an architect, to add additional living space above and behind the existing structure. The substantial renovations added a new top floor (see image of red brick extension), with three bedrooms and a study for himself, converted the original attic into rooms, and added the first bathroom. It was a tall but narrow townhouse, that at that time had no running water. Virginia would later describe it as "a very tall house on the left-hand side near the bottom which begins by being stucco and ends by being red brick; which is so high and yet—as I can say now that we have sold it—so rickety that it seems as if a very high wind would topple it over."
The servants worked "downstairs" in the basement. The ground floor had a drawing room, separated by a curtain from the servant's pantry and a library. Above this on the first floor were Julia and Leslie's bedrooms. On the next floor were the Duckworth children's rooms, and above them, the day and night nurseries of the Stephen children occupied two further floors. Finally, in the attic, under the eaves, were the servants' bedrooms, accessed by a back staircase. Life at 22 Hyde Park Gate was also divided symbolically; as Virginia put it, "The division in our lives was curious. Downstairs there was pure convention: upstairs pure intellect. But there was no connection between them", the worlds typified by George Duckworth and Leslie Stephen. Their mother, it seems, was the only one who could span this divide. The house was described as dimly lit and crowded with furniture and paintings. Within it, the younger Stephens formed a close-knit group. Despite this, the children still held their grievances. Virginia envied Adrian for being their mother's favourite. Virginia and Vanessa's status as creatives (writing and art respectively) caused a rivalry between them at times. Life in London differed sharply from their summers in Cornwall, their outdoor activities consisting mainly of walks in nearby Kensington Gardens, where they would play hide-and-seek and sail their boats on the Round Pond, while indoors, it revolved around their lessons.
Leslie Stephen's eminence as an editor, critic, and biographer, and his connection to William Thackeray, meant his children were raised in an environment filled with the influences of a Victorian literary society. Henry James, George Henry Lewes, Alfred Lord Tennyson, Thomas Hardy, Edward Burne-Jones, and Virginia's honorary godfather, James Russell Lowell, were among the visitors to the house. Julia Stephen was equally well connected. Her aunt was a pioneering early photographer, Julia Margaret Cameron, who was also a visitor to the Stephen household. The two Stephen sisters, Vanessa and Virginia, were almost three years apart in age. Virginia christened her older sister "the saint" and was far more inclined to exhibit her cleverness than her more reserved sister. Virginia resented the domesticity Victorian tradition forced on them far more than her sister. They also competed for Thoby's affections. Virginia would later confess her ambivalence over this rivalry to Duncan Grant in 1917: "indeed one of the concealed worms of my life has been a sister's jealousy – of a sister I mean; and to feed this I have invented such a myth about her that I scarce know one from t'other."
Virginia showed an early affinity for writing. Although both parents disapproved of formal education for females, writing was considered a respectable profession for women, and her father encouraged her in this respect. Later, she would describe this as "ever since I was a little creature, scribbling a story in the manner of Hawthorne on the green plush sofa in the drawing room at St. Ives while the grown-ups dined". By the age of five, she was writing letters and could tell her father a story every night. Later, she, Vanessa, and Adrian would develop the tradition of inventing a serial about their next-door neighbours, every night in the nursery, or in the case of St. Ives, of spirits that resided in the garden. It was her fascination with books that formed the strongest bond between her and her father. For her tenth birthday, she received an ink-stand, a blotter, drawing book and a box of writing implements.
Talland House (1882–1894)
Leslie Stephen was in the habit of hiking in Cornwall, and in the spring of 1881 he came across a large white house in St Ives, Cornwall, and took out a lease on it that September. Although it had limited amenities, its main attraction was the view overlooking Porthminster Bay towards the Godrevy Lighthouse, which the young Virginia could see from the upper windows and was to be the central figure in her To the Lighthouse (1927). It was a large square house, with a terraced garden, divided by hedges, sloping down towards the sea. Each year between 1882 and 1894 from mid-July to mid-September the Stephen family leased Talland House as a summer residence. Leslie Stephen, who referred to it thus: "a pocket-paradise", described it as "The pleasantest of my memories... refer to our summers, all of which were passed in Cornwall, especially to the thirteen summers (1882–1894) at St Ives. There we bought the lease of Talland House: a small but roomy house, with a garden of an acre or two all up and down hill, with quaint little terraces divided by hedges of escallonia, a grape-house and kitchen-garden and a so-called 'orchard' beyond". It was in Leslie's words, a place of "intense domestic happiness". Virginia herself described the house in great detail:
In both London and Cornwall, Julia was perpetually entertaining, and was notorious for her manipulation of her guests' lives, constantly matchmaking in the belief everyone should be married, the domestic equivalence of her philanthropy. As her husband observed, "My Julia was of course, though with all due reserve, a bit of a matchmaker." Amongst their guests in 1893 were the Brookes, whose children, including Rupert Brooke, played with the Stephen children. Rupert and his group of Cambridge Neo-pagans would come to play an important role in their lives in the years before the First World War. While Cornwall was supposed to be a summer respite, Julia Stephen soon immersed herself in the work of caring for the sick and poor there, as well as in London. Both at Hyde Park Gate and Talland House, the family mingled with much of the country's literary and artistic circles. Frequent guests included literary figures such as Henry James and George Meredith, as well as James Russell Lowell, and the children were exposed to much more intellectual conversations than at their mother's Little Holland House. The family did not return, following Julia Stephen's death in May 1895.
For the children, it was the highlight of the year, and Virginia's most vivid childhood memories were not of London but of Cornwall. In a diary entry of 22 March 1921, she described why she felt so connected to Talland House, looking back to a summer day in August 1890. "Why am I so incredibly and incurably romantic about Cornwall? One's past, I suppose; I see children running in the garden … The sound of the sea at night … almost forty years of life, all built on that, permeated by that: so much I could never explain". Cornwall inspired aspects of her work, in particular the "St Ives Trilogy" of Jacob's Room (1922), To the Lighthouse (1927), and The Waves (1931).
1895–1904
Julia Stephen fell ill with influenza in February 1895, and never properly recovered, dying on 5 May, when Virginia was 13. It was a pivotal moment in her life and the beginning of her struggles with mental illness. Essentially, her life had fallen apart. The Duckworths were travelling abroad at the time of their mother's death, and Stella returned immediately to take charge and assume her role. That summer, rather than return to the memories of St Ives, the Stephens went to Freshwater, Isle of Wight, where some of their mother's relatives lived. It was there that Virginia had the first of her many nervous breakdowns, and Vanessa was forced to assume some of her mother's role in caring for Virginia's mental state. Stella became engaged to Jack Hills the following year and they were married on 10 April 1897, making Virginia even more dependent on her older sister.
George Duckworth also assumed some of their mother's role, taking upon himself the task of bringing them out into society. First Vanessa, then Virginia, in both cases an equal disaster, for it was not a rite of passage that resonated with either girl and attracted a scathing critique by Virginia regarding the conventional expectations of young upper-class women: "Society in those days was a perfectly competent, perfectly complacent, ruthless machine. A girl had no chance against its fangs. No other desires – say to paint, or to write – could be taken seriously". Rather her priorities were to escape from the Victorian conventionality of the downstairs drawing room to a "room of one's own" to pursue her writing aspirations. She would revisit this criticism in her depiction of Mrs. Ramsay stating the duties of a Victorian mother in To the Lighthouse "an unmarried woman has missed the best of life".
The death of Stella Duckworth on 19 July 1897, after a long illness, was a further blow to Virginia's sense of self, and the family dynamics. Woolf described the period following the death of both her mother and Stella as "1897–1904 – the seven unhappy years", referring to "the lash of a random unheeding flail that pointlessly and brutally killed the two people who should, normally and naturally, have made those years, not perhaps happy but normal and natural". In April 1902, their father became ill, and although he underwent surgery later that year he never fully recovered, dying on 22 February 1904. Virginia's father's death precipitated a further breakdown. Later, Virginia would describe this time as one in which she was dealt successive blows as a "broken chrysalis" with wings still creased. Chrysalis occurs many times in Woolf's writing but the "broken chrysalis" was an image that became a metaphor for those exploring the relationship between Woolf and grief. At his death, Leslie Stephen's net worth was £15,715 6s. 6d. (probate 23 March 1904)
Education
In the late 19th century, education was sharply divided along gender lines, a tradition that Virginia would note and condemn in her writing. Boys were sent to school, and in upper-middle-class families such as the Stephens, it involved private boys schools, often boarding schools, and university. Girls, if they were afforded the luxury of education, received it from their parents, governesses, and tutors. Virginia was educated by her parents who shared the duty. There was a small classroom off the back of the drawing room, with its many windows, which they found perfect for quiet writing and painting. Julia taught the children Latin, French, and history, while Leslie taught them mathematics. They also received piano lessons. Supplementing their lessons was the children's unrestricted access to Leslie Stephen's vast library, exposing them to much of the literary canon, resulting in a greater depth of reading than any of their Cambridge contemporaries, Virginia's reading being described as "greedy". Later, she would recall After public school, the boys in the family all attended Cambridge University. The girls derived some indirect benefit from this, as the boys introduced them to their friends. Another source was the conversation of their father's friends, to whom they were exposed. Leslie Stephen described his circle as "most of the literary people of mark...clever young writers and barristers, chiefly of the radical persuasion...we used to meet on Wednesday and Sunday evenings, to smoke and drink and discuss the universe and the reform movement".
Later, between the ages of 15 and 19, Virginia was able to pursue higher education. She took courses of study, some at degree level, in beginning and advanced Ancient Greek, intermediate Latin and German, together with continental and English history at the Ladies' Department of King's College London at nearby 13 Kensington Square between 1897 and 1901. She studied Greek under the eminent scholar George Charles Winter Warr, professor of Classical Literature at King's. In addition she had private tutoring in German, Greek, and Latin. One of her Greek tutors was Clara Pater (1899–1900), who taught at King's. Another was Janet Case, who involved her in the women's rights movement, and whose obituary Virginia would later write in 1937. Her experiences led to her 1925 essay "On Not Knowing Greek". Her time at King's also brought her into contact with some of the early reformers of women's higher education such as the principal of the Ladies' Department, Lilian Faithfull (one of the so-called steamboat ladies), in addition to Pater. Her sister Vanessa also enrolled at the Ladies' Department (1899–1901). Although the Stephen girls could not attend Cambridge, they were to be profoundly influenced by their brothers' experiences there. When Thoby went to Trinity in 1899, he befriended a circle of young men, including Clive Bell, Lytton Strachey, Leonard Woolf (whom Virginia would later marry), and Saxon Sydney-Turner, whom he would soon introduce to his sisters at the Trinity May Ball in 1900. These men formed a reading group they named the Midnight Society.
Relationships with family
Although Virginia expressed the opinion her father was her favourite parent, and although she had only turned thirteen when her mother died, she was profoundly influenced by her mother throughout her life. It was Virginia who famously stated that "for we think back through our mothers if we are women", and invoked the image of her mother repeatedly throughout her life in her diaries, her letters and a number of her autobiographical essays, including Reminiscences (1908), 22 Hyde Park Gate (1921) and A Sketch of the Past (1940), frequently evoking her memories with the words "I see her ...". She also alludes to her childhood in her fictional writing. In To the Lighthouse (1927), the artist, Lily Briscoe, attempts to paint Mrs. Ramsay, a complex character based on Julia Stephen, and repeatedly comments on the fact that she was "astonishingly beautiful". Her depiction of the life of the Ramsays in the Hebrides is an only thinly disguised account of the Stephens in Cornwall and the Godrevy Lighthouse they would visit there. However, Woolf's understanding of her mother and family evolved considerably between 1907 and 1940, in which the somewhat distant, yet revered figure becomes more nuanced and complete.
While her father painted Julia Stephen's work in terms of reverence, Woolf drew a sharp distinction between her mother's work and "the mischievous philanthropy which other women practise so complacently and often with such disastrous results." She describes her degree of sympathy, engagement, judgement, and decisiveness, and her sense of both irony and the absurd. She recalls trying to recapture "the clear round voice, or the sight of the beautiful figure, so upright and distinct, in its long shabby cloak, with the head held at a certain angle, so that the eye looked straight out at you." Julia Stephen dealt with her husband's depressions and his need for attention, which created resentment in her children, boosted his self-confidence, nursed her parents in their final illness, and had many commitments outside the home that would eventually wear her down. Her frequent absences and the demands of her husband instilled a sense of insecurity in her children that had a lasting effect on her daughters. In considering the demands on her mother, Woolf described her father as "fifteen years her elder, difficult, exacting, dependent on her," and reflected that it was at the expense of the amount of attention she could spare her young children: "a general presence rather than a particular person to a child." She reflected that she rarely ever spent a moment alone with her mother: "someone was always interrupting." Woolf was ambivalent about it, yet eager to separate herself from this model of utter selflessness. In To the Lighthouse, she describes it as "boasting of her capacity to surround and protect, there was scarcely a shell of herself left for her to know herself by; all was so lavished and spent." At the same time, she admired the strengths of her mother's womanly ideals. Given Julia's frequent absences and commitments, the young Stephen children became increasingly dependent on Stella Duckworth, who emulated her mother's selflessness; as Woolf wrote, "Stella was always the beautiful attendant handmaid ... making it the central duty of her life."
Julia Stephen greatly admired her husband's intellect. As Woolf observed "she never belittled her own works, thinking them, if properly discharged, of equal, though other, importance with her husband's." She believed with certainty in her role as the centre of her activities, and the person who held everything together, with a firm sense of what was important and valuing devotion. Of the two parents, Julia's "nervous energy dominated the family". While Virginia identified most closely with her father, Vanessa stated her mother was her favourite parent. Angelica Garnett recalls how Virginia asked Vanessa which parent she preferred, although Vanessa considered it a question that "one ought not to ask", she was unequivocal in answering "Mother" yet the centrality of her mother to Virginia's world is expressed in this description of her "Certainly there she was, in the very centre of that great Cathedral space which was childhood; there she was from the very first". Virginia observed that her half-sister, Stella, the oldest daughter, led a life of total subservience to her mother, incorporating her ideals of love and service. Virginia quickly learned, that like her father, being ill was the only reliable way of gaining the attention of her mother, who prided herself on her sickroom nursing.
Another issue the children had to deal with was Leslie Stephen's temper, Woolf describing him as "the tyrant father". Eventually, she became deeply ambivalent about him. He had given her his ring on her eighteenth birthday and she had a deep emotional attachment as his literary heir, writing about her "great devotion for him". Yet, like Vanessa, she also saw him as victimiser and tyrant. She had a lasting ambivalence towards him through her life, albeit one that evolved. Her adolescent image was of an "Eminent Victorian" and tyrant but as she grew older she began to realise how much of him was in her: "I have been dipping into old letters and father's memoirs....so candid and reasonable and transparent—and had such a fastidious delicate mind, educated, and transparent," she wrote 22 December 1940. She was in turn both fascinated and condemnatory of Leslie Stephen: "She [her mother] has haunted me: but then, so did that old wretch my father. . . . I was more like him than her, I think; and therefore more critical: but he was an adorable man, and somehow, tremendous."
Sexual abuse
Woolf stated that she first remembers being molested by Gerald Duckworth when she was six years old. It has been suggested that this led to a lifetime of sexual fear and resistance to
masculine authority. Against a background of over-committed and distant parents, suggestions that this was a dysfunctional family must be evaluated. These include evidence of sexual abuse of the Stephen girls by their older Duckworth half-brothers, and by their cousin, James Kenneth Stephen (1859–1892), at least of Stella Duckworth. Laura is also thought to have been abused. The most graphic account is by Louise DeSalvo, but other authors and reviewers have been more cautious. Virginia's accounts of being continually sexually abused during the time that she lived at 22 Hyde Park Gate, have been cited by some critics as a possible cause of her mental health issues, although there are likely to be a number of contributing factors. Lee states that, "The evidence is strong enough, and yet ambiguous enough, to open the way for conflicting psychobiographical interpretations that draw quite different shapes of Virginia Woolf's interior life".
Bloomsbury (1904–1940)
Gordon Square (1904–1907)
On their father's death, the Stephens' first instinct was to escape from the dark house of yet more mourning, and this they did immediately, accompanied by George, travelling to Manorbier, on the coast of Pembrokeshire on 27 February. There, they spent a month, and it was there that Virginia first came to realise her destiny was as a writer, as she recalls in her diary of 3 September 1922. They then further pursued their newfound freedom by spending April in Italy and France, where they met up with Clive Bell again. Virginia then suffered her second nervous breakdown, and first suicidal attempt on 10 May, and convalesced over the next three months.
Before their father died, the Stephens had discussed the need to leave South Kensington in the West End, with its tragic memories and their parents' relations. George Duckworth was 35, his brother Gerald 33. The Stephen children were now between 24 and 20. Virginia was 22. Vanessa and Adrian decided to sell 22 Hyde Park Gate in respectable South Kensington and move to Bloomsbury. Bohemian Bloomsbury, with its characteristic leafy squares seemed sufficiently far away, geographically and socially, and was a much cheaper neighbourhood rentwise. They had not inherited much and they were unsure about their finances. Also, Bloomsbury was close to the Slade School which Vanessa was then attending. While Gerald was quite happy to move on and find himself a bachelor establishment, George who had always assumed the role of quasi-parent decided to accompany them, much to their dismay. It was then that Lady Margaret Herbert appeared on the scene, George proposed, was accepted and married in September, leaving the Stephens to their own devices.
Vanessa found a house at 46 Gordon Square in Bloomsbury, and they moved in November, to be joined by Virginia now sufficiently recovered. It was at Gordon Square that the Stephens began to regularly entertain Thoby's intellectual friends in March 1905. The circle, which largely came from the Cambridge Apostles, included writers (Saxon Sydney-Turner, Lytton Strachey) and critics (Clive Bell, Desmond MacCarthy) with Thursday evening "At Homes" that became known as the Thursday Club, a vision of recreating Trinity College ("Cambridge in London"). This circle formed the nucleus of the intellectual circle of writers and artists known as the Bloomsbury Group. Later, it would include John Maynard Keynes (1907), Duncan Grant (1908), E.M. Forster (1910), Roger Fry (1910), Leonard Woolf (1911), and David Garnett (1914).
In 1905, Virginia and Adrian visited Portugal and Spain. Clive Bell proposed to Vanessa, but was declined, while Virginia began teaching evening classes at Morley College and Vanessa added another event to their calendar with the Friday Club, dedicated to the discussion of and later exhibition of the fine arts. This introduced some new people into their circle, including Vanessa's friends from the Royal Academy and Slade, such as Henry Lamb and Gwen Darwin (who became secretary), but also the eighteen-year-old Katherine Laird ("Ka") Cox (1887–1938), who was about to go up to Newnham. Although Virginia did not actually meet Ka until much later, Ka would come to play an important part in her life. Ka and others brought the Bloomsbury Group into contact with another, slightly younger, group of Cambridge intellectuals to whom the Stephen sisters gave the name "Neo-pagans". The Friday Club continued until 1913.
The following year, 1906, Virginia suffered two further losses. Her cherished brother Thoby, who was only 26, died of typhoid, following a trip they had all taken to Greece, and immediately afterward Vanessa accepted Clive's third proposal. Vanessa and Clive were married in February 1907 and as a couple, their interest in avant-garde art would have an important influence on Woolf's further development as an author. With Vanessa's marriage, Virginia and Adrian needed to find a new home.
Fitzroy Square (1907–1911)
Virginia moved into 29 Fitzroy Square in April 1907, a house on the west side of the street, formerly occupied by George Bernard Shaw. It was in Fitzrovia, immediately to the west of Bloomsbury but still relatively close to her sister at Gordon Square. The two sisters continued to travel together, visiting Paris in March. Adrian was now to play a much larger part in Virginia's life, and they resumed the Thursday Club in October at their new home, while Gordon Square became the venue for the Play Reading Society in December. During this period, the group began to increasingly explore progressive ideas, first in speech, and then in conduct, Vanessa proclaiming in 1910 a libertarian society with sexual freedom for all.
Meanwhile, Virginia began work on her first novel, Melymbrosia, that eventually became The Voyage Out (1915). Vanessa's first child, Julian was born in February 1908, and in September Virginia accompanied the Bells to Italy and France. It was during this time that Virginia's rivalry with her sister resurfaced, flirting with Clive, which he reciprocated, and which lasted on and off from 1908 to 1914, by which time her sister's marriage was breaking down. On 17 February 1909, Lytton Strachey proposed to Virginia and she accepted, but he then withdrew the offer.
It was while she was at Fitzroy Square that the question arose of Virginia needing a quiet country retreat, and she required a six-week rest cure and sought the countryside away from London as much as possible. In December, she and Adrian stayed at Lewes and started exploring the area of Sussex around the town. She started to want a place of her own, like St Ives, but closer to London. She soon found a property in nearby Firle (see below), maintaining a relationship with that area for the rest of her life.
Dreadnought hoax 1910
Several members of the group attained notoriety in 1910 with the Dreadnought hoax, which Virginia participated in disguised as a male Abyssinian royal. Her complete 1940 talk on the hoax was discovered and is published in the memoirs collected in the expanded edition of The Platform of Time (2008).
Brunswick Square (1911–1912)
In October 1911, the lease on Fitzroy Square was running out and Virginia and Adrian decided to give up their home on Fitzroy Square in favour of a different living arrangement, moving to a four-storied house at 38 Brunswick Square in Bloomsbury proper in November. Virginia saw it as a new opportunity: "We are going to try all kinds of experiments," she told Ottoline Morrell. Adrian occupied the second floor, with Maynard Keynes and Duncan Grant sharing the ground floor. This arrangement for a single woman was considered scandalous, and George Duckworth was horrified. The house was adjacent to the Foundling Hospital, much to Virginia's amusement as an unchaperoned single woman. Originally, Ka Cox was supposed to share in the arrangements, but opposition came from Rupert Brooke, who was involved with her and pressured her to abandon the idea. At the house, Duncan Grant decorated Adrian Stephen's rooms (see image).
Marriage (1912–1941)
Leonard Woolf was one of Thoby Stephen's friends at Trinity College, Cambridge, and noticed the Stephen sisters in Thoby's rooms there on their visits to the May Ball in 1900 and 1901. He recalls them in "white dresses and large hats, with parasols in their hands, their beauty literally took one's breath away". To him, they were silent, "formidable and alarming".
Woolf did not meet Virginia formally till 17 November 1904 when he dined with the Stephens at Gordon Square, to say goodbye before leaving to take up a position with the civil service in Ceylon, although she was aware of him through Thoby's stories. At that visit he noted that she was perfectly silent throughout the meal, and looked ill. In 1909, Lytton Strachey suggested to Woolf he should make her an offer of marriage. He did so, but received no answer. In June 1911, he returned to London on a one-year leave, but did not go back to Ceylon. In England again, Leonard renewed his contacts with family and friends. Three weeks after arriving he dined with Vanessa and Clive Bell at Gordon Square on 3 July, where they were later joined by Virginia and other members of what would later be called "Bloomsbury", and Leonard dates the group's formation to that night. In September, Virginia asked Leonard to join her at Little Talland House at Firle in Sussex for a long weekend. After that weekend, they began seeing each other more frequently.
On 4 December 1911, Leonard moved into the ménage on Brunswick Square, occupying a bedroom and sitting room on the fourth floor, and started to see Virginia constantly and by the end of the month had decided he was in love with her. On 11 January 1912, he proposed to her; she asked for time to consider, so he asked for an extension of his leave and, on being refused, offered his resignation on 25 April, effective 20 May. He continued to pursue Virginia, and in a letter of 1 May 1912 (which see) she explained why she did not favour a marriage. However, on 29 May, Virginia told Leonard that she wished to marry him, and they were married on 10 August at the St Pancras Register Office. It was during this time that Leonard first became aware of Virginia's precarious mental state. The Woolfs continued to live at Brunswick Square until October 1912, when they moved to a small flat at 13 Clifford's Inn, further to the east (subsequently demolished). Despite his low material status (Woolf referring to Leonard during their engagement as a "penniless Jew"), the couple shared a close bond. Indeed, in 1937, Woolf wrote in her diary: "Love-making—after 25 years can't bear to be separate ... you see it is enormous pleasure being wanted: a wife. And our marriage so complete." However, Virginia made a suicide attempt in 1913.
In October 1914, Leonard and Virginia Woolf moved away from Bloomsbury and central London to Richmond, living at 17 The Green, a home discussed by Leonard in his autobiography Beginning Again (1964). In early March 1915, the couple moved again, to nearby Hogarth House, Paradise Road, after which they named their publishing house. Virginia's first novel, The Voyage Out was published in 1915, followed by another suicide attempt. Despite the introduction of conscription in 1916, Leonard was exempted on medical grounds.
Between 1924 and 1940, the Woolfs returned to Bloomsbury, taking out a ten-year lease at 52 Tavistock Square, from where they ran the Hogarth Press from the basement, where Virginia also had her writing room, and is commemorated with a bust of her in the square (see illustration). 1925 saw the publication of Mrs Dalloway in May followed by her collapse while at Charleston in August. In 1927, her next novel, To the Lighthouse, was published, and the following year she lectured on Women & Fiction at Cambridge University and published Orlando in October. Her two Cambridge lectures then became the basis for her major essay A Room of One's Own in 1929. Virginia wrote only one drama, Freshwater, based on her great-aunt Julia Margaret Cameron, and produced at her sister's studio on Fitzroy Street in 1935. 1936 saw another collapse of her health following the completion of The Years.
The Woolf's final residence in London was at 37 Mecklenburgh Square (1939–1940), destroyed during the Blitz in September 1940; a month later their previous home on Tavistock Square was also destroyed. After that, they made Sussex their permanent home. For descriptions and illustrations of all Virginia Woolf's London homes, see Jean Moorcroft Wilson's book Virginia Woolf, Life and London: A Biography of Place (pub. Cecil Woolf, 1987).
Hogarth Press (1917–1938)
Virginia had taken up book-binding as a pastime in October 1901, at the age of 19, and the Woolfs had been discussing setting up a publishing house for some time, and at the end of 1916 started making plans. Having discovered that they were not eligible to enroll in the St Bride School of Printing, they started purchasing supplies after seeking advice from the Excelsior Printing Supply Company on Farringdon Road in March 1917, and soon they had a printing press set up on their dining room table at Hogarth House, and the Hogarth Press was born.
Their first publication was Two Stories in July 1917, inscribed Publication No. 1, and consisted of two short stories, "The Mark on the Wall" by Virginia Woolf and Three Jews by Leonard Woolf. The work consisted of 32 pages, hand bound and sewn, and illustrated by woodcuts designed by Dora Carrington. The illustrations were a success, leading Virginia to remark that the press was "specially good at printing pictures, and we see that we must make a practice of always having pictures." (13 July 1917) The process took two and a half months with a production run of 150 copies. Other short short stories followed, including Kew Gardens (1919) with a woodblock by Vanessa Bell as frontispiece. Subsequently, Bell added further illustrations, adorning each page of the text.
The press subsequently published Virginia's novels along with works by T.S. Eliot, Laurens van der Post, and others. The Press also commissioned works by contemporary artists, including Dora Carrington and Vanessa Bell. Woolf believed that to break free of a patriarchal society women writers needed a "room of their own" to develop and often fantasised about an "Outsider's Society" where women writers would create a virtual private space for themselves via their writings to develop a feminist critique of society. Though Woolf never created the "Outsider's society", the Hogarth Press was the closest approximation as the Woolfs chose to publish books by writers that took unconventional points of view to form a reading community. Initially the press concentrated on small experimental publications, of little interest to large commercial publishers. Until 1930, Woolf often helped her husband print the Hogarth books as the money for employees was not there. Virginia relinquished her interest in 1938, following a third attempted suicide. After it was bombed in September 1940, the press was moved to Letchworth for the remainder of the war. Both the Woolfs were internationalists and pacifists who believed that promoting understanding between peoples was the best way to avoid another world war and chose quite consciously to publish works by foreign authors of whom the British reading public were unaware. The first non-British author to be published was the Soviet writer Maxim Gorky, the book Reminiscences of Leo Nikolaiovich Tolstoy in 1920, dealing with his friendship with Count Leo Tolstoy.
Memoir Club (1920–1941)
1920 saw a postwar reconstitution of the Bloomsbury Group, under the title of the Memoir Club, which as the name suggests focussed on self-writing, in the manner of Proust's A La Recherche, and inspired some of the more influential books of the 20th century. The Group, which had been scattered by the war, was reconvened by Mary ('Molly') MacCarthy who called them "Bloomsberries", and operated under rules derived from the Cambridge Apostles, an elite university debating society that a number of them had been members of. These rules emphasised candour and openness. Among the 125 memoirs presented, Virginia contributed three that were published posthumously in 1976, in the autobiographical anthology Moments of Being. These were 22 Hyde Park Gate (1921), Old Bloomsbury (1922) and Am I a Snob? (1936).
Vita Sackville-West (1922–1941)
The ethos of the Bloomsbury group encouraged a liberal approach to sexuality, and on 14 December 1922 Woolf met the writer and gardener Vita Sackville-West, wife of Harold Nicolson, while dining with Clive Bell. Writing in her diary the next day, she referred to meeting "the lovely gifted aristocratic Sackville West". At the time, Sackville-West was the more successful writer as both poet and novelist, commercially and critically, and it was not until after Woolf's death that she became considered the better writer. After a tentative start, they began a sexual relationship, which, according to Sackville-West in a letter to her husband on 17 August 1926, was only twice consummated. The relationship reached its peak between 1925 and 1928, evolving into more of a friendship through the 1930s, though Woolf was also inclined to brag of her affairs with other women within her intimate circle, such as Sibyl Colefax and Comtesse de Polignac. This period of intimacy was to prove fruitful for both authors, Woolf producing three novels, To the Lighthouse (1927), Orlando (1928), and The Waves (1931) as well as a number of essays, including "Mr. Bennett and Mrs. Brown" (1924) and "A Letter to a Young Poet" (1932).
Sackville-West worked tirelessly to lift Woolf's self-esteem, encouraging her not to view herself as a quasi-reclusive inclined to sickness who should hide herself away from the world, but rather offered praise for her liveliness and wit, her health, her intelligence and achievements as a writer. Sackville-West led Woolf to reappraise herself, developing a more positive self-image, and the feeling that her writings were the products of her strengths rather than her weakness. Starting at the age of 15, Woolf had believed the diagnosis by her father and his doctor that reading and writing were deleterious to her nervous condition, requiring a regime of physical labour such as gardening to prevent a total nervous collapse. This led Woolf to spend much time obsessively engaging in such physical labour.
Sackville-West was the first to argue to Woolf she had been misdiagnosed, and that it was far better to engage in reading and writing to calm her nerves—advice that was taken. Under the influence of Sackville-West, Woolf learned to deal with her nervous ailments by switching between various forms of intellectual activities such as reading, writing and book reviews, instead of spending her time in physical activities that sapped her strength and worsened her nerves. Sackville-West chose the financially struggling Hogarth Press as her publisher to assist the Woolfs financially. Seducers in Ecuador, the first of the novels by Sackville-West published by Hogarth, was not a success, selling only 1500 copies in its first year, but the next Sackville-West novel they published, The Edwardians, was a best-seller that sold 30,000 copies in its first six months. Sackville-West's novels, though not typical of the Hogarth Press, saved Hogarth, taking them from the red into the black. However, Woolf was not always appreciative of the fact that it was Sackville-West's books that kept the Hogarth Press profitable, writing dismissively in 1933 of her "servant girl" novels. The financial security allowed by the good sales of Sackville-West's novels in turn allowed Woolf to engage in more experimental work, such as The Waves, as Woolf had to be cautious when she depended upon Hogarth entirely for her income.
In 1928, Woolf presented Sackville-West with Orlando, a fantastical biography in which the eponymous hero's life spans three centuries and both sexes. It was published in October, shortly after the two women spent a week travelling together in France, that September. Nigel Nicolson, Vita Sackville-West's son, wrote, "The effect of Vita on Virginia is all contained in Orlando, the longest and most charming love letter in literature, in which she explores Vita, weaves her in and out of the centuries, tosses her from one sex to the other, plays with her, dresses her in furs, lace and emeralds, teases her, flirts with her, drops a veil of mist around her." After their affair ended, the two women remained friends until Woolf's death in 1941. Virginia Woolf also remained close to her surviving siblings, Adrian and Vanessa; Thoby had died of typhoid fever at the age of 26.
Sussex (1911–1941)
Virginia was needing a country retreat to escape to, and on 24 December 1910, she found a house for rent in Firle, Sussex, near Lewes (see Map). She obtained a lease and took possession of the house the following month, naming it 'Little Talland House', after their childhood home in Cornwall, although it was actually a new red gabled villa on the main street opposite the village hall. The lease was a short one, and in October, she and Leonard Woolf found Asham House at Asheham a few miles to the west, while walking along the Ouse from Firle. The house, at the end of a tree-lined road was a strange beautiful Regency-Gothic house in a lonely location. She described it as "flat, pale, serene, yellow-washed", without electricity or water and allegedly haunted. She took out a five-year lease jointly with Vanessa in the New Year, and they moved into it in February 1912, holding a house warming party on the 9th.
It was at Asham that the Woolfs spent their wedding night later that year. At Asham, she recorded the events of the weekends and holidays they spent there in her Asham Diary, part of which was later published as A Writer's Diary in 1953. In terms of creative writing, The Voyage Out was completed there, and much of Night and Day. Asham provided Woolf with well needed relief from the pace of London life and was where she found a happiness that she expressed in her diary of 5 May 1919 "Oh, but how happy we've been at Asheham! It was a most melodious time. Everything went so freely; – but I can't analyse all the sources of my joy". Asham was also the inspiration for A Haunted House (1921–1944), and was painted by members of the Bloomsbury Group, including Vanessa Bell and Roger Fry. It was during these times at Asham that Ka Cox (seen here) started to devote herself to Virginia and become very useful.
While at Asham Leonard and Virginia found a farmhouse in 1916, that was to let, about four miles away, which they thought would be ideal for her sister. Eventually, Vanessa came down to inspect it, and moved in in October of that year, taking it as a summer home for her family. The Charleston Farmhouse was to become the summer gathering place for the literary and artistic circle of the Bloomsbury Group.
After the end of the war, in 1918, the Woolfs were given a year's notice by the landlord, who needed the house. In mid-1919, "in despair", they purchased "a very strange little house" for £300, the Round House in Pipe Passage, Lewes, a converted windmill. No sooner had they bought the Round House, than Monk's House in nearby Rodmell, came up for auction, a weatherboarded house with oak beamed rooms, said to be 15th or 16th century. The Leonards favoured the latter because of its orchard and garden, and sold the Round House, to purchase Monk's House for £700. Monk's House also lacked water and electricity, but came with an acre of garden, and had a view across the Ouse towards the hills of the South Downs. Leonard Woolf describes this view (and the amenities) as being unchanged since the days of Chaucer. From 1940, it became their permanent home after their London home was bombed, and Virginia continued to live there until her death. Meanwhile, Vanessa made Charleston her permanent home in 1936. It was at Monk's House that Virginia completed Between the Acts in early 1941, followed by a further breakdown directly resulting in her suicide on 28 March 1941, the novel being published posthumously later that year.
The Neo-pagans (1911–1912)
During her time in Firle, Virginia became better acquainted with Rupert Brooke and his group of Neo-Pagans, pursuing socialism, vegetarianism, exercising outdoors and alternative life styles, including social nudity. They were influenced by the ethos of Bedales, Fabianism and Shelley. The women wore sandals, socks, open neck shirts and head-scarves. Although she had some reservations, Woolf was involved with their activities for a while, fascinated by their bucolic innocence in contrast to the sceptical intellectualism of Bloomsbury, which earned her the nickname "The Goat" from her brother Adrian. While Woolf liked to make much of a weekend she spent with Brooke at the vicarage in Grantchester, including swimming in the pool there, it appears to have been principally a literary assignation. They also shared a psychiatrist in the name of Maurice Craig. Through the Neo-Pagans, she finally met Ka Cox on a weekend in Oxford in January 1911, who had been part of the Friday Club circle and now became her friend and played an important part in dealing with her illnesses. Virginia nicknamed her "Bruin". At the same time, she found herself dragged into a triangular relationship involving Ka, Jacques Raverat and Gwen Darwin. She became resentful of the other couple, Jacques and Gwen, who married later in 1911, not the outcome Virginia had predicted or desired. They would later be referred to in both To the Lighthouse and The Years. The exclusion she felt evoked memories of both Stella Duckworth's marriage and her triangular involvement with Vanessa and Clive.
The two groups eventually fell out. Brooke pressured Ka into withdrawing from joining Virginia's ménage on Brunswick Square in late 1911, calling it a "bawdy-house" and by the end of 1912 he had vehemently turned against Bloomsbury. Later, she would write sardonically about Brooke, whose premature death resulted in his idealisation, and express regret about "the Neo-Paganism at that stage of my life". Virginia was deeply disappointed when Ka married William Edward Arnold-Forster in 1918, and became increasingly critical of her.
Mental health
Much examination has been made of Woolf's mental health (e.g., see Mental health bibliography). From the age of 13, following the death of her mother, Woolf suffered periodic mood swings from severe depression to manic excitement, including psychotic episodes, which the family referred to as her "madness". However, as Hermione Lee points out, Woolf was not "mad"; she was merely a woman who suffered from and struggled with illness for much of her relatively short life, a woman of "exceptional courage, intelligence and stoicism", who made the best use, and achieved the best understanding she could of that illness.
Psychiatrists today contend that her illness constitutes bipolar disorder (manic-depressive illness). Her mother's death in 1895, "the greatest disaster that could happen", precipitated a crisis of alternating excitability and depression accompanied by irrational fears, for which their family doctor, Dr. Seton, prescribed rest, stopping lessons and writing, and regular walks supervised by Stella. Yet just two years later, Stella too was dead, bringing on her next crisis in 1897, and her first expressed wish for death at the age of fifteen, writing in her diary that October that "death would be shorter & less painful". She then stopped keeping a diary for some time. This was a scenario she would later recreate in "Time Passes" (To the Lighthouse, 1927).
The death of her father in 1904 provoked her most alarming collapse, on 10 May, when she threw herself out a window and she was briefly institutionalised under the care of her father's friend, the eminent psychiatrist George Savage. Savage blamed her education—frowned on by many at the time as unsuitable for women—for her illness. She spent time recovering at the house of Stella's friend Violet Dickinson, and at her aunt Caroline's house in Cambridge, and by January 1905, Dr. Savage considered her "cured". Violet, seventeen years older than Virginia, became one of her closest friends and one of her more effective nurses. She characterised it as a "romantic friendship" (Letter to Violet 4 May 1903). Her brother Thoby's death in 1906 marked a "decade of deaths” that ended her childhood and adolescence. Gordon (2004) writes: "Ghostly voices spoke to her with increasing urgency, perhaps more real than the people who lived by her side. When voices of the dead urged her to impossible things, they drove her mad but, controlled, they became the material of fiction..."
On Dr. Savage's recommendation, Virginia spent three short periods in 1910, 1912, and 1913 at Burley House at 15 Cambridge Park, Twickenham (see image), described as "a private nursing home for women with nervous disorder" run by Miss Jean Thomas. By the end of February 1910, she was becoming increasingly restless, and Dr. Savage suggested being away from London. Vanessa rented Moat House, outside Canterbury, in June, but there was no improvement, so Dr. Savage sent her to Burley for a "rest cure". This involved partial isolation, deprivation of literature, and force-feeding, and after six weeks she was able to convalesce in Cornwall and Dorset during the autumn.
She loathed the experience; writing to her sister on 28 July, she described how she found the phony religious atmosphere stifling and the institution ugly, and informed Vanessa that to escape "I shall soon have to jump out of a window." The threat of being sent back would later lead to her contemplating suicide. Despite her protests, Savage would refer her back in 1912 for insomnia and in 1913 for depression.
On emerging from Burley House in September 1913, she sought further opinions from two other physicians on the 13th: Maurice Wright, and Henry Head, who had been Henry James's physician. Both recommended she return to Burley House. Distraught, she returned home and attempted suicide by taking an overdose of 100 grains of veronal (a barbiturate) and nearly dying: she was found by Ka Cox, who summoned help.
On recovery, she went to Dalingridge Hall, George Duckworth's home in East Grinstead, Sussex, to convalesce on 30 September, accompanied by Ka Cox and a nurse, returning to Asham on 18 November with Cox and Janet Case. She remained unstable over the next two years, with another incident involving veronal that she claimed was an "accident", and consulted another psychiatrist in April 1914, Maurice Craig, who explained that she was not sufficiently psychotic to be certified or committed to an institution.
The rest of the summer of 1914 went better for her, and they moved to Richmond, but in February 1915, just as The Voyage Out was due to be published, she relapsed once more, and remained in poor health for most of that year. Then, despite Miss Thomas's gloomy prognosis, she began to recover, following 20 years of ill health. Nevertheless, there was a feeling among those around her that she was now permanently changed, and not for the better.
Over the rest of her life, she suffered recurrent bouts of depression. In 1940, a number of factors appeared to overwhelm her. Her biography of Roger Fry had been published in July, and she had been disappointed in its reception. The horrors of war depressed her, and their London homes had been destroyed in the Blitz in September and October. Woolf had completed Between the Acts (published posthumously in 1941) in November, and completing a novel was frequently accompanied by exhaustion. Her health became increasingly a matter of concern, culminating in her decision to end her life on 28 March 1941.
Though this instability would frequently affect her social life, she was able to continue her literary productivity with few interruptions throughout her life. Woolf herself provides not only a vivid picture of her symptoms in her diaries and letters, but also her response to the demons that haunted her and at times made her long for death: "But it is always a question whether I wish to avoid these glooms... These 9 weeks give one a plunge into deep waters... One goes down into the well & nothing protects one from the assault of truth."
Psychiatry had little to offer Woolf, but she recognised that writing was one of the behaviours that enabled her to cope with her illness: "The only way I keep afloat... is by working... Directly I stop working I feel that I am sinking down, down. And as usual, I feel that if I sink further I shall reach the truth." Sinking under water was Woolf's metaphor for both the effects of depression and psychosis— but also for finding truth, and ultimately was her choice of death.
Throughout her life, Woolf struggled, without success, to find meaning in her illness: on the one hand, an impediment, on the other, something she visualised as an essential part of who she was, and a necessary condition of her art. Her experiences informed her work, such as the character of Septimus Warren Smith in Mrs Dalloway (1925), who, like Woolf, was haunted by the dead, and ultimately takes his own life rather than be admitted to a sanitorium.
Leonard Woolf relates how during the 30 years they were married, they consulted many doctors in the Harley Street area, and although they were given a diagnosis of neurasthenia, he felt they had little understanding of the causes or nature. The proposed solution was simple—as long as she lived a quiet life without any physical or mental exertion, she was well. On the other hand, any mental, emotional, or physical strain resulted in a reappearance of her symptoms, beginning with a headache, followed by insomnia and thoughts that started to race. Her remedy was simple: to retire to bed in a darkened room, eat, and drink plenty of milk, following which the symptoms slowly subsided.
Modern scholars, including her nephew and biographer, Quentin Bell, have suggested her breakdowns and subsequent recurring depressive periods were influenced by the sexual abuse which she and her sister Vanessa were subjected to by their half-brothers George and Gerald Duckworth (which Woolf recalls in her autobiographical essays "A Sketch of the Past" and "22 Hyde Park Gate") (see Sexual abuse). Biographers point out that when Stella died in 1897, there was no counterbalance to control George's predation, and his nighttime prowling. Virginia describes him as her first lover, "The old ladies of Kensington and Belgravia never knew that George Duckworth was not only father and mother, brother and sister to those poor Stephen girls; he was their lover also."
It is likely that other factors also played a part. It has been suggested that they include genetic predisposition, for both trauma and family history have been implicated in bipolar disorder. Virginia's father, Leslie Stephen, suffered from depression, and her half-sister Laura was institutionalised. Many of Virginia's symptoms, including persistent headache, insomnia, irritability, and anxiety, resembled of her father's. Another factor is the pressure she placed upon herself in her work; for instance, her breakdown of 1913 was at least partly triggered by the need to finish The Voyage Out.
Virginia herself hinted that her illness was related to how she saw the repressed position of women in society, when she wrote in A Room of One's Own that had Shakespeare had a sister of equal genius, she "would certainly have gone crazed, shot herself, or ended her days in some lonely cottage outside the village, half witch, half wizard, feared and mocked at". These inspirations emerged from what Woolf referred to as her lava of madness, describing her time at Burley in a 1930 letter to Ethel Smyth:
Thomas Caramagno and others, in discussing her illness, oppose the "neurotic-genius" way of looking at mental illness, where creativity and mental illness are conceptualised as linked rather than antithetical. Stephen Trombley describes Woolf as having a confrontational relationship with her doctors, and possibly being a woman who is a "victim of male medicine", referring to the lack of understanding, particularly at the time, about mental illness.
Death
After completing the manuscript of her last novel (posthumously published), Between the Acts (1941), Woolf fell into a depression similar to one which she had earlier experienced. The onset of World War II, the destruction of her London home during the Blitz, and the cool reception given to her biography of her late friend Roger Fry all worsened her condition until she was unable to work. When Leonard enlisted in the Home Guard, Virginia disapproved. She held fast to her pacifism and criticised her husband for wearing what she considered to be "the silly uniform of the Home Guard".
After World War II began, Woolf's diary indicates that she was obsessed with death, which figured more and more as her mood darkened. On 28 March 1941, Woolf drowned herself by filling her overcoat pockets with stones and walking into the River Ouse near her home. Her body was not found until 18 April. Her husband buried her cremated remains beneath an elm tree in the garden of Monk's House, their home in Rodmell, Sussex.
In her suicide note, addressed to her husband, she wrote:
Work
Woolf is considered to be one of the more important 20th century novelists. A modernist, she was one of the pioneers of using stream of consciousness as a narrative device, alongside contemporaries such as Marcel Proust, Dorothy Richardson and James Joyce. Woolf's reputation was at its greatest during the 1930s, but declined considerably following World War II. The growth of feminist criticism in the 1970s helped re-establish her reputation.
Virginia submitted her first article in 1890, to a competition in Tit-Bits. Although it was rejected, this shipboard romance by the 8-year-old would presage her first novel 25 years later, as would contributions to the Hyde Park News, such as the model letter "to show young people the right way to express what is in their hearts", a subtle commentary on her mother's legendary matchmaking. She transitioned from juvenilia to professional journalism in 1904 at the age of 22. Violet Dickinson introduced her to Mrs. Lyttelton, the editor of the Women's Supplement of The Guardian, a Church of England newspaper. Invited to submit a 1,500-word article, Virginia sent Lyttelton a review of W.D. Howells' The Son of Royal Langbirth and an essay about her visit to Haworth that year, Haworth, November 1904. The review was published anonymously on 4 December, and the essay on the 21st. In 1905, Woolf began writing for The Times Literary Supplement.
Woolf would go on to publish novels and essays as a public intellectual to both critical and popular acclaim. Much of her work was self-published through the Hogarth Press. "Virginia Woolf's peculiarities as a fiction writer have tended to obscure her central strength: she is arguably the major lyrical novelist in the English language. Her novels are highly experimental: a narrative, frequently uneventful and commonplace, is refracted—and sometimes almost dissolved—in the characters' receptive consciousness. Intense lyricism and stylistic virtuosity fuse to create a world overabundant with auditory and visual impressions." "The intensity of Virginia Woolf's poetic vision elevates the ordinary, sometimes banal settings"—often wartime environments—"of most of her novels."
Fiction and drama
Novels
Her first novel, The Voyage Out, was published in 1915 at the age of 33, by her half-brother's imprint, Gerald Duckworth and Company Ltd. This novel was originally titled Melymbrosia, but Woolf repeatedly changed the draft. An earlier version of The Voyage Out has been reconstructed by Woolf scholar Louise DeSalvo and is now available to the public under the intended title. DeSalvo argues that many of the changes Woolf made in the text were in response to changes in her own life. The novel is set on a ship bound for South America, and a group of young Edwardians onboard and their various mismatched yearnings and misunderstandings. In the novel are hints of themes that would emerge in later work, including the gap between preceding thought and the spoken word that follows, and the lack of concordance between expression and underlying intention, together with how these reveal to us aspects of the nature of love.
"Mrs Dalloway (1925) centres on the efforts of Clarissa Dalloway, a middle-aged society woman, to organise a party, even as her life is paralleled with that of Septimus Warren Smith, a working-class veteran who has returned from the First World War bearing deep psychological scars".
"To the Lighthouse (1927) is set on two days ten years apart. The plot centres on the Ramsay family's anticipation of and reflection upon a visit to a lighthouse and the connected familial tensions. One of the primary themes of the novel is the struggle in the creative process that beset painter Lily Briscoe while she struggles to paint in the midst of the family drama. The novel is also a meditation upon the lives of a nation's inhabitants in the midst of war, and of the people left behind." It also explores the passage of time, and how women are forced by society to allow men to take emotional strength from them.
Orlando: A Biography (1928) is one of Virginia Woolf's lightest novels. A parodic biography of a young nobleman who lives for three centuries without ageing much past thirty (but who does abruptly turn into a woman), the book is in part a portrait of Woolf's lover Vita Sackville-West. It was meant to console Vita for the loss of her ancestral home, Knole House, though it is also a satirical treatment of Vita and her work. In Orlando, the techniques of historical biographers are being ridiculed; the character of a pompous biographer is being assumed for it to be mocked.
"The Waves (1931) presents a group of six friends whose reflections, which are closer to recitatives than to interior monologues proper, create a wave-like atmosphere that is more akin to a prose poem than to a plot-centred novel".
Flush: A Biography (1933) is a part-fiction, part-biography of the cocker spaniel owned by Victorian poet Elizabeth Barrett Browning. The book is written from the dog's point of view. Woolf was inspired to write this book from the success of the Rudolf Besier play The Barretts of Wimpole Street. In the play, Flush is on stage for much of the action. The play was produced for the first time in 1932 by the actress Katharine Cornell.
The Years (1936), traces the history of the genteel Pargiter family from the 1880s to the "present day" of the mid-1930s. The novel had its origin in a lecture Woolf gave to the National Society for Women's Service in 1931, an edited version of which would later be published as "Professions for Women". Woolf first thought of making this lecture the basis of a new book-length essay on women, this time taking a broader view of their economic and social life, rather than focusing on women as artists, as the first book had. She soon jettisoned the theoretical framework of her "novel-essay" and began to rework the book solely as a fictional narrative, but some of the non-fiction material she first intended for this book was later used in Three Guineas (1938).
"Her last work, Between the Acts (1941), sums up and magnifies Woolf's chief preoccupations: the transformation of life through art, sexual ambivalence, and meditation on the themes of flux of time and life, presented simultaneously as corrosion and rejuvenation—all set in a highly imaginative and symbolic narrative encompassing almost all of English history." This book is the most lyrical of all her works, not only in feeling but in style, being chiefly written in verse. While Woolf's work can be understood as consistently in dialogue with the Bloomsbury Group, particularly its tendency (informed by G.E. Moore, among others) towards doctrinaire rationalism, it is not a simple recapitulation of the coterie's ideals.
Themes
Woolf's fiction has been studied for its insight into many themes including war, shell shock, witchcraft, and the role of social class in contemporary modern British society. In the postwar Mrs Dalloway (1925), Woolf addresses the moral dilemma of war and its effects and provides an authentic voice for soldiers returning from World War I, suffering from shell shock, in the person of Septimus Smith. In A Room of One's Own (1929) Woolf equates historical accusations of witchcraft with creativity and genius among women "When, however, one reads of a witch being ducked, of a woman possessed by devils...then I think we are on the track of a lost novelist, a suppressed poet, of some mute and inglorious Jane Austen". Throughout her work Woolf tried to evaluate the degree to which her privileged background framed the lens through which she viewed class. She both examined her own position as someone who would be considered an elitist snob, but attacked the class structure of Britain as she found it. In her 1936 essay Am I a Snob?, she examined her values and those of the privileged circle she existed in. She concluded she was, and subsequent critics and supporters have tried to deal with the dilemma of being both elite and a social critic.
The sea is a recurring motif in Woolf's work. Noting Woolf's early memory of listening to waves break in Cornwall, Katharine Smyth writes in The Paris Review that "the radiance [of] cresting water would be consecrated again and again in her writing, saturating not only essays, diaries, and letters but also Jacob’s Room, The Waves, and To the Lighthouse." Patrizia A. Muscogiuri explains that "seascapes, sailing, diving and the sea itself are aspects of nature and of human beings’ relationship with it which frequently inspired Virginia Woolf's writing." This trope is deeply embedded in her texts’ structure and grammar; James Antoniou notes in Sydney Morning Herald how "Woolf made a virtue of the semicolon, the shape and function of which resembles the wave, her most famous motif."
Despite the considerable conceptual difficulties, given Woolf's idiosyncratic use of language, her works have been translated into over 50 languages. Some writers, such as the Belgian Marguerite Yourcenar, had rather tense encounters with her, while others, such as the Argentinian Jorge Luis Borges, produced versions that were highly controversial.
Drama
Virginia Woolf researched the life of her great-aunt, the photographer Julia Margaret Cameron, publishing her findings in an essay titled "Pattledom" (1925), and later in her introduction to her 1926 edition of Cameron's photographs. She had begun work on a play based on an episode in Cameron's life in 1923, but abandoned it. Finally it was performed on 18 January 1935 at the studio of her sister, Vanessa Bell on Fitzroy Street in 1935. Woolf directed it herself, and the cast were mainly members of the Bloomsbury Group, including herself. Freshwater is a short three act comedy satirising the Victorian era, only performed once in Woolf's lifetime. Beneath the comedic elements, there is an exploration of both generational change and artistic freedom. Both Cameron and Woolf fought against the class and gender dynamics of Victorianism and the play shows links to both To the Lighthouse and A Room of One's Own that would follow.
Non-fiction
Woolf wrote a body of autobiographical work and more than 500 essays and reviews, some of which, like A Room of One's Own (1929) were of book length. Not all were published in her lifetime. Shortly after her death, Leonard Woolf produced an edited edition of unpublished essays titled The Moment and other Essays, published by the Hogarth Press in 1947. Many of these were originally lectures that she gave, and several more volumes of essays followed, such as The Captain's Death Bed: and other essays (1950).
A Room of One's Own
Among Woolf's non-fiction works, one of the best known is A Room of One's Own (1929), a book-length essay. Considered a key work of feminist literary criticism, it was written following two lectures she delivered on "Women and Fiction" at Cambridge University the previous year. In it, she examines the historical disempowerment women have faced in many spheres, including social, educational and financial. One of her more famous dicta is contained within the book "A woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction". Much of her argument ("to show you how I arrived at this opinion about the room and the money") is developed through the "unsolved problems" of women and fiction writing to arrive at her conclusion, although she claimed that was only "an opinion upon one minor point". In doing so, she states a good deal about the nature of women and fiction, employing a quasi-fictional style as she examines where women writers failed because of lack of resources and opportunities, examining along the way the experiences of the Brontës, George Eliot and George Sand, as well as the fictional character of Shakespeare's sister, equipped with the same genius but not position. She contrasted these women who accepted a deferential status with Jane Austen, who wrote entirely as a woman.
Influences
Michel Lackey argues that a major influence on Woolf, from 1912 onward, was Russian literature and Woolf adopted many of its aesthetic conventions. The style of Fyodor Dostoyevsky with his depiction of a fluid mind in operation helped to influence Woolf's writings about a "discontinuous writing process", though Woolf objected to Dostoyevsky's obsession with "psychological extremity" and the "tumultuous flux of emotions" in his characters together with his right-wing, monarchist politics as Dostoyevsky was an ardent supporter of the autocracy of the Russian Empire. In contrast to her objections to Dostoyevsky's "exaggerated emotional pitch", Woolf found much to admire in the work of Anton Chekhov and Leo Tolstoy. Woolf admired Chekhov for his stories of ordinary people living their lives, doing banal things and plots that had no neat endings. From Tolstoy, Woolf drew lessons about how a novelist should depict a character's psychological state and the interior tension within. Lackey notes that, from Ivan Turgenev, Woolf drew the lessons that there are multiple "I's" when writing a novel, and the novelist needed to balance those multiple versions of him- or herself to balance the "mundane facts" of a story vs. the writer's overarching vision, which required a "total passion" for art.
The American writer Henry David Thoreau also influenced Woolf. In a 1917 essay, she praised Thoreau for his statement "The millions are awake enough for physical labor, but only one in hundreds of millions is awake enough to a poetic or divine life. To be awake is to be alive." They both aimed to capture 'the moment'––as Walter Pater says, "to burn always with this hard, gem-like flame." Woolf praised Thoreau for his "simplicity" in finding "a way for setting free the delicate and complicated machinery of the soul". Like Thoreau, Woolf believed that it was silence that set the mind free to really contemplate and understand the world. Both authors believed in a certain transcendental, mystical approach to life and writing, where even banal things could be capable of generating deep emotions if one had enough silence and the presence of mind to appreciate them. Woolf and Thoreau were both concerned with the difficulty of human relationships in the modern age. Other notable influences include William Shakespeare, George Eliot, Leo Tolstoy, Marcel Proust, Anton Chekhov, Emily Brontë, Daniel Defoe, James Joyce, and E.M. Forster.
List of selected publications
see , ,
Novels
see also The Voyage Out & Complete text
see also Night and Day & Complete text
see also Jacob's Room & Complete text
see also Mrs Dalloway & Complete text
see also To the Lighthouse & Complete text, also Texts at Woolf Online
see also Orlando: A Biography & Complete text
see also The Waves & Complete text
see also Between the Acts & Complete text
Short stories
see also A Haunted House and Other Short Stories & Complete text
see also The Mark on the Wall & Complete text
see also Kew Gardens & Complete text
Cross-genre
see also Flush: A Biography & Complete text
Drama
see also Freshwater
Biography
see also Roger Fry: A Biography & Complete text
Essays
see also A Room of One's Own & Complete text
see also Mr. Bennett and Mrs. Brown & Complete text
see also A Letter to a Young Poet & Complete text
see also Three Guineas & Complete text
Essay collections
(Review)
(Review)
Complete text
(Review)
First American edition published by Harcourt, Brace and Company, New York, 1950.
& also here
— (1934). "Walter Sickert: A Conversation".
Contributions
(Digital edition)
Autobiographical writing
(Review)
(see Moments of Being)
, in (excerpts)
, in
(excerpts – 1st ed.)
Memoir Club Contributions
Diaries and notebooks
Letters
(Review)
Photograph albums
List of Album Guides
Album 1 MS Thr 557 (1863–1938)
Album 2 MS Thr 559 (1909–1922)
Album 3 MS Thr 560 (1890–1933)
Album 4 MS Thr 561 (1890–1947)
Album 5 MS Thr 562 (1892–1938)
Album 6 MS Thr 563 (1850–1900)
Collections
Views
In her lifetime, Woolf was outspoken on many topics that were considered controversial, some of which are now considered progressive, others regressive. She was an ardent feminist at a time when women's rights were barely recognised, and anti-colonialist, anti-imperialist and a pacifist when chauvinism was popular. On the other hand, she has been criticised for views on class and race in her private writings and published works. Like many of her contemporaries, some of her writing is now considered offensive. As a result, she is considered polarising, a revolutionary feminist and socialist hero or a purveyor of hate speech.
Works such as A Room of One's Own (1929) and Three Guineas (1938) are frequently taught as icons of feminist literature in courses that would be very critical of some of her views expressed elsewhere. She has also been the recipient of considerable homophobic and misogynist criticism.
Humanist views
Virginia Woolf was born into a non-religious family and is regarded, along with her fellow Bloomsberries E.M. Forster and G.E. Moore, as a humanist. Both her parents were prominent agnostic atheists. Her father, Leslie Stephen, had become famous in polite society for his writings which expressed and publicised reasons to doubt the veracity of religion. Stephen was also President of the West London Ethical Society, an early humanist organisation, and helped to found the Union of Ethical Societies in 1896. Woolf's mother, Julia Stephen, wrote the book Agnostic Women (1880), which argued that agnosticism (defined here as something more like atheism) could be a highly moral approach to life.
Woolf was a critic of Christianity. In a letter to Ethel Smyth, she gave a scathing denunciation of the religion, seeing it as self-righteous "egotism" and stating "my Jew [Leonard] has more religion in one toenail—more human love, in one hair". Woolf stated in her private letters that she thought of herself as an atheist.
Controversies
Hermione Lee cites a number of extracts from Woolf's writings that many, including Lee, would consider offensive, and these criticisms can be traced back as far as those of Wyndham Lewis and Q.D. Leavis in the 1920s and 1930s. Other authors provide more nuanced contextual interpretations, and stress the complexity of her character and the apparent inherent contradictions in analysing her apparent flaws. She could certainly be off-hand, rude and even cruel in her dealings with other authors, translators and biographers, such as her treatment of Ruth Gruber. Some authors, particularly postcolonial feminists dismiss her (and modernist authors in general) as privileged, elitist, classist, racist, and antisemitic.
Woolf's tendentious expressions, including prejudicial feelings against disabled people, have often been the topic of academic criticism:
The first quotation is from a diary entry of September 1920 and runs: "The fact is the lower classes are detestable." The remainder follow the first in reproducing stereotypes standard to upper-class and upper-middle class life in the early 20th century: "imbeciles should certainly be killed"; "Jews" are greasy; a "crowd" is both an ontological "mass" and is, again, "detestable"; "Germans" are akin to vermin; some "baboon faced intellectuals" mix with "sad green dressed negroes and negresses, looking like chimpanzees" at a peace conference; Kensington High St. revolts one's stomach with its innumerable "women of incredible mediocrity, drab as dishwater".
Antisemitism
Though accused of antisemitism, the treatment of Judaism and Jews by Woolf is far from straightforward. She was happily married to a Jewish man (Leonard Woolf) but often wrote about Jewish characters using stereotypes and generalisations. For instance, she described some of the Jewish characters in her work in terms that suggested they were physically repulsive or dirty. On the other hand, she could criticise her own views: "How I hated marrying a Jew — how I hated their nasal voices and their oriental jewellery, and their noses and their wattles — what a snob I was: for they have immense vitality, and I think I like that quality best of all" (Letter to Ethel Smyth 1930). These attitudes have been construed to reflect, not so much antisemitism, but tribalism; she married outside her social grouping, and Leonard Woolf, too, expressed misgivings about marrying a gentile. Leonard, "a penniless Jew from Putney", lacked the material status of the Stephens and their circle.
While travelling on a cruise to Portugal, she protested at finding "a great many Portuguese Jews on board, and other repulsive objects, but we keep clear of them". Furthermore, she wrote in her diary: "I do not like the Jewish voice; I do not like the Jewish laugh." Her 1938 short story The Duchess and the Jeweller (originally titled The Duchess and the Jew) has been considered antisemitic.
Yet Woolf and her husband Leonard came to despise and fear the 1930s fascism and antisemitism. Her 1938 book Three Guineas was an indictment of fascism and what Woolf described as a recurring propensity among patriarchal societies to enforce repressive societal mores by violence.
Sexuality
The Bloomsbury Group held very progressive views regarding sexuality and shucked the austere strictness of Victorian society. The majority of its members were homosexual or bisexual.
Virginia was most likely a lesbian, some debate that she was bisexual. However she had several affairs with women, the most notable being with Vita Sackville-West which inspired Orlando: A Biography. The two of them remained lovers for a decade and stayed close friends for the rest of Virginia's life. Virginia had said to Vita she disliked masculinity
Among her other notable affairs were Sibyl Colefax, Lady Ottoline Morrell and Mary Hutchinson. Some surmise that she may have fallen in love with Madge Symonds, the wife of one of her uncles. Madge Symonds was described as one of Virginia's early loves in Vita's diary She also fell in love with Violet Dickinson although there is some confusion as to whether the two consummated their relationship.
In regards to relationships with men, Virginia was averse to sex with them, blaming the sexual abuse perpetrated upon her and her sister by her half-brothers when they were children and teens. This is one of the reasons she initially declined marriage proposals from her future husband, Leonard. She even went as far as to tell him that she was not attracted to him, but that she did love him and finally agreed to marriage. Virginia preferred female lovers to male lovers, for the most part, based on her aversion to sex with men. This aversion to relations with men influenced her writing especially when considering her sexual abuse as a child.
Leonard became the love of her life and even though their sexual relationship was questionable, they loved each other deeply and formed a strong, supportive and prolific marriage which led to the formation of their publishing house as well as several of her writings. Neither was faithful to the other sexually, but they were faithful in their love and respect for each other.
Modern scholarship and interpretations
Though at least one biography of Virginia Woolf appeared in her lifetime, the first authoritative study of her life was published in 1972 by her nephew Quentin Bell. Hermione Lee's 1996 biography Virginia Woolf provides a thorough and authoritative examination of Woolf's life and work, which she discussed in an interview in 1997. In 2001, Louise DeSalvo and Mitchell A. Leaska edited The Letters of Vita Sackville-West and Virginia Woolf. Julia Briggs's Virginia Woolf: An Inner Life (2005) focuses on Woolf's writing, including her novels and her commentary on the creative process, to illuminate her life. The sociologist Pierre Bourdieu also uses Woolf's literature to understand and analyse gender domination. Woolf biographer Gillian Gill notes that Woolf's traumatic experience of sexual abuse by her half-brothers during her childhood influenced her advocacy of protection of vulnerable children from similar experiences.
Virginia Woolf and her mother
The intense scrutiny of Virginia Woolf's literary output (see Bibliography) has led to speculation as to her mother's influence, including psychoanalytic studies of mother and daughter. Woolf states that, "my first memory, and in fact it is the most important of all my memories" is of her mother. Her memories of her mother are memories of an obsession, starting with her first major breakdown on her mother's death in 1895, the loss having a profound lifelong effect. In many ways, her mother's profound influence on Virginia Woolf is conveyed in the latter's recollections, "there she is; beautiful, emphatic ... closer than any of the living are, lighting our random lives as with a burning torch, infinitely noble and delightful to her children".
Woolf described her mother as an "invisible presence" in her life, and Ellen Rosenman argues that the mother-daughter relationship is a constant in Woolf's writing. She describes how Woolf's modernism needs to be viewed in relationship to her ambivalence towards her Victorian mother, the centre of the former's female identity, and her voyage to her own sense of autonomy. To Woolf, "Saint Julia" was both a martyr whose perfectionism was intimidating and a source of deprivation, by her absences real and virtual and premature death. Julia's influence and memory pervades Woolf's life and work. "She has haunted me", she wrote.
Historical feminism
According to the 2007 book Feminism: From Mary Wollstonecraft to Betty Friedan by Bhaskar A. Shukla, "Recently, studies of Virginia Woolf have focused on feminist and lesbian themes in her work, such as in the 1997 collection of critical essays, Virginia Woolf: Lesbian Readings, edited by Eileen Barrett and Patricia Cramer." In 1928, Woolf took a grassroots approach to informing and inspiring feminism. She addressed undergraduate women at the ODTAA Society at Girton College, Cambridge and the Arts Society at Newnham College with two papers that eventually became A Room of One's Own (1929).
Woolf's best-known nonfiction works, A Room of One's Own (1929) and Three Guineas (1938), examine the difficulties that female writers and intellectuals faced because men held disproportionate legal and economic power, as well as the future of women in education and society. In The Second Sex (1949), Simone de Beauvoir counts, of all women who ever lived, only three female writers—Emily Brontë, Woolf and "sometimes" Katherine Mansfield— have explored "the given".
In popular culture
Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? is a 1962 play by Edward Albee. It examines the structure of the marriage of an American middle-aged academic couple, Martha and George. Mike Nichols directed a film version in 1966, starring Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton. Taylor won the 1966 Academy Award for Best Actress for the role.
Me! I'm Afraid of Virginia Woolf, a 1978 TV play, references the title of the Edward Albee play and features an English literature teacher who has a poster of her. It was written by Alan Bennett and directed by Stephen Frears.
The artwork The Dinner Party (1979) features a place setting for Woolf.
The 1996 album Poetic Justice, by British musician Steve Harley, contains a tribute to Woolf, specifically her most adventurous novel, in its closing track: "Riding the Waves (for Virginia Woolf)".
Michael Cunningham's 1998 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel The Hours focused on three generations of women affected by Woolf's novel Mrs Dalloway. In 2002, a film version of the novel was released, starring Nicole Kidman as Woolf. Kidman won the 2003 Academy Award for her portrayal.
Susan Sellers's novel Vanessa and Virginia (2008) explores the close sibling relationship between Woolf and her sister, Vanessa Bell. It was adapted for the stage by Elizabeth Wright in 2010 and first performed by Moving Stories Theatre Company.
Priya Parmar's 2014 novel Vanessa and Her Sister also examined the Stephen sisters' relationship during the early years of their association with what became known as the Bloomsbury Group.
An exhibition on Virginia Woolf was held at the National Portrait Gallery from July to October 2014.
In the 2014 novel The House at the End of Hope Street, Woolf is featured as one of the women who has lived in the titular house.
Virginia is portrayed by both Lydia Leonard and Catherine McCormack in the BBC's three-part drama series Life in Squares (2015).
On 25 January 2018, Google showed a Google doodle celebrating her 136th birthday.
In many Barnes & Noble stores, Woolf is featured in Gary Kelly's Author Mural Panels, an imprint of the Barnes & Noble Author brand that also features other notable authors like Hurston, Tagore, and Kafka.
The 2018 film Vita and Virginia depicts the relationship between Vita Sackville-West and Woolf, portrayed by Gemma Arterton and Elizabeth Debicki respectively.
The 2020 novel Trio by William Boyd follows the life of Elfrida Wing, an alcoholic writer interested in the suicide of Woolf.
Adaptations
A number of Virginia Woolf's works have been adapted for the screen, and her play Freshwater (1935) is the basis for a 1994 chamber opera, Freshwater, by Andy Vores. The final segment of the 2018 London Unplugged is adapted from her short story Kew Gardens. Septimus and Clarissa, a stage adaptation of Mrs. Dalloway was created and produced by the New York-based ensemble Ripe Time in 2011 at the Baruch Performing Arts Center. It was adapted by Ellen McLaughlin, and directed and devised by Rachel Dickstein. It was nominated for a 2012 Drama League award for Outstanding Production, a Drama Desk nomination for Outstanding Score (Gina Leishman) and a Joe A. Calloway Award nomination for outstanding direction (Rachel Dickstein.)
Legacy
Virginia Woolf is known for her contributions to 20th-century literature and her essays, as well as the influence she has had on literary, particularly feminist criticism. A number of authors have stated that their work was influenced by her, including Margaret Atwood, Michael Cunningham, Gabriel García Márquez, and Toni Morrison. Her iconic image is instantly recognisable from the Beresford portrait of her at twenty (at the top of this page) to the Beck and Macgregor portrait in her mother's dress in Vogue at 44 (see image) or Man Ray's cover of Time magazine (see image) at 55. More postcards of Woolf are sold by the National Portrait Gallery, London than any other person. Her image is ubiquitous, and can be found on products ranging from tea towels to T-shirts.
Virginia Woolf is studied around the world, with organisations such as the Virginia Woolf Society, and The Virginia Woolf Society of Japan. In addition, trusts—such as the Asham Trust—encourage writers in her honour. Although she had no descendants, a number of her extended family are notable.
Monuments and memorials
In 2013, Woolf was honoured by her alma mater of King's College London with the opening of the Virginia Woolf Building on Kingsway, with a plaque commemorating her time there and her contributions (see image), together with this exhibit depicting her accompanied by a quotation "London itself perpetually attracts, stimulates, gives me a play & a story & a poem" from her 1926 diary. Busts of Virginia Woolf have been erected at her home in Rodmell, Sussex and at Tavistock Square, London where she lived between 1924 and 1939.
In 2014, she was one of the inaugural honorees in the Rainbow Honor Walk, a walk of fame in San Francisco's Castro neighbourhood noting LGBTQ people who have "made significant contributions in their fields".
Woolf Works, a women's co-working space in Singapore, opened in 2014 and was named after her in tribute to the essay A Room of One's Own; it also has many other things named after it (see the essay's article).
A campaign was launched in 2018 by Aurora Metro Arts and Media to erect a statue of Woolf in Richmond, where she lived for 10 years. The proposed statue shows her reclining on a bench overlooking the river Thames.
Family trees
see , , ,
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Notes
References
Bibliography
Books and theses
see also The Second Sex
see also Survey of London
(Review)
Biography: Virginia Woolf
Vol. I: Virginia Stephen 1882 to 1912. London: Hogarth Press. 1972.
Vol. II: Virginia Woolf 1912 to 1941. London: Hogarth Press. 1972.
(Review)
(Review)
(Review)
(additional excerpts)
(Review)
(excerpt - Chapter 1)
(Review)
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Pipe smokers | false | [
"Poverty of the stimulus (POS) is the controversial argument from linguistics that children are not exposed to rich enough data within their linguistic environments to acquire every feature of their language. This is considered evidence contrary to the empiricist idea that language is learned solely through experience. The claim is that the sentences children hear while learning a language do not contain the information needed to develop a thorough understanding of the grammar of the language.\n\nThe POS is often used as evidence for universal grammar. This is the idea that all languages conform to the same structural principles, which define the space of possible languages. Both poverty of the stimulus and universal grammar are terms that can be credited to Noam Chomsky, the main proponent of generative grammar. Chomsky coined the term \"poverty of the stimulus\" in 1980. However, he had argued for the idea since his 1959 review of B.F. Skinner's Verbal Behavior.\n\nThere was much research based on generative grammar in language development during the latter half of the twentieth century. This approach was abandoned by the mainstream researchers as a result of what many scientists perceived as the problems with the Poverty of the Stimulus argument.\n\nThe form of the argument\nAn argument from the poverty of the stimulus generally takes the following structure:\n\n The speech that children are exposed to is consistent with numerous possible grammars.\n It is possible to define data, D, that would distinguish the target grammar from all other grammars that are consistent with the input.\n D is missing from speech to children.\n Children nonetheless acquire the target grammar.\n Therefore, the right grammatical structure arises due to some (possibly linguistic) property of the child.\n\nBackground and history\nChomsky coined the term \"poverty of the stimulus\" in 1980. This idea is closely related to what Chomsky calls \"Plato's Problem\". He outlined this philosophical approach in the first chapter of the Knowledge of Language in 1986. Plato's Problem traces back to Meno, a Socratic dialogue. In Meno, Socrates unearths knowledge of geometry concepts from a slave who was never explicitly taught them. Plato's Problem directly parallels the idea of the innateness of language, universal grammar, and more specifically the poverty of the stimulus argument because it reveals that people's knowledge is richer than what they are exposed to. Chomsky illustrates that humans are not exposed to all structures of their language, yet they fully achieve knowledge of these structures.\n\nLinguistic nativism is the theory that humans are born with some knowledge of language. One acquires a language not entirely through experience. According to Noam Chomsky, \"The speed and precision of vocabulary acquisition leaves no real alternative to the conclusion that the child somehow has the concepts available before experience with language and is basically learning labels for concepts that are already a part of his or her conceptual apparatus.\" One of the most significant arguments generative grammarians have for linguistic nativism is the poverty of the stimulus argument.\n\nPullum and Scholz frame the poverty of the stimulus argument by examining all of the ways that the input is insufficient for language acquisition. First, children are exposed only to positive evidence. They do not receive explicit correction or instruction about what is not possible in the language. Second, the input that children receive is degenerate in terms of scope and quality. Degeneracy of scope means that the input does not contain information about the full extent of any grammatical rules. Degeneracy of quality means that children are exposed to speech errors, utterances by nonnative speakers, and false starts, potentially obscuring the grammatical structure of the language. Furthermore, the linguistic data each child is exposed to is different and so the basis for learning is idiosyncratic. However, despite these insufficiencies, children eventually acquire the grammar of the language they are exposed to. Further, other organisms in the same environment do not. From the nativists' point of view, the insufficiency of the input leads to the conclusion that humans are hard-wired with a UG and thus support the innateness hypothesis.\n\nHowever, the argument that the poverty of the stimulus supports the innateness hypothesis remains controversial. For example, Fiona Cowie claims that the Poverty of Stimulus argument fails \"on both empirical and conceptual grounds to support nativism\".\n\nExamples \nGenerative Grammarians have extensively studied the hypothesised innate effects on language in order to provide evidence for Poverty of the Stimulus. An overarching theme in examples is that children acquire grammatical rules based on evidence that is consistent with multiple generalizations. And since children are not instructed in the grammar of their language, the gap must be filled in by properties of the learner.\n\nSyntax\n\nBinding theory – Principle C\n While he was dancing, the Ninja Turtle ate pizza.\n He ate pizza while the Ninja Turtle was dancing.\nIn general, pronouns can refer to any prominent individual in the discourse context. However, a pronoun cannot find its antecedent in certain structural positions, as defined by the Binding Theory. For example, the pronoun \"he\" can refer to the Ninja Turtle in (1) but not (2), above. Given that speech to children does not indicate what interpretations are impossible, the input is equally consistent with a grammar that allows coreference between \"he\" and \"the Ninja Turtle\" in (2) and one that does not. But, since all speakers of English recognize that (2) does not allow this coreference, this aspect of the grammar must come from some property internal to the learner.\n\nPassives\n I believe the dog to be hungry\n The dog is believed to be hungry\n I believe the dog's owner to be hungry.\n The dog's owner is believed to be hungry.\n * The dog is believed's owner to be hungry.\nThe sentences in (1) and (2) illustrate the active-passive alternation in English. The Noun Phrase after the verb in the active (1) is the subject in the passive (2). Data like (2) would be compatible with a passive rule stated in terms of linear order (move the 1st NP after the verb) or syntactic structure (move the highest NP after the verb). The data in (3-5) illustrate that the actual rule is formulated in terms of structure. If it were stated in terms of linear order, then (4) would be ungrammatical and (5) would be grammatical. But the opposite is true. However, children may not be exposed to sentences like (3-5) as evidence in favor of the correct grammar. Thus, the fact that all adult speakers agree that (4) is grammatical and (5) is not suggests that the linear rule was never even considered and that children are predisposed to a structure based grammatical system.\n\nAnaphoric \"one\"\nThe English word \"one\" can refer back to a previously mentioned property in the discourse. For example in (1), \"one\" can mean \"ball\". \n I like this ball and you like that one. \n I like this red ball and you like that one. \nIn (2), one is interpreted as \"red ball.\" However, even if a speaker intends (2) in this way, it would be difficult to distinguish that interpretation from one in which \"one\" simply meant \"ball\". This is because when a speaker refers to a red ball, they are also referring to a ball since the set of red balls is a subset of balls in general. 18-month-olds, like adults, show that they believe 'one' refers to 'red ball' and not 'ball'. The evidence available to children is systematically ambiguous between a grammar in which \"one\" refers back to Nouns and one in which \"one\" refers back to noun phrases. Despite this ambiguity, children learn the more narrow interpretation, suggesting that some property other than the input is responsible for their interpretations.\n\nIsland effects\nIn Wh-questions, the Wh-word at the beginning of the sentence (the filler) is related to a position later in the sentence (the gap). This relation can hold over an unbounded distance, as in (1). However, there are restrictions on the gap positions that a filler can be related to. These restrictions are called syntactic islands (2). Because questions with islands are ungrammatical, they are not included in the speech that children hear—but neither are grammatical Wh-questions that span multiple clauses. Because the speech children are exposed to is consistent with grammars which have island constraints and grammars which don't, something internal to the child must contribute this knowledge.\nWhat did you claim that Jack bought _ ?\n*What did you make the claim that Jack bought _ ? (Complex Noun Phrase Island)\n\nPhonology\n\nLearning stress systems \nBergelson & Idsardi (2009) presented adults with words drawn from an artificial language. The words contained 3 CV syllables. If the last vowel was long, then it bore stress. Otherwise, stress fell on the first syllable. This pattern is consistent with two grammars. In one grammar, a long vowel bears stress if it is the last segment in the word. This is a rule based on absolute finality. In the other grammar, a long vowel bears stress only if it is the last vowel in the word (i.e., even if it is not the last segment of the word). This is a rule based on relative finality. In natural languages stress rules make reference to relative finality but not to absolute finality. After being exposed to these words, participants were then tested to see whether they thought that a word with a long vowel in a closed syllable (CVVC) would bear stress. If it did, then that would be consistent with the relative-final grammar, but not with the absolute-final grammar. English-speaking adults (tested through computer software) were more likely to accept the words from the relative-final grammar than from the absolute-final grammar. Since the data they were exposed to was equally consistent with both grammars, and since neither rule is a rule of English, the source of this decision must have come from the participants, not from any aspect of their experience. In addition, eighth-month-old children (tested via the Headturn Preference Procedure) were found to have the same preference as adults. Given that this preference could not have come from their exposure to either the artificial language or to their native language, the researchers concluded that human language acquisition mechanisms are \"hardwired\" to lead infants towards certain generalizations, consistent with the argument for the poverty of the stimulus.\n\nEnglish plural marker \n\nHalle (1978) argues that the morphophonological rule governing the English plural produces forms that are consistent with two grammars. In one grammar, the plural is pronounced as [s] if it follows one of the sounds [p, t, k, f, θ]; otherwise it is pronounced as [z]. In the other grammar, the plural is pronounced as [s] if it follows a voiceless consonant. These rules are exactly equal in their coverage of English since the set of consonants that triggers the [s] pronunciation is identical in the two cases. However, Halle also observes that English speakers consistently pluralize the German name Bach (pronounced ) as , despite not having any experience with the /x/ sound, which is nonexistent in English. Since there is \"no indication\" that speakers could have acquired this knowledge, Halle argues that the tendency to build rules in terms of natural classes comes from a factor internal to the child and not from their experience.\n\nSemantics\n\nWord learning \n\nThe poverty of the stimulus also applies in the domain of word learning. When learning a new word, children are exposed to examples of the word's referent, but not to the full extent of the category. For example, in learning the word \"dog\", a child might see a German Shepherd, a Great Dane and a Poodle. How do they know to extend this category to include Dachshunds and Bulldogs? The situations in which the word is used cannot provide the relevant information. Thus, something internal to learners must shape the way that they generalize. This problem is closely related to Quine's gavagai problem.\n\nAttitude verbs \nIn other cases, words refer to aspects of the world that cannot be observed directly. For example Lila Gleitman poses a POS argument with respect to verbs that label mental states. She observes that a learner cannot see inside another person's mind, and so an utterance of \"Kim thinks that it is raining\" is likely to occur in the same kinds of contexts as \"Kim wonders if it is raining\" or even \"Kim wants it to rain\". If no aspect of the context can determine whether a mental state verb refers to thinkings, wanting or wonderings, then some aspect of children's minds must direct their attention to other cues. Thus, our ability to learn these word meanings must be shaped by factors internal to the child and not simply from the conditions of their use.\n\nCriticism\nCritics claimed in the 1980s and 1990s that Chomsky's purported linguistic evidence for poverty of the stimulus may have been false. Around the same time there was research in applied linguistics and neuroscience that rejected the idea of significant aspects of languages being innate and not learned. Some scholars working on language acquisition in fields like psychology and applied linguistics reject most claims of nativism and consider that decades of research have been wasted since 1964 owing to the assumption of the poverty of the stimulus---an enterprise which has failed to make a lasting impact. However, those working in the framework of generative grammar consider nativism to be a logical necessity and to be supported by the existence of deep parallels among the languages of the world.\n\nSee also\n\n Colorless green ideas sleep furiously\n Educating Eve: The 'Language Instinct' Debate\n Empiricism\n Generative Anthropology\n Government and binding\n Innatism\n Language acquisition\n Language module\n Nature versus nurture\n Principles and parameters\n Psychological nativism\n Rationalism\n Semantics\n Syntax\n Tabula rasa\n Universal grammar\n\nReferences\n\nFurther reading\n\nExternal links\n Essay on Gold's proof, learnability and feedback.\n \n\nPsycholinguistics\nLanguage acquisition\nGenerative linguistics",
"In ancient times, a method of infanticide or at least child abandonment was to leave infants in a wild place, either to die due to hypothermia, hunger, thirst, or animal attack, or perhaps to be collected and brought up by those unable to produce their own children.\n\nMythological\nThis form of child abandonment is a recurring theme in mythology, especially among hero births.\n\nSome examples include:\n Sargon, King of Akkad – exposed to the river.\n Karna – exposed to the river.\n Tang Sanzang – exposed to the river on a wooden plank. The historical person he is based on never suffered such a fate.\n Moses – exposed to the river Nile on a basket.\n Oedipus – exposed in the mountains.\n Paris – exposed at the top of Mount Ida.\n Zāl – exposed in the Alborz mountains. \n Telephus – exposed on Mount Parthenion.\n Atalanta – exposed on Mount Parthenion.\n Perseus – boxed and cast into the sea with his mother, Danaë.\n Gilgamesh – thrown from the acropolis.\n Romulus and Remus – exposed in a tub to the Tiber River.\n Siegfried – exposed in a glass vessel to the river.\n Ken Arok, Javanese king – exposed to the river.\n Momotarō (桃太郎, \"Peach Boy\") – found inside of a giant peach, floating down a river.\n\nFollowing the exposure, the infants are commonly reared by wild animals or adopted by lowly country folk, such as shepherds, before reaching maturity.\n\nSparta\nAccording to Plutarch, in his Life of Lycurgus: \"Offspring was not reared at the will of the father, but was taken and carried by him to a place called Lesche, where the elders of the tribes officially examined the infant, and if it was well-built and sturdy, they ordered the father to rear it, and assigned it one of the nine thousand lots of land; but if it was ill-born and deformed, they sent it to the so‑called Apothetae, a chasm-like place at the foot of Mount Taÿgetus, in the conviction that the life of that which nature had not well equipped at the very beginning for health and strength, was of no advantage either to itself or the state.\"\n\nHowever, this story has little other literary support, and modern excavations at the spot have found only adult human bones – it may have been used as a place of execution for criminals.\n\nInterpretation \n\nOtto Rank explores this topic in his book, The Myth of the Birth of the Hero. The exposure, especially in water, \"signifies no more and no less than the symbolic expression of birth. The children come out of the water. The basket, box, or receptacle simply means the container, the womb; so that the exposure directly signifies the process of birth\".\n\nFurther, according to Rank, these myths epitomize the natural psychological tension between parent and child. In all these stories there exists \"a tendency to represent the parents as the first and most powerful opponents of the hero .... The vital peril, thus concealed in the representation of birth through exposure, actually exists in the process of birth itself. The overcoming of all these obstacles also expresses the idea that the future hero has actually overcome the greatest difficulties by virtue of his birth, for he has victoriously thwarted all attempts to prevent it.\"\n\nSee also\n\nFeral children in mythology and fiction\nInfanticide\n\nReferences \n\nInfanticide"
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"the family mingled with much of the country's literary and artistic circles. Frequent guests included",
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"In both London and Cornwall, Julia was perpetually entertaining, and was notorious for her manipulation of her guests' lives,",
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| C_2448e986735e46eb8b47624e648fd3f5_1 | When did she move out of Talland House? | 7 | When did Virginia Woolf move out of Talland House? | Virginia Woolf | Leslie Stephen was in the habit of hiking in Cornwall, and in the spring of 1881 he came across a large white house in St. Ives, Cornwall, and took out a lease on it that September. Although it had limited amenities, its main attraction was the view overlooking Porthminster Bay towards the Godrevy Lighthouse, which the young Virginia could see from the upper windows and was to be the central figure in her To the Lighthouse (1927). It was a large square house, with a terraced garden, divided by hedges, sloping down towards the sea. Each year between 1882 and 1894 from mid-July to mid-September the Stephen's leased Talland House as a summer residence. Leslie Stephen, who referred to it thus: "a pocket-paradise", described it as "The pleasantest of my memories... refer to our summers, all of which were passed in Cornwall, especially to the thirteen summers (1882-1894) at St. Ives. There we bought the lease of Talland House: a small but roomy house, with a garden of an acre or two all up and down hill, with quaint little terraces divided by hedges of escallonia, a grape-house and kitchen-garden and a so-called 'orchard' beyond". It was in Leslie's words, a place of "intense domestic happiness". Virginia herself described the house in great detail: In both London and Cornwall, Julia was perpetually entertaining, and was notorious for her manipulation of her guests' lives, constantly matchmaking in the belief everyone should be married, the domestic equivalence of her philanthropy. As her husband observed "My Julia was of course, though with all due reserve, a bit of a matchmaker". While Cornwall was supposed to be a summer respite, Julia Stephen soon immersed herself in the work of caring for the sick and poor there, as well as in London. Both at Hyde Park Gate and Talland House, the family mingled with much of the country's literary and artistic circles. Frequent guests included literary figures such as Henry James and George Meredith, as well as James Russell Lowell, and the children were exposed to much more intellectual conversations than their mother's at Little Holland House. The family did not return, following Julia Stephen's death in May 1895. For the children it was the highlight of the year, and Virginia's most vivid childhood memories were not of London but of Cornwall. In a diary entry of 22 March 1921, she described why she felt so connected to Talland House, looking back to a summer day in August 1890. "Why am I so incredibly and incurably romantic about Cornwall? One's past, I suppose; I see children running in the garden ... The sound of the sea at night ... almost forty years of life, all built on that, permeated by that: so much I could never explain". Cornwall inspired aspects of her work, in particular the "St Ives Trilogy" of Jacob's Room (1922), To the Lighthouse (1927), and The Waves (1931). CANNOTANSWER | The family did not return, following Julia Stephen's death in May 1895. | Adeline Virginia Woolf (; ; 25 January 1882 28 March 1941) was an English writer, considered one of the most important modernist 20th-century authors and a pioneer in the use of stream of consciousness as a narrative device.
Woolf was born into an affluent household in South Kensington, London, the seventh child of Julia Prinsep Jackson and Leslie Stephen in a blended family of eight which included the modernist painter Vanessa Bell. She was home-schooled in English classics and Victorian literature from a young age. From 1897 to 1901, she attended the Ladies' Department of King's College London, where she studied classics and history and came into contact with early reformers of women's higher education and the women's rights movement.
Encouraged by her father, Woolf began writing professionally in 1900. After her father's death in 1904, the Stephen family moved from Kensington to the more bohemian Bloomsbury, where, in conjunction with the brothers' intellectual friends, they formed the artistic and literary Bloomsbury Group. In 1912, she married Leonard Woolf, and in 1917, the couple founded the Hogarth Press, which published much of her work. They rented a home in Sussex and moved there permanently in 1940. Woolf had romantic relationships with women, including Vita Sackville-West, who also published her books through Hogarth Press. Both women's literature became inspired by their relationship, which lasted until Woolf's death.
During the inter-war period, Woolf was an important part of London's literary and artistic society. In 1915, she had published her first novel, The Voyage Out, through her half-brother's publishing house, Gerald Duckworth and Company. Her best-known works include the novels Mrs Dalloway (1925), To the Lighthouse (1927) and Orlando (1928). She is also known for her essays, including A Room of One's Own (1929). Woolf became one of the central subjects of the 1970s movement of feminist criticism and her works have since attracted much attention and widespread commentary for "inspiring feminism". Her works have been translated into more than 50 languages. A large body of literature is dedicated to her life and work, and she has been the subject of plays, novels and films. Woolf is commemorated today by statues, societies dedicated to her work and a building at the University of London.
Throughout her life, Woolf was troubled by mental illness. She was institutionalised several times and attempted suicide at least twice. According to Dalsimer (2004) her illness was characterized by symptoms that today would be diagnosed as bipolar disorder, for which there was no effective intervention during her lifetime. In 1941, at age 59, Woolf died by drowning herself in the River Ouse at Lewes.
Life
Family of origin
Virginia Woolf was born Adeline Virginia Stephen on 25 January 1882 at 22 Hyde Park Gate in South Kensington, London, to Julia (née Jackson) (1846–1895) and Leslie Stephen (1832–1904), writer, historian, essayist, biographer and mountaineer. Julia Jackson was born in 1846 in Calcutta, British India, to John Jackson and Maria "Mia" Theodosia Pattle, from two Anglo-Indian families. John Jackson FRCS was the third son of George Jackson and Mary Howard of Bengal, a physician who spent 25 years with the Bengal Medical Service and East India Company and a professor at the fledgling Calcutta Medical College. While John Jackson was an almost invisible presence, the Pattle family were famous beauties, and moved in the upper circles of Bengali society. The seven Pattle sisters married into important families. Julia Margaret Cameron was a celebrated photographer, while Virginia married Earl Somers, and their daughter, Julia Jackson's cousin, was Lady Henry Somerset, the temperance leader. Julia moved to England with her mother at the age of two and spent much of her early life with another of her mother's sisters, Sarah Monckton Pattle. Sarah and her husband Henry Thoby Prinsep, conducted an artistic and literary salon at Little Holland House where she came into contact with a number of Pre-Raphaelite painters such as Edward Burne-Jones, for whom she modelled.
Julia was the youngest of three sisters, and Adeline Virginia was named after her mother's eldest sister Adeline Maria Jackson (1837–1881) and her mother's aunt Virginia Pattle (see Pattle family tree). Because of the tragedy of her aunt Adeline's death the previous year, the family never used Virginia's first name. The Jacksons were a well educated, literary and artistic proconsular middle-class family. In 1867, Julia Jackson married Herbert Duckworth, a barrister, but within three years was left a widow with three infant children. She was devastated and entered a prolonged period of mourning, abandoning her faith and turning to nursing and philanthropy. Julia and Herbert Duckworth had three children:
George (5 March 1868 – 27 April 1934), a senior civil servant, married Lady Margaret Herbert in 1904
Stella (30 May 1869 – 19 July 1897), died aged 28
Gerald (29 October 1870 – 28 September 1937), founder of Duckworth Publishing, married Cecil Alice Scott-Chad in 1921
Leslie Stephen was born in 1832 in South Kensington to Sir James and Lady Jane Catherine Stephen (née Venn), daughter of John Venn, rector of Clapham. The Venns were the centre of the evangelical Clapham Sect. Sir James Stephen was the under secretary at the Colonial Office, and with another Clapham member, William Wilberforce, was responsible for the passage of the Slavery Abolition Bill in 1833. In 1849 he was appointed Regius Professor of Modern History at Cambridge University. As a family of educators, lawyers, and writers the Stephens represented the elite intellectual aristocracy. While his family were distinguished and intellectual, they were less colourful and aristocratic than Julia Jackson's. A graduate and fellow of Cambridge University he renounced his faith and position to move to London where he became a notable man of letters. In addition, he was a rambler and mountaineer, described as a "gaunt figure with the ragged red brown beard...a formidable man, with an immensely high forehead, steely-blue eyes, and a long pointed nose." In the same year as Julia Jackson's marriage, he wed Harriet Marian (Minny) Thackeray (1840–1875), youngest daughter of William Makepeace Thackeray, who bore him a daughter, Laura (1870–1945), but died in childbirth in 1875. Laura was developmentally disabled and eventually institutionalised.
The widowed Julia Duckworth knew Leslie Stephen through her friendship with Minny's elder sister Anne (Anny) Isabella Ritchie and had developed an interest in his agnostic writings. She was present the night Minny died and later, tended to Leslie Stephen and helped him move next door to her on Hyde Park Gate so Laura could have some companionship with her own children. Both were preoccupied with mourning and although they developed a close friendship and intense correspondence, agreed it would go no further. Leslie Stephen proposed to her in 1877, an offer she declined, but when Anny married later that year she accepted him and they were married on 26 March 1878. He and Laura then moved next door into Julia's house, where they lived till his death in 1904. Julia was 32 and Leslie was 46.
Their first child, Vanessa, was born on 30 May 1879. Julia, having presented her husband with a child and now having five children to care for, decided to limit her family's growth. However, despite the fact that the couple took "precautions", "contraception was a very imperfect art in the nineteenth century": it resulted in the birth of three more children over the next four years.
22 Hyde Park Gate (1882–1904)
1882–1895
Virginia Woolf provides insight into her early life in her autobiographical essays, including Reminiscences (1908), 22 Hyde Park Gate (1921), and A Sketch of the Past (1940). Other essays that provide insight into this period include Leslie Stephen (1932). She also alludes to her childhood in her fictional writing. In To the Lighthouse (1927), her depiction of the life of the Ramsays in the Hebrides is an only thinly disguised account of the Stephens in Cornwall and the Godrevy Lighthouse they would visit there. However, Woolf's understanding of her mother and family evolved considerably between 1907 and 1940, in which the somewhat distant, yet revered figure of her mother becomes more nuanced and filled in.
In February 1891, with her sister Vanessa, Woolf began the Hyde Park Gate News, chronicling life and events within the Stephen family, and modelled on the popular magazine Tit-Bits. Initially, this was mainly Vanessa's and Thoby's articles, but very soon Virginia became the main contributor, with Vanessa as editor. Their mother's response when it first appeared was "Rather clever I think". Virginia would run the Hyde Park Gate News until 1895, the time of her mother's death. The following year the Stephen sisters also used photography to supplement their insights, as did Stella Duckworth. Vanessa Bell's 1892 portrait of her sister and parents in the Library at Talland House (see image) was one of the family's favourites and was written about lovingly in Leslie Stephen's memoir. In 1897 ("the first really lived year of my life)" Virginia began her first diary, which she kept for the next twelve years, and a notebook in 1909.
Virginia was, as she describes it, "born into a large connection, born not of rich parents, but of well-to-do parents, born into a very communicative, literate, letter writing, visiting, articulate, late nineteenth century world." It was a well-connected family consisting of six children, with two half brothers and a half sister (the Duckworths, from her mother's first marriage), another half sister, Laura (from her father's first marriage), and an older sister, Vanessa, and brother Thoby. The following year, another brother Adrian followed. The disabled Laura Stephen lived with the family until she was institutionalised in 1891. Julia and Leslie had four children together:
Vanessa "Nessa" (30 May 1879 – 1961), married Clive Bell in 1907
Thoby (9 September 1880 – 1906), founded Bloomsbury Group
Virginia "Jinny"/"Ginia" (25 January 1882 – 1941), married Leonard Woolf in 1912
Adrian (27 October 1883 – 1948), married Karin Costelloe in 1914
Virginia was born at 22 Hyde Park Gate and lived there until her father's death in 1904. Number 22 Hyde Park Gate, South Kensington, lay at the south-east end of Hyde Park Gate, a narrow cul-de-sac running south from Kensington Road, just west of the Royal Albert Hall, and opposite Kensington Gardens and Hyde Park, where the family regularly took their walks (see Map; Street plan). Built in 1846 by Henry Payne of Hammersmith as one of a row of single-family townhouses for the upper middle class, it soon became too small for their expanding family. At the time of their marriage, it consisted of a basement, two storeys, and an attic. In July 1886 Leslie Stephen obtained the services of J. W. Penfold, an architect, to add additional living space above and behind the existing structure. The substantial renovations added a new top floor (see image of red brick extension), with three bedrooms and a study for himself, converted the original attic into rooms, and added the first bathroom. It was a tall but narrow townhouse, that at that time had no running water. Virginia would later describe it as "a very tall house on the left-hand side near the bottom which begins by being stucco and ends by being red brick; which is so high and yet—as I can say now that we have sold it—so rickety that it seems as if a very high wind would topple it over."
The servants worked "downstairs" in the basement. The ground floor had a drawing room, separated by a curtain from the servant's pantry and a library. Above this on the first floor were Julia and Leslie's bedrooms. On the next floor were the Duckworth children's rooms, and above them, the day and night nurseries of the Stephen children occupied two further floors. Finally, in the attic, under the eaves, were the servants' bedrooms, accessed by a back staircase. Life at 22 Hyde Park Gate was also divided symbolically; as Virginia put it, "The division in our lives was curious. Downstairs there was pure convention: upstairs pure intellect. But there was no connection between them", the worlds typified by George Duckworth and Leslie Stephen. Their mother, it seems, was the only one who could span this divide. The house was described as dimly lit and crowded with furniture and paintings. Within it, the younger Stephens formed a close-knit group. Despite this, the children still held their grievances. Virginia envied Adrian for being their mother's favourite. Virginia and Vanessa's status as creatives (writing and art respectively) caused a rivalry between them at times. Life in London differed sharply from their summers in Cornwall, their outdoor activities consisting mainly of walks in nearby Kensington Gardens, where they would play hide-and-seek and sail their boats on the Round Pond, while indoors, it revolved around their lessons.
Leslie Stephen's eminence as an editor, critic, and biographer, and his connection to William Thackeray, meant his children were raised in an environment filled with the influences of a Victorian literary society. Henry James, George Henry Lewes, Alfred Lord Tennyson, Thomas Hardy, Edward Burne-Jones, and Virginia's honorary godfather, James Russell Lowell, were among the visitors to the house. Julia Stephen was equally well connected. Her aunt was a pioneering early photographer, Julia Margaret Cameron, who was also a visitor to the Stephen household. The two Stephen sisters, Vanessa and Virginia, were almost three years apart in age. Virginia christened her older sister "the saint" and was far more inclined to exhibit her cleverness than her more reserved sister. Virginia resented the domesticity Victorian tradition forced on them far more than her sister. They also competed for Thoby's affections. Virginia would later confess her ambivalence over this rivalry to Duncan Grant in 1917: "indeed one of the concealed worms of my life has been a sister's jealousy – of a sister I mean; and to feed this I have invented such a myth about her that I scarce know one from t'other."
Virginia showed an early affinity for writing. Although both parents disapproved of formal education for females, writing was considered a respectable profession for women, and her father encouraged her in this respect. Later, she would describe this as "ever since I was a little creature, scribbling a story in the manner of Hawthorne on the green plush sofa in the drawing room at St. Ives while the grown-ups dined". By the age of five, she was writing letters and could tell her father a story every night. Later, she, Vanessa, and Adrian would develop the tradition of inventing a serial about their next-door neighbours, every night in the nursery, or in the case of St. Ives, of spirits that resided in the garden. It was her fascination with books that formed the strongest bond between her and her father. For her tenth birthday, she received an ink-stand, a blotter, drawing book and a box of writing implements.
Talland House (1882–1894)
Leslie Stephen was in the habit of hiking in Cornwall, and in the spring of 1881 he came across a large white house in St Ives, Cornwall, and took out a lease on it that September. Although it had limited amenities, its main attraction was the view overlooking Porthminster Bay towards the Godrevy Lighthouse, which the young Virginia could see from the upper windows and was to be the central figure in her To the Lighthouse (1927). It was a large square house, with a terraced garden, divided by hedges, sloping down towards the sea. Each year between 1882 and 1894 from mid-July to mid-September the Stephen family leased Talland House as a summer residence. Leslie Stephen, who referred to it thus: "a pocket-paradise", described it as "The pleasantest of my memories... refer to our summers, all of which were passed in Cornwall, especially to the thirteen summers (1882–1894) at St Ives. There we bought the lease of Talland House: a small but roomy house, with a garden of an acre or two all up and down hill, with quaint little terraces divided by hedges of escallonia, a grape-house and kitchen-garden and a so-called 'orchard' beyond". It was in Leslie's words, a place of "intense domestic happiness". Virginia herself described the house in great detail:
In both London and Cornwall, Julia was perpetually entertaining, and was notorious for her manipulation of her guests' lives, constantly matchmaking in the belief everyone should be married, the domestic equivalence of her philanthropy. As her husband observed, "My Julia was of course, though with all due reserve, a bit of a matchmaker." Amongst their guests in 1893 were the Brookes, whose children, including Rupert Brooke, played with the Stephen children. Rupert and his group of Cambridge Neo-pagans would come to play an important role in their lives in the years before the First World War. While Cornwall was supposed to be a summer respite, Julia Stephen soon immersed herself in the work of caring for the sick and poor there, as well as in London. Both at Hyde Park Gate and Talland House, the family mingled with much of the country's literary and artistic circles. Frequent guests included literary figures such as Henry James and George Meredith, as well as James Russell Lowell, and the children were exposed to much more intellectual conversations than at their mother's Little Holland House. The family did not return, following Julia Stephen's death in May 1895.
For the children, it was the highlight of the year, and Virginia's most vivid childhood memories were not of London but of Cornwall. In a diary entry of 22 March 1921, she described why she felt so connected to Talland House, looking back to a summer day in August 1890. "Why am I so incredibly and incurably romantic about Cornwall? One's past, I suppose; I see children running in the garden … The sound of the sea at night … almost forty years of life, all built on that, permeated by that: so much I could never explain". Cornwall inspired aspects of her work, in particular the "St Ives Trilogy" of Jacob's Room (1922), To the Lighthouse (1927), and The Waves (1931).
1895–1904
Julia Stephen fell ill with influenza in February 1895, and never properly recovered, dying on 5 May, when Virginia was 13. It was a pivotal moment in her life and the beginning of her struggles with mental illness. Essentially, her life had fallen apart. The Duckworths were travelling abroad at the time of their mother's death, and Stella returned immediately to take charge and assume her role. That summer, rather than return to the memories of St Ives, the Stephens went to Freshwater, Isle of Wight, where some of their mother's relatives lived. It was there that Virginia had the first of her many nervous breakdowns, and Vanessa was forced to assume some of her mother's role in caring for Virginia's mental state. Stella became engaged to Jack Hills the following year and they were married on 10 April 1897, making Virginia even more dependent on her older sister.
George Duckworth also assumed some of their mother's role, taking upon himself the task of bringing them out into society. First Vanessa, then Virginia, in both cases an equal disaster, for it was not a rite of passage that resonated with either girl and attracted a scathing critique by Virginia regarding the conventional expectations of young upper-class women: "Society in those days was a perfectly competent, perfectly complacent, ruthless machine. A girl had no chance against its fangs. No other desires – say to paint, or to write – could be taken seriously". Rather her priorities were to escape from the Victorian conventionality of the downstairs drawing room to a "room of one's own" to pursue her writing aspirations. She would revisit this criticism in her depiction of Mrs. Ramsay stating the duties of a Victorian mother in To the Lighthouse "an unmarried woman has missed the best of life".
The death of Stella Duckworth on 19 July 1897, after a long illness, was a further blow to Virginia's sense of self, and the family dynamics. Woolf described the period following the death of both her mother and Stella as "1897–1904 – the seven unhappy years", referring to "the lash of a random unheeding flail that pointlessly and brutally killed the two people who should, normally and naturally, have made those years, not perhaps happy but normal and natural". In April 1902, their father became ill, and although he underwent surgery later that year he never fully recovered, dying on 22 February 1904. Virginia's father's death precipitated a further breakdown. Later, Virginia would describe this time as one in which she was dealt successive blows as a "broken chrysalis" with wings still creased. Chrysalis occurs many times in Woolf's writing but the "broken chrysalis" was an image that became a metaphor for those exploring the relationship between Woolf and grief. At his death, Leslie Stephen's net worth was £15,715 6s. 6d. (probate 23 March 1904)
Education
In the late 19th century, education was sharply divided along gender lines, a tradition that Virginia would note and condemn in her writing. Boys were sent to school, and in upper-middle-class families such as the Stephens, it involved private boys schools, often boarding schools, and university. Girls, if they were afforded the luxury of education, received it from their parents, governesses, and tutors. Virginia was educated by her parents who shared the duty. There was a small classroom off the back of the drawing room, with its many windows, which they found perfect for quiet writing and painting. Julia taught the children Latin, French, and history, while Leslie taught them mathematics. They also received piano lessons. Supplementing their lessons was the children's unrestricted access to Leslie Stephen's vast library, exposing them to much of the literary canon, resulting in a greater depth of reading than any of their Cambridge contemporaries, Virginia's reading being described as "greedy". Later, she would recall After public school, the boys in the family all attended Cambridge University. The girls derived some indirect benefit from this, as the boys introduced them to their friends. Another source was the conversation of their father's friends, to whom they were exposed. Leslie Stephen described his circle as "most of the literary people of mark...clever young writers and barristers, chiefly of the radical persuasion...we used to meet on Wednesday and Sunday evenings, to smoke and drink and discuss the universe and the reform movement".
Later, between the ages of 15 and 19, Virginia was able to pursue higher education. She took courses of study, some at degree level, in beginning and advanced Ancient Greek, intermediate Latin and German, together with continental and English history at the Ladies' Department of King's College London at nearby 13 Kensington Square between 1897 and 1901. She studied Greek under the eminent scholar George Charles Winter Warr, professor of Classical Literature at King's. In addition she had private tutoring in German, Greek, and Latin. One of her Greek tutors was Clara Pater (1899–1900), who taught at King's. Another was Janet Case, who involved her in the women's rights movement, and whose obituary Virginia would later write in 1937. Her experiences led to her 1925 essay "On Not Knowing Greek". Her time at King's also brought her into contact with some of the early reformers of women's higher education such as the principal of the Ladies' Department, Lilian Faithfull (one of the so-called steamboat ladies), in addition to Pater. Her sister Vanessa also enrolled at the Ladies' Department (1899–1901). Although the Stephen girls could not attend Cambridge, they were to be profoundly influenced by their brothers' experiences there. When Thoby went to Trinity in 1899, he befriended a circle of young men, including Clive Bell, Lytton Strachey, Leonard Woolf (whom Virginia would later marry), and Saxon Sydney-Turner, whom he would soon introduce to his sisters at the Trinity May Ball in 1900. These men formed a reading group they named the Midnight Society.
Relationships with family
Although Virginia expressed the opinion her father was her favourite parent, and although she had only turned thirteen when her mother died, she was profoundly influenced by her mother throughout her life. It was Virginia who famously stated that "for we think back through our mothers if we are women", and invoked the image of her mother repeatedly throughout her life in her diaries, her letters and a number of her autobiographical essays, including Reminiscences (1908), 22 Hyde Park Gate (1921) and A Sketch of the Past (1940), frequently evoking her memories with the words "I see her ...". She also alludes to her childhood in her fictional writing. In To the Lighthouse (1927), the artist, Lily Briscoe, attempts to paint Mrs. Ramsay, a complex character based on Julia Stephen, and repeatedly comments on the fact that she was "astonishingly beautiful". Her depiction of the life of the Ramsays in the Hebrides is an only thinly disguised account of the Stephens in Cornwall and the Godrevy Lighthouse they would visit there. However, Woolf's understanding of her mother and family evolved considerably between 1907 and 1940, in which the somewhat distant, yet revered figure becomes more nuanced and complete.
While her father painted Julia Stephen's work in terms of reverence, Woolf drew a sharp distinction between her mother's work and "the mischievous philanthropy which other women practise so complacently and often with such disastrous results." She describes her degree of sympathy, engagement, judgement, and decisiveness, and her sense of both irony and the absurd. She recalls trying to recapture "the clear round voice, or the sight of the beautiful figure, so upright and distinct, in its long shabby cloak, with the head held at a certain angle, so that the eye looked straight out at you." Julia Stephen dealt with her husband's depressions and his need for attention, which created resentment in her children, boosted his self-confidence, nursed her parents in their final illness, and had many commitments outside the home that would eventually wear her down. Her frequent absences and the demands of her husband instilled a sense of insecurity in her children that had a lasting effect on her daughters. In considering the demands on her mother, Woolf described her father as "fifteen years her elder, difficult, exacting, dependent on her," and reflected that it was at the expense of the amount of attention she could spare her young children: "a general presence rather than a particular person to a child." She reflected that she rarely ever spent a moment alone with her mother: "someone was always interrupting." Woolf was ambivalent about it, yet eager to separate herself from this model of utter selflessness. In To the Lighthouse, she describes it as "boasting of her capacity to surround and protect, there was scarcely a shell of herself left for her to know herself by; all was so lavished and spent." At the same time, she admired the strengths of her mother's womanly ideals. Given Julia's frequent absences and commitments, the young Stephen children became increasingly dependent on Stella Duckworth, who emulated her mother's selflessness; as Woolf wrote, "Stella was always the beautiful attendant handmaid ... making it the central duty of her life."
Julia Stephen greatly admired her husband's intellect. As Woolf observed "she never belittled her own works, thinking them, if properly discharged, of equal, though other, importance with her husband's." She believed with certainty in her role as the centre of her activities, and the person who held everything together, with a firm sense of what was important and valuing devotion. Of the two parents, Julia's "nervous energy dominated the family". While Virginia identified most closely with her father, Vanessa stated her mother was her favourite parent. Angelica Garnett recalls how Virginia asked Vanessa which parent she preferred, although Vanessa considered it a question that "one ought not to ask", she was unequivocal in answering "Mother" yet the centrality of her mother to Virginia's world is expressed in this description of her "Certainly there she was, in the very centre of that great Cathedral space which was childhood; there she was from the very first". Virginia observed that her half-sister, Stella, the oldest daughter, led a life of total subservience to her mother, incorporating her ideals of love and service. Virginia quickly learned, that like her father, being ill was the only reliable way of gaining the attention of her mother, who prided herself on her sickroom nursing.
Another issue the children had to deal with was Leslie Stephen's temper, Woolf describing him as "the tyrant father". Eventually, she became deeply ambivalent about him. He had given her his ring on her eighteenth birthday and she had a deep emotional attachment as his literary heir, writing about her "great devotion for him". Yet, like Vanessa, she also saw him as victimiser and tyrant. She had a lasting ambivalence towards him through her life, albeit one that evolved. Her adolescent image was of an "Eminent Victorian" and tyrant but as she grew older she began to realise how much of him was in her: "I have been dipping into old letters and father's memoirs....so candid and reasonable and transparent—and had such a fastidious delicate mind, educated, and transparent," she wrote 22 December 1940. She was in turn both fascinated and condemnatory of Leslie Stephen: "She [her mother] has haunted me: but then, so did that old wretch my father. . . . I was more like him than her, I think; and therefore more critical: but he was an adorable man, and somehow, tremendous."
Sexual abuse
Woolf stated that she first remembers being molested by Gerald Duckworth when she was six years old. It has been suggested that this led to a lifetime of sexual fear and resistance to
masculine authority. Against a background of over-committed and distant parents, suggestions that this was a dysfunctional family must be evaluated. These include evidence of sexual abuse of the Stephen girls by their older Duckworth half-brothers, and by their cousin, James Kenneth Stephen (1859–1892), at least of Stella Duckworth. Laura is also thought to have been abused. The most graphic account is by Louise DeSalvo, but other authors and reviewers have been more cautious. Virginia's accounts of being continually sexually abused during the time that she lived at 22 Hyde Park Gate, have been cited by some critics as a possible cause of her mental health issues, although there are likely to be a number of contributing factors. Lee states that, "The evidence is strong enough, and yet ambiguous enough, to open the way for conflicting psychobiographical interpretations that draw quite different shapes of Virginia Woolf's interior life".
Bloomsbury (1904–1940)
Gordon Square (1904–1907)
On their father's death, the Stephens' first instinct was to escape from the dark house of yet more mourning, and this they did immediately, accompanied by George, travelling to Manorbier, on the coast of Pembrokeshire on 27 February. There, they spent a month, and it was there that Virginia first came to realise her destiny was as a writer, as she recalls in her diary of 3 September 1922. They then further pursued their newfound freedom by spending April in Italy and France, where they met up with Clive Bell again. Virginia then suffered her second nervous breakdown, and first suicidal attempt on 10 May, and convalesced over the next three months.
Before their father died, the Stephens had discussed the need to leave South Kensington in the West End, with its tragic memories and their parents' relations. George Duckworth was 35, his brother Gerald 33. The Stephen children were now between 24 and 20. Virginia was 22. Vanessa and Adrian decided to sell 22 Hyde Park Gate in respectable South Kensington and move to Bloomsbury. Bohemian Bloomsbury, with its characteristic leafy squares seemed sufficiently far away, geographically and socially, and was a much cheaper neighbourhood rentwise. They had not inherited much and they were unsure about their finances. Also, Bloomsbury was close to the Slade School which Vanessa was then attending. While Gerald was quite happy to move on and find himself a bachelor establishment, George who had always assumed the role of quasi-parent decided to accompany them, much to their dismay. It was then that Lady Margaret Herbert appeared on the scene, George proposed, was accepted and married in September, leaving the Stephens to their own devices.
Vanessa found a house at 46 Gordon Square in Bloomsbury, and they moved in November, to be joined by Virginia now sufficiently recovered. It was at Gordon Square that the Stephens began to regularly entertain Thoby's intellectual friends in March 1905. The circle, which largely came from the Cambridge Apostles, included writers (Saxon Sydney-Turner, Lytton Strachey) and critics (Clive Bell, Desmond MacCarthy) with Thursday evening "At Homes" that became known as the Thursday Club, a vision of recreating Trinity College ("Cambridge in London"). This circle formed the nucleus of the intellectual circle of writers and artists known as the Bloomsbury Group. Later, it would include John Maynard Keynes (1907), Duncan Grant (1908), E.M. Forster (1910), Roger Fry (1910), Leonard Woolf (1911), and David Garnett (1914).
In 1905, Virginia and Adrian visited Portugal and Spain. Clive Bell proposed to Vanessa, but was declined, while Virginia began teaching evening classes at Morley College and Vanessa added another event to their calendar with the Friday Club, dedicated to the discussion of and later exhibition of the fine arts. This introduced some new people into their circle, including Vanessa's friends from the Royal Academy and Slade, such as Henry Lamb and Gwen Darwin (who became secretary), but also the eighteen-year-old Katherine Laird ("Ka") Cox (1887–1938), who was about to go up to Newnham. Although Virginia did not actually meet Ka until much later, Ka would come to play an important part in her life. Ka and others brought the Bloomsbury Group into contact with another, slightly younger, group of Cambridge intellectuals to whom the Stephen sisters gave the name "Neo-pagans". The Friday Club continued until 1913.
The following year, 1906, Virginia suffered two further losses. Her cherished brother Thoby, who was only 26, died of typhoid, following a trip they had all taken to Greece, and immediately afterward Vanessa accepted Clive's third proposal. Vanessa and Clive were married in February 1907 and as a couple, their interest in avant-garde art would have an important influence on Woolf's further development as an author. With Vanessa's marriage, Virginia and Adrian needed to find a new home.
Fitzroy Square (1907–1911)
Virginia moved into 29 Fitzroy Square in April 1907, a house on the west side of the street, formerly occupied by George Bernard Shaw. It was in Fitzrovia, immediately to the west of Bloomsbury but still relatively close to her sister at Gordon Square. The two sisters continued to travel together, visiting Paris in March. Adrian was now to play a much larger part in Virginia's life, and they resumed the Thursday Club in October at their new home, while Gordon Square became the venue for the Play Reading Society in December. During this period, the group began to increasingly explore progressive ideas, first in speech, and then in conduct, Vanessa proclaiming in 1910 a libertarian society with sexual freedom for all.
Meanwhile, Virginia began work on her first novel, Melymbrosia, that eventually became The Voyage Out (1915). Vanessa's first child, Julian was born in February 1908, and in September Virginia accompanied the Bells to Italy and France. It was during this time that Virginia's rivalry with her sister resurfaced, flirting with Clive, which he reciprocated, and which lasted on and off from 1908 to 1914, by which time her sister's marriage was breaking down. On 17 February 1909, Lytton Strachey proposed to Virginia and she accepted, but he then withdrew the offer.
It was while she was at Fitzroy Square that the question arose of Virginia needing a quiet country retreat, and she required a six-week rest cure and sought the countryside away from London as much as possible. In December, she and Adrian stayed at Lewes and started exploring the area of Sussex around the town. She started to want a place of her own, like St Ives, but closer to London. She soon found a property in nearby Firle (see below), maintaining a relationship with that area for the rest of her life.
Dreadnought hoax 1910
Several members of the group attained notoriety in 1910 with the Dreadnought hoax, which Virginia participated in disguised as a male Abyssinian royal. Her complete 1940 talk on the hoax was discovered and is published in the memoirs collected in the expanded edition of The Platform of Time (2008).
Brunswick Square (1911–1912)
In October 1911, the lease on Fitzroy Square was running out and Virginia and Adrian decided to give up their home on Fitzroy Square in favour of a different living arrangement, moving to a four-storied house at 38 Brunswick Square in Bloomsbury proper in November. Virginia saw it as a new opportunity: "We are going to try all kinds of experiments," she told Ottoline Morrell. Adrian occupied the second floor, with Maynard Keynes and Duncan Grant sharing the ground floor. This arrangement for a single woman was considered scandalous, and George Duckworth was horrified. The house was adjacent to the Foundling Hospital, much to Virginia's amusement as an unchaperoned single woman. Originally, Ka Cox was supposed to share in the arrangements, but opposition came from Rupert Brooke, who was involved with her and pressured her to abandon the idea. At the house, Duncan Grant decorated Adrian Stephen's rooms (see image).
Marriage (1912–1941)
Leonard Woolf was one of Thoby Stephen's friends at Trinity College, Cambridge, and noticed the Stephen sisters in Thoby's rooms there on their visits to the May Ball in 1900 and 1901. He recalls them in "white dresses and large hats, with parasols in their hands, their beauty literally took one's breath away". To him, they were silent, "formidable and alarming".
Woolf did not meet Virginia formally till 17 November 1904 when he dined with the Stephens at Gordon Square, to say goodbye before leaving to take up a position with the civil service in Ceylon, although she was aware of him through Thoby's stories. At that visit he noted that she was perfectly silent throughout the meal, and looked ill. In 1909, Lytton Strachey suggested to Woolf he should make her an offer of marriage. He did so, but received no answer. In June 1911, he returned to London on a one-year leave, but did not go back to Ceylon. In England again, Leonard renewed his contacts with family and friends. Three weeks after arriving he dined with Vanessa and Clive Bell at Gordon Square on 3 July, where they were later joined by Virginia and other members of what would later be called "Bloomsbury", and Leonard dates the group's formation to that night. In September, Virginia asked Leonard to join her at Little Talland House at Firle in Sussex for a long weekend. After that weekend, they began seeing each other more frequently.
On 4 December 1911, Leonard moved into the ménage on Brunswick Square, occupying a bedroom and sitting room on the fourth floor, and started to see Virginia constantly and by the end of the month had decided he was in love with her. On 11 January 1912, he proposed to her; she asked for time to consider, so he asked for an extension of his leave and, on being refused, offered his resignation on 25 April, effective 20 May. He continued to pursue Virginia, and in a letter of 1 May 1912 (which see) she explained why she did not favour a marriage. However, on 29 May, Virginia told Leonard that she wished to marry him, and they were married on 10 August at the St Pancras Register Office. It was during this time that Leonard first became aware of Virginia's precarious mental state. The Woolfs continued to live at Brunswick Square until October 1912, when they moved to a small flat at 13 Clifford's Inn, further to the east (subsequently demolished). Despite his low material status (Woolf referring to Leonard during their engagement as a "penniless Jew"), the couple shared a close bond. Indeed, in 1937, Woolf wrote in her diary: "Love-making—after 25 years can't bear to be separate ... you see it is enormous pleasure being wanted: a wife. And our marriage so complete." However, Virginia made a suicide attempt in 1913.
In October 1914, Leonard and Virginia Woolf moved away from Bloomsbury and central London to Richmond, living at 17 The Green, a home discussed by Leonard in his autobiography Beginning Again (1964). In early March 1915, the couple moved again, to nearby Hogarth House, Paradise Road, after which they named their publishing house. Virginia's first novel, The Voyage Out was published in 1915, followed by another suicide attempt. Despite the introduction of conscription in 1916, Leonard was exempted on medical grounds.
Between 1924 and 1940, the Woolfs returned to Bloomsbury, taking out a ten-year lease at 52 Tavistock Square, from where they ran the Hogarth Press from the basement, where Virginia also had her writing room, and is commemorated with a bust of her in the square (see illustration). 1925 saw the publication of Mrs Dalloway in May followed by her collapse while at Charleston in August. In 1927, her next novel, To the Lighthouse, was published, and the following year she lectured on Women & Fiction at Cambridge University and published Orlando in October. Her two Cambridge lectures then became the basis for her major essay A Room of One's Own in 1929. Virginia wrote only one drama, Freshwater, based on her great-aunt Julia Margaret Cameron, and produced at her sister's studio on Fitzroy Street in 1935. 1936 saw another collapse of her health following the completion of The Years.
The Woolf's final residence in London was at 37 Mecklenburgh Square (1939–1940), destroyed during the Blitz in September 1940; a month later their previous home on Tavistock Square was also destroyed. After that, they made Sussex their permanent home. For descriptions and illustrations of all Virginia Woolf's London homes, see Jean Moorcroft Wilson's book Virginia Woolf, Life and London: A Biography of Place (pub. Cecil Woolf, 1987).
Hogarth Press (1917–1938)
Virginia had taken up book-binding as a pastime in October 1901, at the age of 19, and the Woolfs had been discussing setting up a publishing house for some time, and at the end of 1916 started making plans. Having discovered that they were not eligible to enroll in the St Bride School of Printing, they started purchasing supplies after seeking advice from the Excelsior Printing Supply Company on Farringdon Road in March 1917, and soon they had a printing press set up on their dining room table at Hogarth House, and the Hogarth Press was born.
Their first publication was Two Stories in July 1917, inscribed Publication No. 1, and consisted of two short stories, "The Mark on the Wall" by Virginia Woolf and Three Jews by Leonard Woolf. The work consisted of 32 pages, hand bound and sewn, and illustrated by woodcuts designed by Dora Carrington. The illustrations were a success, leading Virginia to remark that the press was "specially good at printing pictures, and we see that we must make a practice of always having pictures." (13 July 1917) The process took two and a half months with a production run of 150 copies. Other short short stories followed, including Kew Gardens (1919) with a woodblock by Vanessa Bell as frontispiece. Subsequently, Bell added further illustrations, adorning each page of the text.
The press subsequently published Virginia's novels along with works by T.S. Eliot, Laurens van der Post, and others. The Press also commissioned works by contemporary artists, including Dora Carrington and Vanessa Bell. Woolf believed that to break free of a patriarchal society women writers needed a "room of their own" to develop and often fantasised about an "Outsider's Society" where women writers would create a virtual private space for themselves via their writings to develop a feminist critique of society. Though Woolf never created the "Outsider's society", the Hogarth Press was the closest approximation as the Woolfs chose to publish books by writers that took unconventional points of view to form a reading community. Initially the press concentrated on small experimental publications, of little interest to large commercial publishers. Until 1930, Woolf often helped her husband print the Hogarth books as the money for employees was not there. Virginia relinquished her interest in 1938, following a third attempted suicide. After it was bombed in September 1940, the press was moved to Letchworth for the remainder of the war. Both the Woolfs were internationalists and pacifists who believed that promoting understanding between peoples was the best way to avoid another world war and chose quite consciously to publish works by foreign authors of whom the British reading public were unaware. The first non-British author to be published was the Soviet writer Maxim Gorky, the book Reminiscences of Leo Nikolaiovich Tolstoy in 1920, dealing with his friendship with Count Leo Tolstoy.
Memoir Club (1920–1941)
1920 saw a postwar reconstitution of the Bloomsbury Group, under the title of the Memoir Club, which as the name suggests focussed on self-writing, in the manner of Proust's A La Recherche, and inspired some of the more influential books of the 20th century. The Group, which had been scattered by the war, was reconvened by Mary ('Molly') MacCarthy who called them "Bloomsberries", and operated under rules derived from the Cambridge Apostles, an elite university debating society that a number of them had been members of. These rules emphasised candour and openness. Among the 125 memoirs presented, Virginia contributed three that were published posthumously in 1976, in the autobiographical anthology Moments of Being. These were 22 Hyde Park Gate (1921), Old Bloomsbury (1922) and Am I a Snob? (1936).
Vita Sackville-West (1922–1941)
The ethos of the Bloomsbury group encouraged a liberal approach to sexuality, and on 14 December 1922 Woolf met the writer and gardener Vita Sackville-West, wife of Harold Nicolson, while dining with Clive Bell. Writing in her diary the next day, she referred to meeting "the lovely gifted aristocratic Sackville West". At the time, Sackville-West was the more successful writer as both poet and novelist, commercially and critically, and it was not until after Woolf's death that she became considered the better writer. After a tentative start, they began a sexual relationship, which, according to Sackville-West in a letter to her husband on 17 August 1926, was only twice consummated. The relationship reached its peak between 1925 and 1928, evolving into more of a friendship through the 1930s, though Woolf was also inclined to brag of her affairs with other women within her intimate circle, such as Sibyl Colefax and Comtesse de Polignac. This period of intimacy was to prove fruitful for both authors, Woolf producing three novels, To the Lighthouse (1927), Orlando (1928), and The Waves (1931) as well as a number of essays, including "Mr. Bennett and Mrs. Brown" (1924) and "A Letter to a Young Poet" (1932).
Sackville-West worked tirelessly to lift Woolf's self-esteem, encouraging her not to view herself as a quasi-reclusive inclined to sickness who should hide herself away from the world, but rather offered praise for her liveliness and wit, her health, her intelligence and achievements as a writer. Sackville-West led Woolf to reappraise herself, developing a more positive self-image, and the feeling that her writings were the products of her strengths rather than her weakness. Starting at the age of 15, Woolf had believed the diagnosis by her father and his doctor that reading and writing were deleterious to her nervous condition, requiring a regime of physical labour such as gardening to prevent a total nervous collapse. This led Woolf to spend much time obsessively engaging in such physical labour.
Sackville-West was the first to argue to Woolf she had been misdiagnosed, and that it was far better to engage in reading and writing to calm her nerves—advice that was taken. Under the influence of Sackville-West, Woolf learned to deal with her nervous ailments by switching between various forms of intellectual activities such as reading, writing and book reviews, instead of spending her time in physical activities that sapped her strength and worsened her nerves. Sackville-West chose the financially struggling Hogarth Press as her publisher to assist the Woolfs financially. Seducers in Ecuador, the first of the novels by Sackville-West published by Hogarth, was not a success, selling only 1500 copies in its first year, but the next Sackville-West novel they published, The Edwardians, was a best-seller that sold 30,000 copies in its first six months. Sackville-West's novels, though not typical of the Hogarth Press, saved Hogarth, taking them from the red into the black. However, Woolf was not always appreciative of the fact that it was Sackville-West's books that kept the Hogarth Press profitable, writing dismissively in 1933 of her "servant girl" novels. The financial security allowed by the good sales of Sackville-West's novels in turn allowed Woolf to engage in more experimental work, such as The Waves, as Woolf had to be cautious when she depended upon Hogarth entirely for her income.
In 1928, Woolf presented Sackville-West with Orlando, a fantastical biography in which the eponymous hero's life spans three centuries and both sexes. It was published in October, shortly after the two women spent a week travelling together in France, that September. Nigel Nicolson, Vita Sackville-West's son, wrote, "The effect of Vita on Virginia is all contained in Orlando, the longest and most charming love letter in literature, in which she explores Vita, weaves her in and out of the centuries, tosses her from one sex to the other, plays with her, dresses her in furs, lace and emeralds, teases her, flirts with her, drops a veil of mist around her." After their affair ended, the two women remained friends until Woolf's death in 1941. Virginia Woolf also remained close to her surviving siblings, Adrian and Vanessa; Thoby had died of typhoid fever at the age of 26.
Sussex (1911–1941)
Virginia was needing a country retreat to escape to, and on 24 December 1910, she found a house for rent in Firle, Sussex, near Lewes (see Map). She obtained a lease and took possession of the house the following month, naming it 'Little Talland House', after their childhood home in Cornwall, although it was actually a new red gabled villa on the main street opposite the village hall. The lease was a short one, and in October, she and Leonard Woolf found Asham House at Asheham a few miles to the west, while walking along the Ouse from Firle. The house, at the end of a tree-lined road was a strange beautiful Regency-Gothic house in a lonely location. She described it as "flat, pale, serene, yellow-washed", without electricity or water and allegedly haunted. She took out a five-year lease jointly with Vanessa in the New Year, and they moved into it in February 1912, holding a house warming party on the 9th.
It was at Asham that the Woolfs spent their wedding night later that year. At Asham, she recorded the events of the weekends and holidays they spent there in her Asham Diary, part of which was later published as A Writer's Diary in 1953. In terms of creative writing, The Voyage Out was completed there, and much of Night and Day. Asham provided Woolf with well needed relief from the pace of London life and was where she found a happiness that she expressed in her diary of 5 May 1919 "Oh, but how happy we've been at Asheham! It was a most melodious time. Everything went so freely; – but I can't analyse all the sources of my joy". Asham was also the inspiration for A Haunted House (1921–1944), and was painted by members of the Bloomsbury Group, including Vanessa Bell and Roger Fry. It was during these times at Asham that Ka Cox (seen here) started to devote herself to Virginia and become very useful.
While at Asham Leonard and Virginia found a farmhouse in 1916, that was to let, about four miles away, which they thought would be ideal for her sister. Eventually, Vanessa came down to inspect it, and moved in in October of that year, taking it as a summer home for her family. The Charleston Farmhouse was to become the summer gathering place for the literary and artistic circle of the Bloomsbury Group.
After the end of the war, in 1918, the Woolfs were given a year's notice by the landlord, who needed the house. In mid-1919, "in despair", they purchased "a very strange little house" for £300, the Round House in Pipe Passage, Lewes, a converted windmill. No sooner had they bought the Round House, than Monk's House in nearby Rodmell, came up for auction, a weatherboarded house with oak beamed rooms, said to be 15th or 16th century. The Leonards favoured the latter because of its orchard and garden, and sold the Round House, to purchase Monk's House for £700. Monk's House also lacked water and electricity, but came with an acre of garden, and had a view across the Ouse towards the hills of the South Downs. Leonard Woolf describes this view (and the amenities) as being unchanged since the days of Chaucer. From 1940, it became their permanent home after their London home was bombed, and Virginia continued to live there until her death. Meanwhile, Vanessa made Charleston her permanent home in 1936. It was at Monk's House that Virginia completed Between the Acts in early 1941, followed by a further breakdown directly resulting in her suicide on 28 March 1941, the novel being published posthumously later that year.
The Neo-pagans (1911–1912)
During her time in Firle, Virginia became better acquainted with Rupert Brooke and his group of Neo-Pagans, pursuing socialism, vegetarianism, exercising outdoors and alternative life styles, including social nudity. They were influenced by the ethos of Bedales, Fabianism and Shelley. The women wore sandals, socks, open neck shirts and head-scarves. Although she had some reservations, Woolf was involved with their activities for a while, fascinated by their bucolic innocence in contrast to the sceptical intellectualism of Bloomsbury, which earned her the nickname "The Goat" from her brother Adrian. While Woolf liked to make much of a weekend she spent with Brooke at the vicarage in Grantchester, including swimming in the pool there, it appears to have been principally a literary assignation. They also shared a psychiatrist in the name of Maurice Craig. Through the Neo-Pagans, she finally met Ka Cox on a weekend in Oxford in January 1911, who had been part of the Friday Club circle and now became her friend and played an important part in dealing with her illnesses. Virginia nicknamed her "Bruin". At the same time, she found herself dragged into a triangular relationship involving Ka, Jacques Raverat and Gwen Darwin. She became resentful of the other couple, Jacques and Gwen, who married later in 1911, not the outcome Virginia had predicted or desired. They would later be referred to in both To the Lighthouse and The Years. The exclusion she felt evoked memories of both Stella Duckworth's marriage and her triangular involvement with Vanessa and Clive.
The two groups eventually fell out. Brooke pressured Ka into withdrawing from joining Virginia's ménage on Brunswick Square in late 1911, calling it a "bawdy-house" and by the end of 1912 he had vehemently turned against Bloomsbury. Later, she would write sardonically about Brooke, whose premature death resulted in his idealisation, and express regret about "the Neo-Paganism at that stage of my life". Virginia was deeply disappointed when Ka married William Edward Arnold-Forster in 1918, and became increasingly critical of her.
Mental health
Much examination has been made of Woolf's mental health (e.g., see Mental health bibliography). From the age of 13, following the death of her mother, Woolf suffered periodic mood swings from severe depression to manic excitement, including psychotic episodes, which the family referred to as her "madness". However, as Hermione Lee points out, Woolf was not "mad"; she was merely a woman who suffered from and struggled with illness for much of her relatively short life, a woman of "exceptional courage, intelligence and stoicism", who made the best use, and achieved the best understanding she could of that illness.
Psychiatrists today contend that her illness constitutes bipolar disorder (manic-depressive illness). Her mother's death in 1895, "the greatest disaster that could happen", precipitated a crisis of alternating excitability and depression accompanied by irrational fears, for which their family doctor, Dr. Seton, prescribed rest, stopping lessons and writing, and regular walks supervised by Stella. Yet just two years later, Stella too was dead, bringing on her next crisis in 1897, and her first expressed wish for death at the age of fifteen, writing in her diary that October that "death would be shorter & less painful". She then stopped keeping a diary for some time. This was a scenario she would later recreate in "Time Passes" (To the Lighthouse, 1927).
The death of her father in 1904 provoked her most alarming collapse, on 10 May, when she threw herself out a window and she was briefly institutionalised under the care of her father's friend, the eminent psychiatrist George Savage. Savage blamed her education—frowned on by many at the time as unsuitable for women—for her illness. She spent time recovering at the house of Stella's friend Violet Dickinson, and at her aunt Caroline's house in Cambridge, and by January 1905, Dr. Savage considered her "cured". Violet, seventeen years older than Virginia, became one of her closest friends and one of her more effective nurses. She characterised it as a "romantic friendship" (Letter to Violet 4 May 1903). Her brother Thoby's death in 1906 marked a "decade of deaths” that ended her childhood and adolescence. Gordon (2004) writes: "Ghostly voices spoke to her with increasing urgency, perhaps more real than the people who lived by her side. When voices of the dead urged her to impossible things, they drove her mad but, controlled, they became the material of fiction..."
On Dr. Savage's recommendation, Virginia spent three short periods in 1910, 1912, and 1913 at Burley House at 15 Cambridge Park, Twickenham (see image), described as "a private nursing home for women with nervous disorder" run by Miss Jean Thomas. By the end of February 1910, she was becoming increasingly restless, and Dr. Savage suggested being away from London. Vanessa rented Moat House, outside Canterbury, in June, but there was no improvement, so Dr. Savage sent her to Burley for a "rest cure". This involved partial isolation, deprivation of literature, and force-feeding, and after six weeks she was able to convalesce in Cornwall and Dorset during the autumn.
She loathed the experience; writing to her sister on 28 July, she described how she found the phony religious atmosphere stifling and the institution ugly, and informed Vanessa that to escape "I shall soon have to jump out of a window." The threat of being sent back would later lead to her contemplating suicide. Despite her protests, Savage would refer her back in 1912 for insomnia and in 1913 for depression.
On emerging from Burley House in September 1913, she sought further opinions from two other physicians on the 13th: Maurice Wright, and Henry Head, who had been Henry James's physician. Both recommended she return to Burley House. Distraught, she returned home and attempted suicide by taking an overdose of 100 grains of veronal (a barbiturate) and nearly dying: she was found by Ka Cox, who summoned help.
On recovery, she went to Dalingridge Hall, George Duckworth's home in East Grinstead, Sussex, to convalesce on 30 September, accompanied by Ka Cox and a nurse, returning to Asham on 18 November with Cox and Janet Case. She remained unstable over the next two years, with another incident involving veronal that she claimed was an "accident", and consulted another psychiatrist in April 1914, Maurice Craig, who explained that she was not sufficiently psychotic to be certified or committed to an institution.
The rest of the summer of 1914 went better for her, and they moved to Richmond, but in February 1915, just as The Voyage Out was due to be published, she relapsed once more, and remained in poor health for most of that year. Then, despite Miss Thomas's gloomy prognosis, she began to recover, following 20 years of ill health. Nevertheless, there was a feeling among those around her that she was now permanently changed, and not for the better.
Over the rest of her life, she suffered recurrent bouts of depression. In 1940, a number of factors appeared to overwhelm her. Her biography of Roger Fry had been published in July, and she had been disappointed in its reception. The horrors of war depressed her, and their London homes had been destroyed in the Blitz in September and October. Woolf had completed Between the Acts (published posthumously in 1941) in November, and completing a novel was frequently accompanied by exhaustion. Her health became increasingly a matter of concern, culminating in her decision to end her life on 28 March 1941.
Though this instability would frequently affect her social life, she was able to continue her literary productivity with few interruptions throughout her life. Woolf herself provides not only a vivid picture of her symptoms in her diaries and letters, but also her response to the demons that haunted her and at times made her long for death: "But it is always a question whether I wish to avoid these glooms... These 9 weeks give one a plunge into deep waters... One goes down into the well & nothing protects one from the assault of truth."
Psychiatry had little to offer Woolf, but she recognised that writing was one of the behaviours that enabled her to cope with her illness: "The only way I keep afloat... is by working... Directly I stop working I feel that I am sinking down, down. And as usual, I feel that if I sink further I shall reach the truth." Sinking under water was Woolf's metaphor for both the effects of depression and psychosis— but also for finding truth, and ultimately was her choice of death.
Throughout her life, Woolf struggled, without success, to find meaning in her illness: on the one hand, an impediment, on the other, something she visualised as an essential part of who she was, and a necessary condition of her art. Her experiences informed her work, such as the character of Septimus Warren Smith in Mrs Dalloway (1925), who, like Woolf, was haunted by the dead, and ultimately takes his own life rather than be admitted to a sanitorium.
Leonard Woolf relates how during the 30 years they were married, they consulted many doctors in the Harley Street area, and although they were given a diagnosis of neurasthenia, he felt they had little understanding of the causes or nature. The proposed solution was simple—as long as she lived a quiet life without any physical or mental exertion, she was well. On the other hand, any mental, emotional, or physical strain resulted in a reappearance of her symptoms, beginning with a headache, followed by insomnia and thoughts that started to race. Her remedy was simple: to retire to bed in a darkened room, eat, and drink plenty of milk, following which the symptoms slowly subsided.
Modern scholars, including her nephew and biographer, Quentin Bell, have suggested her breakdowns and subsequent recurring depressive periods were influenced by the sexual abuse which she and her sister Vanessa were subjected to by their half-brothers George and Gerald Duckworth (which Woolf recalls in her autobiographical essays "A Sketch of the Past" and "22 Hyde Park Gate") (see Sexual abuse). Biographers point out that when Stella died in 1897, there was no counterbalance to control George's predation, and his nighttime prowling. Virginia describes him as her first lover, "The old ladies of Kensington and Belgravia never knew that George Duckworth was not only father and mother, brother and sister to those poor Stephen girls; he was their lover also."
It is likely that other factors also played a part. It has been suggested that they include genetic predisposition, for both trauma and family history have been implicated in bipolar disorder. Virginia's father, Leslie Stephen, suffered from depression, and her half-sister Laura was institutionalised. Many of Virginia's symptoms, including persistent headache, insomnia, irritability, and anxiety, resembled of her father's. Another factor is the pressure she placed upon herself in her work; for instance, her breakdown of 1913 was at least partly triggered by the need to finish The Voyage Out.
Virginia herself hinted that her illness was related to how she saw the repressed position of women in society, when she wrote in A Room of One's Own that had Shakespeare had a sister of equal genius, she "would certainly have gone crazed, shot herself, or ended her days in some lonely cottage outside the village, half witch, half wizard, feared and mocked at". These inspirations emerged from what Woolf referred to as her lava of madness, describing her time at Burley in a 1930 letter to Ethel Smyth:
Thomas Caramagno and others, in discussing her illness, oppose the "neurotic-genius" way of looking at mental illness, where creativity and mental illness are conceptualised as linked rather than antithetical. Stephen Trombley describes Woolf as having a confrontational relationship with her doctors, and possibly being a woman who is a "victim of male medicine", referring to the lack of understanding, particularly at the time, about mental illness.
Death
After completing the manuscript of her last novel (posthumously published), Between the Acts (1941), Woolf fell into a depression similar to one which she had earlier experienced. The onset of World War II, the destruction of her London home during the Blitz, and the cool reception given to her biography of her late friend Roger Fry all worsened her condition until she was unable to work. When Leonard enlisted in the Home Guard, Virginia disapproved. She held fast to her pacifism and criticised her husband for wearing what she considered to be "the silly uniform of the Home Guard".
After World War II began, Woolf's diary indicates that she was obsessed with death, which figured more and more as her mood darkened. On 28 March 1941, Woolf drowned herself by filling her overcoat pockets with stones and walking into the River Ouse near her home. Her body was not found until 18 April. Her husband buried her cremated remains beneath an elm tree in the garden of Monk's House, their home in Rodmell, Sussex.
In her suicide note, addressed to her husband, she wrote:
Work
Woolf is considered to be one of the more important 20th century novelists. A modernist, she was one of the pioneers of using stream of consciousness as a narrative device, alongside contemporaries such as Marcel Proust, Dorothy Richardson and James Joyce. Woolf's reputation was at its greatest during the 1930s, but declined considerably following World War II. The growth of feminist criticism in the 1970s helped re-establish her reputation.
Virginia submitted her first article in 1890, to a competition in Tit-Bits. Although it was rejected, this shipboard romance by the 8-year-old would presage her first novel 25 years later, as would contributions to the Hyde Park News, such as the model letter "to show young people the right way to express what is in their hearts", a subtle commentary on her mother's legendary matchmaking. She transitioned from juvenilia to professional journalism in 1904 at the age of 22. Violet Dickinson introduced her to Mrs. Lyttelton, the editor of the Women's Supplement of The Guardian, a Church of England newspaper. Invited to submit a 1,500-word article, Virginia sent Lyttelton a review of W.D. Howells' The Son of Royal Langbirth and an essay about her visit to Haworth that year, Haworth, November 1904. The review was published anonymously on 4 December, and the essay on the 21st. In 1905, Woolf began writing for The Times Literary Supplement.
Woolf would go on to publish novels and essays as a public intellectual to both critical and popular acclaim. Much of her work was self-published through the Hogarth Press. "Virginia Woolf's peculiarities as a fiction writer have tended to obscure her central strength: she is arguably the major lyrical novelist in the English language. Her novels are highly experimental: a narrative, frequently uneventful and commonplace, is refracted—and sometimes almost dissolved—in the characters' receptive consciousness. Intense lyricism and stylistic virtuosity fuse to create a world overabundant with auditory and visual impressions." "The intensity of Virginia Woolf's poetic vision elevates the ordinary, sometimes banal settings"—often wartime environments—"of most of her novels."
Fiction and drama
Novels
Her first novel, The Voyage Out, was published in 1915 at the age of 33, by her half-brother's imprint, Gerald Duckworth and Company Ltd. This novel was originally titled Melymbrosia, but Woolf repeatedly changed the draft. An earlier version of The Voyage Out has been reconstructed by Woolf scholar Louise DeSalvo and is now available to the public under the intended title. DeSalvo argues that many of the changes Woolf made in the text were in response to changes in her own life. The novel is set on a ship bound for South America, and a group of young Edwardians onboard and their various mismatched yearnings and misunderstandings. In the novel are hints of themes that would emerge in later work, including the gap between preceding thought and the spoken word that follows, and the lack of concordance between expression and underlying intention, together with how these reveal to us aspects of the nature of love.
"Mrs Dalloway (1925) centres on the efforts of Clarissa Dalloway, a middle-aged society woman, to organise a party, even as her life is paralleled with that of Septimus Warren Smith, a working-class veteran who has returned from the First World War bearing deep psychological scars".
"To the Lighthouse (1927) is set on two days ten years apart. The plot centres on the Ramsay family's anticipation of and reflection upon a visit to a lighthouse and the connected familial tensions. One of the primary themes of the novel is the struggle in the creative process that beset painter Lily Briscoe while she struggles to paint in the midst of the family drama. The novel is also a meditation upon the lives of a nation's inhabitants in the midst of war, and of the people left behind." It also explores the passage of time, and how women are forced by society to allow men to take emotional strength from them.
Orlando: A Biography (1928) is one of Virginia Woolf's lightest novels. A parodic biography of a young nobleman who lives for three centuries without ageing much past thirty (but who does abruptly turn into a woman), the book is in part a portrait of Woolf's lover Vita Sackville-West. It was meant to console Vita for the loss of her ancestral home, Knole House, though it is also a satirical treatment of Vita and her work. In Orlando, the techniques of historical biographers are being ridiculed; the character of a pompous biographer is being assumed for it to be mocked.
"The Waves (1931) presents a group of six friends whose reflections, which are closer to recitatives than to interior monologues proper, create a wave-like atmosphere that is more akin to a prose poem than to a plot-centred novel".
Flush: A Biography (1933) is a part-fiction, part-biography of the cocker spaniel owned by Victorian poet Elizabeth Barrett Browning. The book is written from the dog's point of view. Woolf was inspired to write this book from the success of the Rudolf Besier play The Barretts of Wimpole Street. In the play, Flush is on stage for much of the action. The play was produced for the first time in 1932 by the actress Katharine Cornell.
The Years (1936), traces the history of the genteel Pargiter family from the 1880s to the "present day" of the mid-1930s. The novel had its origin in a lecture Woolf gave to the National Society for Women's Service in 1931, an edited version of which would later be published as "Professions for Women". Woolf first thought of making this lecture the basis of a new book-length essay on women, this time taking a broader view of their economic and social life, rather than focusing on women as artists, as the first book had. She soon jettisoned the theoretical framework of her "novel-essay" and began to rework the book solely as a fictional narrative, but some of the non-fiction material she first intended for this book was later used in Three Guineas (1938).
"Her last work, Between the Acts (1941), sums up and magnifies Woolf's chief preoccupations: the transformation of life through art, sexual ambivalence, and meditation on the themes of flux of time and life, presented simultaneously as corrosion and rejuvenation—all set in a highly imaginative and symbolic narrative encompassing almost all of English history." This book is the most lyrical of all her works, not only in feeling but in style, being chiefly written in verse. While Woolf's work can be understood as consistently in dialogue with the Bloomsbury Group, particularly its tendency (informed by G.E. Moore, among others) towards doctrinaire rationalism, it is not a simple recapitulation of the coterie's ideals.
Themes
Woolf's fiction has been studied for its insight into many themes including war, shell shock, witchcraft, and the role of social class in contemporary modern British society. In the postwar Mrs Dalloway (1925), Woolf addresses the moral dilemma of war and its effects and provides an authentic voice for soldiers returning from World War I, suffering from shell shock, in the person of Septimus Smith. In A Room of One's Own (1929) Woolf equates historical accusations of witchcraft with creativity and genius among women "When, however, one reads of a witch being ducked, of a woman possessed by devils...then I think we are on the track of a lost novelist, a suppressed poet, of some mute and inglorious Jane Austen". Throughout her work Woolf tried to evaluate the degree to which her privileged background framed the lens through which she viewed class. She both examined her own position as someone who would be considered an elitist snob, but attacked the class structure of Britain as she found it. In her 1936 essay Am I a Snob?, she examined her values and those of the privileged circle she existed in. She concluded she was, and subsequent critics and supporters have tried to deal with the dilemma of being both elite and a social critic.
The sea is a recurring motif in Woolf's work. Noting Woolf's early memory of listening to waves break in Cornwall, Katharine Smyth writes in The Paris Review that "the radiance [of] cresting water would be consecrated again and again in her writing, saturating not only essays, diaries, and letters but also Jacob’s Room, The Waves, and To the Lighthouse." Patrizia A. Muscogiuri explains that "seascapes, sailing, diving and the sea itself are aspects of nature and of human beings’ relationship with it which frequently inspired Virginia Woolf's writing." This trope is deeply embedded in her texts’ structure and grammar; James Antoniou notes in Sydney Morning Herald how "Woolf made a virtue of the semicolon, the shape and function of which resembles the wave, her most famous motif."
Despite the considerable conceptual difficulties, given Woolf's idiosyncratic use of language, her works have been translated into over 50 languages. Some writers, such as the Belgian Marguerite Yourcenar, had rather tense encounters with her, while others, such as the Argentinian Jorge Luis Borges, produced versions that were highly controversial.
Drama
Virginia Woolf researched the life of her great-aunt, the photographer Julia Margaret Cameron, publishing her findings in an essay titled "Pattledom" (1925), and later in her introduction to her 1926 edition of Cameron's photographs. She had begun work on a play based on an episode in Cameron's life in 1923, but abandoned it. Finally it was performed on 18 January 1935 at the studio of her sister, Vanessa Bell on Fitzroy Street in 1935. Woolf directed it herself, and the cast were mainly members of the Bloomsbury Group, including herself. Freshwater is a short three act comedy satirising the Victorian era, only performed once in Woolf's lifetime. Beneath the comedic elements, there is an exploration of both generational change and artistic freedom. Both Cameron and Woolf fought against the class and gender dynamics of Victorianism and the play shows links to both To the Lighthouse and A Room of One's Own that would follow.
Non-fiction
Woolf wrote a body of autobiographical work and more than 500 essays and reviews, some of which, like A Room of One's Own (1929) were of book length. Not all were published in her lifetime. Shortly after her death, Leonard Woolf produced an edited edition of unpublished essays titled The Moment and other Essays, published by the Hogarth Press in 1947. Many of these were originally lectures that she gave, and several more volumes of essays followed, such as The Captain's Death Bed: and other essays (1950).
A Room of One's Own
Among Woolf's non-fiction works, one of the best known is A Room of One's Own (1929), a book-length essay. Considered a key work of feminist literary criticism, it was written following two lectures she delivered on "Women and Fiction" at Cambridge University the previous year. In it, she examines the historical disempowerment women have faced in many spheres, including social, educational and financial. One of her more famous dicta is contained within the book "A woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction". Much of her argument ("to show you how I arrived at this opinion about the room and the money") is developed through the "unsolved problems" of women and fiction writing to arrive at her conclusion, although she claimed that was only "an opinion upon one minor point". In doing so, she states a good deal about the nature of women and fiction, employing a quasi-fictional style as she examines where women writers failed because of lack of resources and opportunities, examining along the way the experiences of the Brontës, George Eliot and George Sand, as well as the fictional character of Shakespeare's sister, equipped with the same genius but not position. She contrasted these women who accepted a deferential status with Jane Austen, who wrote entirely as a woman.
Influences
Michel Lackey argues that a major influence on Woolf, from 1912 onward, was Russian literature and Woolf adopted many of its aesthetic conventions. The style of Fyodor Dostoyevsky with his depiction of a fluid mind in operation helped to influence Woolf's writings about a "discontinuous writing process", though Woolf objected to Dostoyevsky's obsession with "psychological extremity" and the "tumultuous flux of emotions" in his characters together with his right-wing, monarchist politics as Dostoyevsky was an ardent supporter of the autocracy of the Russian Empire. In contrast to her objections to Dostoyevsky's "exaggerated emotional pitch", Woolf found much to admire in the work of Anton Chekhov and Leo Tolstoy. Woolf admired Chekhov for his stories of ordinary people living their lives, doing banal things and plots that had no neat endings. From Tolstoy, Woolf drew lessons about how a novelist should depict a character's psychological state and the interior tension within. Lackey notes that, from Ivan Turgenev, Woolf drew the lessons that there are multiple "I's" when writing a novel, and the novelist needed to balance those multiple versions of him- or herself to balance the "mundane facts" of a story vs. the writer's overarching vision, which required a "total passion" for art.
The American writer Henry David Thoreau also influenced Woolf. In a 1917 essay, she praised Thoreau for his statement "The millions are awake enough for physical labor, but only one in hundreds of millions is awake enough to a poetic or divine life. To be awake is to be alive." They both aimed to capture 'the moment'––as Walter Pater says, "to burn always with this hard, gem-like flame." Woolf praised Thoreau for his "simplicity" in finding "a way for setting free the delicate and complicated machinery of the soul". Like Thoreau, Woolf believed that it was silence that set the mind free to really contemplate and understand the world. Both authors believed in a certain transcendental, mystical approach to life and writing, where even banal things could be capable of generating deep emotions if one had enough silence and the presence of mind to appreciate them. Woolf and Thoreau were both concerned with the difficulty of human relationships in the modern age. Other notable influences include William Shakespeare, George Eliot, Leo Tolstoy, Marcel Proust, Anton Chekhov, Emily Brontë, Daniel Defoe, James Joyce, and E.M. Forster.
List of selected publications
see , ,
Novels
see also The Voyage Out & Complete text
see also Night and Day & Complete text
see also Jacob's Room & Complete text
see also Mrs Dalloway & Complete text
see also To the Lighthouse & Complete text, also Texts at Woolf Online
see also Orlando: A Biography & Complete text
see also The Waves & Complete text
see also Between the Acts & Complete text
Short stories
see also A Haunted House and Other Short Stories & Complete text
see also The Mark on the Wall & Complete text
see also Kew Gardens & Complete text
Cross-genre
see also Flush: A Biography & Complete text
Drama
see also Freshwater
Biography
see also Roger Fry: A Biography & Complete text
Essays
see also A Room of One's Own & Complete text
see also Mr. Bennett and Mrs. Brown & Complete text
see also A Letter to a Young Poet & Complete text
see also Three Guineas & Complete text
Essay collections
(Review)
(Review)
Complete text
(Review)
First American edition published by Harcourt, Brace and Company, New York, 1950.
& also here
— (1934). "Walter Sickert: A Conversation".
Contributions
(Digital edition)
Autobiographical writing
(Review)
(see Moments of Being)
, in (excerpts)
, in
(excerpts – 1st ed.)
Memoir Club Contributions
Diaries and notebooks
Letters
(Review)
Photograph albums
List of Album Guides
Album 1 MS Thr 557 (1863–1938)
Album 2 MS Thr 559 (1909–1922)
Album 3 MS Thr 560 (1890–1933)
Album 4 MS Thr 561 (1890–1947)
Album 5 MS Thr 562 (1892–1938)
Album 6 MS Thr 563 (1850–1900)
Collections
Views
In her lifetime, Woolf was outspoken on many topics that were considered controversial, some of which are now considered progressive, others regressive. She was an ardent feminist at a time when women's rights were barely recognised, and anti-colonialist, anti-imperialist and a pacifist when chauvinism was popular. On the other hand, she has been criticised for views on class and race in her private writings and published works. Like many of her contemporaries, some of her writing is now considered offensive. As a result, she is considered polarising, a revolutionary feminist and socialist hero or a purveyor of hate speech.
Works such as A Room of One's Own (1929) and Three Guineas (1938) are frequently taught as icons of feminist literature in courses that would be very critical of some of her views expressed elsewhere. She has also been the recipient of considerable homophobic and misogynist criticism.
Humanist views
Virginia Woolf was born into a non-religious family and is regarded, along with her fellow Bloomsberries E.M. Forster and G.E. Moore, as a humanist. Both her parents were prominent agnostic atheists. Her father, Leslie Stephen, had become famous in polite society for his writings which expressed and publicised reasons to doubt the veracity of religion. Stephen was also President of the West London Ethical Society, an early humanist organisation, and helped to found the Union of Ethical Societies in 1896. Woolf's mother, Julia Stephen, wrote the book Agnostic Women (1880), which argued that agnosticism (defined here as something more like atheism) could be a highly moral approach to life.
Woolf was a critic of Christianity. In a letter to Ethel Smyth, she gave a scathing denunciation of the religion, seeing it as self-righteous "egotism" and stating "my Jew [Leonard] has more religion in one toenail—more human love, in one hair". Woolf stated in her private letters that she thought of herself as an atheist.
Controversies
Hermione Lee cites a number of extracts from Woolf's writings that many, including Lee, would consider offensive, and these criticisms can be traced back as far as those of Wyndham Lewis and Q.D. Leavis in the 1920s and 1930s. Other authors provide more nuanced contextual interpretations, and stress the complexity of her character and the apparent inherent contradictions in analysing her apparent flaws. She could certainly be off-hand, rude and even cruel in her dealings with other authors, translators and biographers, such as her treatment of Ruth Gruber. Some authors, particularly postcolonial feminists dismiss her (and modernist authors in general) as privileged, elitist, classist, racist, and antisemitic.
Woolf's tendentious expressions, including prejudicial feelings against disabled people, have often been the topic of academic criticism:
The first quotation is from a diary entry of September 1920 and runs: "The fact is the lower classes are detestable." The remainder follow the first in reproducing stereotypes standard to upper-class and upper-middle class life in the early 20th century: "imbeciles should certainly be killed"; "Jews" are greasy; a "crowd" is both an ontological "mass" and is, again, "detestable"; "Germans" are akin to vermin; some "baboon faced intellectuals" mix with "sad green dressed negroes and negresses, looking like chimpanzees" at a peace conference; Kensington High St. revolts one's stomach with its innumerable "women of incredible mediocrity, drab as dishwater".
Antisemitism
Though accused of antisemitism, the treatment of Judaism and Jews by Woolf is far from straightforward. She was happily married to a Jewish man (Leonard Woolf) but often wrote about Jewish characters using stereotypes and generalisations. For instance, she described some of the Jewish characters in her work in terms that suggested they were physically repulsive or dirty. On the other hand, she could criticise her own views: "How I hated marrying a Jew — how I hated their nasal voices and their oriental jewellery, and their noses and their wattles — what a snob I was: for they have immense vitality, and I think I like that quality best of all" (Letter to Ethel Smyth 1930). These attitudes have been construed to reflect, not so much antisemitism, but tribalism; she married outside her social grouping, and Leonard Woolf, too, expressed misgivings about marrying a gentile. Leonard, "a penniless Jew from Putney", lacked the material status of the Stephens and their circle.
While travelling on a cruise to Portugal, she protested at finding "a great many Portuguese Jews on board, and other repulsive objects, but we keep clear of them". Furthermore, she wrote in her diary: "I do not like the Jewish voice; I do not like the Jewish laugh." Her 1938 short story The Duchess and the Jeweller (originally titled The Duchess and the Jew) has been considered antisemitic.
Yet Woolf and her husband Leonard came to despise and fear the 1930s fascism and antisemitism. Her 1938 book Three Guineas was an indictment of fascism and what Woolf described as a recurring propensity among patriarchal societies to enforce repressive societal mores by violence.
Sexuality
The Bloomsbury Group held very progressive views regarding sexuality and shucked the austere strictness of Victorian society. The majority of its members were homosexual or bisexual.
Virginia was most likely a lesbian, some debate that she was bisexual. However she had several affairs with women, the most notable being with Vita Sackville-West which inspired Orlando: A Biography. The two of them remained lovers for a decade and stayed close friends for the rest of Virginia's life. Virginia had said to Vita she disliked masculinity
Among her other notable affairs were Sibyl Colefax, Lady Ottoline Morrell and Mary Hutchinson. Some surmise that she may have fallen in love with Madge Symonds, the wife of one of her uncles. Madge Symonds was described as one of Virginia's early loves in Vita's diary She also fell in love with Violet Dickinson although there is some confusion as to whether the two consummated their relationship.
In regards to relationships with men, Virginia was averse to sex with them, blaming the sexual abuse perpetrated upon her and her sister by her half-brothers when they were children and teens. This is one of the reasons she initially declined marriage proposals from her future husband, Leonard. She even went as far as to tell him that she was not attracted to him, but that she did love him and finally agreed to marriage. Virginia preferred female lovers to male lovers, for the most part, based on her aversion to sex with men. This aversion to relations with men influenced her writing especially when considering her sexual abuse as a child.
Leonard became the love of her life and even though their sexual relationship was questionable, they loved each other deeply and formed a strong, supportive and prolific marriage which led to the formation of their publishing house as well as several of her writings. Neither was faithful to the other sexually, but they were faithful in their love and respect for each other.
Modern scholarship and interpretations
Though at least one biography of Virginia Woolf appeared in her lifetime, the first authoritative study of her life was published in 1972 by her nephew Quentin Bell. Hermione Lee's 1996 biography Virginia Woolf provides a thorough and authoritative examination of Woolf's life and work, which she discussed in an interview in 1997. In 2001, Louise DeSalvo and Mitchell A. Leaska edited The Letters of Vita Sackville-West and Virginia Woolf. Julia Briggs's Virginia Woolf: An Inner Life (2005) focuses on Woolf's writing, including her novels and her commentary on the creative process, to illuminate her life. The sociologist Pierre Bourdieu also uses Woolf's literature to understand and analyse gender domination. Woolf biographer Gillian Gill notes that Woolf's traumatic experience of sexual abuse by her half-brothers during her childhood influenced her advocacy of protection of vulnerable children from similar experiences.
Virginia Woolf and her mother
The intense scrutiny of Virginia Woolf's literary output (see Bibliography) has led to speculation as to her mother's influence, including psychoanalytic studies of mother and daughter. Woolf states that, "my first memory, and in fact it is the most important of all my memories" is of her mother. Her memories of her mother are memories of an obsession, starting with her first major breakdown on her mother's death in 1895, the loss having a profound lifelong effect. In many ways, her mother's profound influence on Virginia Woolf is conveyed in the latter's recollections, "there she is; beautiful, emphatic ... closer than any of the living are, lighting our random lives as with a burning torch, infinitely noble and delightful to her children".
Woolf described her mother as an "invisible presence" in her life, and Ellen Rosenman argues that the mother-daughter relationship is a constant in Woolf's writing. She describes how Woolf's modernism needs to be viewed in relationship to her ambivalence towards her Victorian mother, the centre of the former's female identity, and her voyage to her own sense of autonomy. To Woolf, "Saint Julia" was both a martyr whose perfectionism was intimidating and a source of deprivation, by her absences real and virtual and premature death. Julia's influence and memory pervades Woolf's life and work. "She has haunted me", she wrote.
Historical feminism
According to the 2007 book Feminism: From Mary Wollstonecraft to Betty Friedan by Bhaskar A. Shukla, "Recently, studies of Virginia Woolf have focused on feminist and lesbian themes in her work, such as in the 1997 collection of critical essays, Virginia Woolf: Lesbian Readings, edited by Eileen Barrett and Patricia Cramer." In 1928, Woolf took a grassroots approach to informing and inspiring feminism. She addressed undergraduate women at the ODTAA Society at Girton College, Cambridge and the Arts Society at Newnham College with two papers that eventually became A Room of One's Own (1929).
Woolf's best-known nonfiction works, A Room of One's Own (1929) and Three Guineas (1938), examine the difficulties that female writers and intellectuals faced because men held disproportionate legal and economic power, as well as the future of women in education and society. In The Second Sex (1949), Simone de Beauvoir counts, of all women who ever lived, only three female writers—Emily Brontë, Woolf and "sometimes" Katherine Mansfield— have explored "the given".
In popular culture
Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? is a 1962 play by Edward Albee. It examines the structure of the marriage of an American middle-aged academic couple, Martha and George. Mike Nichols directed a film version in 1966, starring Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton. Taylor won the 1966 Academy Award for Best Actress for the role.
Me! I'm Afraid of Virginia Woolf, a 1978 TV play, references the title of the Edward Albee play and features an English literature teacher who has a poster of her. It was written by Alan Bennett and directed by Stephen Frears.
The artwork The Dinner Party (1979) features a place setting for Woolf.
The 1996 album Poetic Justice, by British musician Steve Harley, contains a tribute to Woolf, specifically her most adventurous novel, in its closing track: "Riding the Waves (for Virginia Woolf)".
Michael Cunningham's 1998 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel The Hours focused on three generations of women affected by Woolf's novel Mrs Dalloway. In 2002, a film version of the novel was released, starring Nicole Kidman as Woolf. Kidman won the 2003 Academy Award for her portrayal.
Susan Sellers's novel Vanessa and Virginia (2008) explores the close sibling relationship between Woolf and her sister, Vanessa Bell. It was adapted for the stage by Elizabeth Wright in 2010 and first performed by Moving Stories Theatre Company.
Priya Parmar's 2014 novel Vanessa and Her Sister also examined the Stephen sisters' relationship during the early years of their association with what became known as the Bloomsbury Group.
An exhibition on Virginia Woolf was held at the National Portrait Gallery from July to October 2014.
In the 2014 novel The House at the End of Hope Street, Woolf is featured as one of the women who has lived in the titular house.
Virginia is portrayed by both Lydia Leonard and Catherine McCormack in the BBC's three-part drama series Life in Squares (2015).
On 25 January 2018, Google showed a Google doodle celebrating her 136th birthday.
In many Barnes & Noble stores, Woolf is featured in Gary Kelly's Author Mural Panels, an imprint of the Barnes & Noble Author brand that also features other notable authors like Hurston, Tagore, and Kafka.
The 2018 film Vita and Virginia depicts the relationship between Vita Sackville-West and Woolf, portrayed by Gemma Arterton and Elizabeth Debicki respectively.
The 2020 novel Trio by William Boyd follows the life of Elfrida Wing, an alcoholic writer interested in the suicide of Woolf.
Adaptations
A number of Virginia Woolf's works have been adapted for the screen, and her play Freshwater (1935) is the basis for a 1994 chamber opera, Freshwater, by Andy Vores. The final segment of the 2018 London Unplugged is adapted from her short story Kew Gardens. Septimus and Clarissa, a stage adaptation of Mrs. Dalloway was created and produced by the New York-based ensemble Ripe Time in 2011 at the Baruch Performing Arts Center. It was adapted by Ellen McLaughlin, and directed and devised by Rachel Dickstein. It was nominated for a 2012 Drama League award for Outstanding Production, a Drama Desk nomination for Outstanding Score (Gina Leishman) and a Joe A. Calloway Award nomination for outstanding direction (Rachel Dickstein.)
Legacy
Virginia Woolf is known for her contributions to 20th-century literature and her essays, as well as the influence she has had on literary, particularly feminist criticism. A number of authors have stated that their work was influenced by her, including Margaret Atwood, Michael Cunningham, Gabriel García Márquez, and Toni Morrison. Her iconic image is instantly recognisable from the Beresford portrait of her at twenty (at the top of this page) to the Beck and Macgregor portrait in her mother's dress in Vogue at 44 (see image) or Man Ray's cover of Time magazine (see image) at 55. More postcards of Woolf are sold by the National Portrait Gallery, London than any other person. Her image is ubiquitous, and can be found on products ranging from tea towels to T-shirts.
Virginia Woolf is studied around the world, with organisations such as the Virginia Woolf Society, and The Virginia Woolf Society of Japan. In addition, trusts—such as the Asham Trust—encourage writers in her honour. Although she had no descendants, a number of her extended family are notable.
Monuments and memorials
In 2013, Woolf was honoured by her alma mater of King's College London with the opening of the Virginia Woolf Building on Kingsway, with a plaque commemorating her time there and her contributions (see image), together with this exhibit depicting her accompanied by a quotation "London itself perpetually attracts, stimulates, gives me a play & a story & a poem" from her 1926 diary. Busts of Virginia Woolf have been erected at her home in Rodmell, Sussex and at Tavistock Square, London where she lived between 1924 and 1939.
In 2014, she was one of the inaugural honorees in the Rainbow Honor Walk, a walk of fame in San Francisco's Castro neighbourhood noting LGBTQ people who have "made significant contributions in their fields".
Woolf Works, a women's co-working space in Singapore, opened in 2014 and was named after her in tribute to the essay A Room of One's Own; it also has many other things named after it (see the essay's article).
A campaign was launched in 2018 by Aurora Metro Arts and Media to erect a statue of Woolf in Richmond, where she lived for 10 years. The proposed statue shows her reclining on a bench overlooking the river Thames.
Family trees
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Notes
References
Bibliography
Books and theses
see also The Second Sex
see also Survey of London
(Review)
Biography: Virginia Woolf
Vol. I: Virginia Stephen 1882 to 1912. London: Hogarth Press. 1972.
Vol. II: Virginia Woolf 1912 to 1941. London: Hogarth Press. 1972.
(Review)
(Review)
(Review)
(additional excerpts)
(Review)
(excerpt - Chapter 1)
(Review)
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(Illustrations of Woolf's London homes are excerpted at .)
Mental health
additional excerpts
(summary)
see also Touched with Fire
Biography: Other
(Review)
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(Review)
also Internet archive
also available through MOMA here
Literary commentary
(additional excerpts)
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additional excerpt
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Bloomsbury
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Chapters and contributions
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Articles
Journals
(text also available here)
Dictionaries and encyclopaedias
Newspapers and magazines
archived version
archived version
with excerpt
Websites and documents
(includes invitation to first performance in 1935 and Lucio Ruotolo's introduction to the 1976 Hogarth Press edition)
Blogs
British Library
Literary commentary
British Library
Virginia Woolf's homes and venues
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Virginia Woolf biography
Timelines
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Genealogy
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Images
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Maps
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Audiovisual media
see also Life in Squares
excerpt
Selected online texts
Audiofiles
Archival material
Bibliography notes
Bibliography references
External links
Virginia Woolf Papers at the Mortimer Rare Book Collection, Smith College Special Collections
1882 births
1941 suicides
19th-century English women
19th-century English people
19th-century English writers
20th-century British short story writers
20th-century English women writers
20th-century English novelists
20th-century essayists
20th-century non-fiction writers
Alumni of King's College London
Bisexual women
Bisexual writers
Bloomsbury Group
Bloomsbury Group biographers
British anti-fascists
British atheists
British autobiographers
British diarists
British essayists
British humanists
British memoirists
British pacifists
British secularists
British socialists
British cultural critics
British women dramatists and playwrights
British women essayists
British women short story writers
Critics of Christianity
Critics of Judaism
Critics of new religious movements
Critics of religions
English anti-fascists
English atheists
English autobiographers
English diarists
English essayists
English humanists
English memoirists
English pacifists
English socialists
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LGBT memoirists
LGBT writers from England
Mental health activists
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People with bipolar disorder
British social commentators
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Stephen-Bell family
Suicides by drowning in England
Women diarists
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Writers about activism and social change
Writers from London
20th-century memoirists
Dreadnought hoax
English feminist writers
Atheist feminists
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Pipe smokers | true | [
"Talland Bay () is west of the town of Looe in Cornwall. On Talland Bay are two sheltered shingle beaches, Talland Sand and Rotterdam Beach, and the bay was once well known as a landing spot for smugglers. It has also been the scene of many shipwrecks including that of a French trawler, the Marguerite, in March 1922. Two private boats performed a dramatic rescue and all 21 people were saved. The remains of the ship's boiler can still be clearly seen on the beach at low tide.\n\nThe hamlet of Talland with Talland Parish Church is nearby. Celebrity couple Richard Madeley and Judy Finnigan have a home in Talland Bay, There are several nautical measured miles around the British Isles including the mile between Talland Bay and Hannafore.\n\nLandscape and development\nThe area is one of the most unspoiled sections of the south west coast and is both a designated Area of Outstanding Beauty and a Heritage Coast, but in October 2007, Caradon District Council granted planning permission for a controversial development of 40 new homes costing between £285,000 and £350,000 after more than 100 local people lodged their objections.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n\n Community website\n The Marguerite shipwreck\n\nBays of Cornwall\nPolperro",
"Talland () is a hamlet and ecclesiastical parish between Looe and Polperro on the south coast of Cornwall (the parish includes the eastern part of the village of Polperro, where there is a chapel of ease and formerly also the town of West Looe). It is in the civil parish of Polperro and consists of a church, the Old Vicarage and a few houses.\n\nOn Talland Bay are two sheltered shingle beaches, Talland Sand and Rotterdam Beach, and the bay was once well known as a landing spot for smugglers. There are several small beaches in Talland Bay, served by a small car park and café. There is also Talland Bay Hotel. Two towers mark one end of a nautical measured mile, the other end is marked by two towers near Hannafore, West Looe.\n\nTalland Parish Church\n\nThe church at Talland, dramatically located on the cliff-top, is dedicated to St Tallan and as such is unique in Britain. Unusually it has a detached bell-tower on the south side which was joined to the main body of the church in the 15th century. There survives old woodwork in its fine wagon roofs; and the many benchends (partly ca. 1520, the rest ca. 1600) are of the usual Cornish type and among the finest examples of these.\n\nLandscape and development\nThe environment, one of the most unspoiled in south-west England, is a designated Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty and a Heritage Coast. In October 2007 Caradon District Council granted planning permission for the building of 40 houses costing between £285,000 and £350,000. This controversial development is supposedly in keeping with the local area.\n\nTalland Barton Farmland has been designated a Site of Special Scientific Interest for its assemblage of nationally rare and nationally scarce mosses; in particular for the many-fruited beardless moss (Weissia multicapsularis), which is known from only two sites worldwide.\n\nHistory and antiquities\nAn important source for the history is Jonathan Couch's History of Polperro, (1871), issued after his death by his son, Thomas Quiller Couch and abridgements of it have been issued many times since: see History of Polperro\n\nTalland Bay has been the scene of many shipwrecks including that of a French trawler, the Marguerite, in March 1922. Two private boats performed a dramatic rescue and all 21 people were saved. The remains of the ship's boiler can still be clearly seen on the beach at low tide.\n\nA stone cross was found in the 1920s at East Waylands Farm as part of farm buildings. On May 12, 1930 it was erected at Portlooe Cross, a road junction northeast of Portlooe Farm.\n\nWell-known occasional residents\nThe television presenters Richard Madeley and Judy Finnigan own a holiday home in Talland.\n\nReferences\n\n Talland Church 500 Celebrations: Souvenir Programme (1490-1990).\n\nExternal links\n\n Community website\n The Marguerite shipwreck\n Genealogical information\n Cornwall Record Office Online Catalogue for Talland\n\nHamlets in Cornwall\nPolperro"
]
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[
"Rabindranath Tagore",
"Twilight years: 1932-1941"
]
| C_3e16b1a1688e458a8ad42f4ee7308019_0 | What happened a Tagore twilight years? | 1 | What happened to Rabindranath Tagore during the twilight years? | Rabindranath Tagore | Dutta and Robinson describe this phase of Tagore's life as being one of a "peripatetic litterateur". It affirmed his opinion that human divisions were shallow. During a May 1932 visit to a Bedouin encampment in the Iraqi desert, the tribal chief told him that "Our prophet has said that a true Muslim is he by whose words and deeds not the least of his brother-men may ever come to any harm ..." Tagore confided in his diary: "I was startled into recognizing in his words the voice of essential humanity." To the end Tagore scrutinised orthodoxy--and in 1934, he struck. That year, an earthquake hit Bihar and killed thousands. Gandhi hailed it as seismic karma, as divine retribution avenging the oppression of Dalits. Tagore rebuked him for his seemingly ignominious implications. He mourned the perennial poverty of Calcutta and the socioeconomic decline of Bengal, and detailed these newly plebeian aesthetics in an unrhymed hundred-line poem whose technique of searing double-vision foreshadowed Satyajit Ray's film Apur Sansar. Fifteen new volumes appeared, among them prose-poem works Punashcha (1932), Shes Saptak (1935), and Patraput (1936). Experimentation continued in his prose-songs and dance-dramas-- Chitra (1914), Shyama (1939), and Chandalika (1938)-- and in his novels-- Dui Bon (1933), Malancha (1934), and Char Adhyay (1934). Tagore's remit expanded to science in his last years, as hinted in Visva-Parichay, a 1937 collection of essays. His respect for scientific laws and his exploration of biology, physics, and astronomy informed his poetry, which exhibited extensive naturalism and verisimilitude. He wove the process of science, the narratives of scientists, into stories in Se (1937), Tin Sangi (1940), and Galpasalpa (1941). His last five years were marked by chronic pain and two long periods of illness. These began when Tagore lost consciousness in late 1937; he remained comatose and near death for a time. This was followed in late 1940 by a similar spell, from which he never recovered. Poetry from these valetudinary years is among his finest. A period of prolonged agony ended with Tagore's death on 7 August 1941, aged eighty; he was in an upstairs room of the Jorasanko mansion he was raised in. The date is still mourned. A. K. Sen, brother of the first chief election commissioner, received dictation from Tagore on 30 July 1941, a day prior to a scheduled operation: his last poem. I'm lost in the middle of my birthday. I want my friends, their touch, with the earth's last love. I will take life's final offering, I will take the human's last blessing. Today my sack is empty. I have given completely whatever I had to give. In return if I receive anything--some love, some forgiveness--then I will take it with me when I step on the boat that crosses to the festival of the wordless end. CANNOTANSWER | Fifteen new volumes appeared, among them prose-poem works Punashcha (1932), Shes Saptak (1935), and Patraput (1936). | Rabindranath Tagore (, ; 7 May 1861 – 7 August 1941) was a Bengali polymath—poet, writer, playwright, composer, philosopher, social reformer and painter. He reshaped Bengali literature and music as well as Indian art with Contextual Modernism in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Author of the "profoundly sensitive, fresh and beautiful" poetry of Gitanjali, he became in 1913 the first non-European and the first lyricist to win the Nobel Prize in Literature. Tagore's poetic songs were viewed as spiritual and mercurial; however, his "elegant prose and magical poetry" remain largely unknown outside Bengal. He was a fellow of the Royal Asiatic Society. Referred to as "the Bard of Bengal", Tagore was known by sobriquets: Gurudev, Kobiguru, Biswakobi.
A Bengali Brahmin from Calcutta with ancestral gentry roots in Burdwan district and Jessore, Tagore wrote poetry as an eight-year-old. At the age of sixteen, he released his first substantial poems under the pseudonym Bhānusiṃha ("Sun Lion"), which were seized upon by literary authorities as long-lost classics. By 1877 he graduated to his first short stories and dramas, published under his real name. As a humanist, universalist, internationalist, and ardent anti-nationalist, he denounced the British Raj and advocated independence from Britain. As an exponent of the Bengal Renaissance, he advanced a vast canon that comprised paintings, sketches and doodles, hundreds of texts, and some two thousand songs; his legacy also endures in his founding of Visva-Bharati University.
Tagore modernised Bengali art by spurning rigid classical forms and resisting linguistic strictures. His novels, stories, songs, dance-dramas, and essays spoke to topics political and personal. Gitanjali (Song Offerings), Gora (Fair-Faced) and Ghare-Baire (The Home and the World) are his best-known works, and his verse, short stories, and novels were acclaimed—or panned—for their lyricism, colloquialism, naturalism, and unnatural contemplation. His compositions were chosen by two nations as national anthems: India's "Jana Gana Mana" and Bangladesh's "Amar Shonar Bangla". The Sri Lankan national anthem was inspired by his work.
Family history
The name Tagore is the anglicised transliteration of Thakur. The original surname of the Tagores was Kushari. They were Rarhi Brahmins and originally belonged to a village named Kush in the district named Burdwan in West Bengal. The biographer of Rabindranath Tagore, Prabhat Kumar Mukhopadhyaya wrote in the first volume of his book Rabindrajibani O Rabindra Sahitya Prabeshak that
{{Cquote|quote=The Kusharis were the descendants of Deen Kushari, the son of Bhatta Narayana; Deen was granted a village named Kush (in Burdwan zilla) by Maharaja Kshitisura, he became its chief and came to be known as Kushari.}}
Life and events
Early life: 1861–1878
The youngest of 13 surviving children, Tagore (nicknamed "Rabi") was born on 7 May 1861 in the Jorasanko mansion in Calcutta, the son of Debendranath Tagore (1817–1905) and Sarada Devi (1830–1875).
Tagore was raised mostly by servants; his mother had died in his early childhood and his father travelled widely. The Tagore family was at the forefront of the Bengal renaissance. They hosted the publication of literary magazines; theatre and recitals of Bengali and Western classical music featured there regularly. Tagore's father invited several professional Dhrupad musicians to stay in the house and teach Indian classical music to the children. Tagore's oldest brother Dwijendranath was a philosopher and poet. Another brother, Satyendranath, was the first Indian appointed to the elite and formerly all-European Indian Civil Service. Yet another brother, Jyotirindranath, was a musician, composer, and playwright. His sister Swarnakumari became a novelist. Jyotirindranath's wife Kadambari Devi, slightly older than Tagore, was a dear friend and powerful influence. Her abrupt suicide in 1884, soon after he married, left him profoundly distraught for years.
Tagore largely avoided classroom schooling and preferred to roam the manor or nearby Bolpur and Panihati, which the family visited. His brother Hemendranath tutored and physically conditioned him—by having him swim the Ganges or trek through hills, by gymnastics, and by practising judo and wrestling. He learned drawing, anatomy, geography and history, literature, mathematics, Sanskrit, and English—his least favourite subject. Tagore loathed formal education—his scholarly travails at the local Presidency College spanned a single day. Years later he held that proper teaching does not explain things; proper teaching stokes curiosity:
After his upanayan (coming-of-age rite) at age eleven, Tagore and his father left Calcutta in February 1873 to tour India for several months, visiting his father's Santiniketan estate and Amritsar before reaching the Himalayan hill station of Dalhousie. There Tagore read biographies, studied history, astronomy, modern science, and Sanskrit, and examined the classical poetry of Kālidāsa. During his 1-month stay at Amritsar in 1873 he was greatly influenced by melodious gurbani and nanak bani being sung at Golden Temple for which both father and son were regular visitors. He mentions about this in his My Reminiscences (1912) He wrote 6 poems relating to Sikhism and a number of articles in Bengali children's magazine about Sikhism.
Tagore returned to Jorosanko and completed a set of major works by 1877, one of them a long poem in the Maithili style of Vidyapati. As a joke, he claimed that these were the lost works of newly discovered 17th-century Vaiṣṇava poet Bhānusiṃha. Regional experts accepted them as the lost works of the fictitious poet. He debuted in the short-story genre in Bengali with "Bhikharini" ("The Beggar Woman"). Published in the same year, Sandhya Sangit (1882) includes the poem "Nirjharer Swapnabhanga" ("The Rousing of the Waterfall").
Shelaidaha: 1878–1901
Because Debendranath wanted his son to become a barrister, Tagore enrolled at a public school in Brighton, East Sussex, England in 1878. He stayed for several months at a house that the Tagore family owned near Brighton and Hove, in Medina Villas; in 1877 his nephew and niece—Suren and Indira Devi, the children of Tagore's brother Satyendranath—were sent together with their mother, Tagore's sister-in-law, to live with him. He briefly read law at University College London, but again left school, opting instead for independent study of Shakespeare's plays Coriolanus, and Antony and Cleopatra and the Religio Medici of Thomas Browne. Lively English, Irish, and Scottish folk tunes impressed Tagore, whose own tradition of Nidhubabu-authored kirtans and tappas and Brahmo hymnody was subdued. In 1880 he returned to Bengal degree-less, resolving to reconcile European novelty with Brahmo traditions, taking the best from each. After returning to Bengal, Tagore regularly published poems, stories, and novels. These had a profound impact within Bengal itself but received little national attention. In 1883 he married 10-year-old Mrinalini Devi, born Bhabatarini, 1873–1902 (this was a common practice at the time). They had five children, two of whom died in childhood.
In 1890 Tagore began managing his vast ancestral estates in Shelaidaha (today a region of Bangladesh); he was joined there by his wife and children in 1898. Tagore released his Manasi poems (1890), among his best-known work. As Zamindar Babu, Tagore criss-crossed the Padma River in command of the Padma, the luxurious family barge (also known as "budgerow"). He collected mostly token rents and blessed villagers who in turn honoured him with banquets—occasionally of dried rice and sour milk. He met Gagan Harkara, through whom he became familiar with Baul Lalon Shah, whose folk songs greatly influenced Tagore. Tagore worked to popularise Lalon's songs. The period 1891–1895, Tagore's Sadhana period, named after one of his magazines, was his most productive; in these years he wrote more than half the stories of the three-volume, 84-story Galpaguchchha. Its ironic and grave tales examined the voluptuous poverty of an idealised rural Bengal.
Santiniketan: 1901–1932
In 1901 Tagore moved to Santiniketan to found an ashram with a marble-floored prayer hall—The Mandir—an experimental school, groves of trees, gardens, a library. There his wife and two of his children died. His father died in 1905. He received monthly payments as part of his inheritance and income from the Maharaja of Tripura, sales of his family's jewellery, his seaside bungalow in Puri, and a derisory 2,000 rupees in book royalties. He gained Bengali and foreign readers alike; he published Naivedya (1901) and Kheya (1906) and translated poems into free verse.
In November 1913, Tagore learned he had won that year's Nobel Prize in Literature: the Swedish Academy appreciated the idealistic—and for Westerners—accessible nature of a small body of his translated material focused on the 1912 Gitanjali: Song Offerings. He was awarded a knighthood by King George V in the 1915 Birthday Honours, but Tagore renounced it after the 1919 Jallianwala Bagh massacre. Renouncing the knighthood, Tagore wrote in a letter addressed to Lord Chelmsford, the then British Viceroy of India, "The disproportionate severity of the punishments inflicted upon the unfortunate people and the methods of carrying them out, we are convinced, are without parallel in the history of civilised governments...The time has come when badges of honour make our shame glaring in their incongruous context of humiliation, and I for my part wish to stand, shorn of all special distinctions, by the side of my country men."
In 1919, he was invited by the president and chairman of Anjuman-e-Islamia, Syed Abdul Majid to visit Sylhet for the first time. The event attracted over 5000 people.
In 1921, Tagore and agricultural economist Leonard Elmhirst set up the "Institute for Rural Reconstruction", later renamed Shriniketan or "Abode of Welfare", in Surul, a village near the ashram. With it, Tagore sought to moderate Gandhi's Swaraj protests, which he occasionally blamed for British India's perceived mental – and thus ultimately colonial – decline. He sought aid from donors, officials, and scholars worldwide to "free village[s] from the shackles of helplessness and ignorance" by "vitalis[ing] knowledge". In the early 1930s he targeted ambient "abnormal caste consciousness" and untouchability. He lectured against these, he penned Dalit heroes for his poems and his dramas, and he campaigned—successfully—to open Guruvayoor Temple to Dalits.
Twilight years: 1932–1941
Dutta and Robinson describe this phase of Tagore's life as being one of a "peripatetic litterateur". It affirmed his opinion that human divisions were shallow. During a May 1932 visit to a Bedouin encampment in the Iraqi desert, the tribal chief told him that "Our Prophet has said that a true Muslim is he by whose words and deeds not the least of his brother-men may ever come to any harm ..." Tagore confided in his diary: "I was startled into recognizing in his words the voice of essential humanity." To the end Tagore scrutinised orthodoxy—and in 1934, he struck. That year, an earthquake hit Bihar and killed thousands. Gandhi hailed it as seismic karma, as divine retribution avenging the oppression of Dalits. Tagore rebuked him for his seemingly ignominious implications. He mourned the perennial poverty of Calcutta and the socioeconomic decline of Bengal, and detailed these newly plebeian aesthetics in an unrhymed hundred-line poem whose technique of searing double-vision foreshadowed Satyajit Ray's film Apur Sansar. Fifteen new volumes appeared, among them prose-poem works Punashcha (1932), Shes Saptak (1935), and Patraput (1936). Experimentation continued in his prose-songs and dance-dramas— Chitra (1914), Shyama (1939), and Chandalika (1938)— and in his novels— Dui Bon (1933), Malancha (1934), and Char Adhyay (1934).
Tagore's remit expanded to science in his last years, as hinted in Visva-Parichay, a 1937 collection of essays. His respect for scientific laws and his exploration of biology, physics, and astronomy informed his poetry, which exhibited extensive naturalism and verisimilitude. He wove the process of science, the narratives of scientists, into stories in Se (1937), Tin Sangi (1940), and Galpasalpa (1941). His last five years were marked by chronic pain and two long periods of illness. These began when Tagore lost consciousness in late 1937; he remained comatose and near death for a time. This was followed in late 1940 by a similar spell, from which he never recovered. Poetry from these valetudinary years is among his finest. A period of prolonged agony ended with Tagore's death on 7 August 1941, aged 80. He was in an upstairs room of the Jorasanko mansion in which he grew up. The date is still mourned. A. K. Sen, brother of the first chief election commissioner, received dictation from Tagore on 30 July 1941, a day prior to a scheduled operation: his last poem.
Travels
Between 1878 and 1932, Tagore set foot in more than thirty countries on five continents. In 1912, he took a sheaf of his translated works to England, where they gained attention from missionary and Gandhi protégé Charles F. Andrews, Irish poet William Butler Yeats, Ezra Pound, Robert Bridges, Ernest Rhys, Thomas Sturge Moore, and others. Yeats wrote the preface to the English translation of Gitanjali; Andrews joined Tagore at Santiniketan. In November 1912 Tagore began touring the United States and the United Kingdom, staying in Butterton, Staffordshire with Andrews's clergymen friends. From May 1916 until April 1917, he lectured in Japan and the United States. He denounced nationalism. His essay "Nationalism in India" was scorned and praised; it was admired by Romain Rolland and other pacifists.
Shortly after returning home the 63-year-old Tagore accepted an invitation from the Peruvian government. He travelled to Mexico. Each government pledged 100,000 to his school to commemorate the visits. A week after his 6 November 1924 arrival in Buenos Aires, an ill Tagore shifted to the Villa Miralrío at the behest of Victoria Ocampo. He left for home in January 1925. In May 1926 Tagore reached Naples; the next day he met Mussolini in Rome. Their warm rapport ended when Tagore pronounced upon Il Duces fascist finesse. He had earlier enthused: "[w]ithout any doubt he is a great personality. There is such a massive vigour in that head that it reminds one of Michael Angelo's chisel." A "fire-bath" of fascism was to have educed "the immortal soul of Italy ... clothed in quenchless light".
On 1 November 1926 Tagore arrived to Hungary and spent some time on the shore of Lake Balaton in the city of Balatonfüred, recovering from heart problems at a sanitarium. He planted a tree and a bust statue was placed there in 1956 (a gift from the Indian government, the work of Rasithan Kashar, replaced by a newly gifted statue in 2005) and the lakeside promenade still bears his name since 1957.
On 14 July 1927 Tagore and two companions began a four-month tour of Southeast Asia. They visited Bali, Java, Kuala Lumpur, Malacca, Penang, Siam, and Singapore. The resultant travelogues compose Jatri (1929). In early 1930 he left Bengal for a nearly year-long tour of Europe and the United States. Upon returning to Britain—and as his paintings were exhibited in Paris and London—he lodged at a Birmingham Quaker settlement. He wrote his Oxford Hibbert Lectures and spoke at the annual London Quaker meet. There, addressing relations between the British and the Indians – a topic he would tackle repeatedly over the next two years – Tagore spoke of a "dark chasm of aloofness". He visited Aga Khan III, stayed at Dartington Hall, toured Denmark, Switzerland, and Germany from June to mid-September 1930, then went on into the Soviet Union. In April 1932 Tagore, intrigued by the Persian mystic Hafez, was hosted by Reza Shah Pahlavi. In his other travels, Tagore interacted with Henri Bergson, Albert Einstein, Robert Frost, Thomas Mann, George Bernard Shaw, H.G. Wells, and Romain Rolland. Visits to Persia and Iraq (in 1932) and Sri Lanka (in 1933) composed Tagore's final foreign tour, and his dislike of communalism and nationalism only deepened.
Vice-President of India M. Hamid Ansari has said that Rabindranath Tagore heralded the cultural rapprochement between communities, societies and nations much before it became the liberal norm of conduct.
Tagore was a man ahead of his time. He wrote in 1932, while on a visit to Iran, that "each country of Asia will solve its own historical problems according to its strength, nature and needs, but the lamp they will each carry on their path to progress will converge to illuminate the common ray of knowledge."
Works
Known mostly for his poetry, Tagore wrote novels, essays, short stories, travelogues, dramas, and thousands of songs. Of Tagore's prose, his short stories are perhaps most highly regarded; he is indeed credited with originating the Bengali-language version of the genre. His works are frequently noted for their rhythmic, optimistic, and lyrical nature. Such stories mostly borrow from the lives of common people. Tagore's non-fiction grappled with history, linguistics, and spirituality. He wrote autobiographies. His travelogues, essays, and lectures were compiled into several volumes, including Europe Jatrir Patro (Letters from Europe) and Manusher Dhormo (The Religion of Man). His brief chat with Einstein, "Note on the Nature of Reality", is included as an appendix to the latter. On the occasion of Tagore's 150th birthday, an anthology (titled Kalanukromik Rabindra Rachanabali) of the total body of his works is currently being published in Bengali in chronological order. This includes all versions of each work and fills about eighty volumes. In 2011, Harvard University Press collaborated with Visva-Bharati University to publish The Essential Tagore, the largest anthology of Tagore's works available in English; it was edited by Fakrul Alam and Radha Chakravarthy and marks the 150th anniversary of Tagore's birth.
Drama
Tagore's experiences with drama began when he was sixteen, with his brother Jyotirindranath. He wrote his first original dramatic piece when he was twenty — Valmiki Pratibha which was shown at the Tagore's mansion. Tagore stated that his works sought to articulate "the play of feeling and not of action". In 1890 he wrote Visarjan (an adaptation of his novella Rajarshi), which has been regarded as his finest drama. In the original Bengali language, such works included intricate subplots and extended monologues. Later, Tagore's dramas used more philosophical and allegorical themes. The play Dak Ghar (The Post Office; 1912), describes the child Amal defying his stuffy and puerile confines by ultimately "fall[ing] asleep", hinting his physical death. A story with borderless appeal—gleaning rave reviews in Europe—Dak Ghar dealt with death as, in Tagore's words, "spiritual freedom" from "the world of hoarded wealth and certified creeds". Another is Tagore's Chandalika (Untouchable Girl), which was modelled on an ancient Buddhist legend describing how Ananda, the Gautama Buddha's disciple, asks a tribal girl for water. In Raktakarabi ("Red" or "Blood Oleanders") is an allegorical struggle against a kleptocrat king who rules over the residents of Yaksha puri.
Chitrangada, Chandalika, and Shyama are other key plays that have dance-drama adaptations, which together are known as Rabindra Nritya Natya.
Short stories
Tagore began his career in short stories in 1877—when he was only sixteen—with "Bhikharini" ("The Beggar Woman"). With this, Tagore effectively invented the Bengali-language short story genre. The four years from 1891 to 1895 are known as Tagore's "Sadhana" period (named for one of Tagore's magazines). This period was among Tagore's most fecund, yielding more than half the stories contained in the three-volume Galpaguchchha, which itself is a collection of eighty-four stories. Such stories usually showcase Tagore's reflections upon his surroundings, on modern and fashionable ideas, and on interesting mind puzzles (which Tagore was fond of testing his intellect with). Tagore typically associated his earliest stories (such as those of the "Sadhana" period) with an exuberance of vitality and spontaneity; these characteristics were intimately connected with Tagore's life in the common villages of, among others, Patisar, Shajadpur, and Shilaida while managing the Tagore family's vast landholdings. There, he beheld the lives of India's poor and common people; Tagore thereby took to examining their lives with a penetrative depth and feeling that was singular in Indian literature up to that point. In particular, such stories as "Kabuliwala" ("The Fruitseller from Kabul", published in 1892), "Kshudita Pashan" ("The Hungry Stones") (August 1895), and "Atithi" ("The Runaway", 1895) typified this analytic focus on the downtrodden. Many of the other Galpaguchchha stories were written in Tagore's Sabuj Patra period from 1914 to 1917, also named after one of the magazines that Tagore edited and heavily contributed to.
Novels
Tagore wrote eight novels and four novellas, among them Chaturanga, Shesher Kobita, Char Odhay, and Noukadubi. Ghare Baire (The Home and the World)—through the lens of the idealistic zamindar protagonist Nikhil—excoriates rising Indian nationalism, terrorism, and religious zeal in the Swadeshi movement; a frank expression of Tagore's conflicted sentiments, it emerged from a 1914 bout of depression. The novel ends in Hindu-Muslim violence and Nikhil's—likely mortal—wounding.
Gora raises controversial questions regarding the Indian identity. As with Ghare Baire, matters of self-identity (jāti), personal freedom, and religion are developed in the context of a family story and love triangle. In it an Irish boy orphaned in the Sepoy Mutiny is raised by Hindus as the titular gora—"whitey". Ignorant of his foreign origins, he chastises Hindu religious backsliders out of love for the indigenous Indians and solidarity with them against his hegemon-compatriots. He falls for a Brahmo girl, compelling his worried foster father to reveal his lost past and cease his nativist zeal. As a "true dialectic" advancing "arguments for and against strict traditionalism", it tackles the colonial conundrum by "portray[ing] the value of all positions within a particular frame [...] not only syncretism, not only liberal orthodoxy, but the extremest reactionary traditionalism he defends by an appeal to what humans share." Among these Tagore highlights "identity [...] conceived of as dharma."
In Jogajog (Relationships), the heroine Kumudini—bound by the ideals of Śiva-Sati, exemplified by Dākshāyani—is torn between her pity for the sinking fortunes of her progressive and compassionate elder brother and his foil: her roue of a husband. Tagore flaunts his feminist leanings; pathos depicts the plight and ultimate demise of women trapped by pregnancy, duty, and family honour; he simultaneously trucks with Bengal's putrescent landed gentry. The story revolves around the underlying rivalry between two families—the Chatterjees, aristocrats now on the decline (Biprodas) and the Ghosals (Madhusudan), representing new money and new arrogance. Kumudini, Biprodas' sister, is caught between the two as she is married off to Madhusudan. She had risen in an observant and sheltered traditional home, as had all her female relations.
Others were uplifting: Shesher Kobita—translated twice as Last Poem and Farewell Song—is his most lyrical novel, with poems and rhythmic passages written by a poet protagonist. It contains elements of satire and postmodernism and has stock characters who gleefully attack the reputation of an old, outmoded, oppressively renowned poet who, incidentally, goes by a familiar name: "Rabindranath Tagore". Though his novels remain among the least-appreciated of his works, they have been given renewed attention via film adaptations by Ray and others: Chokher Bali and Ghare Baire are exemplary. In the first, Tagore inscribes Bengali society via its heroine: a rebellious widow who would live for herself alone. He pillories the custom of perpetual mourning on the part of widows, who were not allowed to remarry, who were consigned to seclusion and loneliness. Tagore wrote of it: "I have always regretted the ending".
Poetry
Internationally, Gitanjali () is Tagore's best-known collection of poetry, for which he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1913. Tagore was the first non-European to receive a Nobel Prize in Literature and second non-European to receive a Nobel Prize after Theodore Roosevelt.
Besides Gitanjali, other notable works include Manasi, Sonar Tori ("Golden Boat"), Balaka ("Wild Geese" — the title being a metaphor for migrating souls)
Tagore's poetic style, which proceeds from a lineage established by 15th- and 16th-century Vaishnava poets, ranges from classical formalism to the comic, visionary, and ecstatic. He was influenced by the atavistic mysticism of Vyasa and other rishi-authors of the Upanishads, the Bhakti-Sufi mystic Kabir, and Ramprasad Sen. Tagore's most innovative and mature poetry embodies his exposure to Bengali rural folk music, which included mystic Baul ballads such as those of the bard Lalon. These, rediscovered and repopularised by Tagore, resemble 19th-century Kartābhajā hymns that emphasise inward divinity and rebellion against bourgeois bhadralok religious and social orthodoxy. During his Shelaidaha years, his poems took on a lyrical voice of the moner manush, the Bāuls' "man within the heart" and Tagore's "life force of his deep recesses", or meditating upon the jeevan devata—the demiurge or the "living God within". This figure connected with divinity through appeal to nature and the emotional interplay of human drama. Such tools saw use in his Bhānusiṃha poems chronicling the Radha-Krishna romance, which were repeatedly revised over the course of seventy years.
Later, with the development of new poetic ideas in Bengal – many originating from younger poets seeking to break with Tagore's style – Tagore absorbed new poetic concepts, which allowed him to further develop a unique identity. Examples of this include Africa and Camalia, which are among the better known of his latter poems.
Songs (Rabindra Sangeet)
Tagore was a prolific composer with around 2,230 songs to his credit. His songs are known as rabindrasangit ("Tagore Song"), which merges fluidly into his literature, most of which—poems or parts of novels, stories, or plays alike—were lyricised. Influenced by the thumri style of Hindustani music, they ran the entire gamut of human emotion, ranging from his early dirge-like Brahmo devotional hymns to quasi-erotic compositions. They emulated the tonal colour of classical ragas to varying extents. Some songs mimicked a given raga's melody and rhythm faithfully; others newly blended elements of different ragas. Yet about nine-tenths of his work was not bhanga gaan, the body of tunes revamped with "fresh value" from select Western, Hindustani, Bengali folk and other regional flavours "external" to Tagore's own ancestral culture.
In 1971, Amar Shonar Bangla became the national anthem of Bangladesh. It was written – ironically – to protest the 1905 Partition of Bengal along communal lines: cutting off the Muslim-majority East Bengal from Hindu-dominated West Bengal was to avert a regional bloodbath. Tagore saw the partition as a cunning plan to stop the independence movement, and he aimed to rekindle Bengali unity and tar communalism. Jana Gana Mana was written in shadhu-bhasha, a Sanskritised form of Bengali, and is the first of five stanzas of the Brahmo hymn Bharot Bhagyo Bidhata that Tagore composed. It was first sung in 1911 at a Calcutta session of the Indian National Congress and was adopted in 1950 by the Constituent Assembly of the Republic of India as its national anthem.
The Sri Lanka's National Anthem was inspired by his work.
For Bengalis, the songs' appeal, stemming from the combination of emotive strength and beauty described as surpassing even Tagore's poetry, was such that the Modern Review observed that "[t]here is in Bengal no cultured home where Rabindranath's songs are not sung or at least attempted to be sung... Even illiterate villagers sing his songs". Tagore influenced sitar maestro Vilayat Khan and sarodiyas Buddhadev Dasgupta and Amjad Ali Khan.
Art works
At sixty, Tagore took up drawing and painting; successful exhibitions of his many works—which made a debut appearance in Paris upon encouragement by artists he met in the south of France—were held throughout Europe. He was likely red-green colour blind, resulting in works that exhibited strange colour schemes and off-beat aesthetics. Tagore was influenced by numerous styles, including scrimshaw by the Malanggan people of northern New Ireland, Papua New Guinea, Haida carvings from the Pacific Northwest region of North America, and woodcuts by the German Max Pechstein. His artist's eye for handwriting was revealed in the simple artistic and rhythmic leitmotifs embellishing the scribbles, cross-outs, and word layouts of his manuscripts. Some of Tagore's lyrics corresponded in a synesthetic sense with particular paintings.
India's National Gallery of Modern Art lists 102 works by Tagore in its collections.
Politics
Tagore opposed imperialism and supported Indian nationalists, and these views were first revealed in Manast, which was mostly composed in his twenties. Evidence produced during the Hindu–German Conspiracy Trial and latter accounts affirm his awareness of the Ghadarites, and stated that he sought the support of Japanese Prime Minister Terauchi Masatake and former Premier Ōkuma Shigenobu. Yet he lampooned the Swadeshi movement; he rebuked it in The Cult of the Charkha, an acrid 1925 essay. According to Amartya Sen, Tagore rebelled against strongly nationalist forms of the independence movement, and he wanted to assert India's right to be independent without denying the importance of what India could learn from abroad. He urged the masses to avoid victimology and instead seek self-help and education, and he saw the presence of British administration as a "political symptom of our social disease". He maintained that, even for those at the extremes of poverty, "there can be no question of blind revolution"; preferable to it was a "steady and purposeful education".
Such views enraged many. He escaped assassination—and only narrowly—by Indian expatriates during his stay in a San Francisco hotel in late 1916; the plot failed when his would-be assassins fell into argument. Tagore wrote songs lionising the Indian independence movement. Two of Tagore's more politically charged compositions, "Chitto Jetha Bhayshunyo" ("Where the Mind is Without Fear") and "Ekla Chalo Re" ("If They Answer Not to Thy Call, Walk Alone"), gained mass appeal, with the latter favoured by Gandhi. Though somewhat critical of Gandhian activism, Tagore was key in resolving a Gandhi–Ambedkar dispute involving separate electorates for untouchables, thereby mooting at least one of Gandhi's fasts "unto death".
Repudiation of knighthood
Tagore renounced his knighthood in response to the Jallianwala Bagh massacre in 1919. In the repudiation letter to the Viceroy, Lord Chelmsford, he wrote
Santiniketan and Visva-Bharati
Tagore despised rote classroom schooling: in "The Parrot's Training", a bird is caged and force-fed textbook pages—to death. Tagore, visiting Santa Barbara in 1917, conceived a new type of university: he sought to "make Santiniketan the connecting thread between India and the world [and] a world center for the study of humanity somewhere beyond the limits of nation and geography." The school, which he named Visva-Bharati, had its foundation stone laid on 24 December 1918 and was inaugurated precisely three years later. Tagore employed a brahmacharya system: gurus gave pupils personal guidance—emotional, intellectual, and spiritual. Teaching was often done under trees. He staffed the school, he contributed his Nobel Prize monies, and his duties as steward-mentor at Santiniketan kept him busy: mornings he taught classes; afternoons and evenings he wrote the students' textbooks. He fundraised widely for the school in Europe and the United States between 1919 and 1921.
Theft of Nobel Prize
On 25 March 2004, Tagore's Nobel Prize was stolen from the safety vault of the Visva-Bharati University, along with several other of his belongings. On 7 December 2004, the Swedish Academy decided to present two replicas of Tagore's Nobel Prize, one made of gold and the other made of bronze, to the Visva-Bharati University. It inspired the fictional film Nobel Chor. In 2016, a baul singer named Pradip Bauri accused of sheltering the thieves was arrested and the prize was returned.
Impact and legacy
Every year, many events pay tribute to Tagore: Kabipranam, his birth anniversary, is celebrated by groups scattered across the globe; the annual Tagore Festival held in Urbana, Illinois (USA); Rabindra Path Parikrama walking pilgrimages from Kolkata to Santiniketan; and recitals of his poetry, which are held on important anniversaries. Bengali culture is fraught with this legacy: from language and arts to history and politics. Amartya Sen deemed Tagore a "towering figure", a "deeply relevant and many-sided contemporary thinker". Tagore's Bengali originals—the 1939 Rabīndra Rachanāvalī—is canonised as one of his nation's greatest cultural treasures, and he was roped into a reasonably humble role: "the greatest poet India has produced".
Tagore was renowned throughout much of Europe, North America, and East Asia. He co-founded Dartington Hall School, a progressive coeducational institution; in Japan, he influenced such figures as Nobel laureate Yasunari Kawabata. In colonial Vietnam Tagore was a guide for the restless spirit of the radical writer and publicist Nguyen An Ninh Tagore's works were widely translated into English, Dutch, German, Spanish, and other European languages by Czech Indologist Vincenc Lesný, French Nobel laureate André Gide, Russian poet Anna Akhmatova, former Turkish Prime Minister Bülent Ecevit, and others. In the United States, Tagore's lecturing circuits, particularly those of 1916–1917, were widely attended and wildly acclaimed. Some controversies involving Tagore, possibly fictive, trashed his popularity and sales in Japan and North America after the late 1920s, concluding with his "near total eclipse" outside Bengal. Yet a latent reverence of Tagore was discovered by an astonished Salman Rushdie during a trip to Nicaragua.
By way of translations, Tagore influenced Chileans Pablo Neruda and Gabriela Mistral; Mexican writer Octavio Paz; and Spaniards José Ortega y Gasset, Zenobia Camprubí, and Juan Ramón Jiménez. In the period 1914–1922, the Jiménez-Camprubí pair produced twenty-two Spanish translations of Tagore's English corpus; they heavily revised The Crescent Moon and other key titles. In these years, Jiménez developed "naked poetry". Ortega y Gasset wrote that "Tagore's wide appeal [owes to how] he speaks of longings for perfection that we all have [...] Tagore awakens a dormant sense of childish wonder, and he saturates the air with all kinds of enchanting promises for the reader, who [...] pays little attention to the deeper import of Oriental mysticism". Tagore's works circulated in free editions around 1920—alongside those of Plato, Dante, Cervantes, Goethe, and Tolstoy.
Tagore was deemed over-rated by some. Graham Greene doubted that "anyone but Mr. Yeats can still take his poems very seriously." Several prominent Western admirers—including Pound and, to a lesser extent, even Yeats—criticised Tagore's work. Yeats, unimpressed with his English translations, railed against that "Damn Tagore [...] We got out three good books, Sturge Moore and I, and then, because he thought it more important to see and know English than to be a great poet, he brought out sentimental rubbish and wrecked his reputation. Tagore does not know English, no Indian knows English." William Radice, who "English[ed]" his poems, asked: "What is their place in world literature?" He saw him as "kind of counter-cultur[al]", bearing "a new kind of classicism" that would heal the "collapsed romantic confusion and chaos of the 20th [c]entury." The translated Tagore was "almost nonsensical", and subpar English offerings reduced his trans-national appeal:
Museums
There are eight Tagore museums. Three in India and five in Bangladesh:
Rabindra Bharati Museum, at Jorasanko Thakur Bari, Kolkata, India
Tagore Memorial Museum, at Shilaidaha Kuthibadi, Shilaidaha, Bangladesh
Rabindra Memorial Museum at Shahzadpur Kachharibari, Shahzadpur, Bangladesh
Rabindra Bhavan Museum, in Santiniketan, India
Rabindra Museum, in Mungpoo, near Kalimpong, India
Patisar Rabindra Kacharibari, Patisar, Atrai, Naogaon, Bangladesh
Pithavoge Rabindra Memorial Complex, Pithavoge, Rupsha, Khulna, Bangladesh
Rabindra Complex, Dakkhindihi village, Phultala Upazila, Khulna, Bangladesh
Jorasanko Thakur Bari (Bengali: House of the Thakurs; anglicised to Tagore) in Jorasanko, north of Kolkata, is the ancestral home of the Tagore family. It is currently located on the Rabindra Bharati University campus at 6/4 Dwarakanath Tagore Lane Jorasanko, Kolkata 700007. It is the house in which Tagore was born. It is also the place where he spent most of his childhood and where he died on 7 August 1941.
Rabindra Complex is located in Dakkhindihi village, near Phultala Upazila, from Khulna city, Bangladesh. It was the residence of tagores father-in-law, Beni Madhab Roy Chowdhury. Tagore family had close connection with Dakkhindihi village. The maternal ancestral home of the great poet was also situated at Dakkhindihi village, poets mother Sarada Sundari Devi and his paternal aunt by marriage Tripura Sundari Devi; was born in this village.Young tagore used to visit Dakkhindihi village with his mother to visit his maternal uncles in her mothers ancestral home. Tagore visited this place several times in his life. It has been declared as a protected archaeological site by Department of Archaeology of Bangladesh and converted into a museum. In 1995, the local administration took charge of the house and on 14 November of that year, the Rabindra Complex project was decided. Bangladesh Governments Department of Archeology has carried out the renovation work to make the house a museum titled ‘Rabindra Complex’ in 2011–12 fiscal year. The two-storey museum building has four rooms on the first floor and two rooms on the ground floor at present. The building has eight windows on the ground floor and 21 windows on the first floor. The height of the roof from the floor on the ground floor is 13 feet. There are seven doors, six windows and wall almirahs on the first floor. Over 500 books were kept in the library and all the rooms have been decorated with rare pictures of Rabindranath. Over 10,000 visitors come here every year to see the museum from different parts of the country and also from abroad, said Saifur Rahman, assistant director of the Department of Archeology in Khulna. A bust of Rabindranath Tagore is also there. Every year on 25–27 Baishakh (after the Bengali New Year Celebration), cultural programs are held here which lasts for three days.
List of works
The SNLTR hosts the 1415 BE edition of Tagore's complete Bengali works. Tagore Web also hosts an edition of Tagore's works, including annotated songs. Translations are found at Project Gutenberg and Wikisource. More sources are below.
Original
Translated
Adaptations of novels and short stories in cinema
Bengali
Natir Puja – 1932 – The only film directed by Rabindranath Tagore
Gora — 1938 Gora (novel) — Naresh Mitra
Noukadubi– Nitin Bose
Bou Thakuranir Haat – 1953 (Bou Thakuranir Haat) – Naresh Mitra
Kabuliwala – 1957 (Kabuliwala) – Tapan Sinha
Kshudhita Pashan – 1960 (Kshudhita Pashan) – Tapan Sinha
Teen Kanya – 1961 (Teen Kanya) – Satyajit Ray
Charulata - 1964 (Nastanirh) – Satyajit Ray
Megh o Roudra – 1969 (Megh o Roudra) – Arundhati Devi
Ghare Baire – 1985 (Ghare Baire) – Satyajit Ray
Chokher Bali – 2003 (Chokher Bali) – Rituparno Ghosh
Shasti – 2004 (Shasti) – Chashi Nazrul Islam
Shuva – 2006 (Shuvashini) – Chashi Nazrul Islam
Chaturanga – 2008 (Chaturanga) – Suman Mukhopadhyay
Noukadubi – 2011 (Noukadubi) – Rituparno Ghosh
Elar Char Adhyay – 2012 (Char Adhyay) – Bappaditya Bandyopadhyay
Hindi
Sacrifice – 1927 (Balidan) – Nanand Bhojai and Naval Gandhi
Milan – 1946 (Nauka Dubi) – Nitin Bose
Dak Ghar – 1965 (Dak Ghar) – Zul Vellani
Kabuliwala – 1961 (Kabuliwala) – Bimal Roy
Uphaar – 1971 (Samapti) – Sudhendu Roy
Lekin... – 1991 (Kshudhit Pashaan) – Gulzar
Char Adhyay – 1997 (Char Adhyay) – Kumar Shahani
Kashmakash – 2011 (Nauka Dubi) – Rituparno Ghosh
Stories by Rabindranath Tagore (Anthology TV Series) – 2015 – Anurag Basu
Bioscopewala – 2017 (Kabuliwala) – Deb MedhekarBhikharinIn popular cultureRabindranath Tagore is a 1961 Indian documentary film written and directed by Satyajit Ray, released during the birth centenary of Tagore. It was produced by the Government of India's Films Division.
In Sukanta Roy's Bengali film Chhelebela (2002) Jisshu Sengupta portrayed Tagore.
In Bandana Mukhopadhyay's Bengali film Chirosakha He (2007) Sayandip Bhattacharya played Tagore.
In Rituparno Ghosh's Bengali documentary film Jeevan Smriti (2011) Samadarshi Dutta played Tagore.
In Suman Ghosh's Bengali film Kadambari (2015) Parambrata Chatterjee portrayed Tagore.
See also
List of Indian writers
Kazi Nazrul Islam
Rabindra Jayanti
Rabindra Puraskar
Tagore familyAn Artist in Life — biography by Niharranjan Ray
Taptapadi
Timeline of Rabindranath Tagore
Music of Bengal
References
Notes
Citations
Writers from Kolkata
Bibliography
Primary
Anthologies
Originals
Translations
Secondary
Articles
Books
Other
Texts
Original
Translated
Further reading
External links
School of Wisdom
Analyses
Ezra Pound: "Rabindranath Tagore", The Fortnightly Review'', March 1913
Mary Lago Collection, University of MissouriAudiobooks Texts
Bichitra: Online Tagore Variorum
Talks'''
South Asian American Digital Archive (SAADA)
1861 births
1941 deaths
Presidency University, Kolkata alumni
Alumni of University College London
Bengali people
Bengali Hindus
Bengali philosophers
Bengali writers
Bengali zamindars
Brahmos
Founders of Indian schools and colleges
Indian Nobel laureates
National anthem writers
Nobel laureates in Literature
People associated with Santiniketan
Oriental Seminary alumni
Vangiya Sahitya Parishad
English-language poets from India
19th-century Bengali poets
Bengali-language poets
Indian Hindus
Indian male dramatists and playwrights
Indian male songwriters
Indian male essayists
19th-century Indian painters
Rabindranath
Musicians from Kolkata
19th-century Indian educational theorists
Indian portrait painters
Artist authors
Indian male poets
20th-century Indian painters
19th-century Indian poets
20th-century Indian poets
19th-century Indian musicians
19th-century Indian composers
20th-century Indian composers
19th-century Indian philosophers
20th-century Indian philosophers
20th-century Bengali poets
Bengali male poets
Indian male painters
Poets from West Bengal
19th-century Indian dramatists and playwrights
20th-century Indian dramatists and playwrights
20th-century Indian essayists
19th-century Indian essayists
20th-century Indian novelists
20th-century Indian educational theorists
Knights Bachelor
Painters from West Bengal
19th-century male musicians
Indian classical composers
19th-century classical musicians
Haiku poets
Google Doodles | true | [
"The first four decades in the life of Rabindranath Tagore (1861–1941) were formative of both his artistic and much of his political thinking. He was a Bengali poet, Brahmo philosopher, and scholar. His father Debendranath Tagore fought against the British soldiers.\n\nFamily background\nTagore was born at No. 7 Dwarkanath Tagore Lane, Jorasanko — the address of his family mansion. In turn, Jorasanko was located in the Bengali section of north Calcutta (now Kolkata), located near Chitpur Road. The area immediately around the Jorasanko Tagore mansion was rife with poverty and prostitution. He was the son of Debendranath Tagore (1817–1905) and Sarada Devi (1830–1875). Debendranath Tagore had formulated the Brahmo faith propagated by his friend, the reformer Raja Ram Mohan Roy. Debendranath became the central figure in Brahmo society after Roy's death, who was addressed out of respect by followers as maharishi. He continued to lead the Adi Brahmo Samaj until he died. Women who married into Tagore's clan were generally from the villages of East Bengal (now Bangladesh)\n\nChildhood (1861–1872)\nTagore was born on 7 May 1861 the youngest son and ninth of thirteen children. As a child, Tagore lived amidst an atmosphere where literary magazines were published, musical recitals were held, and theatre performed. The Jorasanko Tagore were indeed at the center of a large and art-loving social group. Tagore's oldest brother, Dwijendranath, was a respected philosopher and poet. Another brother, Satyendranath, was the first ethnically Indian member appointed to the elite and formerly all-white Indian Civil Service. Yet another brother, Jyotirindranath Tagore, was a talented musician, composer, and playwright. Among his sisters, Swarnakumari Devi earned fame as a novelist in her own right. Jyotirindranath's wife, Kadambari Devi — who was slightly older than Tagore — was a dear friend and a powerful influence on Tagore. Her abrupt suicide in 1884 left him distraught for years, and left a profound mark on the emotional timbre of Tagore's literary life.\n\nFor the first decade or so of his life, Tagore remained distant from his father, who was frequently away touring northern India, England, and other places. Meanwhile, Tagore was mostly confined to the family compound — he was forbidden to leave it for any purpose other than travelling to school. He thereby grew increasingly restless for the outside world, open spaces, and nature. On the other hand, Tagore was intimidated by the mansion's perceived ghostly and enigmatic aura. Further, Tagore was ordered about the house by servants in a period he would later designate as a \"servocracy\". Incidents included servants dunking the heads of Tagore and his siblings into drinking water held by giant clay cisterns — used as a means to quiet the children. In addition, Tagore often refused food to satisfy servants, was confined to a chalk circle by the second-in-command servant named Shyam in parody of an analogous forest trial that Sita underwent in the Ramayana, and was told horrific stories telling the bloody exploits of outlaw dacoits.\n\nTagore was also tutored at home by Hemendranath, his brother. While being physically conditioned — for example, swimming in the Ganges River, taking long treks through hilly areas, and practicing judo and wrestling — he was also given Bengali-language lessons in anatomy, drawing, English language (Tagore's least favorite subject), geography, gymnastics, history, literature, mathematics, and Sanskrit imparted before and after school. Meanwhile, Tagore was developing an aversion towards formal learning and schooling, stating later that the role of teaching was not to explain things, but rather to\n\n{|style=\"border:1px; border: thin solid white; background-color:#f6f6FF; margin:20px;\" cellpadding=\"10\"\n|-\n|\"knock at the doors of the mind. If any boy is asked to give an account of what is awakened in him by such knocking, he will probably say something silly. For what happens within is much bigger than what comes out in words. Those who pin their faith on university examinations as the test of education take no account of this.\"\n|}\n\nTagore started writing poems around age eight, and he was urged by an older brother to recite these to people in the mansion — including to an impressed Brahmo nationalist, newspaper editor, and Hindu Mela organizer. At age eleven, Tagore underwent the upanayan coming-of-age rite: he and two relatives were shaved bald and sent into retreat, where they were to chant and meditate. Tagore instead rollicked, beating drums and pulling his brothers' ears, after which he received a sacred thread of investiture. Afterward, on February 14, 1873, Tagore experienced the first close contact with his father when they set out together from Calcutta on a months-long tour of India. They first made for Shantiniketan (\"Abode of Peace\"), a family estate acquired in 1863 by Debendranath composed of two rooms set amidst a mango grove, trees, and plants. Tagore later recalled his stay among the rice paddies:\n\n{|style=\"border:1px; border: thin solid white; background-color:#f6f6FF; margin:20px;\" cellpadding=\"10\"\n|-\n|\"What I could not see did not take me long to get over — what I did see was quite enough. There was no servant rule, and the only ring which encircled me was the blue of the horizon, drawn around these [rural] solitudes by their presiding goddess. Within this I was free to move about as I chose.\"\n|}\n\nAfter several weeks, they traveled to Amritsar, staying near the Harmandir Sahib and worshipping at a Sikh gurudwara. They also read English- and Sanskrit-language books, exposing Tagore to astronomy, biographies of such figures as Benjamin Franklin, and Edward Gibbon's The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. Later, in mid-April, Tagore and his father set off for the remote and frigid Himalayan hill station of Dalhousie, India, near what is now Himachal Pradesh's border with Kashmir. There, at an elevation of some 2,300 meters (7,500 feet), they lived in a house high atop Bakrota hill. Tagore was taken aback by the region's deep gorges, alpine forests, and mossy streams and waterfalls. Yet Tagore was also made to study lessons — including such things as Sanskrit declensions — starting in the icy pre-dawn twilight. Tagore took a break from his readings for a noontime meal; thereafter, Tagore was to continue his studies, although he was often allowed to fall asleep. Some two months later, Tagore left his father in Dalhousie and journeyed back to Calcutta.\nIn early October 1878, Tagore traveled to England with the intent of becoming a barrister. He first stayed for some months at a house that the Tagore family owned near Brighton and Hove, in Medina Villas; there, he attended a Brighton school (not, as has been claimed, Brighton College — his name does not appear in its admissions register). In 1877, his nephew and niece — Suren and Indira, the children of Tagore's brother Satyendranath — were sent together with their mother (Tagore's sister-in-law) to live with him. Later, after spending Christmas of 1878 with his family, Tagore was escorted by a friend of his elder brother to London; there, Tagore's relatives hoped that he would focus more on his studies. He enrolled at University College London. However, he never completed his degree, leaving England after staying just over a year. This exposure to English culture and language would later percolate into his earlier acquaintance with Bengali musical tradition, allowing him to create new modes of music, poetry, and drama. However, Tagore neither fully embraced English strictures nor his family's traditionally strict Hindu religious observances either in his life or his art, choosing instead to pick the best from both realms of experience.\n\nSee also\n Middle years of Rabindranath Tagore .\n\nCitations\n\nReferences\n\n .\n .\n\n .\n .\n\nRabindranath Tagore\nVangiya Sahitya Parishad\n19th century in India\nTagore",
"Nilmoni Tagore (1721–1791) was a scion of Tagore family who, founded the Jorasanko branch of Tagore family leaving the old house of Pathuriaghata. In year 1758, he started to build what is now known as Jorasanko Thakur Bari. Nilmoni and Darpnarayan were two sons of Jairam Thakur, who was employed with British East India Company. While Darpnarayan developed his business and lands, Nilmoni chose to serve British and rose to the Serishtadarship of District Court. He received an amount of Rupees One lakh from his brother Darpnarayan, as a settlement amount of family dispute and shifted to Jorasanko and built house there.\n\nHe had three sons, Ramlochan Tagore (1759-1804), Rammoni Tagore (1759-1833) and Rambullav Tagore (1767-1824). Rammoni Tagore had three sons, Radhanath, Dwarkanath and Ramanath Tagore Ramlochan Tagore had no son, so he adopted the second son of his brother Rammoni, the legendary Dwarkanath Tagore, who was illustrious and under him the fortunes of Jorasanko branch of Tagore touched high.\n\nReferences\n\n1721 births\n1791 deaths\nTagore family\nPeople from Kolkata"
]
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[
"Rabindranath Tagore",
"Twilight years: 1932-1941",
"What happened a Tagore twilight years?",
"Fifteen new volumes appeared, among them prose-poem works Punashcha (1932), Shes Saptak (1935), and Patraput (1936)."
]
| C_3e16b1a1688e458a8ad42f4ee7308019_0 | Which names are worth mentioning as a contribution to this part of his life? | 2 | Which names are worth mentioning as a contribution to the twilight years of Rabindranath Tagore's life? | Rabindranath Tagore | Dutta and Robinson describe this phase of Tagore's life as being one of a "peripatetic litterateur". It affirmed his opinion that human divisions were shallow. During a May 1932 visit to a Bedouin encampment in the Iraqi desert, the tribal chief told him that "Our prophet has said that a true Muslim is he by whose words and deeds not the least of his brother-men may ever come to any harm ..." Tagore confided in his diary: "I was startled into recognizing in his words the voice of essential humanity." To the end Tagore scrutinised orthodoxy--and in 1934, he struck. That year, an earthquake hit Bihar and killed thousands. Gandhi hailed it as seismic karma, as divine retribution avenging the oppression of Dalits. Tagore rebuked him for his seemingly ignominious implications. He mourned the perennial poverty of Calcutta and the socioeconomic decline of Bengal, and detailed these newly plebeian aesthetics in an unrhymed hundred-line poem whose technique of searing double-vision foreshadowed Satyajit Ray's film Apur Sansar. Fifteen new volumes appeared, among them prose-poem works Punashcha (1932), Shes Saptak (1935), and Patraput (1936). Experimentation continued in his prose-songs and dance-dramas-- Chitra (1914), Shyama (1939), and Chandalika (1938)-- and in his novels-- Dui Bon (1933), Malancha (1934), and Char Adhyay (1934). Tagore's remit expanded to science in his last years, as hinted in Visva-Parichay, a 1937 collection of essays. His respect for scientific laws and his exploration of biology, physics, and astronomy informed his poetry, which exhibited extensive naturalism and verisimilitude. He wove the process of science, the narratives of scientists, into stories in Se (1937), Tin Sangi (1940), and Galpasalpa (1941). His last five years were marked by chronic pain and two long periods of illness. These began when Tagore lost consciousness in late 1937; he remained comatose and near death for a time. This was followed in late 1940 by a similar spell, from which he never recovered. Poetry from these valetudinary years is among his finest. A period of prolonged agony ended with Tagore's death on 7 August 1941, aged eighty; he was in an upstairs room of the Jorasanko mansion he was raised in. The date is still mourned. A. K. Sen, brother of the first chief election commissioner, received dictation from Tagore on 30 July 1941, a day prior to a scheduled operation: his last poem. I'm lost in the middle of my birthday. I want my friends, their touch, with the earth's last love. I will take life's final offering, I will take the human's last blessing. Today my sack is empty. I have given completely whatever I had to give. In return if I receive anything--some love, some forgiveness--then I will take it with me when I step on the boat that crosses to the festival of the wordless end. CANNOTANSWER | earthquake hit Bihar and killed thousands. Gandhi hailed it as seismic karma, as divine retribution avenging the oppression of Dalits. Tagore rebuked him | Rabindranath Tagore (, ; 7 May 1861 – 7 August 1941) was a Bengali polymath—poet, writer, playwright, composer, philosopher, social reformer and painter. He reshaped Bengali literature and music as well as Indian art with Contextual Modernism in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Author of the "profoundly sensitive, fresh and beautiful" poetry of Gitanjali, he became in 1913 the first non-European and the first lyricist to win the Nobel Prize in Literature. Tagore's poetic songs were viewed as spiritual and mercurial; however, his "elegant prose and magical poetry" remain largely unknown outside Bengal. He was a fellow of the Royal Asiatic Society. Referred to as "the Bard of Bengal", Tagore was known by sobriquets: Gurudev, Kobiguru, Biswakobi.
A Bengali Brahmin from Calcutta with ancestral gentry roots in Burdwan district and Jessore, Tagore wrote poetry as an eight-year-old. At the age of sixteen, he released his first substantial poems under the pseudonym Bhānusiṃha ("Sun Lion"), which were seized upon by literary authorities as long-lost classics. By 1877 he graduated to his first short stories and dramas, published under his real name. As a humanist, universalist, internationalist, and ardent anti-nationalist, he denounced the British Raj and advocated independence from Britain. As an exponent of the Bengal Renaissance, he advanced a vast canon that comprised paintings, sketches and doodles, hundreds of texts, and some two thousand songs; his legacy also endures in his founding of Visva-Bharati University.
Tagore modernised Bengali art by spurning rigid classical forms and resisting linguistic strictures. His novels, stories, songs, dance-dramas, and essays spoke to topics political and personal. Gitanjali (Song Offerings), Gora (Fair-Faced) and Ghare-Baire (The Home and the World) are his best-known works, and his verse, short stories, and novels were acclaimed—or panned—for their lyricism, colloquialism, naturalism, and unnatural contemplation. His compositions were chosen by two nations as national anthems: India's "Jana Gana Mana" and Bangladesh's "Amar Shonar Bangla". The Sri Lankan national anthem was inspired by his work.
Family history
The name Tagore is the anglicised transliteration of Thakur. The original surname of the Tagores was Kushari. They were Rarhi Brahmins and originally belonged to a village named Kush in the district named Burdwan in West Bengal. The biographer of Rabindranath Tagore, Prabhat Kumar Mukhopadhyaya wrote in the first volume of his book Rabindrajibani O Rabindra Sahitya Prabeshak that
{{Cquote|quote=The Kusharis were the descendants of Deen Kushari, the son of Bhatta Narayana; Deen was granted a village named Kush (in Burdwan zilla) by Maharaja Kshitisura, he became its chief and came to be known as Kushari.}}
Life and events
Early life: 1861–1878
The youngest of 13 surviving children, Tagore (nicknamed "Rabi") was born on 7 May 1861 in the Jorasanko mansion in Calcutta, the son of Debendranath Tagore (1817–1905) and Sarada Devi (1830–1875).
Tagore was raised mostly by servants; his mother had died in his early childhood and his father travelled widely. The Tagore family was at the forefront of the Bengal renaissance. They hosted the publication of literary magazines; theatre and recitals of Bengali and Western classical music featured there regularly. Tagore's father invited several professional Dhrupad musicians to stay in the house and teach Indian classical music to the children. Tagore's oldest brother Dwijendranath was a philosopher and poet. Another brother, Satyendranath, was the first Indian appointed to the elite and formerly all-European Indian Civil Service. Yet another brother, Jyotirindranath, was a musician, composer, and playwright. His sister Swarnakumari became a novelist. Jyotirindranath's wife Kadambari Devi, slightly older than Tagore, was a dear friend and powerful influence. Her abrupt suicide in 1884, soon after he married, left him profoundly distraught for years.
Tagore largely avoided classroom schooling and preferred to roam the manor or nearby Bolpur and Panihati, which the family visited. His brother Hemendranath tutored and physically conditioned him—by having him swim the Ganges or trek through hills, by gymnastics, and by practising judo and wrestling. He learned drawing, anatomy, geography and history, literature, mathematics, Sanskrit, and English—his least favourite subject. Tagore loathed formal education—his scholarly travails at the local Presidency College spanned a single day. Years later he held that proper teaching does not explain things; proper teaching stokes curiosity:
After his upanayan (coming-of-age rite) at age eleven, Tagore and his father left Calcutta in February 1873 to tour India for several months, visiting his father's Santiniketan estate and Amritsar before reaching the Himalayan hill station of Dalhousie. There Tagore read biographies, studied history, astronomy, modern science, and Sanskrit, and examined the classical poetry of Kālidāsa. During his 1-month stay at Amritsar in 1873 he was greatly influenced by melodious gurbani and nanak bani being sung at Golden Temple for which both father and son were regular visitors. He mentions about this in his My Reminiscences (1912) He wrote 6 poems relating to Sikhism and a number of articles in Bengali children's magazine about Sikhism.
Tagore returned to Jorosanko and completed a set of major works by 1877, one of them a long poem in the Maithili style of Vidyapati. As a joke, he claimed that these were the lost works of newly discovered 17th-century Vaiṣṇava poet Bhānusiṃha. Regional experts accepted them as the lost works of the fictitious poet. He debuted in the short-story genre in Bengali with "Bhikharini" ("The Beggar Woman"). Published in the same year, Sandhya Sangit (1882) includes the poem "Nirjharer Swapnabhanga" ("The Rousing of the Waterfall").
Shelaidaha: 1878–1901
Because Debendranath wanted his son to become a barrister, Tagore enrolled at a public school in Brighton, East Sussex, England in 1878. He stayed for several months at a house that the Tagore family owned near Brighton and Hove, in Medina Villas; in 1877 his nephew and niece—Suren and Indira Devi, the children of Tagore's brother Satyendranath—were sent together with their mother, Tagore's sister-in-law, to live with him. He briefly read law at University College London, but again left school, opting instead for independent study of Shakespeare's plays Coriolanus, and Antony and Cleopatra and the Religio Medici of Thomas Browne. Lively English, Irish, and Scottish folk tunes impressed Tagore, whose own tradition of Nidhubabu-authored kirtans and tappas and Brahmo hymnody was subdued. In 1880 he returned to Bengal degree-less, resolving to reconcile European novelty with Brahmo traditions, taking the best from each. After returning to Bengal, Tagore regularly published poems, stories, and novels. These had a profound impact within Bengal itself but received little national attention. In 1883 he married 10-year-old Mrinalini Devi, born Bhabatarini, 1873–1902 (this was a common practice at the time). They had five children, two of whom died in childhood.
In 1890 Tagore began managing his vast ancestral estates in Shelaidaha (today a region of Bangladesh); he was joined there by his wife and children in 1898. Tagore released his Manasi poems (1890), among his best-known work. As Zamindar Babu, Tagore criss-crossed the Padma River in command of the Padma, the luxurious family barge (also known as "budgerow"). He collected mostly token rents and blessed villagers who in turn honoured him with banquets—occasionally of dried rice and sour milk. He met Gagan Harkara, through whom he became familiar with Baul Lalon Shah, whose folk songs greatly influenced Tagore. Tagore worked to popularise Lalon's songs. The period 1891–1895, Tagore's Sadhana period, named after one of his magazines, was his most productive; in these years he wrote more than half the stories of the three-volume, 84-story Galpaguchchha. Its ironic and grave tales examined the voluptuous poverty of an idealised rural Bengal.
Santiniketan: 1901–1932
In 1901 Tagore moved to Santiniketan to found an ashram with a marble-floored prayer hall—The Mandir—an experimental school, groves of trees, gardens, a library. There his wife and two of his children died. His father died in 1905. He received monthly payments as part of his inheritance and income from the Maharaja of Tripura, sales of his family's jewellery, his seaside bungalow in Puri, and a derisory 2,000 rupees in book royalties. He gained Bengali and foreign readers alike; he published Naivedya (1901) and Kheya (1906) and translated poems into free verse.
In November 1913, Tagore learned he had won that year's Nobel Prize in Literature: the Swedish Academy appreciated the idealistic—and for Westerners—accessible nature of a small body of his translated material focused on the 1912 Gitanjali: Song Offerings. He was awarded a knighthood by King George V in the 1915 Birthday Honours, but Tagore renounced it after the 1919 Jallianwala Bagh massacre. Renouncing the knighthood, Tagore wrote in a letter addressed to Lord Chelmsford, the then British Viceroy of India, "The disproportionate severity of the punishments inflicted upon the unfortunate people and the methods of carrying them out, we are convinced, are without parallel in the history of civilised governments...The time has come when badges of honour make our shame glaring in their incongruous context of humiliation, and I for my part wish to stand, shorn of all special distinctions, by the side of my country men."
In 1919, he was invited by the president and chairman of Anjuman-e-Islamia, Syed Abdul Majid to visit Sylhet for the first time. The event attracted over 5000 people.
In 1921, Tagore and agricultural economist Leonard Elmhirst set up the "Institute for Rural Reconstruction", later renamed Shriniketan or "Abode of Welfare", in Surul, a village near the ashram. With it, Tagore sought to moderate Gandhi's Swaraj protests, which he occasionally blamed for British India's perceived mental – and thus ultimately colonial – decline. He sought aid from donors, officials, and scholars worldwide to "free village[s] from the shackles of helplessness and ignorance" by "vitalis[ing] knowledge". In the early 1930s he targeted ambient "abnormal caste consciousness" and untouchability. He lectured against these, he penned Dalit heroes for his poems and his dramas, and he campaigned—successfully—to open Guruvayoor Temple to Dalits.
Twilight years: 1932–1941
Dutta and Robinson describe this phase of Tagore's life as being one of a "peripatetic litterateur". It affirmed his opinion that human divisions were shallow. During a May 1932 visit to a Bedouin encampment in the Iraqi desert, the tribal chief told him that "Our Prophet has said that a true Muslim is he by whose words and deeds not the least of his brother-men may ever come to any harm ..." Tagore confided in his diary: "I was startled into recognizing in his words the voice of essential humanity." To the end Tagore scrutinised orthodoxy—and in 1934, he struck. That year, an earthquake hit Bihar and killed thousands. Gandhi hailed it as seismic karma, as divine retribution avenging the oppression of Dalits. Tagore rebuked him for his seemingly ignominious implications. He mourned the perennial poverty of Calcutta and the socioeconomic decline of Bengal, and detailed these newly plebeian aesthetics in an unrhymed hundred-line poem whose technique of searing double-vision foreshadowed Satyajit Ray's film Apur Sansar. Fifteen new volumes appeared, among them prose-poem works Punashcha (1932), Shes Saptak (1935), and Patraput (1936). Experimentation continued in his prose-songs and dance-dramas— Chitra (1914), Shyama (1939), and Chandalika (1938)— and in his novels— Dui Bon (1933), Malancha (1934), and Char Adhyay (1934).
Tagore's remit expanded to science in his last years, as hinted in Visva-Parichay, a 1937 collection of essays. His respect for scientific laws and his exploration of biology, physics, and astronomy informed his poetry, which exhibited extensive naturalism and verisimilitude. He wove the process of science, the narratives of scientists, into stories in Se (1937), Tin Sangi (1940), and Galpasalpa (1941). His last five years were marked by chronic pain and two long periods of illness. These began when Tagore lost consciousness in late 1937; he remained comatose and near death for a time. This was followed in late 1940 by a similar spell, from which he never recovered. Poetry from these valetudinary years is among his finest. A period of prolonged agony ended with Tagore's death on 7 August 1941, aged 80. He was in an upstairs room of the Jorasanko mansion in which he grew up. The date is still mourned. A. K. Sen, brother of the first chief election commissioner, received dictation from Tagore on 30 July 1941, a day prior to a scheduled operation: his last poem.
Travels
Between 1878 and 1932, Tagore set foot in more than thirty countries on five continents. In 1912, he took a sheaf of his translated works to England, where they gained attention from missionary and Gandhi protégé Charles F. Andrews, Irish poet William Butler Yeats, Ezra Pound, Robert Bridges, Ernest Rhys, Thomas Sturge Moore, and others. Yeats wrote the preface to the English translation of Gitanjali; Andrews joined Tagore at Santiniketan. In November 1912 Tagore began touring the United States and the United Kingdom, staying in Butterton, Staffordshire with Andrews's clergymen friends. From May 1916 until April 1917, he lectured in Japan and the United States. He denounced nationalism. His essay "Nationalism in India" was scorned and praised; it was admired by Romain Rolland and other pacifists.
Shortly after returning home the 63-year-old Tagore accepted an invitation from the Peruvian government. He travelled to Mexico. Each government pledged 100,000 to his school to commemorate the visits. A week after his 6 November 1924 arrival in Buenos Aires, an ill Tagore shifted to the Villa Miralrío at the behest of Victoria Ocampo. He left for home in January 1925. In May 1926 Tagore reached Naples; the next day he met Mussolini in Rome. Their warm rapport ended when Tagore pronounced upon Il Duces fascist finesse. He had earlier enthused: "[w]ithout any doubt he is a great personality. There is such a massive vigour in that head that it reminds one of Michael Angelo's chisel." A "fire-bath" of fascism was to have educed "the immortal soul of Italy ... clothed in quenchless light".
On 1 November 1926 Tagore arrived to Hungary and spent some time on the shore of Lake Balaton in the city of Balatonfüred, recovering from heart problems at a sanitarium. He planted a tree and a bust statue was placed there in 1956 (a gift from the Indian government, the work of Rasithan Kashar, replaced by a newly gifted statue in 2005) and the lakeside promenade still bears his name since 1957.
On 14 July 1927 Tagore and two companions began a four-month tour of Southeast Asia. They visited Bali, Java, Kuala Lumpur, Malacca, Penang, Siam, and Singapore. The resultant travelogues compose Jatri (1929). In early 1930 he left Bengal for a nearly year-long tour of Europe and the United States. Upon returning to Britain—and as his paintings were exhibited in Paris and London—he lodged at a Birmingham Quaker settlement. He wrote his Oxford Hibbert Lectures and spoke at the annual London Quaker meet. There, addressing relations between the British and the Indians – a topic he would tackle repeatedly over the next two years – Tagore spoke of a "dark chasm of aloofness". He visited Aga Khan III, stayed at Dartington Hall, toured Denmark, Switzerland, and Germany from June to mid-September 1930, then went on into the Soviet Union. In April 1932 Tagore, intrigued by the Persian mystic Hafez, was hosted by Reza Shah Pahlavi. In his other travels, Tagore interacted with Henri Bergson, Albert Einstein, Robert Frost, Thomas Mann, George Bernard Shaw, H.G. Wells, and Romain Rolland. Visits to Persia and Iraq (in 1932) and Sri Lanka (in 1933) composed Tagore's final foreign tour, and his dislike of communalism and nationalism only deepened.
Vice-President of India M. Hamid Ansari has said that Rabindranath Tagore heralded the cultural rapprochement between communities, societies and nations much before it became the liberal norm of conduct.
Tagore was a man ahead of his time. He wrote in 1932, while on a visit to Iran, that "each country of Asia will solve its own historical problems according to its strength, nature and needs, but the lamp they will each carry on their path to progress will converge to illuminate the common ray of knowledge."
Works
Known mostly for his poetry, Tagore wrote novels, essays, short stories, travelogues, dramas, and thousands of songs. Of Tagore's prose, his short stories are perhaps most highly regarded; he is indeed credited with originating the Bengali-language version of the genre. His works are frequently noted for their rhythmic, optimistic, and lyrical nature. Such stories mostly borrow from the lives of common people. Tagore's non-fiction grappled with history, linguistics, and spirituality. He wrote autobiographies. His travelogues, essays, and lectures were compiled into several volumes, including Europe Jatrir Patro (Letters from Europe) and Manusher Dhormo (The Religion of Man). His brief chat with Einstein, "Note on the Nature of Reality", is included as an appendix to the latter. On the occasion of Tagore's 150th birthday, an anthology (titled Kalanukromik Rabindra Rachanabali) of the total body of his works is currently being published in Bengali in chronological order. This includes all versions of each work and fills about eighty volumes. In 2011, Harvard University Press collaborated with Visva-Bharati University to publish The Essential Tagore, the largest anthology of Tagore's works available in English; it was edited by Fakrul Alam and Radha Chakravarthy and marks the 150th anniversary of Tagore's birth.
Drama
Tagore's experiences with drama began when he was sixteen, with his brother Jyotirindranath. He wrote his first original dramatic piece when he was twenty — Valmiki Pratibha which was shown at the Tagore's mansion. Tagore stated that his works sought to articulate "the play of feeling and not of action". In 1890 he wrote Visarjan (an adaptation of his novella Rajarshi), which has been regarded as his finest drama. In the original Bengali language, such works included intricate subplots and extended monologues. Later, Tagore's dramas used more philosophical and allegorical themes. The play Dak Ghar (The Post Office; 1912), describes the child Amal defying his stuffy and puerile confines by ultimately "fall[ing] asleep", hinting his physical death. A story with borderless appeal—gleaning rave reviews in Europe—Dak Ghar dealt with death as, in Tagore's words, "spiritual freedom" from "the world of hoarded wealth and certified creeds". Another is Tagore's Chandalika (Untouchable Girl), which was modelled on an ancient Buddhist legend describing how Ananda, the Gautama Buddha's disciple, asks a tribal girl for water. In Raktakarabi ("Red" or "Blood Oleanders") is an allegorical struggle against a kleptocrat king who rules over the residents of Yaksha puri.
Chitrangada, Chandalika, and Shyama are other key plays that have dance-drama adaptations, which together are known as Rabindra Nritya Natya.
Short stories
Tagore began his career in short stories in 1877—when he was only sixteen—with "Bhikharini" ("The Beggar Woman"). With this, Tagore effectively invented the Bengali-language short story genre. The four years from 1891 to 1895 are known as Tagore's "Sadhana" period (named for one of Tagore's magazines). This period was among Tagore's most fecund, yielding more than half the stories contained in the three-volume Galpaguchchha, which itself is a collection of eighty-four stories. Such stories usually showcase Tagore's reflections upon his surroundings, on modern and fashionable ideas, and on interesting mind puzzles (which Tagore was fond of testing his intellect with). Tagore typically associated his earliest stories (such as those of the "Sadhana" period) with an exuberance of vitality and spontaneity; these characteristics were intimately connected with Tagore's life in the common villages of, among others, Patisar, Shajadpur, and Shilaida while managing the Tagore family's vast landholdings. There, he beheld the lives of India's poor and common people; Tagore thereby took to examining their lives with a penetrative depth and feeling that was singular in Indian literature up to that point. In particular, such stories as "Kabuliwala" ("The Fruitseller from Kabul", published in 1892), "Kshudita Pashan" ("The Hungry Stones") (August 1895), and "Atithi" ("The Runaway", 1895) typified this analytic focus on the downtrodden. Many of the other Galpaguchchha stories were written in Tagore's Sabuj Patra period from 1914 to 1917, also named after one of the magazines that Tagore edited and heavily contributed to.
Novels
Tagore wrote eight novels and four novellas, among them Chaturanga, Shesher Kobita, Char Odhay, and Noukadubi. Ghare Baire (The Home and the World)—through the lens of the idealistic zamindar protagonist Nikhil—excoriates rising Indian nationalism, terrorism, and religious zeal in the Swadeshi movement; a frank expression of Tagore's conflicted sentiments, it emerged from a 1914 bout of depression. The novel ends in Hindu-Muslim violence and Nikhil's—likely mortal—wounding.
Gora raises controversial questions regarding the Indian identity. As with Ghare Baire, matters of self-identity (jāti), personal freedom, and religion are developed in the context of a family story and love triangle. In it an Irish boy orphaned in the Sepoy Mutiny is raised by Hindus as the titular gora—"whitey". Ignorant of his foreign origins, he chastises Hindu religious backsliders out of love for the indigenous Indians and solidarity with them against his hegemon-compatriots. He falls for a Brahmo girl, compelling his worried foster father to reveal his lost past and cease his nativist zeal. As a "true dialectic" advancing "arguments for and against strict traditionalism", it tackles the colonial conundrum by "portray[ing] the value of all positions within a particular frame [...] not only syncretism, not only liberal orthodoxy, but the extremest reactionary traditionalism he defends by an appeal to what humans share." Among these Tagore highlights "identity [...] conceived of as dharma."
In Jogajog (Relationships), the heroine Kumudini—bound by the ideals of Śiva-Sati, exemplified by Dākshāyani—is torn between her pity for the sinking fortunes of her progressive and compassionate elder brother and his foil: her roue of a husband. Tagore flaunts his feminist leanings; pathos depicts the plight and ultimate demise of women trapped by pregnancy, duty, and family honour; he simultaneously trucks with Bengal's putrescent landed gentry. The story revolves around the underlying rivalry between two families—the Chatterjees, aristocrats now on the decline (Biprodas) and the Ghosals (Madhusudan), representing new money and new arrogance. Kumudini, Biprodas' sister, is caught between the two as she is married off to Madhusudan. She had risen in an observant and sheltered traditional home, as had all her female relations.
Others were uplifting: Shesher Kobita—translated twice as Last Poem and Farewell Song—is his most lyrical novel, with poems and rhythmic passages written by a poet protagonist. It contains elements of satire and postmodernism and has stock characters who gleefully attack the reputation of an old, outmoded, oppressively renowned poet who, incidentally, goes by a familiar name: "Rabindranath Tagore". Though his novels remain among the least-appreciated of his works, they have been given renewed attention via film adaptations by Ray and others: Chokher Bali and Ghare Baire are exemplary. In the first, Tagore inscribes Bengali society via its heroine: a rebellious widow who would live for herself alone. He pillories the custom of perpetual mourning on the part of widows, who were not allowed to remarry, who were consigned to seclusion and loneliness. Tagore wrote of it: "I have always regretted the ending".
Poetry
Internationally, Gitanjali () is Tagore's best-known collection of poetry, for which he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1913. Tagore was the first non-European to receive a Nobel Prize in Literature and second non-European to receive a Nobel Prize after Theodore Roosevelt.
Besides Gitanjali, other notable works include Manasi, Sonar Tori ("Golden Boat"), Balaka ("Wild Geese" — the title being a metaphor for migrating souls)
Tagore's poetic style, which proceeds from a lineage established by 15th- and 16th-century Vaishnava poets, ranges from classical formalism to the comic, visionary, and ecstatic. He was influenced by the atavistic mysticism of Vyasa and other rishi-authors of the Upanishads, the Bhakti-Sufi mystic Kabir, and Ramprasad Sen. Tagore's most innovative and mature poetry embodies his exposure to Bengali rural folk music, which included mystic Baul ballads such as those of the bard Lalon. These, rediscovered and repopularised by Tagore, resemble 19th-century Kartābhajā hymns that emphasise inward divinity and rebellion against bourgeois bhadralok religious and social orthodoxy. During his Shelaidaha years, his poems took on a lyrical voice of the moner manush, the Bāuls' "man within the heart" and Tagore's "life force of his deep recesses", or meditating upon the jeevan devata—the demiurge or the "living God within". This figure connected with divinity through appeal to nature and the emotional interplay of human drama. Such tools saw use in his Bhānusiṃha poems chronicling the Radha-Krishna romance, which were repeatedly revised over the course of seventy years.
Later, with the development of new poetic ideas in Bengal – many originating from younger poets seeking to break with Tagore's style – Tagore absorbed new poetic concepts, which allowed him to further develop a unique identity. Examples of this include Africa and Camalia, which are among the better known of his latter poems.
Songs (Rabindra Sangeet)
Tagore was a prolific composer with around 2,230 songs to his credit. His songs are known as rabindrasangit ("Tagore Song"), which merges fluidly into his literature, most of which—poems or parts of novels, stories, or plays alike—were lyricised. Influenced by the thumri style of Hindustani music, they ran the entire gamut of human emotion, ranging from his early dirge-like Brahmo devotional hymns to quasi-erotic compositions. They emulated the tonal colour of classical ragas to varying extents. Some songs mimicked a given raga's melody and rhythm faithfully; others newly blended elements of different ragas. Yet about nine-tenths of his work was not bhanga gaan, the body of tunes revamped with "fresh value" from select Western, Hindustani, Bengali folk and other regional flavours "external" to Tagore's own ancestral culture.
In 1971, Amar Shonar Bangla became the national anthem of Bangladesh. It was written – ironically – to protest the 1905 Partition of Bengal along communal lines: cutting off the Muslim-majority East Bengal from Hindu-dominated West Bengal was to avert a regional bloodbath. Tagore saw the partition as a cunning plan to stop the independence movement, and he aimed to rekindle Bengali unity and tar communalism. Jana Gana Mana was written in shadhu-bhasha, a Sanskritised form of Bengali, and is the first of five stanzas of the Brahmo hymn Bharot Bhagyo Bidhata that Tagore composed. It was first sung in 1911 at a Calcutta session of the Indian National Congress and was adopted in 1950 by the Constituent Assembly of the Republic of India as its national anthem.
The Sri Lanka's National Anthem was inspired by his work.
For Bengalis, the songs' appeal, stemming from the combination of emotive strength and beauty described as surpassing even Tagore's poetry, was such that the Modern Review observed that "[t]here is in Bengal no cultured home where Rabindranath's songs are not sung or at least attempted to be sung... Even illiterate villagers sing his songs". Tagore influenced sitar maestro Vilayat Khan and sarodiyas Buddhadev Dasgupta and Amjad Ali Khan.
Art works
At sixty, Tagore took up drawing and painting; successful exhibitions of his many works—which made a debut appearance in Paris upon encouragement by artists he met in the south of France—were held throughout Europe. He was likely red-green colour blind, resulting in works that exhibited strange colour schemes and off-beat aesthetics. Tagore was influenced by numerous styles, including scrimshaw by the Malanggan people of northern New Ireland, Papua New Guinea, Haida carvings from the Pacific Northwest region of North America, and woodcuts by the German Max Pechstein. His artist's eye for handwriting was revealed in the simple artistic and rhythmic leitmotifs embellishing the scribbles, cross-outs, and word layouts of his manuscripts. Some of Tagore's lyrics corresponded in a synesthetic sense with particular paintings.
India's National Gallery of Modern Art lists 102 works by Tagore in its collections.
Politics
Tagore opposed imperialism and supported Indian nationalists, and these views were first revealed in Manast, which was mostly composed in his twenties. Evidence produced during the Hindu–German Conspiracy Trial and latter accounts affirm his awareness of the Ghadarites, and stated that he sought the support of Japanese Prime Minister Terauchi Masatake and former Premier Ōkuma Shigenobu. Yet he lampooned the Swadeshi movement; he rebuked it in The Cult of the Charkha, an acrid 1925 essay. According to Amartya Sen, Tagore rebelled against strongly nationalist forms of the independence movement, and he wanted to assert India's right to be independent without denying the importance of what India could learn from abroad. He urged the masses to avoid victimology and instead seek self-help and education, and he saw the presence of British administration as a "political symptom of our social disease". He maintained that, even for those at the extremes of poverty, "there can be no question of blind revolution"; preferable to it was a "steady and purposeful education".
Such views enraged many. He escaped assassination—and only narrowly—by Indian expatriates during his stay in a San Francisco hotel in late 1916; the plot failed when his would-be assassins fell into argument. Tagore wrote songs lionising the Indian independence movement. Two of Tagore's more politically charged compositions, "Chitto Jetha Bhayshunyo" ("Where the Mind is Without Fear") and "Ekla Chalo Re" ("If They Answer Not to Thy Call, Walk Alone"), gained mass appeal, with the latter favoured by Gandhi. Though somewhat critical of Gandhian activism, Tagore was key in resolving a Gandhi–Ambedkar dispute involving separate electorates for untouchables, thereby mooting at least one of Gandhi's fasts "unto death".
Repudiation of knighthood
Tagore renounced his knighthood in response to the Jallianwala Bagh massacre in 1919. In the repudiation letter to the Viceroy, Lord Chelmsford, he wrote
Santiniketan and Visva-Bharati
Tagore despised rote classroom schooling: in "The Parrot's Training", a bird is caged and force-fed textbook pages—to death. Tagore, visiting Santa Barbara in 1917, conceived a new type of university: he sought to "make Santiniketan the connecting thread between India and the world [and] a world center for the study of humanity somewhere beyond the limits of nation and geography." The school, which he named Visva-Bharati, had its foundation stone laid on 24 December 1918 and was inaugurated precisely three years later. Tagore employed a brahmacharya system: gurus gave pupils personal guidance—emotional, intellectual, and spiritual. Teaching was often done under trees. He staffed the school, he contributed his Nobel Prize monies, and his duties as steward-mentor at Santiniketan kept him busy: mornings he taught classes; afternoons and evenings he wrote the students' textbooks. He fundraised widely for the school in Europe and the United States between 1919 and 1921.
Theft of Nobel Prize
On 25 March 2004, Tagore's Nobel Prize was stolen from the safety vault of the Visva-Bharati University, along with several other of his belongings. On 7 December 2004, the Swedish Academy decided to present two replicas of Tagore's Nobel Prize, one made of gold and the other made of bronze, to the Visva-Bharati University. It inspired the fictional film Nobel Chor. In 2016, a baul singer named Pradip Bauri accused of sheltering the thieves was arrested and the prize was returned.
Impact and legacy
Every year, many events pay tribute to Tagore: Kabipranam, his birth anniversary, is celebrated by groups scattered across the globe; the annual Tagore Festival held in Urbana, Illinois (USA); Rabindra Path Parikrama walking pilgrimages from Kolkata to Santiniketan; and recitals of his poetry, which are held on important anniversaries. Bengali culture is fraught with this legacy: from language and arts to history and politics. Amartya Sen deemed Tagore a "towering figure", a "deeply relevant and many-sided contemporary thinker". Tagore's Bengali originals—the 1939 Rabīndra Rachanāvalī—is canonised as one of his nation's greatest cultural treasures, and he was roped into a reasonably humble role: "the greatest poet India has produced".
Tagore was renowned throughout much of Europe, North America, and East Asia. He co-founded Dartington Hall School, a progressive coeducational institution; in Japan, he influenced such figures as Nobel laureate Yasunari Kawabata. In colonial Vietnam Tagore was a guide for the restless spirit of the radical writer and publicist Nguyen An Ninh Tagore's works were widely translated into English, Dutch, German, Spanish, and other European languages by Czech Indologist Vincenc Lesný, French Nobel laureate André Gide, Russian poet Anna Akhmatova, former Turkish Prime Minister Bülent Ecevit, and others. In the United States, Tagore's lecturing circuits, particularly those of 1916–1917, were widely attended and wildly acclaimed. Some controversies involving Tagore, possibly fictive, trashed his popularity and sales in Japan and North America after the late 1920s, concluding with his "near total eclipse" outside Bengal. Yet a latent reverence of Tagore was discovered by an astonished Salman Rushdie during a trip to Nicaragua.
By way of translations, Tagore influenced Chileans Pablo Neruda and Gabriela Mistral; Mexican writer Octavio Paz; and Spaniards José Ortega y Gasset, Zenobia Camprubí, and Juan Ramón Jiménez. In the period 1914–1922, the Jiménez-Camprubí pair produced twenty-two Spanish translations of Tagore's English corpus; they heavily revised The Crescent Moon and other key titles. In these years, Jiménez developed "naked poetry". Ortega y Gasset wrote that "Tagore's wide appeal [owes to how] he speaks of longings for perfection that we all have [...] Tagore awakens a dormant sense of childish wonder, and he saturates the air with all kinds of enchanting promises for the reader, who [...] pays little attention to the deeper import of Oriental mysticism". Tagore's works circulated in free editions around 1920—alongside those of Plato, Dante, Cervantes, Goethe, and Tolstoy.
Tagore was deemed over-rated by some. Graham Greene doubted that "anyone but Mr. Yeats can still take his poems very seriously." Several prominent Western admirers—including Pound and, to a lesser extent, even Yeats—criticised Tagore's work. Yeats, unimpressed with his English translations, railed against that "Damn Tagore [...] We got out three good books, Sturge Moore and I, and then, because he thought it more important to see and know English than to be a great poet, he brought out sentimental rubbish and wrecked his reputation. Tagore does not know English, no Indian knows English." William Radice, who "English[ed]" his poems, asked: "What is their place in world literature?" He saw him as "kind of counter-cultur[al]", bearing "a new kind of classicism" that would heal the "collapsed romantic confusion and chaos of the 20th [c]entury." The translated Tagore was "almost nonsensical", and subpar English offerings reduced his trans-national appeal:
Museums
There are eight Tagore museums. Three in India and five in Bangladesh:
Rabindra Bharati Museum, at Jorasanko Thakur Bari, Kolkata, India
Tagore Memorial Museum, at Shilaidaha Kuthibadi, Shilaidaha, Bangladesh
Rabindra Memorial Museum at Shahzadpur Kachharibari, Shahzadpur, Bangladesh
Rabindra Bhavan Museum, in Santiniketan, India
Rabindra Museum, in Mungpoo, near Kalimpong, India
Patisar Rabindra Kacharibari, Patisar, Atrai, Naogaon, Bangladesh
Pithavoge Rabindra Memorial Complex, Pithavoge, Rupsha, Khulna, Bangladesh
Rabindra Complex, Dakkhindihi village, Phultala Upazila, Khulna, Bangladesh
Jorasanko Thakur Bari (Bengali: House of the Thakurs; anglicised to Tagore) in Jorasanko, north of Kolkata, is the ancestral home of the Tagore family. It is currently located on the Rabindra Bharati University campus at 6/4 Dwarakanath Tagore Lane Jorasanko, Kolkata 700007. It is the house in which Tagore was born. It is also the place where he spent most of his childhood and where he died on 7 August 1941.
Rabindra Complex is located in Dakkhindihi village, near Phultala Upazila, from Khulna city, Bangladesh. It was the residence of tagores father-in-law, Beni Madhab Roy Chowdhury. Tagore family had close connection with Dakkhindihi village. The maternal ancestral home of the great poet was also situated at Dakkhindihi village, poets mother Sarada Sundari Devi and his paternal aunt by marriage Tripura Sundari Devi; was born in this village.Young tagore used to visit Dakkhindihi village with his mother to visit his maternal uncles in her mothers ancestral home. Tagore visited this place several times in his life. It has been declared as a protected archaeological site by Department of Archaeology of Bangladesh and converted into a museum. In 1995, the local administration took charge of the house and on 14 November of that year, the Rabindra Complex project was decided. Bangladesh Governments Department of Archeology has carried out the renovation work to make the house a museum titled ‘Rabindra Complex’ in 2011–12 fiscal year. The two-storey museum building has four rooms on the first floor and two rooms on the ground floor at present. The building has eight windows on the ground floor and 21 windows on the first floor. The height of the roof from the floor on the ground floor is 13 feet. There are seven doors, six windows and wall almirahs on the first floor. Over 500 books were kept in the library and all the rooms have been decorated with rare pictures of Rabindranath. Over 10,000 visitors come here every year to see the museum from different parts of the country and also from abroad, said Saifur Rahman, assistant director of the Department of Archeology in Khulna. A bust of Rabindranath Tagore is also there. Every year on 25–27 Baishakh (after the Bengali New Year Celebration), cultural programs are held here which lasts for three days.
List of works
The SNLTR hosts the 1415 BE edition of Tagore's complete Bengali works. Tagore Web also hosts an edition of Tagore's works, including annotated songs. Translations are found at Project Gutenberg and Wikisource. More sources are below.
Original
Translated
Adaptations of novels and short stories in cinema
Bengali
Natir Puja – 1932 – The only film directed by Rabindranath Tagore
Gora — 1938 Gora (novel) — Naresh Mitra
Noukadubi– Nitin Bose
Bou Thakuranir Haat – 1953 (Bou Thakuranir Haat) – Naresh Mitra
Kabuliwala – 1957 (Kabuliwala) – Tapan Sinha
Kshudhita Pashan – 1960 (Kshudhita Pashan) – Tapan Sinha
Teen Kanya – 1961 (Teen Kanya) – Satyajit Ray
Charulata - 1964 (Nastanirh) – Satyajit Ray
Megh o Roudra – 1969 (Megh o Roudra) – Arundhati Devi
Ghare Baire – 1985 (Ghare Baire) – Satyajit Ray
Chokher Bali – 2003 (Chokher Bali) – Rituparno Ghosh
Shasti – 2004 (Shasti) – Chashi Nazrul Islam
Shuva – 2006 (Shuvashini) – Chashi Nazrul Islam
Chaturanga – 2008 (Chaturanga) – Suman Mukhopadhyay
Noukadubi – 2011 (Noukadubi) – Rituparno Ghosh
Elar Char Adhyay – 2012 (Char Adhyay) – Bappaditya Bandyopadhyay
Hindi
Sacrifice – 1927 (Balidan) – Nanand Bhojai and Naval Gandhi
Milan – 1946 (Nauka Dubi) – Nitin Bose
Dak Ghar – 1965 (Dak Ghar) – Zul Vellani
Kabuliwala – 1961 (Kabuliwala) – Bimal Roy
Uphaar – 1971 (Samapti) – Sudhendu Roy
Lekin... – 1991 (Kshudhit Pashaan) – Gulzar
Char Adhyay – 1997 (Char Adhyay) – Kumar Shahani
Kashmakash – 2011 (Nauka Dubi) – Rituparno Ghosh
Stories by Rabindranath Tagore (Anthology TV Series) – 2015 – Anurag Basu
Bioscopewala – 2017 (Kabuliwala) – Deb MedhekarBhikharinIn popular cultureRabindranath Tagore is a 1961 Indian documentary film written and directed by Satyajit Ray, released during the birth centenary of Tagore. It was produced by the Government of India's Films Division.
In Sukanta Roy's Bengali film Chhelebela (2002) Jisshu Sengupta portrayed Tagore.
In Bandana Mukhopadhyay's Bengali film Chirosakha He (2007) Sayandip Bhattacharya played Tagore.
In Rituparno Ghosh's Bengali documentary film Jeevan Smriti (2011) Samadarshi Dutta played Tagore.
In Suman Ghosh's Bengali film Kadambari (2015) Parambrata Chatterjee portrayed Tagore.
See also
List of Indian writers
Kazi Nazrul Islam
Rabindra Jayanti
Rabindra Puraskar
Tagore familyAn Artist in Life — biography by Niharranjan Ray
Taptapadi
Timeline of Rabindranath Tagore
Music of Bengal
References
Notes
Citations
Writers from Kolkata
Bibliography
Primary
Anthologies
Originals
Translations
Secondary
Articles
Books
Other
Texts
Original
Translated
Further reading
External links
School of Wisdom
Analyses
Ezra Pound: "Rabindranath Tagore", The Fortnightly Review'', March 1913
Mary Lago Collection, University of MissouriAudiobooks Texts
Bichitra: Online Tagore Variorum
Talks'''
South Asian American Digital Archive (SAADA)
1861 births
1941 deaths
Presidency University, Kolkata alumni
Alumni of University College London
Bengali people
Bengali Hindus
Bengali philosophers
Bengali writers
Bengali zamindars
Brahmos
Founders of Indian schools and colleges
Indian Nobel laureates
National anthem writers
Nobel laureates in Literature
People associated with Santiniketan
Oriental Seminary alumni
Vangiya Sahitya Parishad
English-language poets from India
19th-century Bengali poets
Bengali-language poets
Indian Hindus
Indian male dramatists and playwrights
Indian male songwriters
Indian male essayists
19th-century Indian painters
Rabindranath
Musicians from Kolkata
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Google Doodles | true | [
"Yaqubzai () are a Pashtun tribe of Gandapur living in Afghanistan and Pakistan.\n\nHistory \nYaquzais are the descendants of Yaqub, the eldest son of Gandapur. Yaqub though the eldest one, was not the most brilliant of his four sons and hence the whole family of Gandapur was led by Ibrahim Khan the second son. The descendants of Ibrahim Khan are known as Ibrahim Zai(sons of Ibrahim). Yaquzai are a small segment of the whole tribe of Gandapurs. They have played no worth mentioning role in the Gandapur tribe struggle to establish themselves at Kulachi, Dera Ismail Khan in the 16th century A.D. \n\nThe original name of Gandapur was Tairi Khan. He had four sons and a daughter. The names of the sons and daughter are as follows; \n Yaqub Khan (His descendants known as Yaqub Zai)\n Ibrahim Khan (His descendants known as Ibrahim Zai)\n Hussain Khan (His descendants known as Hussain Zai)\n Dre Plaara (His descendants are not known)\n Khubai the daughter of Gandapur. The descendants of her son Kamal are known as Kamal Khel.\n\nGandapur Pashtun tribes\nPashto-language surnames\nPakistani names",
"Ash Shakur is one of the names of Allah. It is part of the 99 Names of God.\n\nMeaning\nAsh Shakur is translated into \"The Appreciative\". In his book, \"Al-Maqsad Al-Asna fi Sharah Asma' Allahu al-Husna\" (aka The best means in explaining Allah's Beautiful Names), Imam Al Ghazali translates Ash Shakur as \"The One Who Expresses Thankfulness by rewarding bounteously\". He goes on to say that Ash Shakur is \"the One Who rewards trivial pious deeds with many grades, and the one who gives unlimited happiness in the life to come for activity during a limited period (in this life). The one who rewards the good deed with multiples of it is said to be thankful for that good deed, and the one who praises the performer of this good deed is also said to be thankful for it. If you consider multiple rewards (to be the criterion in this matter), then there can be no absolute Ash Shakur except God Most High, because His increase of the reward is not restricted and limited since the blessings of Paradise are infinite.\"\n\nOccurrence in the Quran\nAsh Shakur can be found in various ayat in the Quran. For example, it is found in verses 35:30, 35:34, 42:23, 64:17. Muslims tend to quote verse 2:261 when mentioning Allah's Generosity and Gratefulness, \"The likeness of those who spend their wealth in Allah's way is as the likeness of a grain which grows seven ears, in every ear a hundred grains. Allah gives increase manifold to whom He Will. Allah is All-Embracing, All-Knowing.\"\n\nShakur"
]
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"Rabindranath Tagore",
"Twilight years: 1932-1941",
"What happened a Tagore twilight years?",
"Fifteen new volumes appeared, among them prose-poem works Punashcha (1932), Shes Saptak (1935), and Patraput (1936).",
"Which names are worth mentioning as a contribution to this part of his life?",
"earthquake hit Bihar and killed thousands. Gandhi hailed it as seismic karma, as divine retribution avenging the oppression of Dalits. Tagore rebuked him"
]
| C_3e16b1a1688e458a8ad42f4ee7308019_0 | Are there any other interesting aspects about this article? | 3 | Are there any other interesting aspects about this article Rabindranath Tagore, Twilight years:1932-1941 in addition to rebuking Ghandi? | Rabindranath Tagore | Dutta and Robinson describe this phase of Tagore's life as being one of a "peripatetic litterateur". It affirmed his opinion that human divisions were shallow. During a May 1932 visit to a Bedouin encampment in the Iraqi desert, the tribal chief told him that "Our prophet has said that a true Muslim is he by whose words and deeds not the least of his brother-men may ever come to any harm ..." Tagore confided in his diary: "I was startled into recognizing in his words the voice of essential humanity." To the end Tagore scrutinised orthodoxy--and in 1934, he struck. That year, an earthquake hit Bihar and killed thousands. Gandhi hailed it as seismic karma, as divine retribution avenging the oppression of Dalits. Tagore rebuked him for his seemingly ignominious implications. He mourned the perennial poverty of Calcutta and the socioeconomic decline of Bengal, and detailed these newly plebeian aesthetics in an unrhymed hundred-line poem whose technique of searing double-vision foreshadowed Satyajit Ray's film Apur Sansar. Fifteen new volumes appeared, among them prose-poem works Punashcha (1932), Shes Saptak (1935), and Patraput (1936). Experimentation continued in his prose-songs and dance-dramas-- Chitra (1914), Shyama (1939), and Chandalika (1938)-- and in his novels-- Dui Bon (1933), Malancha (1934), and Char Adhyay (1934). Tagore's remit expanded to science in his last years, as hinted in Visva-Parichay, a 1937 collection of essays. His respect for scientific laws and his exploration of biology, physics, and astronomy informed his poetry, which exhibited extensive naturalism and verisimilitude. He wove the process of science, the narratives of scientists, into stories in Se (1937), Tin Sangi (1940), and Galpasalpa (1941). His last five years were marked by chronic pain and two long periods of illness. These began when Tagore lost consciousness in late 1937; he remained comatose and near death for a time. This was followed in late 1940 by a similar spell, from which he never recovered. Poetry from these valetudinary years is among his finest. A period of prolonged agony ended with Tagore's death on 7 August 1941, aged eighty; he was in an upstairs room of the Jorasanko mansion he was raised in. The date is still mourned. A. K. Sen, brother of the first chief election commissioner, received dictation from Tagore on 30 July 1941, a day prior to a scheduled operation: his last poem. I'm lost in the middle of my birthday. I want my friends, their touch, with the earth's last love. I will take life's final offering, I will take the human's last blessing. Today my sack is empty. I have given completely whatever I had to give. In return if I receive anything--some love, some forgiveness--then I will take it with me when I step on the boat that crosses to the festival of the wordless end. CANNOTANSWER | Tagore's remit expanded to science in his last years, as hinted in Visva-Parichay, a 1937 collection of essays. | Rabindranath Tagore (, ; 7 May 1861 – 7 August 1941) was a Bengali polymath—poet, writer, playwright, composer, philosopher, social reformer and painter. He reshaped Bengali literature and music as well as Indian art with Contextual Modernism in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Author of the "profoundly sensitive, fresh and beautiful" poetry of Gitanjali, he became in 1913 the first non-European and the first lyricist to win the Nobel Prize in Literature. Tagore's poetic songs were viewed as spiritual and mercurial; however, his "elegant prose and magical poetry" remain largely unknown outside Bengal. He was a fellow of the Royal Asiatic Society. Referred to as "the Bard of Bengal", Tagore was known by sobriquets: Gurudev, Kobiguru, Biswakobi.
A Bengali Brahmin from Calcutta with ancestral gentry roots in Burdwan district and Jessore, Tagore wrote poetry as an eight-year-old. At the age of sixteen, he released his first substantial poems under the pseudonym Bhānusiṃha ("Sun Lion"), which were seized upon by literary authorities as long-lost classics. By 1877 he graduated to his first short stories and dramas, published under his real name. As a humanist, universalist, internationalist, and ardent anti-nationalist, he denounced the British Raj and advocated independence from Britain. As an exponent of the Bengal Renaissance, he advanced a vast canon that comprised paintings, sketches and doodles, hundreds of texts, and some two thousand songs; his legacy also endures in his founding of Visva-Bharati University.
Tagore modernised Bengali art by spurning rigid classical forms and resisting linguistic strictures. His novels, stories, songs, dance-dramas, and essays spoke to topics political and personal. Gitanjali (Song Offerings), Gora (Fair-Faced) and Ghare-Baire (The Home and the World) are his best-known works, and his verse, short stories, and novels were acclaimed—or panned—for their lyricism, colloquialism, naturalism, and unnatural contemplation. His compositions were chosen by two nations as national anthems: India's "Jana Gana Mana" and Bangladesh's "Amar Shonar Bangla". The Sri Lankan national anthem was inspired by his work.
Family history
The name Tagore is the anglicised transliteration of Thakur. The original surname of the Tagores was Kushari. They were Rarhi Brahmins and originally belonged to a village named Kush in the district named Burdwan in West Bengal. The biographer of Rabindranath Tagore, Prabhat Kumar Mukhopadhyaya wrote in the first volume of his book Rabindrajibani O Rabindra Sahitya Prabeshak that
{{Cquote|quote=The Kusharis were the descendants of Deen Kushari, the son of Bhatta Narayana; Deen was granted a village named Kush (in Burdwan zilla) by Maharaja Kshitisura, he became its chief and came to be known as Kushari.}}
Life and events
Early life: 1861–1878
The youngest of 13 surviving children, Tagore (nicknamed "Rabi") was born on 7 May 1861 in the Jorasanko mansion in Calcutta, the son of Debendranath Tagore (1817–1905) and Sarada Devi (1830–1875).
Tagore was raised mostly by servants; his mother had died in his early childhood and his father travelled widely. The Tagore family was at the forefront of the Bengal renaissance. They hosted the publication of literary magazines; theatre and recitals of Bengali and Western classical music featured there regularly. Tagore's father invited several professional Dhrupad musicians to stay in the house and teach Indian classical music to the children. Tagore's oldest brother Dwijendranath was a philosopher and poet. Another brother, Satyendranath, was the first Indian appointed to the elite and formerly all-European Indian Civil Service. Yet another brother, Jyotirindranath, was a musician, composer, and playwright. His sister Swarnakumari became a novelist. Jyotirindranath's wife Kadambari Devi, slightly older than Tagore, was a dear friend and powerful influence. Her abrupt suicide in 1884, soon after he married, left him profoundly distraught for years.
Tagore largely avoided classroom schooling and preferred to roam the manor or nearby Bolpur and Panihati, which the family visited. His brother Hemendranath tutored and physically conditioned him—by having him swim the Ganges or trek through hills, by gymnastics, and by practising judo and wrestling. He learned drawing, anatomy, geography and history, literature, mathematics, Sanskrit, and English—his least favourite subject. Tagore loathed formal education—his scholarly travails at the local Presidency College spanned a single day. Years later he held that proper teaching does not explain things; proper teaching stokes curiosity:
After his upanayan (coming-of-age rite) at age eleven, Tagore and his father left Calcutta in February 1873 to tour India for several months, visiting his father's Santiniketan estate and Amritsar before reaching the Himalayan hill station of Dalhousie. There Tagore read biographies, studied history, astronomy, modern science, and Sanskrit, and examined the classical poetry of Kālidāsa. During his 1-month stay at Amritsar in 1873 he was greatly influenced by melodious gurbani and nanak bani being sung at Golden Temple for which both father and son were regular visitors. He mentions about this in his My Reminiscences (1912) He wrote 6 poems relating to Sikhism and a number of articles in Bengali children's magazine about Sikhism.
Tagore returned to Jorosanko and completed a set of major works by 1877, one of them a long poem in the Maithili style of Vidyapati. As a joke, he claimed that these were the lost works of newly discovered 17th-century Vaiṣṇava poet Bhānusiṃha. Regional experts accepted them as the lost works of the fictitious poet. He debuted in the short-story genre in Bengali with "Bhikharini" ("The Beggar Woman"). Published in the same year, Sandhya Sangit (1882) includes the poem "Nirjharer Swapnabhanga" ("The Rousing of the Waterfall").
Shelaidaha: 1878–1901
Because Debendranath wanted his son to become a barrister, Tagore enrolled at a public school in Brighton, East Sussex, England in 1878. He stayed for several months at a house that the Tagore family owned near Brighton and Hove, in Medina Villas; in 1877 his nephew and niece—Suren and Indira Devi, the children of Tagore's brother Satyendranath—were sent together with their mother, Tagore's sister-in-law, to live with him. He briefly read law at University College London, but again left school, opting instead for independent study of Shakespeare's plays Coriolanus, and Antony and Cleopatra and the Religio Medici of Thomas Browne. Lively English, Irish, and Scottish folk tunes impressed Tagore, whose own tradition of Nidhubabu-authored kirtans and tappas and Brahmo hymnody was subdued. In 1880 he returned to Bengal degree-less, resolving to reconcile European novelty with Brahmo traditions, taking the best from each. After returning to Bengal, Tagore regularly published poems, stories, and novels. These had a profound impact within Bengal itself but received little national attention. In 1883 he married 10-year-old Mrinalini Devi, born Bhabatarini, 1873–1902 (this was a common practice at the time). They had five children, two of whom died in childhood.
In 1890 Tagore began managing his vast ancestral estates in Shelaidaha (today a region of Bangladesh); he was joined there by his wife and children in 1898. Tagore released his Manasi poems (1890), among his best-known work. As Zamindar Babu, Tagore criss-crossed the Padma River in command of the Padma, the luxurious family barge (also known as "budgerow"). He collected mostly token rents and blessed villagers who in turn honoured him with banquets—occasionally of dried rice and sour milk. He met Gagan Harkara, through whom he became familiar with Baul Lalon Shah, whose folk songs greatly influenced Tagore. Tagore worked to popularise Lalon's songs. The period 1891–1895, Tagore's Sadhana period, named after one of his magazines, was his most productive; in these years he wrote more than half the stories of the three-volume, 84-story Galpaguchchha. Its ironic and grave tales examined the voluptuous poverty of an idealised rural Bengal.
Santiniketan: 1901–1932
In 1901 Tagore moved to Santiniketan to found an ashram with a marble-floored prayer hall—The Mandir—an experimental school, groves of trees, gardens, a library. There his wife and two of his children died. His father died in 1905. He received monthly payments as part of his inheritance and income from the Maharaja of Tripura, sales of his family's jewellery, his seaside bungalow in Puri, and a derisory 2,000 rupees in book royalties. He gained Bengali and foreign readers alike; he published Naivedya (1901) and Kheya (1906) and translated poems into free verse.
In November 1913, Tagore learned he had won that year's Nobel Prize in Literature: the Swedish Academy appreciated the idealistic—and for Westerners—accessible nature of a small body of his translated material focused on the 1912 Gitanjali: Song Offerings. He was awarded a knighthood by King George V in the 1915 Birthday Honours, but Tagore renounced it after the 1919 Jallianwala Bagh massacre. Renouncing the knighthood, Tagore wrote in a letter addressed to Lord Chelmsford, the then British Viceroy of India, "The disproportionate severity of the punishments inflicted upon the unfortunate people and the methods of carrying them out, we are convinced, are without parallel in the history of civilised governments...The time has come when badges of honour make our shame glaring in their incongruous context of humiliation, and I for my part wish to stand, shorn of all special distinctions, by the side of my country men."
In 1919, he was invited by the president and chairman of Anjuman-e-Islamia, Syed Abdul Majid to visit Sylhet for the first time. The event attracted over 5000 people.
In 1921, Tagore and agricultural economist Leonard Elmhirst set up the "Institute for Rural Reconstruction", later renamed Shriniketan or "Abode of Welfare", in Surul, a village near the ashram. With it, Tagore sought to moderate Gandhi's Swaraj protests, which he occasionally blamed for British India's perceived mental – and thus ultimately colonial – decline. He sought aid from donors, officials, and scholars worldwide to "free village[s] from the shackles of helplessness and ignorance" by "vitalis[ing] knowledge". In the early 1930s he targeted ambient "abnormal caste consciousness" and untouchability. He lectured against these, he penned Dalit heroes for his poems and his dramas, and he campaigned—successfully—to open Guruvayoor Temple to Dalits.
Twilight years: 1932–1941
Dutta and Robinson describe this phase of Tagore's life as being one of a "peripatetic litterateur". It affirmed his opinion that human divisions were shallow. During a May 1932 visit to a Bedouin encampment in the Iraqi desert, the tribal chief told him that "Our Prophet has said that a true Muslim is he by whose words and deeds not the least of his brother-men may ever come to any harm ..." Tagore confided in his diary: "I was startled into recognizing in his words the voice of essential humanity." To the end Tagore scrutinised orthodoxy—and in 1934, he struck. That year, an earthquake hit Bihar and killed thousands. Gandhi hailed it as seismic karma, as divine retribution avenging the oppression of Dalits. Tagore rebuked him for his seemingly ignominious implications. He mourned the perennial poverty of Calcutta and the socioeconomic decline of Bengal, and detailed these newly plebeian aesthetics in an unrhymed hundred-line poem whose technique of searing double-vision foreshadowed Satyajit Ray's film Apur Sansar. Fifteen new volumes appeared, among them prose-poem works Punashcha (1932), Shes Saptak (1935), and Patraput (1936). Experimentation continued in his prose-songs and dance-dramas— Chitra (1914), Shyama (1939), and Chandalika (1938)— and in his novels— Dui Bon (1933), Malancha (1934), and Char Adhyay (1934).
Tagore's remit expanded to science in his last years, as hinted in Visva-Parichay, a 1937 collection of essays. His respect for scientific laws and his exploration of biology, physics, and astronomy informed his poetry, which exhibited extensive naturalism and verisimilitude. He wove the process of science, the narratives of scientists, into stories in Se (1937), Tin Sangi (1940), and Galpasalpa (1941). His last five years were marked by chronic pain and two long periods of illness. These began when Tagore lost consciousness in late 1937; he remained comatose and near death for a time. This was followed in late 1940 by a similar spell, from which he never recovered. Poetry from these valetudinary years is among his finest. A period of prolonged agony ended with Tagore's death on 7 August 1941, aged 80. He was in an upstairs room of the Jorasanko mansion in which he grew up. The date is still mourned. A. K. Sen, brother of the first chief election commissioner, received dictation from Tagore on 30 July 1941, a day prior to a scheduled operation: his last poem.
Travels
Between 1878 and 1932, Tagore set foot in more than thirty countries on five continents. In 1912, he took a sheaf of his translated works to England, where they gained attention from missionary and Gandhi protégé Charles F. Andrews, Irish poet William Butler Yeats, Ezra Pound, Robert Bridges, Ernest Rhys, Thomas Sturge Moore, and others. Yeats wrote the preface to the English translation of Gitanjali; Andrews joined Tagore at Santiniketan. In November 1912 Tagore began touring the United States and the United Kingdom, staying in Butterton, Staffordshire with Andrews's clergymen friends. From May 1916 until April 1917, he lectured in Japan and the United States. He denounced nationalism. His essay "Nationalism in India" was scorned and praised; it was admired by Romain Rolland and other pacifists.
Shortly after returning home the 63-year-old Tagore accepted an invitation from the Peruvian government. He travelled to Mexico. Each government pledged 100,000 to his school to commemorate the visits. A week after his 6 November 1924 arrival in Buenos Aires, an ill Tagore shifted to the Villa Miralrío at the behest of Victoria Ocampo. He left for home in January 1925. In May 1926 Tagore reached Naples; the next day he met Mussolini in Rome. Their warm rapport ended when Tagore pronounced upon Il Duces fascist finesse. He had earlier enthused: "[w]ithout any doubt he is a great personality. There is such a massive vigour in that head that it reminds one of Michael Angelo's chisel." A "fire-bath" of fascism was to have educed "the immortal soul of Italy ... clothed in quenchless light".
On 1 November 1926 Tagore arrived to Hungary and spent some time on the shore of Lake Balaton in the city of Balatonfüred, recovering from heart problems at a sanitarium. He planted a tree and a bust statue was placed there in 1956 (a gift from the Indian government, the work of Rasithan Kashar, replaced by a newly gifted statue in 2005) and the lakeside promenade still bears his name since 1957.
On 14 July 1927 Tagore and two companions began a four-month tour of Southeast Asia. They visited Bali, Java, Kuala Lumpur, Malacca, Penang, Siam, and Singapore. The resultant travelogues compose Jatri (1929). In early 1930 he left Bengal for a nearly year-long tour of Europe and the United States. Upon returning to Britain—and as his paintings were exhibited in Paris and London—he lodged at a Birmingham Quaker settlement. He wrote his Oxford Hibbert Lectures and spoke at the annual London Quaker meet. There, addressing relations between the British and the Indians – a topic he would tackle repeatedly over the next two years – Tagore spoke of a "dark chasm of aloofness". He visited Aga Khan III, stayed at Dartington Hall, toured Denmark, Switzerland, and Germany from June to mid-September 1930, then went on into the Soviet Union. In April 1932 Tagore, intrigued by the Persian mystic Hafez, was hosted by Reza Shah Pahlavi. In his other travels, Tagore interacted with Henri Bergson, Albert Einstein, Robert Frost, Thomas Mann, George Bernard Shaw, H.G. Wells, and Romain Rolland. Visits to Persia and Iraq (in 1932) and Sri Lanka (in 1933) composed Tagore's final foreign tour, and his dislike of communalism and nationalism only deepened.
Vice-President of India M. Hamid Ansari has said that Rabindranath Tagore heralded the cultural rapprochement between communities, societies and nations much before it became the liberal norm of conduct.
Tagore was a man ahead of his time. He wrote in 1932, while on a visit to Iran, that "each country of Asia will solve its own historical problems according to its strength, nature and needs, but the lamp they will each carry on their path to progress will converge to illuminate the common ray of knowledge."
Works
Known mostly for his poetry, Tagore wrote novels, essays, short stories, travelogues, dramas, and thousands of songs. Of Tagore's prose, his short stories are perhaps most highly regarded; he is indeed credited with originating the Bengali-language version of the genre. His works are frequently noted for their rhythmic, optimistic, and lyrical nature. Such stories mostly borrow from the lives of common people. Tagore's non-fiction grappled with history, linguistics, and spirituality. He wrote autobiographies. His travelogues, essays, and lectures were compiled into several volumes, including Europe Jatrir Patro (Letters from Europe) and Manusher Dhormo (The Religion of Man). His brief chat with Einstein, "Note on the Nature of Reality", is included as an appendix to the latter. On the occasion of Tagore's 150th birthday, an anthology (titled Kalanukromik Rabindra Rachanabali) of the total body of his works is currently being published in Bengali in chronological order. This includes all versions of each work and fills about eighty volumes. In 2011, Harvard University Press collaborated with Visva-Bharati University to publish The Essential Tagore, the largest anthology of Tagore's works available in English; it was edited by Fakrul Alam and Radha Chakravarthy and marks the 150th anniversary of Tagore's birth.
Drama
Tagore's experiences with drama began when he was sixteen, with his brother Jyotirindranath. He wrote his first original dramatic piece when he was twenty — Valmiki Pratibha which was shown at the Tagore's mansion. Tagore stated that his works sought to articulate "the play of feeling and not of action". In 1890 he wrote Visarjan (an adaptation of his novella Rajarshi), which has been regarded as his finest drama. In the original Bengali language, such works included intricate subplots and extended monologues. Later, Tagore's dramas used more philosophical and allegorical themes. The play Dak Ghar (The Post Office; 1912), describes the child Amal defying his stuffy and puerile confines by ultimately "fall[ing] asleep", hinting his physical death. A story with borderless appeal—gleaning rave reviews in Europe—Dak Ghar dealt with death as, in Tagore's words, "spiritual freedom" from "the world of hoarded wealth and certified creeds". Another is Tagore's Chandalika (Untouchable Girl), which was modelled on an ancient Buddhist legend describing how Ananda, the Gautama Buddha's disciple, asks a tribal girl for water. In Raktakarabi ("Red" or "Blood Oleanders") is an allegorical struggle against a kleptocrat king who rules over the residents of Yaksha puri.
Chitrangada, Chandalika, and Shyama are other key plays that have dance-drama adaptations, which together are known as Rabindra Nritya Natya.
Short stories
Tagore began his career in short stories in 1877—when he was only sixteen—with "Bhikharini" ("The Beggar Woman"). With this, Tagore effectively invented the Bengali-language short story genre. The four years from 1891 to 1895 are known as Tagore's "Sadhana" period (named for one of Tagore's magazines). This period was among Tagore's most fecund, yielding more than half the stories contained in the three-volume Galpaguchchha, which itself is a collection of eighty-four stories. Such stories usually showcase Tagore's reflections upon his surroundings, on modern and fashionable ideas, and on interesting mind puzzles (which Tagore was fond of testing his intellect with). Tagore typically associated his earliest stories (such as those of the "Sadhana" period) with an exuberance of vitality and spontaneity; these characteristics were intimately connected with Tagore's life in the common villages of, among others, Patisar, Shajadpur, and Shilaida while managing the Tagore family's vast landholdings. There, he beheld the lives of India's poor and common people; Tagore thereby took to examining their lives with a penetrative depth and feeling that was singular in Indian literature up to that point. In particular, such stories as "Kabuliwala" ("The Fruitseller from Kabul", published in 1892), "Kshudita Pashan" ("The Hungry Stones") (August 1895), and "Atithi" ("The Runaway", 1895) typified this analytic focus on the downtrodden. Many of the other Galpaguchchha stories were written in Tagore's Sabuj Patra period from 1914 to 1917, also named after one of the magazines that Tagore edited and heavily contributed to.
Novels
Tagore wrote eight novels and four novellas, among them Chaturanga, Shesher Kobita, Char Odhay, and Noukadubi. Ghare Baire (The Home and the World)—through the lens of the idealistic zamindar protagonist Nikhil—excoriates rising Indian nationalism, terrorism, and religious zeal in the Swadeshi movement; a frank expression of Tagore's conflicted sentiments, it emerged from a 1914 bout of depression. The novel ends in Hindu-Muslim violence and Nikhil's—likely mortal—wounding.
Gora raises controversial questions regarding the Indian identity. As with Ghare Baire, matters of self-identity (jāti), personal freedom, and religion are developed in the context of a family story and love triangle. In it an Irish boy orphaned in the Sepoy Mutiny is raised by Hindus as the titular gora—"whitey". Ignorant of his foreign origins, he chastises Hindu religious backsliders out of love for the indigenous Indians and solidarity with them against his hegemon-compatriots. He falls for a Brahmo girl, compelling his worried foster father to reveal his lost past and cease his nativist zeal. As a "true dialectic" advancing "arguments for and against strict traditionalism", it tackles the colonial conundrum by "portray[ing] the value of all positions within a particular frame [...] not only syncretism, not only liberal orthodoxy, but the extremest reactionary traditionalism he defends by an appeal to what humans share." Among these Tagore highlights "identity [...] conceived of as dharma."
In Jogajog (Relationships), the heroine Kumudini—bound by the ideals of Śiva-Sati, exemplified by Dākshāyani—is torn between her pity for the sinking fortunes of her progressive and compassionate elder brother and his foil: her roue of a husband. Tagore flaunts his feminist leanings; pathos depicts the plight and ultimate demise of women trapped by pregnancy, duty, and family honour; he simultaneously trucks with Bengal's putrescent landed gentry. The story revolves around the underlying rivalry between two families—the Chatterjees, aristocrats now on the decline (Biprodas) and the Ghosals (Madhusudan), representing new money and new arrogance. Kumudini, Biprodas' sister, is caught between the two as she is married off to Madhusudan. She had risen in an observant and sheltered traditional home, as had all her female relations.
Others were uplifting: Shesher Kobita—translated twice as Last Poem and Farewell Song—is his most lyrical novel, with poems and rhythmic passages written by a poet protagonist. It contains elements of satire and postmodernism and has stock characters who gleefully attack the reputation of an old, outmoded, oppressively renowned poet who, incidentally, goes by a familiar name: "Rabindranath Tagore". Though his novels remain among the least-appreciated of his works, they have been given renewed attention via film adaptations by Ray and others: Chokher Bali and Ghare Baire are exemplary. In the first, Tagore inscribes Bengali society via its heroine: a rebellious widow who would live for herself alone. He pillories the custom of perpetual mourning on the part of widows, who were not allowed to remarry, who were consigned to seclusion and loneliness. Tagore wrote of it: "I have always regretted the ending".
Poetry
Internationally, Gitanjali () is Tagore's best-known collection of poetry, for which he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1913. Tagore was the first non-European to receive a Nobel Prize in Literature and second non-European to receive a Nobel Prize after Theodore Roosevelt.
Besides Gitanjali, other notable works include Manasi, Sonar Tori ("Golden Boat"), Balaka ("Wild Geese" — the title being a metaphor for migrating souls)
Tagore's poetic style, which proceeds from a lineage established by 15th- and 16th-century Vaishnava poets, ranges from classical formalism to the comic, visionary, and ecstatic. He was influenced by the atavistic mysticism of Vyasa and other rishi-authors of the Upanishads, the Bhakti-Sufi mystic Kabir, and Ramprasad Sen. Tagore's most innovative and mature poetry embodies his exposure to Bengali rural folk music, which included mystic Baul ballads such as those of the bard Lalon. These, rediscovered and repopularised by Tagore, resemble 19th-century Kartābhajā hymns that emphasise inward divinity and rebellion against bourgeois bhadralok religious and social orthodoxy. During his Shelaidaha years, his poems took on a lyrical voice of the moner manush, the Bāuls' "man within the heart" and Tagore's "life force of his deep recesses", or meditating upon the jeevan devata—the demiurge or the "living God within". This figure connected with divinity through appeal to nature and the emotional interplay of human drama. Such tools saw use in his Bhānusiṃha poems chronicling the Radha-Krishna romance, which were repeatedly revised over the course of seventy years.
Later, with the development of new poetic ideas in Bengal – many originating from younger poets seeking to break with Tagore's style – Tagore absorbed new poetic concepts, which allowed him to further develop a unique identity. Examples of this include Africa and Camalia, which are among the better known of his latter poems.
Songs (Rabindra Sangeet)
Tagore was a prolific composer with around 2,230 songs to his credit. His songs are known as rabindrasangit ("Tagore Song"), which merges fluidly into his literature, most of which—poems or parts of novels, stories, or plays alike—were lyricised. Influenced by the thumri style of Hindustani music, they ran the entire gamut of human emotion, ranging from his early dirge-like Brahmo devotional hymns to quasi-erotic compositions. They emulated the tonal colour of classical ragas to varying extents. Some songs mimicked a given raga's melody and rhythm faithfully; others newly blended elements of different ragas. Yet about nine-tenths of his work was not bhanga gaan, the body of tunes revamped with "fresh value" from select Western, Hindustani, Bengali folk and other regional flavours "external" to Tagore's own ancestral culture.
In 1971, Amar Shonar Bangla became the national anthem of Bangladesh. It was written – ironically – to protest the 1905 Partition of Bengal along communal lines: cutting off the Muslim-majority East Bengal from Hindu-dominated West Bengal was to avert a regional bloodbath. Tagore saw the partition as a cunning plan to stop the independence movement, and he aimed to rekindle Bengali unity and tar communalism. Jana Gana Mana was written in shadhu-bhasha, a Sanskritised form of Bengali, and is the first of five stanzas of the Brahmo hymn Bharot Bhagyo Bidhata that Tagore composed. It was first sung in 1911 at a Calcutta session of the Indian National Congress and was adopted in 1950 by the Constituent Assembly of the Republic of India as its national anthem.
The Sri Lanka's National Anthem was inspired by his work.
For Bengalis, the songs' appeal, stemming from the combination of emotive strength and beauty described as surpassing even Tagore's poetry, was such that the Modern Review observed that "[t]here is in Bengal no cultured home where Rabindranath's songs are not sung or at least attempted to be sung... Even illiterate villagers sing his songs". Tagore influenced sitar maestro Vilayat Khan and sarodiyas Buddhadev Dasgupta and Amjad Ali Khan.
Art works
At sixty, Tagore took up drawing and painting; successful exhibitions of his many works—which made a debut appearance in Paris upon encouragement by artists he met in the south of France—were held throughout Europe. He was likely red-green colour blind, resulting in works that exhibited strange colour schemes and off-beat aesthetics. Tagore was influenced by numerous styles, including scrimshaw by the Malanggan people of northern New Ireland, Papua New Guinea, Haida carvings from the Pacific Northwest region of North America, and woodcuts by the German Max Pechstein. His artist's eye for handwriting was revealed in the simple artistic and rhythmic leitmotifs embellishing the scribbles, cross-outs, and word layouts of his manuscripts. Some of Tagore's lyrics corresponded in a synesthetic sense with particular paintings.
India's National Gallery of Modern Art lists 102 works by Tagore in its collections.
Politics
Tagore opposed imperialism and supported Indian nationalists, and these views were first revealed in Manast, which was mostly composed in his twenties. Evidence produced during the Hindu–German Conspiracy Trial and latter accounts affirm his awareness of the Ghadarites, and stated that he sought the support of Japanese Prime Minister Terauchi Masatake and former Premier Ōkuma Shigenobu. Yet he lampooned the Swadeshi movement; he rebuked it in The Cult of the Charkha, an acrid 1925 essay. According to Amartya Sen, Tagore rebelled against strongly nationalist forms of the independence movement, and he wanted to assert India's right to be independent without denying the importance of what India could learn from abroad. He urged the masses to avoid victimology and instead seek self-help and education, and he saw the presence of British administration as a "political symptom of our social disease". He maintained that, even for those at the extremes of poverty, "there can be no question of blind revolution"; preferable to it was a "steady and purposeful education".
Such views enraged many. He escaped assassination—and only narrowly—by Indian expatriates during his stay in a San Francisco hotel in late 1916; the plot failed when his would-be assassins fell into argument. Tagore wrote songs lionising the Indian independence movement. Two of Tagore's more politically charged compositions, "Chitto Jetha Bhayshunyo" ("Where the Mind is Without Fear") and "Ekla Chalo Re" ("If They Answer Not to Thy Call, Walk Alone"), gained mass appeal, with the latter favoured by Gandhi. Though somewhat critical of Gandhian activism, Tagore was key in resolving a Gandhi–Ambedkar dispute involving separate electorates for untouchables, thereby mooting at least one of Gandhi's fasts "unto death".
Repudiation of knighthood
Tagore renounced his knighthood in response to the Jallianwala Bagh massacre in 1919. In the repudiation letter to the Viceroy, Lord Chelmsford, he wrote
Santiniketan and Visva-Bharati
Tagore despised rote classroom schooling: in "The Parrot's Training", a bird is caged and force-fed textbook pages—to death. Tagore, visiting Santa Barbara in 1917, conceived a new type of university: he sought to "make Santiniketan the connecting thread between India and the world [and] a world center for the study of humanity somewhere beyond the limits of nation and geography." The school, which he named Visva-Bharati, had its foundation stone laid on 24 December 1918 and was inaugurated precisely three years later. Tagore employed a brahmacharya system: gurus gave pupils personal guidance—emotional, intellectual, and spiritual. Teaching was often done under trees. He staffed the school, he contributed his Nobel Prize monies, and his duties as steward-mentor at Santiniketan kept him busy: mornings he taught classes; afternoons and evenings he wrote the students' textbooks. He fundraised widely for the school in Europe and the United States between 1919 and 1921.
Theft of Nobel Prize
On 25 March 2004, Tagore's Nobel Prize was stolen from the safety vault of the Visva-Bharati University, along with several other of his belongings. On 7 December 2004, the Swedish Academy decided to present two replicas of Tagore's Nobel Prize, one made of gold and the other made of bronze, to the Visva-Bharati University. It inspired the fictional film Nobel Chor. In 2016, a baul singer named Pradip Bauri accused of sheltering the thieves was arrested and the prize was returned.
Impact and legacy
Every year, many events pay tribute to Tagore: Kabipranam, his birth anniversary, is celebrated by groups scattered across the globe; the annual Tagore Festival held in Urbana, Illinois (USA); Rabindra Path Parikrama walking pilgrimages from Kolkata to Santiniketan; and recitals of his poetry, which are held on important anniversaries. Bengali culture is fraught with this legacy: from language and arts to history and politics. Amartya Sen deemed Tagore a "towering figure", a "deeply relevant and many-sided contemporary thinker". Tagore's Bengali originals—the 1939 Rabīndra Rachanāvalī—is canonised as one of his nation's greatest cultural treasures, and he was roped into a reasonably humble role: "the greatest poet India has produced".
Tagore was renowned throughout much of Europe, North America, and East Asia. He co-founded Dartington Hall School, a progressive coeducational institution; in Japan, he influenced such figures as Nobel laureate Yasunari Kawabata. In colonial Vietnam Tagore was a guide for the restless spirit of the radical writer and publicist Nguyen An Ninh Tagore's works were widely translated into English, Dutch, German, Spanish, and other European languages by Czech Indologist Vincenc Lesný, French Nobel laureate André Gide, Russian poet Anna Akhmatova, former Turkish Prime Minister Bülent Ecevit, and others. In the United States, Tagore's lecturing circuits, particularly those of 1916–1917, were widely attended and wildly acclaimed. Some controversies involving Tagore, possibly fictive, trashed his popularity and sales in Japan and North America after the late 1920s, concluding with his "near total eclipse" outside Bengal. Yet a latent reverence of Tagore was discovered by an astonished Salman Rushdie during a trip to Nicaragua.
By way of translations, Tagore influenced Chileans Pablo Neruda and Gabriela Mistral; Mexican writer Octavio Paz; and Spaniards José Ortega y Gasset, Zenobia Camprubí, and Juan Ramón Jiménez. In the period 1914–1922, the Jiménez-Camprubí pair produced twenty-two Spanish translations of Tagore's English corpus; they heavily revised The Crescent Moon and other key titles. In these years, Jiménez developed "naked poetry". Ortega y Gasset wrote that "Tagore's wide appeal [owes to how] he speaks of longings for perfection that we all have [...] Tagore awakens a dormant sense of childish wonder, and he saturates the air with all kinds of enchanting promises for the reader, who [...] pays little attention to the deeper import of Oriental mysticism". Tagore's works circulated in free editions around 1920—alongside those of Plato, Dante, Cervantes, Goethe, and Tolstoy.
Tagore was deemed over-rated by some. Graham Greene doubted that "anyone but Mr. Yeats can still take his poems very seriously." Several prominent Western admirers—including Pound and, to a lesser extent, even Yeats—criticised Tagore's work. Yeats, unimpressed with his English translations, railed against that "Damn Tagore [...] We got out three good books, Sturge Moore and I, and then, because he thought it more important to see and know English than to be a great poet, he brought out sentimental rubbish and wrecked his reputation. Tagore does not know English, no Indian knows English." William Radice, who "English[ed]" his poems, asked: "What is their place in world literature?" He saw him as "kind of counter-cultur[al]", bearing "a new kind of classicism" that would heal the "collapsed romantic confusion and chaos of the 20th [c]entury." The translated Tagore was "almost nonsensical", and subpar English offerings reduced his trans-national appeal:
Museums
There are eight Tagore museums. Three in India and five in Bangladesh:
Rabindra Bharati Museum, at Jorasanko Thakur Bari, Kolkata, India
Tagore Memorial Museum, at Shilaidaha Kuthibadi, Shilaidaha, Bangladesh
Rabindra Memorial Museum at Shahzadpur Kachharibari, Shahzadpur, Bangladesh
Rabindra Bhavan Museum, in Santiniketan, India
Rabindra Museum, in Mungpoo, near Kalimpong, India
Patisar Rabindra Kacharibari, Patisar, Atrai, Naogaon, Bangladesh
Pithavoge Rabindra Memorial Complex, Pithavoge, Rupsha, Khulna, Bangladesh
Rabindra Complex, Dakkhindihi village, Phultala Upazila, Khulna, Bangladesh
Jorasanko Thakur Bari (Bengali: House of the Thakurs; anglicised to Tagore) in Jorasanko, north of Kolkata, is the ancestral home of the Tagore family. It is currently located on the Rabindra Bharati University campus at 6/4 Dwarakanath Tagore Lane Jorasanko, Kolkata 700007. It is the house in which Tagore was born. It is also the place where he spent most of his childhood and where he died on 7 August 1941.
Rabindra Complex is located in Dakkhindihi village, near Phultala Upazila, from Khulna city, Bangladesh. It was the residence of tagores father-in-law, Beni Madhab Roy Chowdhury. Tagore family had close connection with Dakkhindihi village. The maternal ancestral home of the great poet was also situated at Dakkhindihi village, poets mother Sarada Sundari Devi and his paternal aunt by marriage Tripura Sundari Devi; was born in this village.Young tagore used to visit Dakkhindihi village with his mother to visit his maternal uncles in her mothers ancestral home. Tagore visited this place several times in his life. It has been declared as a protected archaeological site by Department of Archaeology of Bangladesh and converted into a museum. In 1995, the local administration took charge of the house and on 14 November of that year, the Rabindra Complex project was decided. Bangladesh Governments Department of Archeology has carried out the renovation work to make the house a museum titled ‘Rabindra Complex’ in 2011–12 fiscal year. The two-storey museum building has four rooms on the first floor and two rooms on the ground floor at present. The building has eight windows on the ground floor and 21 windows on the first floor. The height of the roof from the floor on the ground floor is 13 feet. There are seven doors, six windows and wall almirahs on the first floor. Over 500 books were kept in the library and all the rooms have been decorated with rare pictures of Rabindranath. Over 10,000 visitors come here every year to see the museum from different parts of the country and also from abroad, said Saifur Rahman, assistant director of the Department of Archeology in Khulna. A bust of Rabindranath Tagore is also there. Every year on 25–27 Baishakh (after the Bengali New Year Celebration), cultural programs are held here which lasts for three days.
List of works
The SNLTR hosts the 1415 BE edition of Tagore's complete Bengali works. Tagore Web also hosts an edition of Tagore's works, including annotated songs. Translations are found at Project Gutenberg and Wikisource. More sources are below.
Original
Translated
Adaptations of novels and short stories in cinema
Bengali
Natir Puja – 1932 – The only film directed by Rabindranath Tagore
Gora — 1938 Gora (novel) — Naresh Mitra
Noukadubi– Nitin Bose
Bou Thakuranir Haat – 1953 (Bou Thakuranir Haat) – Naresh Mitra
Kabuliwala – 1957 (Kabuliwala) – Tapan Sinha
Kshudhita Pashan – 1960 (Kshudhita Pashan) – Tapan Sinha
Teen Kanya – 1961 (Teen Kanya) – Satyajit Ray
Charulata - 1964 (Nastanirh) – Satyajit Ray
Megh o Roudra – 1969 (Megh o Roudra) – Arundhati Devi
Ghare Baire – 1985 (Ghare Baire) – Satyajit Ray
Chokher Bali – 2003 (Chokher Bali) – Rituparno Ghosh
Shasti – 2004 (Shasti) – Chashi Nazrul Islam
Shuva – 2006 (Shuvashini) – Chashi Nazrul Islam
Chaturanga – 2008 (Chaturanga) – Suman Mukhopadhyay
Noukadubi – 2011 (Noukadubi) – Rituparno Ghosh
Elar Char Adhyay – 2012 (Char Adhyay) – Bappaditya Bandyopadhyay
Hindi
Sacrifice – 1927 (Balidan) – Nanand Bhojai and Naval Gandhi
Milan – 1946 (Nauka Dubi) – Nitin Bose
Dak Ghar – 1965 (Dak Ghar) – Zul Vellani
Kabuliwala – 1961 (Kabuliwala) – Bimal Roy
Uphaar – 1971 (Samapti) – Sudhendu Roy
Lekin... – 1991 (Kshudhit Pashaan) – Gulzar
Char Adhyay – 1997 (Char Adhyay) – Kumar Shahani
Kashmakash – 2011 (Nauka Dubi) – Rituparno Ghosh
Stories by Rabindranath Tagore (Anthology TV Series) – 2015 – Anurag Basu
Bioscopewala – 2017 (Kabuliwala) – Deb MedhekarBhikharinIn popular cultureRabindranath Tagore is a 1961 Indian documentary film written and directed by Satyajit Ray, released during the birth centenary of Tagore. It was produced by the Government of India's Films Division.
In Sukanta Roy's Bengali film Chhelebela (2002) Jisshu Sengupta portrayed Tagore.
In Bandana Mukhopadhyay's Bengali film Chirosakha He (2007) Sayandip Bhattacharya played Tagore.
In Rituparno Ghosh's Bengali documentary film Jeevan Smriti (2011) Samadarshi Dutta played Tagore.
In Suman Ghosh's Bengali film Kadambari (2015) Parambrata Chatterjee portrayed Tagore.
See also
List of Indian writers
Kazi Nazrul Islam
Rabindra Jayanti
Rabindra Puraskar
Tagore familyAn Artist in Life — biography by Niharranjan Ray
Taptapadi
Timeline of Rabindranath Tagore
Music of Bengal
References
Notes
Citations
Writers from Kolkata
Bibliography
Primary
Anthologies
Originals
Translations
Secondary
Articles
Books
Other
Texts
Original
Translated
Further reading
External links
School of Wisdom
Analyses
Ezra Pound: "Rabindranath Tagore", The Fortnightly Review'', March 1913
Mary Lago Collection, University of MissouriAudiobooks Texts
Bichitra: Online Tagore Variorum
Talks'''
South Asian American Digital Archive (SAADA)
1861 births
1941 deaths
Presidency University, Kolkata alumni
Alumni of University College London
Bengali people
Bengali Hindus
Bengali philosophers
Bengali writers
Bengali zamindars
Brahmos
Founders of Indian schools and colleges
Indian Nobel laureates
National anthem writers
Nobel laureates in Literature
People associated with Santiniketan
Oriental Seminary alumni
Vangiya Sahitya Parishad
English-language poets from India
19th-century Bengali poets
Bengali-language poets
Indian Hindus
Indian male dramatists and playwrights
Indian male songwriters
Indian male essayists
19th-century Indian painters
Rabindranath
Musicians from Kolkata
19th-century Indian educational theorists
Indian portrait painters
Artist authors
Indian male poets
20th-century Indian painters
19th-century Indian poets
20th-century Indian poets
19th-century Indian musicians
19th-century Indian composers
20th-century Indian composers
19th-century Indian philosophers
20th-century Indian philosophers
20th-century Bengali poets
Bengali male poets
Indian male painters
Poets from West Bengal
19th-century Indian dramatists and playwrights
20th-century Indian dramatists and playwrights
20th-century Indian essayists
19th-century Indian essayists
20th-century Indian novelists
20th-century Indian educational theorists
Knights Bachelor
Painters from West Bengal
19th-century male musicians
Indian classical composers
19th-century classical musicians
Haiku poets
Google Doodles | 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"
]
|
[
"Rabindranath Tagore",
"Twilight years: 1932-1941",
"What happened a Tagore twilight years?",
"Fifteen new volumes appeared, among them prose-poem works Punashcha (1932), Shes Saptak (1935), and Patraput (1936).",
"Which names are worth mentioning as a contribution to this part of his life?",
"earthquake hit Bihar and killed thousands. Gandhi hailed it as seismic karma, as divine retribution avenging the oppression of Dalits. Tagore rebuked him",
"Are there any other interesting aspects about this article?",
"Tagore's remit expanded to science in his last years, as hinted in Visva-Parichay, a 1937 collection of essays."
]
| C_3e16b1a1688e458a8ad42f4ee7308019_0 | Did he win any award or recognition? | 4 | Did Rabindranath Tagore win any award or recognition? | Rabindranath Tagore | Dutta and Robinson describe this phase of Tagore's life as being one of a "peripatetic litterateur". It affirmed his opinion that human divisions were shallow. During a May 1932 visit to a Bedouin encampment in the Iraqi desert, the tribal chief told him that "Our prophet has said that a true Muslim is he by whose words and deeds not the least of his brother-men may ever come to any harm ..." Tagore confided in his diary: "I was startled into recognizing in his words the voice of essential humanity." To the end Tagore scrutinised orthodoxy--and in 1934, he struck. That year, an earthquake hit Bihar and killed thousands. Gandhi hailed it as seismic karma, as divine retribution avenging the oppression of Dalits. Tagore rebuked him for his seemingly ignominious implications. He mourned the perennial poverty of Calcutta and the socioeconomic decline of Bengal, and detailed these newly plebeian aesthetics in an unrhymed hundred-line poem whose technique of searing double-vision foreshadowed Satyajit Ray's film Apur Sansar. Fifteen new volumes appeared, among them prose-poem works Punashcha (1932), Shes Saptak (1935), and Patraput (1936). Experimentation continued in his prose-songs and dance-dramas-- Chitra (1914), Shyama (1939), and Chandalika (1938)-- and in his novels-- Dui Bon (1933), Malancha (1934), and Char Adhyay (1934). Tagore's remit expanded to science in his last years, as hinted in Visva-Parichay, a 1937 collection of essays. His respect for scientific laws and his exploration of biology, physics, and astronomy informed his poetry, which exhibited extensive naturalism and verisimilitude. He wove the process of science, the narratives of scientists, into stories in Se (1937), Tin Sangi (1940), and Galpasalpa (1941). His last five years were marked by chronic pain and two long periods of illness. These began when Tagore lost consciousness in late 1937; he remained comatose and near death for a time. This was followed in late 1940 by a similar spell, from which he never recovered. Poetry from these valetudinary years is among his finest. A period of prolonged agony ended with Tagore's death on 7 August 1941, aged eighty; he was in an upstairs room of the Jorasanko mansion he was raised in. The date is still mourned. A. K. Sen, brother of the first chief election commissioner, received dictation from Tagore on 30 July 1941, a day prior to a scheduled operation: his last poem. I'm lost in the middle of my birthday. I want my friends, their touch, with the earth's last love. I will take life's final offering, I will take the human's last blessing. Today my sack is empty. I have given completely whatever I had to give. In return if I receive anything--some love, some forgiveness--then I will take it with me when I step on the boat that crosses to the festival of the wordless end. CANNOTANSWER | CANNOTANSWER | Rabindranath Tagore (, ; 7 May 1861 – 7 August 1941) was a Bengali polymath—poet, writer, playwright, composer, philosopher, social reformer and painter. He reshaped Bengali literature and music as well as Indian art with Contextual Modernism in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Author of the "profoundly sensitive, fresh and beautiful" poetry of Gitanjali, he became in 1913 the first non-European and the first lyricist to win the Nobel Prize in Literature. Tagore's poetic songs were viewed as spiritual and mercurial; however, his "elegant prose and magical poetry" remain largely unknown outside Bengal. He was a fellow of the Royal Asiatic Society. Referred to as "the Bard of Bengal", Tagore was known by sobriquets: Gurudev, Kobiguru, Biswakobi.
A Bengali Brahmin from Calcutta with ancestral gentry roots in Burdwan district and Jessore, Tagore wrote poetry as an eight-year-old. At the age of sixteen, he released his first substantial poems under the pseudonym Bhānusiṃha ("Sun Lion"), which were seized upon by literary authorities as long-lost classics. By 1877 he graduated to his first short stories and dramas, published under his real name. As a humanist, universalist, internationalist, and ardent anti-nationalist, he denounced the British Raj and advocated independence from Britain. As an exponent of the Bengal Renaissance, he advanced a vast canon that comprised paintings, sketches and doodles, hundreds of texts, and some two thousand songs; his legacy also endures in his founding of Visva-Bharati University.
Tagore modernised Bengali art by spurning rigid classical forms and resisting linguistic strictures. His novels, stories, songs, dance-dramas, and essays spoke to topics political and personal. Gitanjali (Song Offerings), Gora (Fair-Faced) and Ghare-Baire (The Home and the World) are his best-known works, and his verse, short stories, and novels were acclaimed—or panned—for their lyricism, colloquialism, naturalism, and unnatural contemplation. His compositions were chosen by two nations as national anthems: India's "Jana Gana Mana" and Bangladesh's "Amar Shonar Bangla". The Sri Lankan national anthem was inspired by his work.
Family history
The name Tagore is the anglicised transliteration of Thakur. The original surname of the Tagores was Kushari. They were Rarhi Brahmins and originally belonged to a village named Kush in the district named Burdwan in West Bengal. The biographer of Rabindranath Tagore, Prabhat Kumar Mukhopadhyaya wrote in the first volume of his book Rabindrajibani O Rabindra Sahitya Prabeshak that
{{Cquote|quote=The Kusharis were the descendants of Deen Kushari, the son of Bhatta Narayana; Deen was granted a village named Kush (in Burdwan zilla) by Maharaja Kshitisura, he became its chief and came to be known as Kushari.}}
Life and events
Early life: 1861–1878
The youngest of 13 surviving children, Tagore (nicknamed "Rabi") was born on 7 May 1861 in the Jorasanko mansion in Calcutta, the son of Debendranath Tagore (1817–1905) and Sarada Devi (1830–1875).
Tagore was raised mostly by servants; his mother had died in his early childhood and his father travelled widely. The Tagore family was at the forefront of the Bengal renaissance. They hosted the publication of literary magazines; theatre and recitals of Bengali and Western classical music featured there regularly. Tagore's father invited several professional Dhrupad musicians to stay in the house and teach Indian classical music to the children. Tagore's oldest brother Dwijendranath was a philosopher and poet. Another brother, Satyendranath, was the first Indian appointed to the elite and formerly all-European Indian Civil Service. Yet another brother, Jyotirindranath, was a musician, composer, and playwright. His sister Swarnakumari became a novelist. Jyotirindranath's wife Kadambari Devi, slightly older than Tagore, was a dear friend and powerful influence. Her abrupt suicide in 1884, soon after he married, left him profoundly distraught for years.
Tagore largely avoided classroom schooling and preferred to roam the manor or nearby Bolpur and Panihati, which the family visited. His brother Hemendranath tutored and physically conditioned him—by having him swim the Ganges or trek through hills, by gymnastics, and by practising judo and wrestling. He learned drawing, anatomy, geography and history, literature, mathematics, Sanskrit, and English—his least favourite subject. Tagore loathed formal education—his scholarly travails at the local Presidency College spanned a single day. Years later he held that proper teaching does not explain things; proper teaching stokes curiosity:
After his upanayan (coming-of-age rite) at age eleven, Tagore and his father left Calcutta in February 1873 to tour India for several months, visiting his father's Santiniketan estate and Amritsar before reaching the Himalayan hill station of Dalhousie. There Tagore read biographies, studied history, astronomy, modern science, and Sanskrit, and examined the classical poetry of Kālidāsa. During his 1-month stay at Amritsar in 1873 he was greatly influenced by melodious gurbani and nanak bani being sung at Golden Temple for which both father and son were regular visitors. He mentions about this in his My Reminiscences (1912) He wrote 6 poems relating to Sikhism and a number of articles in Bengali children's magazine about Sikhism.
Tagore returned to Jorosanko and completed a set of major works by 1877, one of them a long poem in the Maithili style of Vidyapati. As a joke, he claimed that these were the lost works of newly discovered 17th-century Vaiṣṇava poet Bhānusiṃha. Regional experts accepted them as the lost works of the fictitious poet. He debuted in the short-story genre in Bengali with "Bhikharini" ("The Beggar Woman"). Published in the same year, Sandhya Sangit (1882) includes the poem "Nirjharer Swapnabhanga" ("The Rousing of the Waterfall").
Shelaidaha: 1878–1901
Because Debendranath wanted his son to become a barrister, Tagore enrolled at a public school in Brighton, East Sussex, England in 1878. He stayed for several months at a house that the Tagore family owned near Brighton and Hove, in Medina Villas; in 1877 his nephew and niece—Suren and Indira Devi, the children of Tagore's brother Satyendranath—were sent together with their mother, Tagore's sister-in-law, to live with him. He briefly read law at University College London, but again left school, opting instead for independent study of Shakespeare's plays Coriolanus, and Antony and Cleopatra and the Religio Medici of Thomas Browne. Lively English, Irish, and Scottish folk tunes impressed Tagore, whose own tradition of Nidhubabu-authored kirtans and tappas and Brahmo hymnody was subdued. In 1880 he returned to Bengal degree-less, resolving to reconcile European novelty with Brahmo traditions, taking the best from each. After returning to Bengal, Tagore regularly published poems, stories, and novels. These had a profound impact within Bengal itself but received little national attention. In 1883 he married 10-year-old Mrinalini Devi, born Bhabatarini, 1873–1902 (this was a common practice at the time). They had five children, two of whom died in childhood.
In 1890 Tagore began managing his vast ancestral estates in Shelaidaha (today a region of Bangladesh); he was joined there by his wife and children in 1898. Tagore released his Manasi poems (1890), among his best-known work. As Zamindar Babu, Tagore criss-crossed the Padma River in command of the Padma, the luxurious family barge (also known as "budgerow"). He collected mostly token rents and blessed villagers who in turn honoured him with banquets—occasionally of dried rice and sour milk. He met Gagan Harkara, through whom he became familiar with Baul Lalon Shah, whose folk songs greatly influenced Tagore. Tagore worked to popularise Lalon's songs. The period 1891–1895, Tagore's Sadhana period, named after one of his magazines, was his most productive; in these years he wrote more than half the stories of the three-volume, 84-story Galpaguchchha. Its ironic and grave tales examined the voluptuous poverty of an idealised rural Bengal.
Santiniketan: 1901–1932
In 1901 Tagore moved to Santiniketan to found an ashram with a marble-floored prayer hall—The Mandir—an experimental school, groves of trees, gardens, a library. There his wife and two of his children died. His father died in 1905. He received monthly payments as part of his inheritance and income from the Maharaja of Tripura, sales of his family's jewellery, his seaside bungalow in Puri, and a derisory 2,000 rupees in book royalties. He gained Bengali and foreign readers alike; he published Naivedya (1901) and Kheya (1906) and translated poems into free verse.
In November 1913, Tagore learned he had won that year's Nobel Prize in Literature: the Swedish Academy appreciated the idealistic—and for Westerners—accessible nature of a small body of his translated material focused on the 1912 Gitanjali: Song Offerings. He was awarded a knighthood by King George V in the 1915 Birthday Honours, but Tagore renounced it after the 1919 Jallianwala Bagh massacre. Renouncing the knighthood, Tagore wrote in a letter addressed to Lord Chelmsford, the then British Viceroy of India, "The disproportionate severity of the punishments inflicted upon the unfortunate people and the methods of carrying them out, we are convinced, are without parallel in the history of civilised governments...The time has come when badges of honour make our shame glaring in their incongruous context of humiliation, and I for my part wish to stand, shorn of all special distinctions, by the side of my country men."
In 1919, he was invited by the president and chairman of Anjuman-e-Islamia, Syed Abdul Majid to visit Sylhet for the first time. The event attracted over 5000 people.
In 1921, Tagore and agricultural economist Leonard Elmhirst set up the "Institute for Rural Reconstruction", later renamed Shriniketan or "Abode of Welfare", in Surul, a village near the ashram. With it, Tagore sought to moderate Gandhi's Swaraj protests, which he occasionally blamed for British India's perceived mental – and thus ultimately colonial – decline. He sought aid from donors, officials, and scholars worldwide to "free village[s] from the shackles of helplessness and ignorance" by "vitalis[ing] knowledge". In the early 1930s he targeted ambient "abnormal caste consciousness" and untouchability. He lectured against these, he penned Dalit heroes for his poems and his dramas, and he campaigned—successfully—to open Guruvayoor Temple to Dalits.
Twilight years: 1932–1941
Dutta and Robinson describe this phase of Tagore's life as being one of a "peripatetic litterateur". It affirmed his opinion that human divisions were shallow. During a May 1932 visit to a Bedouin encampment in the Iraqi desert, the tribal chief told him that "Our Prophet has said that a true Muslim is he by whose words and deeds not the least of his brother-men may ever come to any harm ..." Tagore confided in his diary: "I was startled into recognizing in his words the voice of essential humanity." To the end Tagore scrutinised orthodoxy—and in 1934, he struck. That year, an earthquake hit Bihar and killed thousands. Gandhi hailed it as seismic karma, as divine retribution avenging the oppression of Dalits. Tagore rebuked him for his seemingly ignominious implications. He mourned the perennial poverty of Calcutta and the socioeconomic decline of Bengal, and detailed these newly plebeian aesthetics in an unrhymed hundred-line poem whose technique of searing double-vision foreshadowed Satyajit Ray's film Apur Sansar. Fifteen new volumes appeared, among them prose-poem works Punashcha (1932), Shes Saptak (1935), and Patraput (1936). Experimentation continued in his prose-songs and dance-dramas— Chitra (1914), Shyama (1939), and Chandalika (1938)— and in his novels— Dui Bon (1933), Malancha (1934), and Char Adhyay (1934).
Tagore's remit expanded to science in his last years, as hinted in Visva-Parichay, a 1937 collection of essays. His respect for scientific laws and his exploration of biology, physics, and astronomy informed his poetry, which exhibited extensive naturalism and verisimilitude. He wove the process of science, the narratives of scientists, into stories in Se (1937), Tin Sangi (1940), and Galpasalpa (1941). His last five years were marked by chronic pain and two long periods of illness. These began when Tagore lost consciousness in late 1937; he remained comatose and near death for a time. This was followed in late 1940 by a similar spell, from which he never recovered. Poetry from these valetudinary years is among his finest. A period of prolonged agony ended with Tagore's death on 7 August 1941, aged 80. He was in an upstairs room of the Jorasanko mansion in which he grew up. The date is still mourned. A. K. Sen, brother of the first chief election commissioner, received dictation from Tagore on 30 July 1941, a day prior to a scheduled operation: his last poem.
Travels
Between 1878 and 1932, Tagore set foot in more than thirty countries on five continents. In 1912, he took a sheaf of his translated works to England, where they gained attention from missionary and Gandhi protégé Charles F. Andrews, Irish poet William Butler Yeats, Ezra Pound, Robert Bridges, Ernest Rhys, Thomas Sturge Moore, and others. Yeats wrote the preface to the English translation of Gitanjali; Andrews joined Tagore at Santiniketan. In November 1912 Tagore began touring the United States and the United Kingdom, staying in Butterton, Staffordshire with Andrews's clergymen friends. From May 1916 until April 1917, he lectured in Japan and the United States. He denounced nationalism. His essay "Nationalism in India" was scorned and praised; it was admired by Romain Rolland and other pacifists.
Shortly after returning home the 63-year-old Tagore accepted an invitation from the Peruvian government. He travelled to Mexico. Each government pledged 100,000 to his school to commemorate the visits. A week after his 6 November 1924 arrival in Buenos Aires, an ill Tagore shifted to the Villa Miralrío at the behest of Victoria Ocampo. He left for home in January 1925. In May 1926 Tagore reached Naples; the next day he met Mussolini in Rome. Their warm rapport ended when Tagore pronounced upon Il Duces fascist finesse. He had earlier enthused: "[w]ithout any doubt he is a great personality. There is such a massive vigour in that head that it reminds one of Michael Angelo's chisel." A "fire-bath" of fascism was to have educed "the immortal soul of Italy ... clothed in quenchless light".
On 1 November 1926 Tagore arrived to Hungary and spent some time on the shore of Lake Balaton in the city of Balatonfüred, recovering from heart problems at a sanitarium. He planted a tree and a bust statue was placed there in 1956 (a gift from the Indian government, the work of Rasithan Kashar, replaced by a newly gifted statue in 2005) and the lakeside promenade still bears his name since 1957.
On 14 July 1927 Tagore and two companions began a four-month tour of Southeast Asia. They visited Bali, Java, Kuala Lumpur, Malacca, Penang, Siam, and Singapore. The resultant travelogues compose Jatri (1929). In early 1930 he left Bengal for a nearly year-long tour of Europe and the United States. Upon returning to Britain—and as his paintings were exhibited in Paris and London—he lodged at a Birmingham Quaker settlement. He wrote his Oxford Hibbert Lectures and spoke at the annual London Quaker meet. There, addressing relations between the British and the Indians – a topic he would tackle repeatedly over the next two years – Tagore spoke of a "dark chasm of aloofness". He visited Aga Khan III, stayed at Dartington Hall, toured Denmark, Switzerland, and Germany from June to mid-September 1930, then went on into the Soviet Union. In April 1932 Tagore, intrigued by the Persian mystic Hafez, was hosted by Reza Shah Pahlavi. In his other travels, Tagore interacted with Henri Bergson, Albert Einstein, Robert Frost, Thomas Mann, George Bernard Shaw, H.G. Wells, and Romain Rolland. Visits to Persia and Iraq (in 1932) and Sri Lanka (in 1933) composed Tagore's final foreign tour, and his dislike of communalism and nationalism only deepened.
Vice-President of India M. Hamid Ansari has said that Rabindranath Tagore heralded the cultural rapprochement between communities, societies and nations much before it became the liberal norm of conduct.
Tagore was a man ahead of his time. He wrote in 1932, while on a visit to Iran, that "each country of Asia will solve its own historical problems according to its strength, nature and needs, but the lamp they will each carry on their path to progress will converge to illuminate the common ray of knowledge."
Works
Known mostly for his poetry, Tagore wrote novels, essays, short stories, travelogues, dramas, and thousands of songs. Of Tagore's prose, his short stories are perhaps most highly regarded; he is indeed credited with originating the Bengali-language version of the genre. His works are frequently noted for their rhythmic, optimistic, and lyrical nature. Such stories mostly borrow from the lives of common people. Tagore's non-fiction grappled with history, linguistics, and spirituality. He wrote autobiographies. His travelogues, essays, and lectures were compiled into several volumes, including Europe Jatrir Patro (Letters from Europe) and Manusher Dhormo (The Religion of Man). His brief chat with Einstein, "Note on the Nature of Reality", is included as an appendix to the latter. On the occasion of Tagore's 150th birthday, an anthology (titled Kalanukromik Rabindra Rachanabali) of the total body of his works is currently being published in Bengali in chronological order. This includes all versions of each work and fills about eighty volumes. In 2011, Harvard University Press collaborated with Visva-Bharati University to publish The Essential Tagore, the largest anthology of Tagore's works available in English; it was edited by Fakrul Alam and Radha Chakravarthy and marks the 150th anniversary of Tagore's birth.
Drama
Tagore's experiences with drama began when he was sixteen, with his brother Jyotirindranath. He wrote his first original dramatic piece when he was twenty — Valmiki Pratibha which was shown at the Tagore's mansion. Tagore stated that his works sought to articulate "the play of feeling and not of action". In 1890 he wrote Visarjan (an adaptation of his novella Rajarshi), which has been regarded as his finest drama. In the original Bengali language, such works included intricate subplots and extended monologues. Later, Tagore's dramas used more philosophical and allegorical themes. The play Dak Ghar (The Post Office; 1912), describes the child Amal defying his stuffy and puerile confines by ultimately "fall[ing] asleep", hinting his physical death. A story with borderless appeal—gleaning rave reviews in Europe—Dak Ghar dealt with death as, in Tagore's words, "spiritual freedom" from "the world of hoarded wealth and certified creeds". Another is Tagore's Chandalika (Untouchable Girl), which was modelled on an ancient Buddhist legend describing how Ananda, the Gautama Buddha's disciple, asks a tribal girl for water. In Raktakarabi ("Red" or "Blood Oleanders") is an allegorical struggle against a kleptocrat king who rules over the residents of Yaksha puri.
Chitrangada, Chandalika, and Shyama are other key plays that have dance-drama adaptations, which together are known as Rabindra Nritya Natya.
Short stories
Tagore began his career in short stories in 1877—when he was only sixteen—with "Bhikharini" ("The Beggar Woman"). With this, Tagore effectively invented the Bengali-language short story genre. The four years from 1891 to 1895 are known as Tagore's "Sadhana" period (named for one of Tagore's magazines). This period was among Tagore's most fecund, yielding more than half the stories contained in the three-volume Galpaguchchha, which itself is a collection of eighty-four stories. Such stories usually showcase Tagore's reflections upon his surroundings, on modern and fashionable ideas, and on interesting mind puzzles (which Tagore was fond of testing his intellect with). Tagore typically associated his earliest stories (such as those of the "Sadhana" period) with an exuberance of vitality and spontaneity; these characteristics were intimately connected with Tagore's life in the common villages of, among others, Patisar, Shajadpur, and Shilaida while managing the Tagore family's vast landholdings. There, he beheld the lives of India's poor and common people; Tagore thereby took to examining their lives with a penetrative depth and feeling that was singular in Indian literature up to that point. In particular, such stories as "Kabuliwala" ("The Fruitseller from Kabul", published in 1892), "Kshudita Pashan" ("The Hungry Stones") (August 1895), and "Atithi" ("The Runaway", 1895) typified this analytic focus on the downtrodden. Many of the other Galpaguchchha stories were written in Tagore's Sabuj Patra period from 1914 to 1917, also named after one of the magazines that Tagore edited and heavily contributed to.
Novels
Tagore wrote eight novels and four novellas, among them Chaturanga, Shesher Kobita, Char Odhay, and Noukadubi. Ghare Baire (The Home and the World)—through the lens of the idealistic zamindar protagonist Nikhil—excoriates rising Indian nationalism, terrorism, and religious zeal in the Swadeshi movement; a frank expression of Tagore's conflicted sentiments, it emerged from a 1914 bout of depression. The novel ends in Hindu-Muslim violence and Nikhil's—likely mortal—wounding.
Gora raises controversial questions regarding the Indian identity. As with Ghare Baire, matters of self-identity (jāti), personal freedom, and religion are developed in the context of a family story and love triangle. In it an Irish boy orphaned in the Sepoy Mutiny is raised by Hindus as the titular gora—"whitey". Ignorant of his foreign origins, he chastises Hindu religious backsliders out of love for the indigenous Indians and solidarity with them against his hegemon-compatriots. He falls for a Brahmo girl, compelling his worried foster father to reveal his lost past and cease his nativist zeal. As a "true dialectic" advancing "arguments for and against strict traditionalism", it tackles the colonial conundrum by "portray[ing] the value of all positions within a particular frame [...] not only syncretism, not only liberal orthodoxy, but the extremest reactionary traditionalism he defends by an appeal to what humans share." Among these Tagore highlights "identity [...] conceived of as dharma."
In Jogajog (Relationships), the heroine Kumudini—bound by the ideals of Śiva-Sati, exemplified by Dākshāyani—is torn between her pity for the sinking fortunes of her progressive and compassionate elder brother and his foil: her roue of a husband. Tagore flaunts his feminist leanings; pathos depicts the plight and ultimate demise of women trapped by pregnancy, duty, and family honour; he simultaneously trucks with Bengal's putrescent landed gentry. The story revolves around the underlying rivalry between two families—the Chatterjees, aristocrats now on the decline (Biprodas) and the Ghosals (Madhusudan), representing new money and new arrogance. Kumudini, Biprodas' sister, is caught between the two as she is married off to Madhusudan. She had risen in an observant and sheltered traditional home, as had all her female relations.
Others were uplifting: Shesher Kobita—translated twice as Last Poem and Farewell Song—is his most lyrical novel, with poems and rhythmic passages written by a poet protagonist. It contains elements of satire and postmodernism and has stock characters who gleefully attack the reputation of an old, outmoded, oppressively renowned poet who, incidentally, goes by a familiar name: "Rabindranath Tagore". Though his novels remain among the least-appreciated of his works, they have been given renewed attention via film adaptations by Ray and others: Chokher Bali and Ghare Baire are exemplary. In the first, Tagore inscribes Bengali society via its heroine: a rebellious widow who would live for herself alone. He pillories the custom of perpetual mourning on the part of widows, who were not allowed to remarry, who were consigned to seclusion and loneliness. Tagore wrote of it: "I have always regretted the ending".
Poetry
Internationally, Gitanjali () is Tagore's best-known collection of poetry, for which he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1913. Tagore was the first non-European to receive a Nobel Prize in Literature and second non-European to receive a Nobel Prize after Theodore Roosevelt.
Besides Gitanjali, other notable works include Manasi, Sonar Tori ("Golden Boat"), Balaka ("Wild Geese" — the title being a metaphor for migrating souls)
Tagore's poetic style, which proceeds from a lineage established by 15th- and 16th-century Vaishnava poets, ranges from classical formalism to the comic, visionary, and ecstatic. He was influenced by the atavistic mysticism of Vyasa and other rishi-authors of the Upanishads, the Bhakti-Sufi mystic Kabir, and Ramprasad Sen. Tagore's most innovative and mature poetry embodies his exposure to Bengali rural folk music, which included mystic Baul ballads such as those of the bard Lalon. These, rediscovered and repopularised by Tagore, resemble 19th-century Kartābhajā hymns that emphasise inward divinity and rebellion against bourgeois bhadralok religious and social orthodoxy. During his Shelaidaha years, his poems took on a lyrical voice of the moner manush, the Bāuls' "man within the heart" and Tagore's "life force of his deep recesses", or meditating upon the jeevan devata—the demiurge or the "living God within". This figure connected with divinity through appeal to nature and the emotional interplay of human drama. Such tools saw use in his Bhānusiṃha poems chronicling the Radha-Krishna romance, which were repeatedly revised over the course of seventy years.
Later, with the development of new poetic ideas in Bengal – many originating from younger poets seeking to break with Tagore's style – Tagore absorbed new poetic concepts, which allowed him to further develop a unique identity. Examples of this include Africa and Camalia, which are among the better known of his latter poems.
Songs (Rabindra Sangeet)
Tagore was a prolific composer with around 2,230 songs to his credit. His songs are known as rabindrasangit ("Tagore Song"), which merges fluidly into his literature, most of which—poems or parts of novels, stories, or plays alike—were lyricised. Influenced by the thumri style of Hindustani music, they ran the entire gamut of human emotion, ranging from his early dirge-like Brahmo devotional hymns to quasi-erotic compositions. They emulated the tonal colour of classical ragas to varying extents. Some songs mimicked a given raga's melody and rhythm faithfully; others newly blended elements of different ragas. Yet about nine-tenths of his work was not bhanga gaan, the body of tunes revamped with "fresh value" from select Western, Hindustani, Bengali folk and other regional flavours "external" to Tagore's own ancestral culture.
In 1971, Amar Shonar Bangla became the national anthem of Bangladesh. It was written – ironically – to protest the 1905 Partition of Bengal along communal lines: cutting off the Muslim-majority East Bengal from Hindu-dominated West Bengal was to avert a regional bloodbath. Tagore saw the partition as a cunning plan to stop the independence movement, and he aimed to rekindle Bengali unity and tar communalism. Jana Gana Mana was written in shadhu-bhasha, a Sanskritised form of Bengali, and is the first of five stanzas of the Brahmo hymn Bharot Bhagyo Bidhata that Tagore composed. It was first sung in 1911 at a Calcutta session of the Indian National Congress and was adopted in 1950 by the Constituent Assembly of the Republic of India as its national anthem.
The Sri Lanka's National Anthem was inspired by his work.
For Bengalis, the songs' appeal, stemming from the combination of emotive strength and beauty described as surpassing even Tagore's poetry, was such that the Modern Review observed that "[t]here is in Bengal no cultured home where Rabindranath's songs are not sung or at least attempted to be sung... Even illiterate villagers sing his songs". Tagore influenced sitar maestro Vilayat Khan and sarodiyas Buddhadev Dasgupta and Amjad Ali Khan.
Art works
At sixty, Tagore took up drawing and painting; successful exhibitions of his many works—which made a debut appearance in Paris upon encouragement by artists he met in the south of France—were held throughout Europe. He was likely red-green colour blind, resulting in works that exhibited strange colour schemes and off-beat aesthetics. Tagore was influenced by numerous styles, including scrimshaw by the Malanggan people of northern New Ireland, Papua New Guinea, Haida carvings from the Pacific Northwest region of North America, and woodcuts by the German Max Pechstein. His artist's eye for handwriting was revealed in the simple artistic and rhythmic leitmotifs embellishing the scribbles, cross-outs, and word layouts of his manuscripts. Some of Tagore's lyrics corresponded in a synesthetic sense with particular paintings.
India's National Gallery of Modern Art lists 102 works by Tagore in its collections.
Politics
Tagore opposed imperialism and supported Indian nationalists, and these views were first revealed in Manast, which was mostly composed in his twenties. Evidence produced during the Hindu–German Conspiracy Trial and latter accounts affirm his awareness of the Ghadarites, and stated that he sought the support of Japanese Prime Minister Terauchi Masatake and former Premier Ōkuma Shigenobu. Yet he lampooned the Swadeshi movement; he rebuked it in The Cult of the Charkha, an acrid 1925 essay. According to Amartya Sen, Tagore rebelled against strongly nationalist forms of the independence movement, and he wanted to assert India's right to be independent without denying the importance of what India could learn from abroad. He urged the masses to avoid victimology and instead seek self-help and education, and he saw the presence of British administration as a "political symptom of our social disease". He maintained that, even for those at the extremes of poverty, "there can be no question of blind revolution"; preferable to it was a "steady and purposeful education".
Such views enraged many. He escaped assassination—and only narrowly—by Indian expatriates during his stay in a San Francisco hotel in late 1916; the plot failed when his would-be assassins fell into argument. Tagore wrote songs lionising the Indian independence movement. Two of Tagore's more politically charged compositions, "Chitto Jetha Bhayshunyo" ("Where the Mind is Without Fear") and "Ekla Chalo Re" ("If They Answer Not to Thy Call, Walk Alone"), gained mass appeal, with the latter favoured by Gandhi. Though somewhat critical of Gandhian activism, Tagore was key in resolving a Gandhi–Ambedkar dispute involving separate electorates for untouchables, thereby mooting at least one of Gandhi's fasts "unto death".
Repudiation of knighthood
Tagore renounced his knighthood in response to the Jallianwala Bagh massacre in 1919. In the repudiation letter to the Viceroy, Lord Chelmsford, he wrote
Santiniketan and Visva-Bharati
Tagore despised rote classroom schooling: in "The Parrot's Training", a bird is caged and force-fed textbook pages—to death. Tagore, visiting Santa Barbara in 1917, conceived a new type of university: he sought to "make Santiniketan the connecting thread between India and the world [and] a world center for the study of humanity somewhere beyond the limits of nation and geography." The school, which he named Visva-Bharati, had its foundation stone laid on 24 December 1918 and was inaugurated precisely three years later. Tagore employed a brahmacharya system: gurus gave pupils personal guidance—emotional, intellectual, and spiritual. Teaching was often done under trees. He staffed the school, he contributed his Nobel Prize monies, and his duties as steward-mentor at Santiniketan kept him busy: mornings he taught classes; afternoons and evenings he wrote the students' textbooks. He fundraised widely for the school in Europe and the United States between 1919 and 1921.
Theft of Nobel Prize
On 25 March 2004, Tagore's Nobel Prize was stolen from the safety vault of the Visva-Bharati University, along with several other of his belongings. On 7 December 2004, the Swedish Academy decided to present two replicas of Tagore's Nobel Prize, one made of gold and the other made of bronze, to the Visva-Bharati University. It inspired the fictional film Nobel Chor. In 2016, a baul singer named Pradip Bauri accused of sheltering the thieves was arrested and the prize was returned.
Impact and legacy
Every year, many events pay tribute to Tagore: Kabipranam, his birth anniversary, is celebrated by groups scattered across the globe; the annual Tagore Festival held in Urbana, Illinois (USA); Rabindra Path Parikrama walking pilgrimages from Kolkata to Santiniketan; and recitals of his poetry, which are held on important anniversaries. Bengali culture is fraught with this legacy: from language and arts to history and politics. Amartya Sen deemed Tagore a "towering figure", a "deeply relevant and many-sided contemporary thinker". Tagore's Bengali originals—the 1939 Rabīndra Rachanāvalī—is canonised as one of his nation's greatest cultural treasures, and he was roped into a reasonably humble role: "the greatest poet India has produced".
Tagore was renowned throughout much of Europe, North America, and East Asia. He co-founded Dartington Hall School, a progressive coeducational institution; in Japan, he influenced such figures as Nobel laureate Yasunari Kawabata. In colonial Vietnam Tagore was a guide for the restless spirit of the radical writer and publicist Nguyen An Ninh Tagore's works were widely translated into English, Dutch, German, Spanish, and other European languages by Czech Indologist Vincenc Lesný, French Nobel laureate André Gide, Russian poet Anna Akhmatova, former Turkish Prime Minister Bülent Ecevit, and others. In the United States, Tagore's lecturing circuits, particularly those of 1916–1917, were widely attended and wildly acclaimed. Some controversies involving Tagore, possibly fictive, trashed his popularity and sales in Japan and North America after the late 1920s, concluding with his "near total eclipse" outside Bengal. Yet a latent reverence of Tagore was discovered by an astonished Salman Rushdie during a trip to Nicaragua.
By way of translations, Tagore influenced Chileans Pablo Neruda and Gabriela Mistral; Mexican writer Octavio Paz; and Spaniards José Ortega y Gasset, Zenobia Camprubí, and Juan Ramón Jiménez. In the period 1914–1922, the Jiménez-Camprubí pair produced twenty-two Spanish translations of Tagore's English corpus; they heavily revised The Crescent Moon and other key titles. In these years, Jiménez developed "naked poetry". Ortega y Gasset wrote that "Tagore's wide appeal [owes to how] he speaks of longings for perfection that we all have [...] Tagore awakens a dormant sense of childish wonder, and he saturates the air with all kinds of enchanting promises for the reader, who [...] pays little attention to the deeper import of Oriental mysticism". Tagore's works circulated in free editions around 1920—alongside those of Plato, Dante, Cervantes, Goethe, and Tolstoy.
Tagore was deemed over-rated by some. Graham Greene doubted that "anyone but Mr. Yeats can still take his poems very seriously." Several prominent Western admirers—including Pound and, to a lesser extent, even Yeats—criticised Tagore's work. Yeats, unimpressed with his English translations, railed against that "Damn Tagore [...] We got out three good books, Sturge Moore and I, and then, because he thought it more important to see and know English than to be a great poet, he brought out sentimental rubbish and wrecked his reputation. Tagore does not know English, no Indian knows English." William Radice, who "English[ed]" his poems, asked: "What is their place in world literature?" He saw him as "kind of counter-cultur[al]", bearing "a new kind of classicism" that would heal the "collapsed romantic confusion and chaos of the 20th [c]entury." The translated Tagore was "almost nonsensical", and subpar English offerings reduced his trans-national appeal:
Museums
There are eight Tagore museums. Three in India and five in Bangladesh:
Rabindra Bharati Museum, at Jorasanko Thakur Bari, Kolkata, India
Tagore Memorial Museum, at Shilaidaha Kuthibadi, Shilaidaha, Bangladesh
Rabindra Memorial Museum at Shahzadpur Kachharibari, Shahzadpur, Bangladesh
Rabindra Bhavan Museum, in Santiniketan, India
Rabindra Museum, in Mungpoo, near Kalimpong, India
Patisar Rabindra Kacharibari, Patisar, Atrai, Naogaon, Bangladesh
Pithavoge Rabindra Memorial Complex, Pithavoge, Rupsha, Khulna, Bangladesh
Rabindra Complex, Dakkhindihi village, Phultala Upazila, Khulna, Bangladesh
Jorasanko Thakur Bari (Bengali: House of the Thakurs; anglicised to Tagore) in Jorasanko, north of Kolkata, is the ancestral home of the Tagore family. It is currently located on the Rabindra Bharati University campus at 6/4 Dwarakanath Tagore Lane Jorasanko, Kolkata 700007. It is the house in which Tagore was born. It is also the place where he spent most of his childhood and where he died on 7 August 1941.
Rabindra Complex is located in Dakkhindihi village, near Phultala Upazila, from Khulna city, Bangladesh. It was the residence of tagores father-in-law, Beni Madhab Roy Chowdhury. Tagore family had close connection with Dakkhindihi village. The maternal ancestral home of the great poet was also situated at Dakkhindihi village, poets mother Sarada Sundari Devi and his paternal aunt by marriage Tripura Sundari Devi; was born in this village.Young tagore used to visit Dakkhindihi village with his mother to visit his maternal uncles in her mothers ancestral home. Tagore visited this place several times in his life. It has been declared as a protected archaeological site by Department of Archaeology of Bangladesh and converted into a museum. In 1995, the local administration took charge of the house and on 14 November of that year, the Rabindra Complex project was decided. Bangladesh Governments Department of Archeology has carried out the renovation work to make the house a museum titled ‘Rabindra Complex’ in 2011–12 fiscal year. The two-storey museum building has four rooms on the first floor and two rooms on the ground floor at present. The building has eight windows on the ground floor and 21 windows on the first floor. The height of the roof from the floor on the ground floor is 13 feet. There are seven doors, six windows and wall almirahs on the first floor. Over 500 books were kept in the library and all the rooms have been decorated with rare pictures of Rabindranath. Over 10,000 visitors come here every year to see the museum from different parts of the country and also from abroad, said Saifur Rahman, assistant director of the Department of Archeology in Khulna. A bust of Rabindranath Tagore is also there. Every year on 25–27 Baishakh (after the Bengali New Year Celebration), cultural programs are held here which lasts for three days.
List of works
The SNLTR hosts the 1415 BE edition of Tagore's complete Bengali works. Tagore Web also hosts an edition of Tagore's works, including annotated songs. Translations are found at Project Gutenberg and Wikisource. More sources are below.
Original
Translated
Adaptations of novels and short stories in cinema
Bengali
Natir Puja – 1932 – The only film directed by Rabindranath Tagore
Gora — 1938 Gora (novel) — Naresh Mitra
Noukadubi– Nitin Bose
Bou Thakuranir Haat – 1953 (Bou Thakuranir Haat) – Naresh Mitra
Kabuliwala – 1957 (Kabuliwala) – Tapan Sinha
Kshudhita Pashan – 1960 (Kshudhita Pashan) – Tapan Sinha
Teen Kanya – 1961 (Teen Kanya) – Satyajit Ray
Charulata - 1964 (Nastanirh) – Satyajit Ray
Megh o Roudra – 1969 (Megh o Roudra) – Arundhati Devi
Ghare Baire – 1985 (Ghare Baire) – Satyajit Ray
Chokher Bali – 2003 (Chokher Bali) – Rituparno Ghosh
Shasti – 2004 (Shasti) – Chashi Nazrul Islam
Shuva – 2006 (Shuvashini) – Chashi Nazrul Islam
Chaturanga – 2008 (Chaturanga) – Suman Mukhopadhyay
Noukadubi – 2011 (Noukadubi) – Rituparno Ghosh
Elar Char Adhyay – 2012 (Char Adhyay) – Bappaditya Bandyopadhyay
Hindi
Sacrifice – 1927 (Balidan) – Nanand Bhojai and Naval Gandhi
Milan – 1946 (Nauka Dubi) – Nitin Bose
Dak Ghar – 1965 (Dak Ghar) – Zul Vellani
Kabuliwala – 1961 (Kabuliwala) – Bimal Roy
Uphaar – 1971 (Samapti) – Sudhendu Roy
Lekin... – 1991 (Kshudhit Pashaan) – Gulzar
Char Adhyay – 1997 (Char Adhyay) – Kumar Shahani
Kashmakash – 2011 (Nauka Dubi) – Rituparno Ghosh
Stories by Rabindranath Tagore (Anthology TV Series) – 2015 – Anurag Basu
Bioscopewala – 2017 (Kabuliwala) – Deb MedhekarBhikharinIn popular cultureRabindranath Tagore is a 1961 Indian documentary film written and directed by Satyajit Ray, released during the birth centenary of Tagore. It was produced by the Government of India's Films Division.
In Sukanta Roy's Bengali film Chhelebela (2002) Jisshu Sengupta portrayed Tagore.
In Bandana Mukhopadhyay's Bengali film Chirosakha He (2007) Sayandip Bhattacharya played Tagore.
In Rituparno Ghosh's Bengali documentary film Jeevan Smriti (2011) Samadarshi Dutta played Tagore.
In Suman Ghosh's Bengali film Kadambari (2015) Parambrata Chatterjee portrayed Tagore.
See also
List of Indian writers
Kazi Nazrul Islam
Rabindra Jayanti
Rabindra Puraskar
Tagore familyAn Artist in Life — biography by Niharranjan Ray
Taptapadi
Timeline of Rabindranath Tagore
Music of Bengal
References
Notes
Citations
Writers from Kolkata
Bibliography
Primary
Anthologies
Originals
Translations
Secondary
Articles
Books
Other
Texts
Original
Translated
Further reading
External links
School of Wisdom
Analyses
Ezra Pound: "Rabindranath Tagore", The Fortnightly Review'', March 1913
Mary Lago Collection, University of MissouriAudiobooks Texts
Bichitra: Online Tagore Variorum
Talks'''
South Asian American Digital Archive (SAADA)
1861 births
1941 deaths
Presidency University, Kolkata alumni
Alumni of University College London
Bengali people
Bengali Hindus
Bengali philosophers
Bengali writers
Bengali zamindars
Brahmos
Founders of Indian schools and colleges
Indian Nobel laureates
National anthem writers
Nobel laureates in Literature
People associated with Santiniketan
Oriental Seminary alumni
Vangiya Sahitya Parishad
English-language poets from India
19th-century Bengali poets
Bengali-language poets
Indian Hindus
Indian male dramatists and playwrights
Indian male songwriters
Indian male essayists
19th-century Indian painters
Rabindranath
Musicians from Kolkata
19th-century Indian educational theorists
Indian portrait painters
Artist authors
Indian male poets
20th-century Indian painters
19th-century Indian poets
20th-century Indian poets
19th-century Indian musicians
19th-century Indian composers
20th-century Indian composers
19th-century Indian philosophers
20th-century Indian philosophers
20th-century Bengali poets
Bengali male poets
Indian male painters
Poets from West Bengal
19th-century Indian dramatists and playwrights
20th-century Indian dramatists and playwrights
20th-century Indian essayists
19th-century Indian essayists
20th-century Indian novelists
20th-century Indian educational theorists
Knights Bachelor
Painters from West Bengal
19th-century male musicians
Indian classical composers
19th-century classical musicians
Haiku poets
Google Doodles | false | [
"Han Jin-won (, born 1986) is a South Korean screenwriter. He is best known for his work on Parasite as writer, which earned him critical appraisal and recognition including an Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay at the 92nd Academy Awards in 2020. He shared this award with Bong Joon-ho, and this made the two of them the first Asian writers to win any screenwriting Academy Award.\n\nFilmography\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links \n \n\n1986 births\nLiving people\nBest Original Screenplay Academy Award winners\nBest Original Screenplay BAFTA Award winners\nSouth Korean screenwriters",
"The Wire is an American crime drama television series created by David Simon and broadcast by the cable network HBO. It premiered on June 2, 2002, and ended on March 9, 2008, comprising sixty episodes over five seasons. Set in Baltimore, Maryland, The Wire follows different institutions within the city, such as the illegal drug trade, the education system, and the media, and their relationships to law enforcement. The series features a diverse ensemble cast of both veteran and novice actors; the large number of black actors was considered groundbreaking for the time.\n\nThe Wire has been widely hailed as one of the greatest television series of all time. Despite the critical acclaim, however, the show received relatively few awards during its run. It was nominated for only two Primetime Emmy Awards – both for Outstanding Writing for a Drama Series – and did not win any. Many have called its lack of recognition, especially in the Outstanding Drama Series category, one of the biggest Emmys snubs ever. Some have argued the lack of recognition was due to the show's dense plots and a disconnect between the setting and Los Angeles-based voters.\n\nOutside of the Emmys, The Wire won a Writers Guild of America Award for Television: Dramatic Series in 2008, as well as a Directors Guild of America Award for the episode \"Transitions\" in 2009. It was thrice named one of the top television programs of the year by the American Film Institute and received a Peabody Award in 2004. The series was nominated for sixteen NAACP Image Awards but never won one. It was also nominated for ten Television Critics Association Awards, with its only win coming in 2008 for the group's Heritage Award.\n\nAwards and nominations\n\nNotes\n\nNominees for awards\n\nOther\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n \n\nAwards and nominations\nWire"
]
|
[
"Rabindranath Tagore",
"Twilight years: 1932-1941",
"What happened a Tagore twilight years?",
"Fifteen new volumes appeared, among them prose-poem works Punashcha (1932), Shes Saptak (1935), and Patraput (1936).",
"Which names are worth mentioning as a contribution to this part of his life?",
"earthquake hit Bihar and killed thousands. Gandhi hailed it as seismic karma, as divine retribution avenging the oppression of Dalits. Tagore rebuked him",
"Are there any other interesting aspects about this article?",
"Tagore's remit expanded to science in his last years, as hinted in Visva-Parichay, a 1937 collection of essays.",
"Did he win any award or recognition?",
"I don't know."
]
| C_3e16b1a1688e458a8ad42f4ee7308019_0 | What are the major things that he did in his last years? | 5 | What are the major things that Rabindranath Tagor did in his last years? | Rabindranath Tagore | Dutta and Robinson describe this phase of Tagore's life as being one of a "peripatetic litterateur". It affirmed his opinion that human divisions were shallow. During a May 1932 visit to a Bedouin encampment in the Iraqi desert, the tribal chief told him that "Our prophet has said that a true Muslim is he by whose words and deeds not the least of his brother-men may ever come to any harm ..." Tagore confided in his diary: "I was startled into recognizing in his words the voice of essential humanity." To the end Tagore scrutinised orthodoxy--and in 1934, he struck. That year, an earthquake hit Bihar and killed thousands. Gandhi hailed it as seismic karma, as divine retribution avenging the oppression of Dalits. Tagore rebuked him for his seemingly ignominious implications. He mourned the perennial poverty of Calcutta and the socioeconomic decline of Bengal, and detailed these newly plebeian aesthetics in an unrhymed hundred-line poem whose technique of searing double-vision foreshadowed Satyajit Ray's film Apur Sansar. Fifteen new volumes appeared, among them prose-poem works Punashcha (1932), Shes Saptak (1935), and Patraput (1936). Experimentation continued in his prose-songs and dance-dramas-- Chitra (1914), Shyama (1939), and Chandalika (1938)-- and in his novels-- Dui Bon (1933), Malancha (1934), and Char Adhyay (1934). Tagore's remit expanded to science in his last years, as hinted in Visva-Parichay, a 1937 collection of essays. His respect for scientific laws and his exploration of biology, physics, and astronomy informed his poetry, which exhibited extensive naturalism and verisimilitude. He wove the process of science, the narratives of scientists, into stories in Se (1937), Tin Sangi (1940), and Galpasalpa (1941). His last five years were marked by chronic pain and two long periods of illness. These began when Tagore lost consciousness in late 1937; he remained comatose and near death for a time. This was followed in late 1940 by a similar spell, from which he never recovered. Poetry from these valetudinary years is among his finest. A period of prolonged agony ended with Tagore's death on 7 August 1941, aged eighty; he was in an upstairs room of the Jorasanko mansion he was raised in. The date is still mourned. A. K. Sen, brother of the first chief election commissioner, received dictation from Tagore on 30 July 1941, a day prior to a scheduled operation: his last poem. I'm lost in the middle of my birthday. I want my friends, their touch, with the earth's last love. I will take life's final offering, I will take the human's last blessing. Today my sack is empty. I have given completely whatever I had to give. In return if I receive anything--some love, some forgiveness--then I will take it with me when I step on the boat that crosses to the festival of the wordless end. CANNOTANSWER | He wove the process of science, the narratives of scientists, into stories in Se (1937), Tin Sangi (1940), and Galpasalpa (1941). | Rabindranath Tagore (, ; 7 May 1861 – 7 August 1941) was a Bengali polymath—poet, writer, playwright, composer, philosopher, social reformer and painter. He reshaped Bengali literature and music as well as Indian art with Contextual Modernism in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Author of the "profoundly sensitive, fresh and beautiful" poetry of Gitanjali, he became in 1913 the first non-European and the first lyricist to win the Nobel Prize in Literature. Tagore's poetic songs were viewed as spiritual and mercurial; however, his "elegant prose and magical poetry" remain largely unknown outside Bengal. He was a fellow of the Royal Asiatic Society. Referred to as "the Bard of Bengal", Tagore was known by sobriquets: Gurudev, Kobiguru, Biswakobi.
A Bengali Brahmin from Calcutta with ancestral gentry roots in Burdwan district and Jessore, Tagore wrote poetry as an eight-year-old. At the age of sixteen, he released his first substantial poems under the pseudonym Bhānusiṃha ("Sun Lion"), which were seized upon by literary authorities as long-lost classics. By 1877 he graduated to his first short stories and dramas, published under his real name. As a humanist, universalist, internationalist, and ardent anti-nationalist, he denounced the British Raj and advocated independence from Britain. As an exponent of the Bengal Renaissance, he advanced a vast canon that comprised paintings, sketches and doodles, hundreds of texts, and some two thousand songs; his legacy also endures in his founding of Visva-Bharati University.
Tagore modernised Bengali art by spurning rigid classical forms and resisting linguistic strictures. His novels, stories, songs, dance-dramas, and essays spoke to topics political and personal. Gitanjali (Song Offerings), Gora (Fair-Faced) and Ghare-Baire (The Home and the World) are his best-known works, and his verse, short stories, and novels were acclaimed—or panned—for their lyricism, colloquialism, naturalism, and unnatural contemplation. His compositions were chosen by two nations as national anthems: India's "Jana Gana Mana" and Bangladesh's "Amar Shonar Bangla". The Sri Lankan national anthem was inspired by his work.
Family history
The name Tagore is the anglicised transliteration of Thakur. The original surname of the Tagores was Kushari. They were Rarhi Brahmins and originally belonged to a village named Kush in the district named Burdwan in West Bengal. The biographer of Rabindranath Tagore, Prabhat Kumar Mukhopadhyaya wrote in the first volume of his book Rabindrajibani O Rabindra Sahitya Prabeshak that
{{Cquote|quote=The Kusharis were the descendants of Deen Kushari, the son of Bhatta Narayana; Deen was granted a village named Kush (in Burdwan zilla) by Maharaja Kshitisura, he became its chief and came to be known as Kushari.}}
Life and events
Early life: 1861–1878
The youngest of 13 surviving children, Tagore (nicknamed "Rabi") was born on 7 May 1861 in the Jorasanko mansion in Calcutta, the son of Debendranath Tagore (1817–1905) and Sarada Devi (1830–1875).
Tagore was raised mostly by servants; his mother had died in his early childhood and his father travelled widely. The Tagore family was at the forefront of the Bengal renaissance. They hosted the publication of literary magazines; theatre and recitals of Bengali and Western classical music featured there regularly. Tagore's father invited several professional Dhrupad musicians to stay in the house and teach Indian classical music to the children. Tagore's oldest brother Dwijendranath was a philosopher and poet. Another brother, Satyendranath, was the first Indian appointed to the elite and formerly all-European Indian Civil Service. Yet another brother, Jyotirindranath, was a musician, composer, and playwright. His sister Swarnakumari became a novelist. Jyotirindranath's wife Kadambari Devi, slightly older than Tagore, was a dear friend and powerful influence. Her abrupt suicide in 1884, soon after he married, left him profoundly distraught for years.
Tagore largely avoided classroom schooling and preferred to roam the manor or nearby Bolpur and Panihati, which the family visited. His brother Hemendranath tutored and physically conditioned him—by having him swim the Ganges or trek through hills, by gymnastics, and by practising judo and wrestling. He learned drawing, anatomy, geography and history, literature, mathematics, Sanskrit, and English—his least favourite subject. Tagore loathed formal education—his scholarly travails at the local Presidency College spanned a single day. Years later he held that proper teaching does not explain things; proper teaching stokes curiosity:
After his upanayan (coming-of-age rite) at age eleven, Tagore and his father left Calcutta in February 1873 to tour India for several months, visiting his father's Santiniketan estate and Amritsar before reaching the Himalayan hill station of Dalhousie. There Tagore read biographies, studied history, astronomy, modern science, and Sanskrit, and examined the classical poetry of Kālidāsa. During his 1-month stay at Amritsar in 1873 he was greatly influenced by melodious gurbani and nanak bani being sung at Golden Temple for which both father and son were regular visitors. He mentions about this in his My Reminiscences (1912) He wrote 6 poems relating to Sikhism and a number of articles in Bengali children's magazine about Sikhism.
Tagore returned to Jorosanko and completed a set of major works by 1877, one of them a long poem in the Maithili style of Vidyapati. As a joke, he claimed that these were the lost works of newly discovered 17th-century Vaiṣṇava poet Bhānusiṃha. Regional experts accepted them as the lost works of the fictitious poet. He debuted in the short-story genre in Bengali with "Bhikharini" ("The Beggar Woman"). Published in the same year, Sandhya Sangit (1882) includes the poem "Nirjharer Swapnabhanga" ("The Rousing of the Waterfall").
Shelaidaha: 1878–1901
Because Debendranath wanted his son to become a barrister, Tagore enrolled at a public school in Brighton, East Sussex, England in 1878. He stayed for several months at a house that the Tagore family owned near Brighton and Hove, in Medina Villas; in 1877 his nephew and niece—Suren and Indira Devi, the children of Tagore's brother Satyendranath—were sent together with their mother, Tagore's sister-in-law, to live with him. He briefly read law at University College London, but again left school, opting instead for independent study of Shakespeare's plays Coriolanus, and Antony and Cleopatra and the Religio Medici of Thomas Browne. Lively English, Irish, and Scottish folk tunes impressed Tagore, whose own tradition of Nidhubabu-authored kirtans and tappas and Brahmo hymnody was subdued. In 1880 he returned to Bengal degree-less, resolving to reconcile European novelty with Brahmo traditions, taking the best from each. After returning to Bengal, Tagore regularly published poems, stories, and novels. These had a profound impact within Bengal itself but received little national attention. In 1883 he married 10-year-old Mrinalini Devi, born Bhabatarini, 1873–1902 (this was a common practice at the time). They had five children, two of whom died in childhood.
In 1890 Tagore began managing his vast ancestral estates in Shelaidaha (today a region of Bangladesh); he was joined there by his wife and children in 1898. Tagore released his Manasi poems (1890), among his best-known work. As Zamindar Babu, Tagore criss-crossed the Padma River in command of the Padma, the luxurious family barge (also known as "budgerow"). He collected mostly token rents and blessed villagers who in turn honoured him with banquets—occasionally of dried rice and sour milk. He met Gagan Harkara, through whom he became familiar with Baul Lalon Shah, whose folk songs greatly influenced Tagore. Tagore worked to popularise Lalon's songs. The period 1891–1895, Tagore's Sadhana period, named after one of his magazines, was his most productive; in these years he wrote more than half the stories of the three-volume, 84-story Galpaguchchha. Its ironic and grave tales examined the voluptuous poverty of an idealised rural Bengal.
Santiniketan: 1901–1932
In 1901 Tagore moved to Santiniketan to found an ashram with a marble-floored prayer hall—The Mandir—an experimental school, groves of trees, gardens, a library. There his wife and two of his children died. His father died in 1905. He received monthly payments as part of his inheritance and income from the Maharaja of Tripura, sales of his family's jewellery, his seaside bungalow in Puri, and a derisory 2,000 rupees in book royalties. He gained Bengali and foreign readers alike; he published Naivedya (1901) and Kheya (1906) and translated poems into free verse.
In November 1913, Tagore learned he had won that year's Nobel Prize in Literature: the Swedish Academy appreciated the idealistic—and for Westerners—accessible nature of a small body of his translated material focused on the 1912 Gitanjali: Song Offerings. He was awarded a knighthood by King George V in the 1915 Birthday Honours, but Tagore renounced it after the 1919 Jallianwala Bagh massacre. Renouncing the knighthood, Tagore wrote in a letter addressed to Lord Chelmsford, the then British Viceroy of India, "The disproportionate severity of the punishments inflicted upon the unfortunate people and the methods of carrying them out, we are convinced, are without parallel in the history of civilised governments...The time has come when badges of honour make our shame glaring in their incongruous context of humiliation, and I for my part wish to stand, shorn of all special distinctions, by the side of my country men."
In 1919, he was invited by the president and chairman of Anjuman-e-Islamia, Syed Abdul Majid to visit Sylhet for the first time. The event attracted over 5000 people.
In 1921, Tagore and agricultural economist Leonard Elmhirst set up the "Institute for Rural Reconstruction", later renamed Shriniketan or "Abode of Welfare", in Surul, a village near the ashram. With it, Tagore sought to moderate Gandhi's Swaraj protests, which he occasionally blamed for British India's perceived mental – and thus ultimately colonial – decline. He sought aid from donors, officials, and scholars worldwide to "free village[s] from the shackles of helplessness and ignorance" by "vitalis[ing] knowledge". In the early 1930s he targeted ambient "abnormal caste consciousness" and untouchability. He lectured against these, he penned Dalit heroes for his poems and his dramas, and he campaigned—successfully—to open Guruvayoor Temple to Dalits.
Twilight years: 1932–1941
Dutta and Robinson describe this phase of Tagore's life as being one of a "peripatetic litterateur". It affirmed his opinion that human divisions were shallow. During a May 1932 visit to a Bedouin encampment in the Iraqi desert, the tribal chief told him that "Our Prophet has said that a true Muslim is he by whose words and deeds not the least of his brother-men may ever come to any harm ..." Tagore confided in his diary: "I was startled into recognizing in his words the voice of essential humanity." To the end Tagore scrutinised orthodoxy—and in 1934, he struck. That year, an earthquake hit Bihar and killed thousands. Gandhi hailed it as seismic karma, as divine retribution avenging the oppression of Dalits. Tagore rebuked him for his seemingly ignominious implications. He mourned the perennial poverty of Calcutta and the socioeconomic decline of Bengal, and detailed these newly plebeian aesthetics in an unrhymed hundred-line poem whose technique of searing double-vision foreshadowed Satyajit Ray's film Apur Sansar. Fifteen new volumes appeared, among them prose-poem works Punashcha (1932), Shes Saptak (1935), and Patraput (1936). Experimentation continued in his prose-songs and dance-dramas— Chitra (1914), Shyama (1939), and Chandalika (1938)— and in his novels— Dui Bon (1933), Malancha (1934), and Char Adhyay (1934).
Tagore's remit expanded to science in his last years, as hinted in Visva-Parichay, a 1937 collection of essays. His respect for scientific laws and his exploration of biology, physics, and astronomy informed his poetry, which exhibited extensive naturalism and verisimilitude. He wove the process of science, the narratives of scientists, into stories in Se (1937), Tin Sangi (1940), and Galpasalpa (1941). His last five years were marked by chronic pain and two long periods of illness. These began when Tagore lost consciousness in late 1937; he remained comatose and near death for a time. This was followed in late 1940 by a similar spell, from which he never recovered. Poetry from these valetudinary years is among his finest. A period of prolonged agony ended with Tagore's death on 7 August 1941, aged 80. He was in an upstairs room of the Jorasanko mansion in which he grew up. The date is still mourned. A. K. Sen, brother of the first chief election commissioner, received dictation from Tagore on 30 July 1941, a day prior to a scheduled operation: his last poem.
Travels
Between 1878 and 1932, Tagore set foot in more than thirty countries on five continents. In 1912, he took a sheaf of his translated works to England, where they gained attention from missionary and Gandhi protégé Charles F. Andrews, Irish poet William Butler Yeats, Ezra Pound, Robert Bridges, Ernest Rhys, Thomas Sturge Moore, and others. Yeats wrote the preface to the English translation of Gitanjali; Andrews joined Tagore at Santiniketan. In November 1912 Tagore began touring the United States and the United Kingdom, staying in Butterton, Staffordshire with Andrews's clergymen friends. From May 1916 until April 1917, he lectured in Japan and the United States. He denounced nationalism. His essay "Nationalism in India" was scorned and praised; it was admired by Romain Rolland and other pacifists.
Shortly after returning home the 63-year-old Tagore accepted an invitation from the Peruvian government. He travelled to Mexico. Each government pledged 100,000 to his school to commemorate the visits. A week after his 6 November 1924 arrival in Buenos Aires, an ill Tagore shifted to the Villa Miralrío at the behest of Victoria Ocampo. He left for home in January 1925. In May 1926 Tagore reached Naples; the next day he met Mussolini in Rome. Their warm rapport ended when Tagore pronounced upon Il Duces fascist finesse. He had earlier enthused: "[w]ithout any doubt he is a great personality. There is such a massive vigour in that head that it reminds one of Michael Angelo's chisel." A "fire-bath" of fascism was to have educed "the immortal soul of Italy ... clothed in quenchless light".
On 1 November 1926 Tagore arrived to Hungary and spent some time on the shore of Lake Balaton in the city of Balatonfüred, recovering from heart problems at a sanitarium. He planted a tree and a bust statue was placed there in 1956 (a gift from the Indian government, the work of Rasithan Kashar, replaced by a newly gifted statue in 2005) and the lakeside promenade still bears his name since 1957.
On 14 July 1927 Tagore and two companions began a four-month tour of Southeast Asia. They visited Bali, Java, Kuala Lumpur, Malacca, Penang, Siam, and Singapore. The resultant travelogues compose Jatri (1929). In early 1930 he left Bengal for a nearly year-long tour of Europe and the United States. Upon returning to Britain—and as his paintings were exhibited in Paris and London—he lodged at a Birmingham Quaker settlement. He wrote his Oxford Hibbert Lectures and spoke at the annual London Quaker meet. There, addressing relations between the British and the Indians – a topic he would tackle repeatedly over the next two years – Tagore spoke of a "dark chasm of aloofness". He visited Aga Khan III, stayed at Dartington Hall, toured Denmark, Switzerland, and Germany from June to mid-September 1930, then went on into the Soviet Union. In April 1932 Tagore, intrigued by the Persian mystic Hafez, was hosted by Reza Shah Pahlavi. In his other travels, Tagore interacted with Henri Bergson, Albert Einstein, Robert Frost, Thomas Mann, George Bernard Shaw, H.G. Wells, and Romain Rolland. Visits to Persia and Iraq (in 1932) and Sri Lanka (in 1933) composed Tagore's final foreign tour, and his dislike of communalism and nationalism only deepened.
Vice-President of India M. Hamid Ansari has said that Rabindranath Tagore heralded the cultural rapprochement between communities, societies and nations much before it became the liberal norm of conduct.
Tagore was a man ahead of his time. He wrote in 1932, while on a visit to Iran, that "each country of Asia will solve its own historical problems according to its strength, nature and needs, but the lamp they will each carry on their path to progress will converge to illuminate the common ray of knowledge."
Works
Known mostly for his poetry, Tagore wrote novels, essays, short stories, travelogues, dramas, and thousands of songs. Of Tagore's prose, his short stories are perhaps most highly regarded; he is indeed credited with originating the Bengali-language version of the genre. His works are frequently noted for their rhythmic, optimistic, and lyrical nature. Such stories mostly borrow from the lives of common people. Tagore's non-fiction grappled with history, linguistics, and spirituality. He wrote autobiographies. His travelogues, essays, and lectures were compiled into several volumes, including Europe Jatrir Patro (Letters from Europe) and Manusher Dhormo (The Religion of Man). His brief chat with Einstein, "Note on the Nature of Reality", is included as an appendix to the latter. On the occasion of Tagore's 150th birthday, an anthology (titled Kalanukromik Rabindra Rachanabali) of the total body of his works is currently being published in Bengali in chronological order. This includes all versions of each work and fills about eighty volumes. In 2011, Harvard University Press collaborated with Visva-Bharati University to publish The Essential Tagore, the largest anthology of Tagore's works available in English; it was edited by Fakrul Alam and Radha Chakravarthy and marks the 150th anniversary of Tagore's birth.
Drama
Tagore's experiences with drama began when he was sixteen, with his brother Jyotirindranath. He wrote his first original dramatic piece when he was twenty — Valmiki Pratibha which was shown at the Tagore's mansion. Tagore stated that his works sought to articulate "the play of feeling and not of action". In 1890 he wrote Visarjan (an adaptation of his novella Rajarshi), which has been regarded as his finest drama. In the original Bengali language, such works included intricate subplots and extended monologues. Later, Tagore's dramas used more philosophical and allegorical themes. The play Dak Ghar (The Post Office; 1912), describes the child Amal defying his stuffy and puerile confines by ultimately "fall[ing] asleep", hinting his physical death. A story with borderless appeal—gleaning rave reviews in Europe—Dak Ghar dealt with death as, in Tagore's words, "spiritual freedom" from "the world of hoarded wealth and certified creeds". Another is Tagore's Chandalika (Untouchable Girl), which was modelled on an ancient Buddhist legend describing how Ananda, the Gautama Buddha's disciple, asks a tribal girl for water. In Raktakarabi ("Red" or "Blood Oleanders") is an allegorical struggle against a kleptocrat king who rules over the residents of Yaksha puri.
Chitrangada, Chandalika, and Shyama are other key plays that have dance-drama adaptations, which together are known as Rabindra Nritya Natya.
Short stories
Tagore began his career in short stories in 1877—when he was only sixteen—with "Bhikharini" ("The Beggar Woman"). With this, Tagore effectively invented the Bengali-language short story genre. The four years from 1891 to 1895 are known as Tagore's "Sadhana" period (named for one of Tagore's magazines). This period was among Tagore's most fecund, yielding more than half the stories contained in the three-volume Galpaguchchha, which itself is a collection of eighty-four stories. Such stories usually showcase Tagore's reflections upon his surroundings, on modern and fashionable ideas, and on interesting mind puzzles (which Tagore was fond of testing his intellect with). Tagore typically associated his earliest stories (such as those of the "Sadhana" period) with an exuberance of vitality and spontaneity; these characteristics were intimately connected with Tagore's life in the common villages of, among others, Patisar, Shajadpur, and Shilaida while managing the Tagore family's vast landholdings. There, he beheld the lives of India's poor and common people; Tagore thereby took to examining their lives with a penetrative depth and feeling that was singular in Indian literature up to that point. In particular, such stories as "Kabuliwala" ("The Fruitseller from Kabul", published in 1892), "Kshudita Pashan" ("The Hungry Stones") (August 1895), and "Atithi" ("The Runaway", 1895) typified this analytic focus on the downtrodden. Many of the other Galpaguchchha stories were written in Tagore's Sabuj Patra period from 1914 to 1917, also named after one of the magazines that Tagore edited and heavily contributed to.
Novels
Tagore wrote eight novels and four novellas, among them Chaturanga, Shesher Kobita, Char Odhay, and Noukadubi. Ghare Baire (The Home and the World)—through the lens of the idealistic zamindar protagonist Nikhil—excoriates rising Indian nationalism, terrorism, and religious zeal in the Swadeshi movement; a frank expression of Tagore's conflicted sentiments, it emerged from a 1914 bout of depression. The novel ends in Hindu-Muslim violence and Nikhil's—likely mortal—wounding.
Gora raises controversial questions regarding the Indian identity. As with Ghare Baire, matters of self-identity (jāti), personal freedom, and religion are developed in the context of a family story and love triangle. In it an Irish boy orphaned in the Sepoy Mutiny is raised by Hindus as the titular gora—"whitey". Ignorant of his foreign origins, he chastises Hindu religious backsliders out of love for the indigenous Indians and solidarity with them against his hegemon-compatriots. He falls for a Brahmo girl, compelling his worried foster father to reveal his lost past and cease his nativist zeal. As a "true dialectic" advancing "arguments for and against strict traditionalism", it tackles the colonial conundrum by "portray[ing] the value of all positions within a particular frame [...] not only syncretism, not only liberal orthodoxy, but the extremest reactionary traditionalism he defends by an appeal to what humans share." Among these Tagore highlights "identity [...] conceived of as dharma."
In Jogajog (Relationships), the heroine Kumudini—bound by the ideals of Śiva-Sati, exemplified by Dākshāyani—is torn between her pity for the sinking fortunes of her progressive and compassionate elder brother and his foil: her roue of a husband. Tagore flaunts his feminist leanings; pathos depicts the plight and ultimate demise of women trapped by pregnancy, duty, and family honour; he simultaneously trucks with Bengal's putrescent landed gentry. The story revolves around the underlying rivalry between two families—the Chatterjees, aristocrats now on the decline (Biprodas) and the Ghosals (Madhusudan), representing new money and new arrogance. Kumudini, Biprodas' sister, is caught between the two as she is married off to Madhusudan. She had risen in an observant and sheltered traditional home, as had all her female relations.
Others were uplifting: Shesher Kobita—translated twice as Last Poem and Farewell Song—is his most lyrical novel, with poems and rhythmic passages written by a poet protagonist. It contains elements of satire and postmodernism and has stock characters who gleefully attack the reputation of an old, outmoded, oppressively renowned poet who, incidentally, goes by a familiar name: "Rabindranath Tagore". Though his novels remain among the least-appreciated of his works, they have been given renewed attention via film adaptations by Ray and others: Chokher Bali and Ghare Baire are exemplary. In the first, Tagore inscribes Bengali society via its heroine: a rebellious widow who would live for herself alone. He pillories the custom of perpetual mourning on the part of widows, who were not allowed to remarry, who were consigned to seclusion and loneliness. Tagore wrote of it: "I have always regretted the ending".
Poetry
Internationally, Gitanjali () is Tagore's best-known collection of poetry, for which he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1913. Tagore was the first non-European to receive a Nobel Prize in Literature and second non-European to receive a Nobel Prize after Theodore Roosevelt.
Besides Gitanjali, other notable works include Manasi, Sonar Tori ("Golden Boat"), Balaka ("Wild Geese" — the title being a metaphor for migrating souls)
Tagore's poetic style, which proceeds from a lineage established by 15th- and 16th-century Vaishnava poets, ranges from classical formalism to the comic, visionary, and ecstatic. He was influenced by the atavistic mysticism of Vyasa and other rishi-authors of the Upanishads, the Bhakti-Sufi mystic Kabir, and Ramprasad Sen. Tagore's most innovative and mature poetry embodies his exposure to Bengali rural folk music, which included mystic Baul ballads such as those of the bard Lalon. These, rediscovered and repopularised by Tagore, resemble 19th-century Kartābhajā hymns that emphasise inward divinity and rebellion against bourgeois bhadralok religious and social orthodoxy. During his Shelaidaha years, his poems took on a lyrical voice of the moner manush, the Bāuls' "man within the heart" and Tagore's "life force of his deep recesses", or meditating upon the jeevan devata—the demiurge or the "living God within". This figure connected with divinity through appeal to nature and the emotional interplay of human drama. Such tools saw use in his Bhānusiṃha poems chronicling the Radha-Krishna romance, which were repeatedly revised over the course of seventy years.
Later, with the development of new poetic ideas in Bengal – many originating from younger poets seeking to break with Tagore's style – Tagore absorbed new poetic concepts, which allowed him to further develop a unique identity. Examples of this include Africa and Camalia, which are among the better known of his latter poems.
Songs (Rabindra Sangeet)
Tagore was a prolific composer with around 2,230 songs to his credit. His songs are known as rabindrasangit ("Tagore Song"), which merges fluidly into his literature, most of which—poems or parts of novels, stories, or plays alike—were lyricised. Influenced by the thumri style of Hindustani music, they ran the entire gamut of human emotion, ranging from his early dirge-like Brahmo devotional hymns to quasi-erotic compositions. They emulated the tonal colour of classical ragas to varying extents. Some songs mimicked a given raga's melody and rhythm faithfully; others newly blended elements of different ragas. Yet about nine-tenths of his work was not bhanga gaan, the body of tunes revamped with "fresh value" from select Western, Hindustani, Bengali folk and other regional flavours "external" to Tagore's own ancestral culture.
In 1971, Amar Shonar Bangla became the national anthem of Bangladesh. It was written – ironically – to protest the 1905 Partition of Bengal along communal lines: cutting off the Muslim-majority East Bengal from Hindu-dominated West Bengal was to avert a regional bloodbath. Tagore saw the partition as a cunning plan to stop the independence movement, and he aimed to rekindle Bengali unity and tar communalism. Jana Gana Mana was written in shadhu-bhasha, a Sanskritised form of Bengali, and is the first of five stanzas of the Brahmo hymn Bharot Bhagyo Bidhata that Tagore composed. It was first sung in 1911 at a Calcutta session of the Indian National Congress and was adopted in 1950 by the Constituent Assembly of the Republic of India as its national anthem.
The Sri Lanka's National Anthem was inspired by his work.
For Bengalis, the songs' appeal, stemming from the combination of emotive strength and beauty described as surpassing even Tagore's poetry, was such that the Modern Review observed that "[t]here is in Bengal no cultured home where Rabindranath's songs are not sung or at least attempted to be sung... Even illiterate villagers sing his songs". Tagore influenced sitar maestro Vilayat Khan and sarodiyas Buddhadev Dasgupta and Amjad Ali Khan.
Art works
At sixty, Tagore took up drawing and painting; successful exhibitions of his many works—which made a debut appearance in Paris upon encouragement by artists he met in the south of France—were held throughout Europe. He was likely red-green colour blind, resulting in works that exhibited strange colour schemes and off-beat aesthetics. Tagore was influenced by numerous styles, including scrimshaw by the Malanggan people of northern New Ireland, Papua New Guinea, Haida carvings from the Pacific Northwest region of North America, and woodcuts by the German Max Pechstein. His artist's eye for handwriting was revealed in the simple artistic and rhythmic leitmotifs embellishing the scribbles, cross-outs, and word layouts of his manuscripts. Some of Tagore's lyrics corresponded in a synesthetic sense with particular paintings.
India's National Gallery of Modern Art lists 102 works by Tagore in its collections.
Politics
Tagore opposed imperialism and supported Indian nationalists, and these views were first revealed in Manast, which was mostly composed in his twenties. Evidence produced during the Hindu–German Conspiracy Trial and latter accounts affirm his awareness of the Ghadarites, and stated that he sought the support of Japanese Prime Minister Terauchi Masatake and former Premier Ōkuma Shigenobu. Yet he lampooned the Swadeshi movement; he rebuked it in The Cult of the Charkha, an acrid 1925 essay. According to Amartya Sen, Tagore rebelled against strongly nationalist forms of the independence movement, and he wanted to assert India's right to be independent without denying the importance of what India could learn from abroad. He urged the masses to avoid victimology and instead seek self-help and education, and he saw the presence of British administration as a "political symptom of our social disease". He maintained that, even for those at the extremes of poverty, "there can be no question of blind revolution"; preferable to it was a "steady and purposeful education".
Such views enraged many. He escaped assassination—and only narrowly—by Indian expatriates during his stay in a San Francisco hotel in late 1916; the plot failed when his would-be assassins fell into argument. Tagore wrote songs lionising the Indian independence movement. Two of Tagore's more politically charged compositions, "Chitto Jetha Bhayshunyo" ("Where the Mind is Without Fear") and "Ekla Chalo Re" ("If They Answer Not to Thy Call, Walk Alone"), gained mass appeal, with the latter favoured by Gandhi. Though somewhat critical of Gandhian activism, Tagore was key in resolving a Gandhi–Ambedkar dispute involving separate electorates for untouchables, thereby mooting at least one of Gandhi's fasts "unto death".
Repudiation of knighthood
Tagore renounced his knighthood in response to the Jallianwala Bagh massacre in 1919. In the repudiation letter to the Viceroy, Lord Chelmsford, he wrote
Santiniketan and Visva-Bharati
Tagore despised rote classroom schooling: in "The Parrot's Training", a bird is caged and force-fed textbook pages—to death. Tagore, visiting Santa Barbara in 1917, conceived a new type of university: he sought to "make Santiniketan the connecting thread between India and the world [and] a world center for the study of humanity somewhere beyond the limits of nation and geography." The school, which he named Visva-Bharati, had its foundation stone laid on 24 December 1918 and was inaugurated precisely three years later. Tagore employed a brahmacharya system: gurus gave pupils personal guidance—emotional, intellectual, and spiritual. Teaching was often done under trees. He staffed the school, he contributed his Nobel Prize monies, and his duties as steward-mentor at Santiniketan kept him busy: mornings he taught classes; afternoons and evenings he wrote the students' textbooks. He fundraised widely for the school in Europe and the United States between 1919 and 1921.
Theft of Nobel Prize
On 25 March 2004, Tagore's Nobel Prize was stolen from the safety vault of the Visva-Bharati University, along with several other of his belongings. On 7 December 2004, the Swedish Academy decided to present two replicas of Tagore's Nobel Prize, one made of gold and the other made of bronze, to the Visva-Bharati University. It inspired the fictional film Nobel Chor. In 2016, a baul singer named Pradip Bauri accused of sheltering the thieves was arrested and the prize was returned.
Impact and legacy
Every year, many events pay tribute to Tagore: Kabipranam, his birth anniversary, is celebrated by groups scattered across the globe; the annual Tagore Festival held in Urbana, Illinois (USA); Rabindra Path Parikrama walking pilgrimages from Kolkata to Santiniketan; and recitals of his poetry, which are held on important anniversaries. Bengali culture is fraught with this legacy: from language and arts to history and politics. Amartya Sen deemed Tagore a "towering figure", a "deeply relevant and many-sided contemporary thinker". Tagore's Bengali originals—the 1939 Rabīndra Rachanāvalī—is canonised as one of his nation's greatest cultural treasures, and he was roped into a reasonably humble role: "the greatest poet India has produced".
Tagore was renowned throughout much of Europe, North America, and East Asia. He co-founded Dartington Hall School, a progressive coeducational institution; in Japan, he influenced such figures as Nobel laureate Yasunari Kawabata. In colonial Vietnam Tagore was a guide for the restless spirit of the radical writer and publicist Nguyen An Ninh Tagore's works were widely translated into English, Dutch, German, Spanish, and other European languages by Czech Indologist Vincenc Lesný, French Nobel laureate André Gide, Russian poet Anna Akhmatova, former Turkish Prime Minister Bülent Ecevit, and others. In the United States, Tagore's lecturing circuits, particularly those of 1916–1917, were widely attended and wildly acclaimed. Some controversies involving Tagore, possibly fictive, trashed his popularity and sales in Japan and North America after the late 1920s, concluding with his "near total eclipse" outside Bengal. Yet a latent reverence of Tagore was discovered by an astonished Salman Rushdie during a trip to Nicaragua.
By way of translations, Tagore influenced Chileans Pablo Neruda and Gabriela Mistral; Mexican writer Octavio Paz; and Spaniards José Ortega y Gasset, Zenobia Camprubí, and Juan Ramón Jiménez. In the period 1914–1922, the Jiménez-Camprubí pair produced twenty-two Spanish translations of Tagore's English corpus; they heavily revised The Crescent Moon and other key titles. In these years, Jiménez developed "naked poetry". Ortega y Gasset wrote that "Tagore's wide appeal [owes to how] he speaks of longings for perfection that we all have [...] Tagore awakens a dormant sense of childish wonder, and he saturates the air with all kinds of enchanting promises for the reader, who [...] pays little attention to the deeper import of Oriental mysticism". Tagore's works circulated in free editions around 1920—alongside those of Plato, Dante, Cervantes, Goethe, and Tolstoy.
Tagore was deemed over-rated by some. Graham Greene doubted that "anyone but Mr. Yeats can still take his poems very seriously." Several prominent Western admirers—including Pound and, to a lesser extent, even Yeats—criticised Tagore's work. Yeats, unimpressed with his English translations, railed against that "Damn Tagore [...] We got out three good books, Sturge Moore and I, and then, because he thought it more important to see and know English than to be a great poet, he brought out sentimental rubbish and wrecked his reputation. Tagore does not know English, no Indian knows English." William Radice, who "English[ed]" his poems, asked: "What is their place in world literature?" He saw him as "kind of counter-cultur[al]", bearing "a new kind of classicism" that would heal the "collapsed romantic confusion and chaos of the 20th [c]entury." The translated Tagore was "almost nonsensical", and subpar English offerings reduced his trans-national appeal:
Museums
There are eight Tagore museums. Three in India and five in Bangladesh:
Rabindra Bharati Museum, at Jorasanko Thakur Bari, Kolkata, India
Tagore Memorial Museum, at Shilaidaha Kuthibadi, Shilaidaha, Bangladesh
Rabindra Memorial Museum at Shahzadpur Kachharibari, Shahzadpur, Bangladesh
Rabindra Bhavan Museum, in Santiniketan, India
Rabindra Museum, in Mungpoo, near Kalimpong, India
Patisar Rabindra Kacharibari, Patisar, Atrai, Naogaon, Bangladesh
Pithavoge Rabindra Memorial Complex, Pithavoge, Rupsha, Khulna, Bangladesh
Rabindra Complex, Dakkhindihi village, Phultala Upazila, Khulna, Bangladesh
Jorasanko Thakur Bari (Bengali: House of the Thakurs; anglicised to Tagore) in Jorasanko, north of Kolkata, is the ancestral home of the Tagore family. It is currently located on the Rabindra Bharati University campus at 6/4 Dwarakanath Tagore Lane Jorasanko, Kolkata 700007. It is the house in which Tagore was born. It is also the place where he spent most of his childhood and where he died on 7 August 1941.
Rabindra Complex is located in Dakkhindihi village, near Phultala Upazila, from Khulna city, Bangladesh. It was the residence of tagores father-in-law, Beni Madhab Roy Chowdhury. Tagore family had close connection with Dakkhindihi village. The maternal ancestral home of the great poet was also situated at Dakkhindihi village, poets mother Sarada Sundari Devi and his paternal aunt by marriage Tripura Sundari Devi; was born in this village.Young tagore used to visit Dakkhindihi village with his mother to visit his maternal uncles in her mothers ancestral home. Tagore visited this place several times in his life. It has been declared as a protected archaeological site by Department of Archaeology of Bangladesh and converted into a museum. In 1995, the local administration took charge of the house and on 14 November of that year, the Rabindra Complex project was decided. Bangladesh Governments Department of Archeology has carried out the renovation work to make the house a museum titled ‘Rabindra Complex’ in 2011–12 fiscal year. The two-storey museum building has four rooms on the first floor and two rooms on the ground floor at present. The building has eight windows on the ground floor and 21 windows on the first floor. The height of the roof from the floor on the ground floor is 13 feet. There are seven doors, six windows and wall almirahs on the first floor. Over 500 books were kept in the library and all the rooms have been decorated with rare pictures of Rabindranath. Over 10,000 visitors come here every year to see the museum from different parts of the country and also from abroad, said Saifur Rahman, assistant director of the Department of Archeology in Khulna. A bust of Rabindranath Tagore is also there. Every year on 25–27 Baishakh (after the Bengali New Year Celebration), cultural programs are held here which lasts for three days.
List of works
The SNLTR hosts the 1415 BE edition of Tagore's complete Bengali works. Tagore Web also hosts an edition of Tagore's works, including annotated songs. Translations are found at Project Gutenberg and Wikisource. More sources are below.
Original
Translated
Adaptations of novels and short stories in cinema
Bengali
Natir Puja – 1932 – The only film directed by Rabindranath Tagore
Gora — 1938 Gora (novel) — Naresh Mitra
Noukadubi– Nitin Bose
Bou Thakuranir Haat – 1953 (Bou Thakuranir Haat) – Naresh Mitra
Kabuliwala – 1957 (Kabuliwala) – Tapan Sinha
Kshudhita Pashan – 1960 (Kshudhita Pashan) – Tapan Sinha
Teen Kanya – 1961 (Teen Kanya) – Satyajit Ray
Charulata - 1964 (Nastanirh) – Satyajit Ray
Megh o Roudra – 1969 (Megh o Roudra) – Arundhati Devi
Ghare Baire – 1985 (Ghare Baire) – Satyajit Ray
Chokher Bali – 2003 (Chokher Bali) – Rituparno Ghosh
Shasti – 2004 (Shasti) – Chashi Nazrul Islam
Shuva – 2006 (Shuvashini) – Chashi Nazrul Islam
Chaturanga – 2008 (Chaturanga) – Suman Mukhopadhyay
Noukadubi – 2011 (Noukadubi) – Rituparno Ghosh
Elar Char Adhyay – 2012 (Char Adhyay) – Bappaditya Bandyopadhyay
Hindi
Sacrifice – 1927 (Balidan) – Nanand Bhojai and Naval Gandhi
Milan – 1946 (Nauka Dubi) – Nitin Bose
Dak Ghar – 1965 (Dak Ghar) – Zul Vellani
Kabuliwala – 1961 (Kabuliwala) – Bimal Roy
Uphaar – 1971 (Samapti) – Sudhendu Roy
Lekin... – 1991 (Kshudhit Pashaan) – Gulzar
Char Adhyay – 1997 (Char Adhyay) – Kumar Shahani
Kashmakash – 2011 (Nauka Dubi) – Rituparno Ghosh
Stories by Rabindranath Tagore (Anthology TV Series) – 2015 – Anurag Basu
Bioscopewala – 2017 (Kabuliwala) – Deb MedhekarBhikharinIn popular cultureRabindranath Tagore is a 1961 Indian documentary film written and directed by Satyajit Ray, released during the birth centenary of Tagore. It was produced by the Government of India's Films Division.
In Sukanta Roy's Bengali film Chhelebela (2002) Jisshu Sengupta portrayed Tagore.
In Bandana Mukhopadhyay's Bengali film Chirosakha He (2007) Sayandip Bhattacharya played Tagore.
In Rituparno Ghosh's Bengali documentary film Jeevan Smriti (2011) Samadarshi Dutta played Tagore.
In Suman Ghosh's Bengali film Kadambari (2015) Parambrata Chatterjee portrayed Tagore.
See also
List of Indian writers
Kazi Nazrul Islam
Rabindra Jayanti
Rabindra Puraskar
Tagore familyAn Artist in Life — biography by Niharranjan Ray
Taptapadi
Timeline of Rabindranath Tagore
Music of Bengal
References
Notes
Citations
Writers from Kolkata
Bibliography
Primary
Anthologies
Originals
Translations
Secondary
Articles
Books
Other
Texts
Original
Translated
Further reading
External links
School of Wisdom
Analyses
Ezra Pound: "Rabindranath Tagore", The Fortnightly Review'', March 1913
Mary Lago Collection, University of MissouriAudiobooks Texts
Bichitra: Online Tagore Variorum
Talks'''
South Asian American Digital Archive (SAADA)
1861 births
1941 deaths
Presidency University, Kolkata alumni
Alumni of University College London
Bengali people
Bengali Hindus
Bengali philosophers
Bengali writers
Bengali zamindars
Brahmos
Founders of Indian schools and colleges
Indian Nobel laureates
National anthem writers
Nobel laureates in Literature
People associated with Santiniketan
Oriental Seminary alumni
Vangiya Sahitya Parishad
English-language poets from India
19th-century Bengali poets
Bengali-language poets
Indian Hindus
Indian male dramatists and playwrights
Indian male songwriters
Indian male essayists
19th-century Indian painters
Rabindranath
Musicians from Kolkata
19th-century Indian educational theorists
Indian portrait painters
Artist authors
Indian male poets
20th-century Indian painters
19th-century Indian poets
20th-century Indian poets
19th-century Indian musicians
19th-century Indian composers
20th-century Indian composers
19th-century Indian philosophers
20th-century Indian philosophers
20th-century Bengali poets
Bengali male poets
Indian male painters
Poets from West Bengal
19th-century Indian dramatists and playwrights
20th-century Indian dramatists and playwrights
20th-century Indian essayists
19th-century Indian essayists
20th-century Indian novelists
20th-century Indian educational theorists
Knights Bachelor
Painters from West Bengal
19th-century male musicians
Indian classical composers
19th-century classical musicians
Haiku poets
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"Frederick Edward Maguire (May 10, 1899 – November 3, 1961) was an American professional baseball player and scout.\nHe played six years as a second baseman in Major League Baseball: 1922–23 with the New York Giants, 1928 with the Chicago Cubs, and 1929–31 with the Boston Braves.\n\nPlaying career\n\nNew York Giants\nA Roxbury, Massachusetts, native, Maguire attended Boston Latin School and the College of the Holy Cross. He made his professional debut in the Major Leagues for the Giants at the end of the 1922 season, playing in five games for them that year. He spent the entire 1923 season riding the bench in New York behind Frankie Frisch, appearing in 41 games but coming to the plate just 34 times all season. He was let go at the end of the year.\n\nToledo Mud Hens\nIn , Maguire got his first taste of minor league baseball, playing for the Toledo Mud Hens. He was Toledo's starting second baseman for four seasons, finishing up with a .326 average in . This earned him another shot at the majors with the Cubs.\n\nChicago Cubs\nDuring the previous offseason, Chicago had traded their starting third baseman, Sparky Adams, to the Pittsburgh Pirates along with outfielder Pete Scott for outfielder Kiki Cuyler. They shifted second baseman Clyde Beck over to third and installed Maguire as their starter at second. Things started off with a bang, as Maguire hit his first Major League home run on Opening Day off Cincinnati Reds pitcher Dolf Luque. It was the only run the Cubs scored that day in a 5–1 loss.\n\nAlthough he did not hit another home run—and indeed would not hit another during the rest of his Major League career—Maguire did have an excellent year with the glove. He led the league in putouts and assists and second in fielding percentage among second basemen while batting .279 for the third-place Cubs. That offseason, though, Maguire was one of five players traded to the Braves for superstar Rogers Hornsby.\n\nBoston Braves\nReplacing Hornsby was a difficult task, and Maguire slumped in for the cellar-dwelling Braves, as his numbers slipped both offensively and defensively. His offensive numbers were so poor, he was what has occasionally been called a \"Triple Crown loser\", finishing last among qualifiers for the batting title in all three Triple Crown statistics (batting average, home runs, runs batted in).\n\nThings did not improve much from there. Although Maguire had an uptick in average and RBI in , in he finished last in all three categories again, the only player in MLB history to have done so more than once. He was let go after the season.\n\nReturn to the minor leagues\nIn , Maguire signed with the Louisville Colonels, splitting the season between that team and the Toronto Maple Leafs. He continued to play in the minor leagues until , finishing his career as a player-manager in the class-D Cape Breton Colliery League.\n\nOverview\nIn six Major League seasons, Maguire played in 618 games with a .257 batting average, .322 slugging average, and a .289 on-base percentage.\n\nLater life\nMaguire served as head baseball coach at Boston College from 1939 to 1949 and was a scout for the Boston Red Sox from 1950 until his sudden death on November 3, 1961.\n\nNotes\n\nReferences\n The SABR Baseball List & Record Book.\n\nExternal links\n\nMajor League Baseball second basemen\nNew York Giants (NL) players\nChicago Cubs players\nBoston Braves players\nBoston College Eagles baseball coaches\nBoston Red Sox scouts\nToledo Mud Hens players\nLouisville Colonels (minor league) players\nToronto Maple Leafs (International League) players\nNew Bedford Whalers (baseball) players\nWaltham/Worcester Rosebuds players\nGlace Bay Miners players\nDominion Hawks players\nNew Waterford Dodgers players\nBaseball players from Massachusetts\n1899 births\n1961 deaths",
"First and Last Things is a 1908 work of philosophy by H. G. Wells setting forth his beliefs in four \"books\" entitled \"Metaphysics,\" \"Of Belief,\" \"Of General Conduct,\" and \"Some Personal Things.\" Parts of the book were published in the Independent Magazine in July and August 1908. Wells revised the book extensively in 1917, in response to his religious conversion, but later published a further revision in 1929 that restored much of the book to its earlier form. Its main intellectual influences are Darwinism and certain German thinkers Wells had read, such as August Weismann. The pragmatism of William James, who had become a friend of Wells, was also an influence.\n\nSummary\nIn the first book, Wells emphasises his scepticism: neither the senses nor the mind can be relied upon uncritically, and \"The world of fact is not what it appears to be.\" Beliefs are not convictions, but rather positions arrived at \"exactly as an artist makes a picture\" and are adopted \"because I feel a need for them, because I feel an often quite unanalysable rightness in them. . . . My belief in them rests upon the fact that they work for me and satisfy a desire for harmony and beauty.\"\n\nIn the second book, devoted to his \"essential beliefs,\" Wells asserts as \"quite an arbitrary act of my mind\" and \"a choice\" his \"most comprehensive belief\": \"the external and the internal and myself . . . make one universe in which I and every part are ultimately important.\" On this point, he refuses argument, calling this \"unfounded and arbitrary declaration\" to be his \"fundamental religious confession.\" But he rejects use of \"the name of God\" because \"the run of people\" would misunderstand his meaning. He affirms the freedom of the will, and asserts that \"'What am I to do?' is the perpetual question of our existence.\" After analysing the various motives to action that he feels, he resolves them by embracing a \"ruling idea,\" viz. an historically emerging \"solidarity of humanity,\" although he acknowledges that \"the species is still as a whole unawakened, still sunken in the delusion of the permanent separateness of the individual and of races and nations.\" Wells, however, regards this solidarity of humanity as a biological \"fact.\" The direction of this human development is \"to Power and Beauty,\" but he takes a confessedly \"mystical\" attitude in regard to these terms, refusing to define, or even to distinguish them. He rejects personal immortality. He criticises the Christianity he was raised in because he does not believe in the existence of \"a divine-human friend and mediator\" (though he admits the \"splendid imaginative appeal\" of the idea). He regards \"all religions to be in a measure true,\" but also as \"false.\"\n\nIn the third book, by far the longest and occupying more than half the volume, Wells develops the \"rule of life\" that he promises in its subtitle. This involves a resolve to work for Socialism, which he considers to be \"a great social and political movement that correlates itself with my conception of a great synthesis of human purpose as the aspect towards us of the universal scheme.\" But he rejects the notion of \"rights\" and \"justice\" as grounds for this conception: \"There is no equity in the universe.\" Wells refers frequently in this part of First and Last Things to volumes he wrote in the preceding six or seven years on this perspective, addressing also such tactical questions as the attitude an individual intent on furthering social change ought to take toward existing institutions and conventions. \"So far as he possibly can a man must conform to common prejudices, prevalent customs and all laws,—whatever his estimate of them may be.\" This book also contains a prophetic section on the nature of modern warfare, and several on women, sex, and marriage that were considered remarkably bold and provocative in Edwardian England.\n\nIn the final book, Wells \"shamelessly\" offers some personal reflections about love, death, and life. \"Passionate love\" is \"the intensest thing in life\"; \"It is the essential fact of love as I conceive it, that it breaks down the boundaries of self.\" The concluding sentence of First and Last Things is: \"In the ultimate I know, though I cannot prove my knowledge in any way whatever, that everything is right and all things mine.\"\n\nBackground\nFirst and Last Things was written at a time when Wells's \"private life was to a considerable degree in turmoil.\" Amber Reeves, his lover, who inspired Ann Veronica and would in 1909 bear a daughter by Wells, was a brilliant student of philosophy at Cambridge University's Newnham College. Indeed, some passages of First and Last Things contain criticisms of Wells's ideas by a \"friend\" who is doubtless Amber Reeves.\n\nThe origins of the First and Last Things are to be found in a reading and discussion group of which Amber Reeves was a part. The group was \"based originally on the Young Fabians and probably closely affiliated with the Oxford socialist movement.\" Wells was invited in the fall of 1907 to deliver three lectures to the group, and as he says in the volume's opening pages, \"my notes soon outran the possibilities\" and he \"expanded these memoranda into a book.\"\n\nReception\nFirst and Last Things received few contemporary reviews.\n\nReferences\n\n1908 non-fiction books\nBooks by H. G. Wells\nMetaphysics books"
]
|
[
"Rabindranath Tagore",
"Twilight years: 1932-1941",
"What happened a Tagore twilight years?",
"Fifteen new volumes appeared, among them prose-poem works Punashcha (1932), Shes Saptak (1935), and Patraput (1936).",
"Which names are worth mentioning as a contribution to this part of his life?",
"earthquake hit Bihar and killed thousands. Gandhi hailed it as seismic karma, as divine retribution avenging the oppression of Dalits. Tagore rebuked him",
"Are there any other interesting aspects about this article?",
"Tagore's remit expanded to science in his last years, as hinted in Visva-Parichay, a 1937 collection of essays.",
"Did he win any award or recognition?",
"I don't know.",
"What are the major things that he did in his last years?",
"He wove the process of science, the narratives of scientists, into stories in Se (1937), Tin Sangi (1940), and Galpasalpa (1941)."
]
| C_3e16b1a1688e458a8ad42f4ee7308019_0 | What did he do after that? | 6 | What did Rabindranath Tagore do after 1941? | Rabindranath Tagore | Dutta and Robinson describe this phase of Tagore's life as being one of a "peripatetic litterateur". It affirmed his opinion that human divisions were shallow. During a May 1932 visit to a Bedouin encampment in the Iraqi desert, the tribal chief told him that "Our prophet has said that a true Muslim is he by whose words and deeds not the least of his brother-men may ever come to any harm ..." Tagore confided in his diary: "I was startled into recognizing in his words the voice of essential humanity." To the end Tagore scrutinised orthodoxy--and in 1934, he struck. That year, an earthquake hit Bihar and killed thousands. Gandhi hailed it as seismic karma, as divine retribution avenging the oppression of Dalits. Tagore rebuked him for his seemingly ignominious implications. He mourned the perennial poverty of Calcutta and the socioeconomic decline of Bengal, and detailed these newly plebeian aesthetics in an unrhymed hundred-line poem whose technique of searing double-vision foreshadowed Satyajit Ray's film Apur Sansar. Fifteen new volumes appeared, among them prose-poem works Punashcha (1932), Shes Saptak (1935), and Patraput (1936). Experimentation continued in his prose-songs and dance-dramas-- Chitra (1914), Shyama (1939), and Chandalika (1938)-- and in his novels-- Dui Bon (1933), Malancha (1934), and Char Adhyay (1934). Tagore's remit expanded to science in his last years, as hinted in Visva-Parichay, a 1937 collection of essays. His respect for scientific laws and his exploration of biology, physics, and astronomy informed his poetry, which exhibited extensive naturalism and verisimilitude. He wove the process of science, the narratives of scientists, into stories in Se (1937), Tin Sangi (1940), and Galpasalpa (1941). His last five years were marked by chronic pain and two long periods of illness. These began when Tagore lost consciousness in late 1937; he remained comatose and near death for a time. This was followed in late 1940 by a similar spell, from which he never recovered. Poetry from these valetudinary years is among his finest. A period of prolonged agony ended with Tagore's death on 7 August 1941, aged eighty; he was in an upstairs room of the Jorasanko mansion he was raised in. The date is still mourned. A. K. Sen, brother of the first chief election commissioner, received dictation from Tagore on 30 July 1941, a day prior to a scheduled operation: his last poem. I'm lost in the middle of my birthday. I want my friends, their touch, with the earth's last love. I will take life's final offering, I will take the human's last blessing. Today my sack is empty. I have given completely whatever I had to give. In return if I receive anything--some love, some forgiveness--then I will take it with me when I step on the boat that crosses to the festival of the wordless end. CANNOTANSWER | ). His last five years were marked by chronic pain and two long periods of illness. | Rabindranath Tagore (, ; 7 May 1861 – 7 August 1941) was a Bengali polymath—poet, writer, playwright, composer, philosopher, social reformer and painter. He reshaped Bengali literature and music as well as Indian art with Contextual Modernism in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Author of the "profoundly sensitive, fresh and beautiful" poetry of Gitanjali, he became in 1913 the first non-European and the first lyricist to win the Nobel Prize in Literature. Tagore's poetic songs were viewed as spiritual and mercurial; however, his "elegant prose and magical poetry" remain largely unknown outside Bengal. He was a fellow of the Royal Asiatic Society. Referred to as "the Bard of Bengal", Tagore was known by sobriquets: Gurudev, Kobiguru, Biswakobi.
A Bengali Brahmin from Calcutta with ancestral gentry roots in Burdwan district and Jessore, Tagore wrote poetry as an eight-year-old. At the age of sixteen, he released his first substantial poems under the pseudonym Bhānusiṃha ("Sun Lion"), which were seized upon by literary authorities as long-lost classics. By 1877 he graduated to his first short stories and dramas, published under his real name. As a humanist, universalist, internationalist, and ardent anti-nationalist, he denounced the British Raj and advocated independence from Britain. As an exponent of the Bengal Renaissance, he advanced a vast canon that comprised paintings, sketches and doodles, hundreds of texts, and some two thousand songs; his legacy also endures in his founding of Visva-Bharati University.
Tagore modernised Bengali art by spurning rigid classical forms and resisting linguistic strictures. His novels, stories, songs, dance-dramas, and essays spoke to topics political and personal. Gitanjali (Song Offerings), Gora (Fair-Faced) and Ghare-Baire (The Home and the World) are his best-known works, and his verse, short stories, and novels were acclaimed—or panned—for their lyricism, colloquialism, naturalism, and unnatural contemplation. His compositions were chosen by two nations as national anthems: India's "Jana Gana Mana" and Bangladesh's "Amar Shonar Bangla". The Sri Lankan national anthem was inspired by his work.
Family history
The name Tagore is the anglicised transliteration of Thakur. The original surname of the Tagores was Kushari. They were Rarhi Brahmins and originally belonged to a village named Kush in the district named Burdwan in West Bengal. The biographer of Rabindranath Tagore, Prabhat Kumar Mukhopadhyaya wrote in the first volume of his book Rabindrajibani O Rabindra Sahitya Prabeshak that
{{Cquote|quote=The Kusharis were the descendants of Deen Kushari, the son of Bhatta Narayana; Deen was granted a village named Kush (in Burdwan zilla) by Maharaja Kshitisura, he became its chief and came to be known as Kushari.}}
Life and events
Early life: 1861–1878
The youngest of 13 surviving children, Tagore (nicknamed "Rabi") was born on 7 May 1861 in the Jorasanko mansion in Calcutta, the son of Debendranath Tagore (1817–1905) and Sarada Devi (1830–1875).
Tagore was raised mostly by servants; his mother had died in his early childhood and his father travelled widely. The Tagore family was at the forefront of the Bengal renaissance. They hosted the publication of literary magazines; theatre and recitals of Bengali and Western classical music featured there regularly. Tagore's father invited several professional Dhrupad musicians to stay in the house and teach Indian classical music to the children. Tagore's oldest brother Dwijendranath was a philosopher and poet. Another brother, Satyendranath, was the first Indian appointed to the elite and formerly all-European Indian Civil Service. Yet another brother, Jyotirindranath, was a musician, composer, and playwright. His sister Swarnakumari became a novelist. Jyotirindranath's wife Kadambari Devi, slightly older than Tagore, was a dear friend and powerful influence. Her abrupt suicide in 1884, soon after he married, left him profoundly distraught for years.
Tagore largely avoided classroom schooling and preferred to roam the manor or nearby Bolpur and Panihati, which the family visited. His brother Hemendranath tutored and physically conditioned him—by having him swim the Ganges or trek through hills, by gymnastics, and by practising judo and wrestling. He learned drawing, anatomy, geography and history, literature, mathematics, Sanskrit, and English—his least favourite subject. Tagore loathed formal education—his scholarly travails at the local Presidency College spanned a single day. Years later he held that proper teaching does not explain things; proper teaching stokes curiosity:
After his upanayan (coming-of-age rite) at age eleven, Tagore and his father left Calcutta in February 1873 to tour India for several months, visiting his father's Santiniketan estate and Amritsar before reaching the Himalayan hill station of Dalhousie. There Tagore read biographies, studied history, astronomy, modern science, and Sanskrit, and examined the classical poetry of Kālidāsa. During his 1-month stay at Amritsar in 1873 he was greatly influenced by melodious gurbani and nanak bani being sung at Golden Temple for which both father and son were regular visitors. He mentions about this in his My Reminiscences (1912) He wrote 6 poems relating to Sikhism and a number of articles in Bengali children's magazine about Sikhism.
Tagore returned to Jorosanko and completed a set of major works by 1877, one of them a long poem in the Maithili style of Vidyapati. As a joke, he claimed that these were the lost works of newly discovered 17th-century Vaiṣṇava poet Bhānusiṃha. Regional experts accepted them as the lost works of the fictitious poet. He debuted in the short-story genre in Bengali with "Bhikharini" ("The Beggar Woman"). Published in the same year, Sandhya Sangit (1882) includes the poem "Nirjharer Swapnabhanga" ("The Rousing of the Waterfall").
Shelaidaha: 1878–1901
Because Debendranath wanted his son to become a barrister, Tagore enrolled at a public school in Brighton, East Sussex, England in 1878. He stayed for several months at a house that the Tagore family owned near Brighton and Hove, in Medina Villas; in 1877 his nephew and niece—Suren and Indira Devi, the children of Tagore's brother Satyendranath—were sent together with their mother, Tagore's sister-in-law, to live with him. He briefly read law at University College London, but again left school, opting instead for independent study of Shakespeare's plays Coriolanus, and Antony and Cleopatra and the Religio Medici of Thomas Browne. Lively English, Irish, and Scottish folk tunes impressed Tagore, whose own tradition of Nidhubabu-authored kirtans and tappas and Brahmo hymnody was subdued. In 1880 he returned to Bengal degree-less, resolving to reconcile European novelty with Brahmo traditions, taking the best from each. After returning to Bengal, Tagore regularly published poems, stories, and novels. These had a profound impact within Bengal itself but received little national attention. In 1883 he married 10-year-old Mrinalini Devi, born Bhabatarini, 1873–1902 (this was a common practice at the time). They had five children, two of whom died in childhood.
In 1890 Tagore began managing his vast ancestral estates in Shelaidaha (today a region of Bangladesh); he was joined there by his wife and children in 1898. Tagore released his Manasi poems (1890), among his best-known work. As Zamindar Babu, Tagore criss-crossed the Padma River in command of the Padma, the luxurious family barge (also known as "budgerow"). He collected mostly token rents and blessed villagers who in turn honoured him with banquets—occasionally of dried rice and sour milk. He met Gagan Harkara, through whom he became familiar with Baul Lalon Shah, whose folk songs greatly influenced Tagore. Tagore worked to popularise Lalon's songs. The period 1891–1895, Tagore's Sadhana period, named after one of his magazines, was his most productive; in these years he wrote more than half the stories of the three-volume, 84-story Galpaguchchha. Its ironic and grave tales examined the voluptuous poverty of an idealised rural Bengal.
Santiniketan: 1901–1932
In 1901 Tagore moved to Santiniketan to found an ashram with a marble-floored prayer hall—The Mandir—an experimental school, groves of trees, gardens, a library. There his wife and two of his children died. His father died in 1905. He received monthly payments as part of his inheritance and income from the Maharaja of Tripura, sales of his family's jewellery, his seaside bungalow in Puri, and a derisory 2,000 rupees in book royalties. He gained Bengali and foreign readers alike; he published Naivedya (1901) and Kheya (1906) and translated poems into free verse.
In November 1913, Tagore learned he had won that year's Nobel Prize in Literature: the Swedish Academy appreciated the idealistic—and for Westerners—accessible nature of a small body of his translated material focused on the 1912 Gitanjali: Song Offerings. He was awarded a knighthood by King George V in the 1915 Birthday Honours, but Tagore renounced it after the 1919 Jallianwala Bagh massacre. Renouncing the knighthood, Tagore wrote in a letter addressed to Lord Chelmsford, the then British Viceroy of India, "The disproportionate severity of the punishments inflicted upon the unfortunate people and the methods of carrying them out, we are convinced, are without parallel in the history of civilised governments...The time has come when badges of honour make our shame glaring in their incongruous context of humiliation, and I for my part wish to stand, shorn of all special distinctions, by the side of my country men."
In 1919, he was invited by the president and chairman of Anjuman-e-Islamia, Syed Abdul Majid to visit Sylhet for the first time. The event attracted over 5000 people.
In 1921, Tagore and agricultural economist Leonard Elmhirst set up the "Institute for Rural Reconstruction", later renamed Shriniketan or "Abode of Welfare", in Surul, a village near the ashram. With it, Tagore sought to moderate Gandhi's Swaraj protests, which he occasionally blamed for British India's perceived mental – and thus ultimately colonial – decline. He sought aid from donors, officials, and scholars worldwide to "free village[s] from the shackles of helplessness and ignorance" by "vitalis[ing] knowledge". In the early 1930s he targeted ambient "abnormal caste consciousness" and untouchability. He lectured against these, he penned Dalit heroes for his poems and his dramas, and he campaigned—successfully—to open Guruvayoor Temple to Dalits.
Twilight years: 1932–1941
Dutta and Robinson describe this phase of Tagore's life as being one of a "peripatetic litterateur". It affirmed his opinion that human divisions were shallow. During a May 1932 visit to a Bedouin encampment in the Iraqi desert, the tribal chief told him that "Our Prophet has said that a true Muslim is he by whose words and deeds not the least of his brother-men may ever come to any harm ..." Tagore confided in his diary: "I was startled into recognizing in his words the voice of essential humanity." To the end Tagore scrutinised orthodoxy—and in 1934, he struck. That year, an earthquake hit Bihar and killed thousands. Gandhi hailed it as seismic karma, as divine retribution avenging the oppression of Dalits. Tagore rebuked him for his seemingly ignominious implications. He mourned the perennial poverty of Calcutta and the socioeconomic decline of Bengal, and detailed these newly plebeian aesthetics in an unrhymed hundred-line poem whose technique of searing double-vision foreshadowed Satyajit Ray's film Apur Sansar. Fifteen new volumes appeared, among them prose-poem works Punashcha (1932), Shes Saptak (1935), and Patraput (1936). Experimentation continued in his prose-songs and dance-dramas— Chitra (1914), Shyama (1939), and Chandalika (1938)— and in his novels— Dui Bon (1933), Malancha (1934), and Char Adhyay (1934).
Tagore's remit expanded to science in his last years, as hinted in Visva-Parichay, a 1937 collection of essays. His respect for scientific laws and his exploration of biology, physics, and astronomy informed his poetry, which exhibited extensive naturalism and verisimilitude. He wove the process of science, the narratives of scientists, into stories in Se (1937), Tin Sangi (1940), and Galpasalpa (1941). His last five years were marked by chronic pain and two long periods of illness. These began when Tagore lost consciousness in late 1937; he remained comatose and near death for a time. This was followed in late 1940 by a similar spell, from which he never recovered. Poetry from these valetudinary years is among his finest. A period of prolonged agony ended with Tagore's death on 7 August 1941, aged 80. He was in an upstairs room of the Jorasanko mansion in which he grew up. The date is still mourned. A. K. Sen, brother of the first chief election commissioner, received dictation from Tagore on 30 July 1941, a day prior to a scheduled operation: his last poem.
Travels
Between 1878 and 1932, Tagore set foot in more than thirty countries on five continents. In 1912, he took a sheaf of his translated works to England, where they gained attention from missionary and Gandhi protégé Charles F. Andrews, Irish poet William Butler Yeats, Ezra Pound, Robert Bridges, Ernest Rhys, Thomas Sturge Moore, and others. Yeats wrote the preface to the English translation of Gitanjali; Andrews joined Tagore at Santiniketan. In November 1912 Tagore began touring the United States and the United Kingdom, staying in Butterton, Staffordshire with Andrews's clergymen friends. From May 1916 until April 1917, he lectured in Japan and the United States. He denounced nationalism. His essay "Nationalism in India" was scorned and praised; it was admired by Romain Rolland and other pacifists.
Shortly after returning home the 63-year-old Tagore accepted an invitation from the Peruvian government. He travelled to Mexico. Each government pledged 100,000 to his school to commemorate the visits. A week after his 6 November 1924 arrival in Buenos Aires, an ill Tagore shifted to the Villa Miralrío at the behest of Victoria Ocampo. He left for home in January 1925. In May 1926 Tagore reached Naples; the next day he met Mussolini in Rome. Their warm rapport ended when Tagore pronounced upon Il Duces fascist finesse. He had earlier enthused: "[w]ithout any doubt he is a great personality. There is such a massive vigour in that head that it reminds one of Michael Angelo's chisel." A "fire-bath" of fascism was to have educed "the immortal soul of Italy ... clothed in quenchless light".
On 1 November 1926 Tagore arrived to Hungary and spent some time on the shore of Lake Balaton in the city of Balatonfüred, recovering from heart problems at a sanitarium. He planted a tree and a bust statue was placed there in 1956 (a gift from the Indian government, the work of Rasithan Kashar, replaced by a newly gifted statue in 2005) and the lakeside promenade still bears his name since 1957.
On 14 July 1927 Tagore and two companions began a four-month tour of Southeast Asia. They visited Bali, Java, Kuala Lumpur, Malacca, Penang, Siam, and Singapore. The resultant travelogues compose Jatri (1929). In early 1930 he left Bengal for a nearly year-long tour of Europe and the United States. Upon returning to Britain—and as his paintings were exhibited in Paris and London—he lodged at a Birmingham Quaker settlement. He wrote his Oxford Hibbert Lectures and spoke at the annual London Quaker meet. There, addressing relations between the British and the Indians – a topic he would tackle repeatedly over the next two years – Tagore spoke of a "dark chasm of aloofness". He visited Aga Khan III, stayed at Dartington Hall, toured Denmark, Switzerland, and Germany from June to mid-September 1930, then went on into the Soviet Union. In April 1932 Tagore, intrigued by the Persian mystic Hafez, was hosted by Reza Shah Pahlavi. In his other travels, Tagore interacted with Henri Bergson, Albert Einstein, Robert Frost, Thomas Mann, George Bernard Shaw, H.G. Wells, and Romain Rolland. Visits to Persia and Iraq (in 1932) and Sri Lanka (in 1933) composed Tagore's final foreign tour, and his dislike of communalism and nationalism only deepened.
Vice-President of India M. Hamid Ansari has said that Rabindranath Tagore heralded the cultural rapprochement between communities, societies and nations much before it became the liberal norm of conduct.
Tagore was a man ahead of his time. He wrote in 1932, while on a visit to Iran, that "each country of Asia will solve its own historical problems according to its strength, nature and needs, but the lamp they will each carry on their path to progress will converge to illuminate the common ray of knowledge."
Works
Known mostly for his poetry, Tagore wrote novels, essays, short stories, travelogues, dramas, and thousands of songs. Of Tagore's prose, his short stories are perhaps most highly regarded; he is indeed credited with originating the Bengali-language version of the genre. His works are frequently noted for their rhythmic, optimistic, and lyrical nature. Such stories mostly borrow from the lives of common people. Tagore's non-fiction grappled with history, linguistics, and spirituality. He wrote autobiographies. His travelogues, essays, and lectures were compiled into several volumes, including Europe Jatrir Patro (Letters from Europe) and Manusher Dhormo (The Religion of Man). His brief chat with Einstein, "Note on the Nature of Reality", is included as an appendix to the latter. On the occasion of Tagore's 150th birthday, an anthology (titled Kalanukromik Rabindra Rachanabali) of the total body of his works is currently being published in Bengali in chronological order. This includes all versions of each work and fills about eighty volumes. In 2011, Harvard University Press collaborated with Visva-Bharati University to publish The Essential Tagore, the largest anthology of Tagore's works available in English; it was edited by Fakrul Alam and Radha Chakravarthy and marks the 150th anniversary of Tagore's birth.
Drama
Tagore's experiences with drama began when he was sixteen, with his brother Jyotirindranath. He wrote his first original dramatic piece when he was twenty — Valmiki Pratibha which was shown at the Tagore's mansion. Tagore stated that his works sought to articulate "the play of feeling and not of action". In 1890 he wrote Visarjan (an adaptation of his novella Rajarshi), which has been regarded as his finest drama. In the original Bengali language, such works included intricate subplots and extended monologues. Later, Tagore's dramas used more philosophical and allegorical themes. The play Dak Ghar (The Post Office; 1912), describes the child Amal defying his stuffy and puerile confines by ultimately "fall[ing] asleep", hinting his physical death. A story with borderless appeal—gleaning rave reviews in Europe—Dak Ghar dealt with death as, in Tagore's words, "spiritual freedom" from "the world of hoarded wealth and certified creeds". Another is Tagore's Chandalika (Untouchable Girl), which was modelled on an ancient Buddhist legend describing how Ananda, the Gautama Buddha's disciple, asks a tribal girl for water. In Raktakarabi ("Red" or "Blood Oleanders") is an allegorical struggle against a kleptocrat king who rules over the residents of Yaksha puri.
Chitrangada, Chandalika, and Shyama are other key plays that have dance-drama adaptations, which together are known as Rabindra Nritya Natya.
Short stories
Tagore began his career in short stories in 1877—when he was only sixteen—with "Bhikharini" ("The Beggar Woman"). With this, Tagore effectively invented the Bengali-language short story genre. The four years from 1891 to 1895 are known as Tagore's "Sadhana" period (named for one of Tagore's magazines). This period was among Tagore's most fecund, yielding more than half the stories contained in the three-volume Galpaguchchha, which itself is a collection of eighty-four stories. Such stories usually showcase Tagore's reflections upon his surroundings, on modern and fashionable ideas, and on interesting mind puzzles (which Tagore was fond of testing his intellect with). Tagore typically associated his earliest stories (such as those of the "Sadhana" period) with an exuberance of vitality and spontaneity; these characteristics were intimately connected with Tagore's life in the common villages of, among others, Patisar, Shajadpur, and Shilaida while managing the Tagore family's vast landholdings. There, he beheld the lives of India's poor and common people; Tagore thereby took to examining their lives with a penetrative depth and feeling that was singular in Indian literature up to that point. In particular, such stories as "Kabuliwala" ("The Fruitseller from Kabul", published in 1892), "Kshudita Pashan" ("The Hungry Stones") (August 1895), and "Atithi" ("The Runaway", 1895) typified this analytic focus on the downtrodden. Many of the other Galpaguchchha stories were written in Tagore's Sabuj Patra period from 1914 to 1917, also named after one of the magazines that Tagore edited and heavily contributed to.
Novels
Tagore wrote eight novels and four novellas, among them Chaturanga, Shesher Kobita, Char Odhay, and Noukadubi. Ghare Baire (The Home and the World)—through the lens of the idealistic zamindar protagonist Nikhil—excoriates rising Indian nationalism, terrorism, and religious zeal in the Swadeshi movement; a frank expression of Tagore's conflicted sentiments, it emerged from a 1914 bout of depression. The novel ends in Hindu-Muslim violence and Nikhil's—likely mortal—wounding.
Gora raises controversial questions regarding the Indian identity. As with Ghare Baire, matters of self-identity (jāti), personal freedom, and religion are developed in the context of a family story and love triangle. In it an Irish boy orphaned in the Sepoy Mutiny is raised by Hindus as the titular gora—"whitey". Ignorant of his foreign origins, he chastises Hindu religious backsliders out of love for the indigenous Indians and solidarity with them against his hegemon-compatriots. He falls for a Brahmo girl, compelling his worried foster father to reveal his lost past and cease his nativist zeal. As a "true dialectic" advancing "arguments for and against strict traditionalism", it tackles the colonial conundrum by "portray[ing] the value of all positions within a particular frame [...] not only syncretism, not only liberal orthodoxy, but the extremest reactionary traditionalism he defends by an appeal to what humans share." Among these Tagore highlights "identity [...] conceived of as dharma."
In Jogajog (Relationships), the heroine Kumudini—bound by the ideals of Śiva-Sati, exemplified by Dākshāyani—is torn between her pity for the sinking fortunes of her progressive and compassionate elder brother and his foil: her roue of a husband. Tagore flaunts his feminist leanings; pathos depicts the plight and ultimate demise of women trapped by pregnancy, duty, and family honour; he simultaneously trucks with Bengal's putrescent landed gentry. The story revolves around the underlying rivalry between two families—the Chatterjees, aristocrats now on the decline (Biprodas) and the Ghosals (Madhusudan), representing new money and new arrogance. Kumudini, Biprodas' sister, is caught between the two as she is married off to Madhusudan. She had risen in an observant and sheltered traditional home, as had all her female relations.
Others were uplifting: Shesher Kobita—translated twice as Last Poem and Farewell Song—is his most lyrical novel, with poems and rhythmic passages written by a poet protagonist. It contains elements of satire and postmodernism and has stock characters who gleefully attack the reputation of an old, outmoded, oppressively renowned poet who, incidentally, goes by a familiar name: "Rabindranath Tagore". Though his novels remain among the least-appreciated of his works, they have been given renewed attention via film adaptations by Ray and others: Chokher Bali and Ghare Baire are exemplary. In the first, Tagore inscribes Bengali society via its heroine: a rebellious widow who would live for herself alone. He pillories the custom of perpetual mourning on the part of widows, who were not allowed to remarry, who were consigned to seclusion and loneliness. Tagore wrote of it: "I have always regretted the ending".
Poetry
Internationally, Gitanjali () is Tagore's best-known collection of poetry, for which he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1913. Tagore was the first non-European to receive a Nobel Prize in Literature and second non-European to receive a Nobel Prize after Theodore Roosevelt.
Besides Gitanjali, other notable works include Manasi, Sonar Tori ("Golden Boat"), Balaka ("Wild Geese" — the title being a metaphor for migrating souls)
Tagore's poetic style, which proceeds from a lineage established by 15th- and 16th-century Vaishnava poets, ranges from classical formalism to the comic, visionary, and ecstatic. He was influenced by the atavistic mysticism of Vyasa and other rishi-authors of the Upanishads, the Bhakti-Sufi mystic Kabir, and Ramprasad Sen. Tagore's most innovative and mature poetry embodies his exposure to Bengali rural folk music, which included mystic Baul ballads such as those of the bard Lalon. These, rediscovered and repopularised by Tagore, resemble 19th-century Kartābhajā hymns that emphasise inward divinity and rebellion against bourgeois bhadralok religious and social orthodoxy. During his Shelaidaha years, his poems took on a lyrical voice of the moner manush, the Bāuls' "man within the heart" and Tagore's "life force of his deep recesses", or meditating upon the jeevan devata—the demiurge or the "living God within". This figure connected with divinity through appeal to nature and the emotional interplay of human drama. Such tools saw use in his Bhānusiṃha poems chronicling the Radha-Krishna romance, which were repeatedly revised over the course of seventy years.
Later, with the development of new poetic ideas in Bengal – many originating from younger poets seeking to break with Tagore's style – Tagore absorbed new poetic concepts, which allowed him to further develop a unique identity. Examples of this include Africa and Camalia, which are among the better known of his latter poems.
Songs (Rabindra Sangeet)
Tagore was a prolific composer with around 2,230 songs to his credit. His songs are known as rabindrasangit ("Tagore Song"), which merges fluidly into his literature, most of which—poems or parts of novels, stories, or plays alike—were lyricised. Influenced by the thumri style of Hindustani music, they ran the entire gamut of human emotion, ranging from his early dirge-like Brahmo devotional hymns to quasi-erotic compositions. They emulated the tonal colour of classical ragas to varying extents. Some songs mimicked a given raga's melody and rhythm faithfully; others newly blended elements of different ragas. Yet about nine-tenths of his work was not bhanga gaan, the body of tunes revamped with "fresh value" from select Western, Hindustani, Bengali folk and other regional flavours "external" to Tagore's own ancestral culture.
In 1971, Amar Shonar Bangla became the national anthem of Bangladesh. It was written – ironically – to protest the 1905 Partition of Bengal along communal lines: cutting off the Muslim-majority East Bengal from Hindu-dominated West Bengal was to avert a regional bloodbath. Tagore saw the partition as a cunning plan to stop the independence movement, and he aimed to rekindle Bengali unity and tar communalism. Jana Gana Mana was written in shadhu-bhasha, a Sanskritised form of Bengali, and is the first of five stanzas of the Brahmo hymn Bharot Bhagyo Bidhata that Tagore composed. It was first sung in 1911 at a Calcutta session of the Indian National Congress and was adopted in 1950 by the Constituent Assembly of the Republic of India as its national anthem.
The Sri Lanka's National Anthem was inspired by his work.
For Bengalis, the songs' appeal, stemming from the combination of emotive strength and beauty described as surpassing even Tagore's poetry, was such that the Modern Review observed that "[t]here is in Bengal no cultured home where Rabindranath's songs are not sung or at least attempted to be sung... Even illiterate villagers sing his songs". Tagore influenced sitar maestro Vilayat Khan and sarodiyas Buddhadev Dasgupta and Amjad Ali Khan.
Art works
At sixty, Tagore took up drawing and painting; successful exhibitions of his many works—which made a debut appearance in Paris upon encouragement by artists he met in the south of France—were held throughout Europe. He was likely red-green colour blind, resulting in works that exhibited strange colour schemes and off-beat aesthetics. Tagore was influenced by numerous styles, including scrimshaw by the Malanggan people of northern New Ireland, Papua New Guinea, Haida carvings from the Pacific Northwest region of North America, and woodcuts by the German Max Pechstein. His artist's eye for handwriting was revealed in the simple artistic and rhythmic leitmotifs embellishing the scribbles, cross-outs, and word layouts of his manuscripts. Some of Tagore's lyrics corresponded in a synesthetic sense with particular paintings.
India's National Gallery of Modern Art lists 102 works by Tagore in its collections.
Politics
Tagore opposed imperialism and supported Indian nationalists, and these views were first revealed in Manast, which was mostly composed in his twenties. Evidence produced during the Hindu–German Conspiracy Trial and latter accounts affirm his awareness of the Ghadarites, and stated that he sought the support of Japanese Prime Minister Terauchi Masatake and former Premier Ōkuma Shigenobu. Yet he lampooned the Swadeshi movement; he rebuked it in The Cult of the Charkha, an acrid 1925 essay. According to Amartya Sen, Tagore rebelled against strongly nationalist forms of the independence movement, and he wanted to assert India's right to be independent without denying the importance of what India could learn from abroad. He urged the masses to avoid victimology and instead seek self-help and education, and he saw the presence of British administration as a "political symptom of our social disease". He maintained that, even for those at the extremes of poverty, "there can be no question of blind revolution"; preferable to it was a "steady and purposeful education".
Such views enraged many. He escaped assassination—and only narrowly—by Indian expatriates during his stay in a San Francisco hotel in late 1916; the plot failed when his would-be assassins fell into argument. Tagore wrote songs lionising the Indian independence movement. Two of Tagore's more politically charged compositions, "Chitto Jetha Bhayshunyo" ("Where the Mind is Without Fear") and "Ekla Chalo Re" ("If They Answer Not to Thy Call, Walk Alone"), gained mass appeal, with the latter favoured by Gandhi. Though somewhat critical of Gandhian activism, Tagore was key in resolving a Gandhi–Ambedkar dispute involving separate electorates for untouchables, thereby mooting at least one of Gandhi's fasts "unto death".
Repudiation of knighthood
Tagore renounced his knighthood in response to the Jallianwala Bagh massacre in 1919. In the repudiation letter to the Viceroy, Lord Chelmsford, he wrote
Santiniketan and Visva-Bharati
Tagore despised rote classroom schooling: in "The Parrot's Training", a bird is caged and force-fed textbook pages—to death. Tagore, visiting Santa Barbara in 1917, conceived a new type of university: he sought to "make Santiniketan the connecting thread between India and the world [and] a world center for the study of humanity somewhere beyond the limits of nation and geography." The school, which he named Visva-Bharati, had its foundation stone laid on 24 December 1918 and was inaugurated precisely three years later. Tagore employed a brahmacharya system: gurus gave pupils personal guidance—emotional, intellectual, and spiritual. Teaching was often done under trees. He staffed the school, he contributed his Nobel Prize monies, and his duties as steward-mentor at Santiniketan kept him busy: mornings he taught classes; afternoons and evenings he wrote the students' textbooks. He fundraised widely for the school in Europe and the United States between 1919 and 1921.
Theft of Nobel Prize
On 25 March 2004, Tagore's Nobel Prize was stolen from the safety vault of the Visva-Bharati University, along with several other of his belongings. On 7 December 2004, the Swedish Academy decided to present two replicas of Tagore's Nobel Prize, one made of gold and the other made of bronze, to the Visva-Bharati University. It inspired the fictional film Nobel Chor. In 2016, a baul singer named Pradip Bauri accused of sheltering the thieves was arrested and the prize was returned.
Impact and legacy
Every year, many events pay tribute to Tagore: Kabipranam, his birth anniversary, is celebrated by groups scattered across the globe; the annual Tagore Festival held in Urbana, Illinois (USA); Rabindra Path Parikrama walking pilgrimages from Kolkata to Santiniketan; and recitals of his poetry, which are held on important anniversaries. Bengali culture is fraught with this legacy: from language and arts to history and politics. Amartya Sen deemed Tagore a "towering figure", a "deeply relevant and many-sided contemporary thinker". Tagore's Bengali originals—the 1939 Rabīndra Rachanāvalī—is canonised as one of his nation's greatest cultural treasures, and he was roped into a reasonably humble role: "the greatest poet India has produced".
Tagore was renowned throughout much of Europe, North America, and East Asia. He co-founded Dartington Hall School, a progressive coeducational institution; in Japan, he influenced such figures as Nobel laureate Yasunari Kawabata. In colonial Vietnam Tagore was a guide for the restless spirit of the radical writer and publicist Nguyen An Ninh Tagore's works were widely translated into English, Dutch, German, Spanish, and other European languages by Czech Indologist Vincenc Lesný, French Nobel laureate André Gide, Russian poet Anna Akhmatova, former Turkish Prime Minister Bülent Ecevit, and others. In the United States, Tagore's lecturing circuits, particularly those of 1916–1917, were widely attended and wildly acclaimed. Some controversies involving Tagore, possibly fictive, trashed his popularity and sales in Japan and North America after the late 1920s, concluding with his "near total eclipse" outside Bengal. Yet a latent reverence of Tagore was discovered by an astonished Salman Rushdie during a trip to Nicaragua.
By way of translations, Tagore influenced Chileans Pablo Neruda and Gabriela Mistral; Mexican writer Octavio Paz; and Spaniards José Ortega y Gasset, Zenobia Camprubí, and Juan Ramón Jiménez. In the period 1914–1922, the Jiménez-Camprubí pair produced twenty-two Spanish translations of Tagore's English corpus; they heavily revised The Crescent Moon and other key titles. In these years, Jiménez developed "naked poetry". Ortega y Gasset wrote that "Tagore's wide appeal [owes to how] he speaks of longings for perfection that we all have [...] Tagore awakens a dormant sense of childish wonder, and he saturates the air with all kinds of enchanting promises for the reader, who [...] pays little attention to the deeper import of Oriental mysticism". Tagore's works circulated in free editions around 1920—alongside those of Plato, Dante, Cervantes, Goethe, and Tolstoy.
Tagore was deemed over-rated by some. Graham Greene doubted that "anyone but Mr. Yeats can still take his poems very seriously." Several prominent Western admirers—including Pound and, to a lesser extent, even Yeats—criticised Tagore's work. Yeats, unimpressed with his English translations, railed against that "Damn Tagore [...] We got out three good books, Sturge Moore and I, and then, because he thought it more important to see and know English than to be a great poet, he brought out sentimental rubbish and wrecked his reputation. Tagore does not know English, no Indian knows English." William Radice, who "English[ed]" his poems, asked: "What is their place in world literature?" He saw him as "kind of counter-cultur[al]", bearing "a new kind of classicism" that would heal the "collapsed romantic confusion and chaos of the 20th [c]entury." The translated Tagore was "almost nonsensical", and subpar English offerings reduced his trans-national appeal:
Museums
There are eight Tagore museums. Three in India and five in Bangladesh:
Rabindra Bharati Museum, at Jorasanko Thakur Bari, Kolkata, India
Tagore Memorial Museum, at Shilaidaha Kuthibadi, Shilaidaha, Bangladesh
Rabindra Memorial Museum at Shahzadpur Kachharibari, Shahzadpur, Bangladesh
Rabindra Bhavan Museum, in Santiniketan, India
Rabindra Museum, in Mungpoo, near Kalimpong, India
Patisar Rabindra Kacharibari, Patisar, Atrai, Naogaon, Bangladesh
Pithavoge Rabindra Memorial Complex, Pithavoge, Rupsha, Khulna, Bangladesh
Rabindra Complex, Dakkhindihi village, Phultala Upazila, Khulna, Bangladesh
Jorasanko Thakur Bari (Bengali: House of the Thakurs; anglicised to Tagore) in Jorasanko, north of Kolkata, is the ancestral home of the Tagore family. It is currently located on the Rabindra Bharati University campus at 6/4 Dwarakanath Tagore Lane Jorasanko, Kolkata 700007. It is the house in which Tagore was born. It is also the place where he spent most of his childhood and where he died on 7 August 1941.
Rabindra Complex is located in Dakkhindihi village, near Phultala Upazila, from Khulna city, Bangladesh. It was the residence of tagores father-in-law, Beni Madhab Roy Chowdhury. Tagore family had close connection with Dakkhindihi village. The maternal ancestral home of the great poet was also situated at Dakkhindihi village, poets mother Sarada Sundari Devi and his paternal aunt by marriage Tripura Sundari Devi; was born in this village.Young tagore used to visit Dakkhindihi village with his mother to visit his maternal uncles in her mothers ancestral home. Tagore visited this place several times in his life. It has been declared as a protected archaeological site by Department of Archaeology of Bangladesh and converted into a museum. In 1995, the local administration took charge of the house and on 14 November of that year, the Rabindra Complex project was decided. Bangladesh Governments Department of Archeology has carried out the renovation work to make the house a museum titled ‘Rabindra Complex’ in 2011–12 fiscal year. The two-storey museum building has four rooms on the first floor and two rooms on the ground floor at present. The building has eight windows on the ground floor and 21 windows on the first floor. The height of the roof from the floor on the ground floor is 13 feet. There are seven doors, six windows and wall almirahs on the first floor. Over 500 books were kept in the library and all the rooms have been decorated with rare pictures of Rabindranath. Over 10,000 visitors come here every year to see the museum from different parts of the country and also from abroad, said Saifur Rahman, assistant director of the Department of Archeology in Khulna. A bust of Rabindranath Tagore is also there. Every year on 25–27 Baishakh (after the Bengali New Year Celebration), cultural programs are held here which lasts for three days.
List of works
The SNLTR hosts the 1415 BE edition of Tagore's complete Bengali works. Tagore Web also hosts an edition of Tagore's works, including annotated songs. Translations are found at Project Gutenberg and Wikisource. More sources are below.
Original
Translated
Adaptations of novels and short stories in cinema
Bengali
Natir Puja – 1932 – The only film directed by Rabindranath Tagore
Gora — 1938 Gora (novel) — Naresh Mitra
Noukadubi– Nitin Bose
Bou Thakuranir Haat – 1953 (Bou Thakuranir Haat) – Naresh Mitra
Kabuliwala – 1957 (Kabuliwala) – Tapan Sinha
Kshudhita Pashan – 1960 (Kshudhita Pashan) – Tapan Sinha
Teen Kanya – 1961 (Teen Kanya) – Satyajit Ray
Charulata - 1964 (Nastanirh) – Satyajit Ray
Megh o Roudra – 1969 (Megh o Roudra) – Arundhati Devi
Ghare Baire – 1985 (Ghare Baire) – Satyajit Ray
Chokher Bali – 2003 (Chokher Bali) – Rituparno Ghosh
Shasti – 2004 (Shasti) – Chashi Nazrul Islam
Shuva – 2006 (Shuvashini) – Chashi Nazrul Islam
Chaturanga – 2008 (Chaturanga) – Suman Mukhopadhyay
Noukadubi – 2011 (Noukadubi) – Rituparno Ghosh
Elar Char Adhyay – 2012 (Char Adhyay) – Bappaditya Bandyopadhyay
Hindi
Sacrifice – 1927 (Balidan) – Nanand Bhojai and Naval Gandhi
Milan – 1946 (Nauka Dubi) – Nitin Bose
Dak Ghar – 1965 (Dak Ghar) – Zul Vellani
Kabuliwala – 1961 (Kabuliwala) – Bimal Roy
Uphaar – 1971 (Samapti) – Sudhendu Roy
Lekin... – 1991 (Kshudhit Pashaan) – Gulzar
Char Adhyay – 1997 (Char Adhyay) – Kumar Shahani
Kashmakash – 2011 (Nauka Dubi) – Rituparno Ghosh
Stories by Rabindranath Tagore (Anthology TV Series) – 2015 – Anurag Basu
Bioscopewala – 2017 (Kabuliwala) – Deb MedhekarBhikharinIn popular cultureRabindranath Tagore is a 1961 Indian documentary film written and directed by Satyajit Ray, released during the birth centenary of Tagore. It was produced by the Government of India's Films Division.
In Sukanta Roy's Bengali film Chhelebela (2002) Jisshu Sengupta portrayed Tagore.
In Bandana Mukhopadhyay's Bengali film Chirosakha He (2007) Sayandip Bhattacharya played Tagore.
In Rituparno Ghosh's Bengali documentary film Jeevan Smriti (2011) Samadarshi Dutta played Tagore.
In Suman Ghosh's Bengali film Kadambari (2015) Parambrata Chatterjee portrayed Tagore.
See also
List of Indian writers
Kazi Nazrul Islam
Rabindra Jayanti
Rabindra Puraskar
Tagore familyAn Artist in Life — biography by Niharranjan Ray
Taptapadi
Timeline of Rabindranath Tagore
Music of Bengal
References
Notes
Citations
Writers from Kolkata
Bibliography
Primary
Anthologies
Originals
Translations
Secondary
Articles
Books
Other
Texts
Original
Translated
Further reading
External links
School of Wisdom
Analyses
Ezra Pound: "Rabindranath Tagore", The Fortnightly Review'', March 1913
Mary Lago Collection, University of MissouriAudiobooks Texts
Bichitra: Online Tagore Variorum
Talks'''
South Asian American Digital Archive (SAADA)
1861 births
1941 deaths
Presidency University, Kolkata alumni
Alumni of University College London
Bengali people
Bengali Hindus
Bengali philosophers
Bengali writers
Bengali zamindars
Brahmos
Founders of Indian schools and colleges
Indian Nobel laureates
National anthem writers
Nobel laureates in Literature
People associated with Santiniketan
Oriental Seminary alumni
Vangiya Sahitya Parishad
English-language poets from India
19th-century Bengali poets
Bengali-language poets
Indian Hindus
Indian male dramatists and playwrights
Indian male songwriters
Indian male essayists
19th-century Indian painters
Rabindranath
Musicians from Kolkata
19th-century Indian educational theorists
Indian portrait painters
Artist authors
Indian male poets
20th-century Indian painters
19th-century Indian poets
20th-century Indian poets
19th-century Indian musicians
19th-century Indian composers
20th-century Indian composers
19th-century Indian philosophers
20th-century Indian philosophers
20th-century Bengali poets
Bengali male poets
Indian male painters
Poets from West Bengal
19th-century Indian dramatists and playwrights
20th-century Indian dramatists and playwrights
20th-century Indian essayists
19th-century Indian essayists
20th-century Indian novelists
20th-century Indian educational theorists
Knights Bachelor
Painters from West Bengal
19th-century male musicians
Indian classical composers
19th-century classical musicians
Haiku poets
Google Doodles | true | [
"\"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"
]
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[
"Rabindranath Tagore",
"Twilight years: 1932-1941",
"What happened a Tagore twilight years?",
"Fifteen new volumes appeared, among them prose-poem works Punashcha (1932), Shes Saptak (1935), and Patraput (1936).",
"Which names are worth mentioning as a contribution to this part of his life?",
"earthquake hit Bihar and killed thousands. Gandhi hailed it as seismic karma, as divine retribution avenging the oppression of Dalits. Tagore rebuked him",
"Are there any other interesting aspects about this article?",
"Tagore's remit expanded to science in his last years, as hinted in Visva-Parichay, a 1937 collection of essays.",
"Did he win any award or recognition?",
"I don't know.",
"What are the major things that he did in his last years?",
"He wove the process of science, the narratives of scientists, into stories in Se (1937), Tin Sangi (1940), and Galpasalpa (1941).",
"What did he do after that?",
"). His last five years were marked by chronic pain and two long periods of illness."
]
| C_3e16b1a1688e458a8ad42f4ee7308019_0 | Did he eventually die? | 7 | Did Rabindranath Tagor eventually die? | Rabindranath Tagore | Dutta and Robinson describe this phase of Tagore's life as being one of a "peripatetic litterateur". It affirmed his opinion that human divisions were shallow. During a May 1932 visit to a Bedouin encampment in the Iraqi desert, the tribal chief told him that "Our prophet has said that a true Muslim is he by whose words and deeds not the least of his brother-men may ever come to any harm ..." Tagore confided in his diary: "I was startled into recognizing in his words the voice of essential humanity." To the end Tagore scrutinised orthodoxy--and in 1934, he struck. That year, an earthquake hit Bihar and killed thousands. Gandhi hailed it as seismic karma, as divine retribution avenging the oppression of Dalits. Tagore rebuked him for his seemingly ignominious implications. He mourned the perennial poverty of Calcutta and the socioeconomic decline of Bengal, and detailed these newly plebeian aesthetics in an unrhymed hundred-line poem whose technique of searing double-vision foreshadowed Satyajit Ray's film Apur Sansar. Fifteen new volumes appeared, among them prose-poem works Punashcha (1932), Shes Saptak (1935), and Patraput (1936). Experimentation continued in his prose-songs and dance-dramas-- Chitra (1914), Shyama (1939), and Chandalika (1938)-- and in his novels-- Dui Bon (1933), Malancha (1934), and Char Adhyay (1934). Tagore's remit expanded to science in his last years, as hinted in Visva-Parichay, a 1937 collection of essays. His respect for scientific laws and his exploration of biology, physics, and astronomy informed his poetry, which exhibited extensive naturalism and verisimilitude. He wove the process of science, the narratives of scientists, into stories in Se (1937), Tin Sangi (1940), and Galpasalpa (1941). His last five years were marked by chronic pain and two long periods of illness. These began when Tagore lost consciousness in late 1937; he remained comatose and near death for a time. This was followed in late 1940 by a similar spell, from which he never recovered. Poetry from these valetudinary years is among his finest. A period of prolonged agony ended with Tagore's death on 7 August 1941, aged eighty; he was in an upstairs room of the Jorasanko mansion he was raised in. The date is still mourned. A. K. Sen, brother of the first chief election commissioner, received dictation from Tagore on 30 July 1941, a day prior to a scheduled operation: his last poem. I'm lost in the middle of my birthday. I want my friends, their touch, with the earth's last love. I will take life's final offering, I will take the human's last blessing. Today my sack is empty. I have given completely whatever I had to give. In return if I receive anything--some love, some forgiveness--then I will take it with me when I step on the boat that crosses to the festival of the wordless end. CANNOTANSWER | A period of prolonged agony ended with Tagore's death on 7 August 1941, aged eighty; | Rabindranath Tagore (, ; 7 May 1861 – 7 August 1941) was a Bengali polymath—poet, writer, playwright, composer, philosopher, social reformer and painter. He reshaped Bengali literature and music as well as Indian art with Contextual Modernism in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Author of the "profoundly sensitive, fresh and beautiful" poetry of Gitanjali, he became in 1913 the first non-European and the first lyricist to win the Nobel Prize in Literature. Tagore's poetic songs were viewed as spiritual and mercurial; however, his "elegant prose and magical poetry" remain largely unknown outside Bengal. He was a fellow of the Royal Asiatic Society. Referred to as "the Bard of Bengal", Tagore was known by sobriquets: Gurudev, Kobiguru, Biswakobi.
A Bengali Brahmin from Calcutta with ancestral gentry roots in Burdwan district and Jessore, Tagore wrote poetry as an eight-year-old. At the age of sixteen, he released his first substantial poems under the pseudonym Bhānusiṃha ("Sun Lion"), which were seized upon by literary authorities as long-lost classics. By 1877 he graduated to his first short stories and dramas, published under his real name. As a humanist, universalist, internationalist, and ardent anti-nationalist, he denounced the British Raj and advocated independence from Britain. As an exponent of the Bengal Renaissance, he advanced a vast canon that comprised paintings, sketches and doodles, hundreds of texts, and some two thousand songs; his legacy also endures in his founding of Visva-Bharati University.
Tagore modernised Bengali art by spurning rigid classical forms and resisting linguistic strictures. His novels, stories, songs, dance-dramas, and essays spoke to topics political and personal. Gitanjali (Song Offerings), Gora (Fair-Faced) and Ghare-Baire (The Home and the World) are his best-known works, and his verse, short stories, and novels were acclaimed—or panned—for their lyricism, colloquialism, naturalism, and unnatural contemplation. His compositions were chosen by two nations as national anthems: India's "Jana Gana Mana" and Bangladesh's "Amar Shonar Bangla". The Sri Lankan national anthem was inspired by his work.
Family history
The name Tagore is the anglicised transliteration of Thakur. The original surname of the Tagores was Kushari. They were Rarhi Brahmins and originally belonged to a village named Kush in the district named Burdwan in West Bengal. The biographer of Rabindranath Tagore, Prabhat Kumar Mukhopadhyaya wrote in the first volume of his book Rabindrajibani O Rabindra Sahitya Prabeshak that
{{Cquote|quote=The Kusharis were the descendants of Deen Kushari, the son of Bhatta Narayana; Deen was granted a village named Kush (in Burdwan zilla) by Maharaja Kshitisura, he became its chief and came to be known as Kushari.}}
Life and events
Early life: 1861–1878
The youngest of 13 surviving children, Tagore (nicknamed "Rabi") was born on 7 May 1861 in the Jorasanko mansion in Calcutta, the son of Debendranath Tagore (1817–1905) and Sarada Devi (1830–1875).
Tagore was raised mostly by servants; his mother had died in his early childhood and his father travelled widely. The Tagore family was at the forefront of the Bengal renaissance. They hosted the publication of literary magazines; theatre and recitals of Bengali and Western classical music featured there regularly. Tagore's father invited several professional Dhrupad musicians to stay in the house and teach Indian classical music to the children. Tagore's oldest brother Dwijendranath was a philosopher and poet. Another brother, Satyendranath, was the first Indian appointed to the elite and formerly all-European Indian Civil Service. Yet another brother, Jyotirindranath, was a musician, composer, and playwright. His sister Swarnakumari became a novelist. Jyotirindranath's wife Kadambari Devi, slightly older than Tagore, was a dear friend and powerful influence. Her abrupt suicide in 1884, soon after he married, left him profoundly distraught for years.
Tagore largely avoided classroom schooling and preferred to roam the manor or nearby Bolpur and Panihati, which the family visited. His brother Hemendranath tutored and physically conditioned him—by having him swim the Ganges or trek through hills, by gymnastics, and by practising judo and wrestling. He learned drawing, anatomy, geography and history, literature, mathematics, Sanskrit, and English—his least favourite subject. Tagore loathed formal education—his scholarly travails at the local Presidency College spanned a single day. Years later he held that proper teaching does not explain things; proper teaching stokes curiosity:
After his upanayan (coming-of-age rite) at age eleven, Tagore and his father left Calcutta in February 1873 to tour India for several months, visiting his father's Santiniketan estate and Amritsar before reaching the Himalayan hill station of Dalhousie. There Tagore read biographies, studied history, astronomy, modern science, and Sanskrit, and examined the classical poetry of Kālidāsa. During his 1-month stay at Amritsar in 1873 he was greatly influenced by melodious gurbani and nanak bani being sung at Golden Temple for which both father and son were regular visitors. He mentions about this in his My Reminiscences (1912) He wrote 6 poems relating to Sikhism and a number of articles in Bengali children's magazine about Sikhism.
Tagore returned to Jorosanko and completed a set of major works by 1877, one of them a long poem in the Maithili style of Vidyapati. As a joke, he claimed that these were the lost works of newly discovered 17th-century Vaiṣṇava poet Bhānusiṃha. Regional experts accepted them as the lost works of the fictitious poet. He debuted in the short-story genre in Bengali with "Bhikharini" ("The Beggar Woman"). Published in the same year, Sandhya Sangit (1882) includes the poem "Nirjharer Swapnabhanga" ("The Rousing of the Waterfall").
Shelaidaha: 1878–1901
Because Debendranath wanted his son to become a barrister, Tagore enrolled at a public school in Brighton, East Sussex, England in 1878. He stayed for several months at a house that the Tagore family owned near Brighton and Hove, in Medina Villas; in 1877 his nephew and niece—Suren and Indira Devi, the children of Tagore's brother Satyendranath—were sent together with their mother, Tagore's sister-in-law, to live with him. He briefly read law at University College London, but again left school, opting instead for independent study of Shakespeare's plays Coriolanus, and Antony and Cleopatra and the Religio Medici of Thomas Browne. Lively English, Irish, and Scottish folk tunes impressed Tagore, whose own tradition of Nidhubabu-authored kirtans and tappas and Brahmo hymnody was subdued. In 1880 he returned to Bengal degree-less, resolving to reconcile European novelty with Brahmo traditions, taking the best from each. After returning to Bengal, Tagore regularly published poems, stories, and novels. These had a profound impact within Bengal itself but received little national attention. In 1883 he married 10-year-old Mrinalini Devi, born Bhabatarini, 1873–1902 (this was a common practice at the time). They had five children, two of whom died in childhood.
In 1890 Tagore began managing his vast ancestral estates in Shelaidaha (today a region of Bangladesh); he was joined there by his wife and children in 1898. Tagore released his Manasi poems (1890), among his best-known work. As Zamindar Babu, Tagore criss-crossed the Padma River in command of the Padma, the luxurious family barge (also known as "budgerow"). He collected mostly token rents and blessed villagers who in turn honoured him with banquets—occasionally of dried rice and sour milk. He met Gagan Harkara, through whom he became familiar with Baul Lalon Shah, whose folk songs greatly influenced Tagore. Tagore worked to popularise Lalon's songs. The period 1891–1895, Tagore's Sadhana period, named after one of his magazines, was his most productive; in these years he wrote more than half the stories of the three-volume, 84-story Galpaguchchha. Its ironic and grave tales examined the voluptuous poverty of an idealised rural Bengal.
Santiniketan: 1901–1932
In 1901 Tagore moved to Santiniketan to found an ashram with a marble-floored prayer hall—The Mandir—an experimental school, groves of trees, gardens, a library. There his wife and two of his children died. His father died in 1905. He received monthly payments as part of his inheritance and income from the Maharaja of Tripura, sales of his family's jewellery, his seaside bungalow in Puri, and a derisory 2,000 rupees in book royalties. He gained Bengali and foreign readers alike; he published Naivedya (1901) and Kheya (1906) and translated poems into free verse.
In November 1913, Tagore learned he had won that year's Nobel Prize in Literature: the Swedish Academy appreciated the idealistic—and for Westerners—accessible nature of a small body of his translated material focused on the 1912 Gitanjali: Song Offerings. He was awarded a knighthood by King George V in the 1915 Birthday Honours, but Tagore renounced it after the 1919 Jallianwala Bagh massacre. Renouncing the knighthood, Tagore wrote in a letter addressed to Lord Chelmsford, the then British Viceroy of India, "The disproportionate severity of the punishments inflicted upon the unfortunate people and the methods of carrying them out, we are convinced, are without parallel in the history of civilised governments...The time has come when badges of honour make our shame glaring in their incongruous context of humiliation, and I for my part wish to stand, shorn of all special distinctions, by the side of my country men."
In 1919, he was invited by the president and chairman of Anjuman-e-Islamia, Syed Abdul Majid to visit Sylhet for the first time. The event attracted over 5000 people.
In 1921, Tagore and agricultural economist Leonard Elmhirst set up the "Institute for Rural Reconstruction", later renamed Shriniketan or "Abode of Welfare", in Surul, a village near the ashram. With it, Tagore sought to moderate Gandhi's Swaraj protests, which he occasionally blamed for British India's perceived mental – and thus ultimately colonial – decline. He sought aid from donors, officials, and scholars worldwide to "free village[s] from the shackles of helplessness and ignorance" by "vitalis[ing] knowledge". In the early 1930s he targeted ambient "abnormal caste consciousness" and untouchability. He lectured against these, he penned Dalit heroes for his poems and his dramas, and he campaigned—successfully—to open Guruvayoor Temple to Dalits.
Twilight years: 1932–1941
Dutta and Robinson describe this phase of Tagore's life as being one of a "peripatetic litterateur". It affirmed his opinion that human divisions were shallow. During a May 1932 visit to a Bedouin encampment in the Iraqi desert, the tribal chief told him that "Our Prophet has said that a true Muslim is he by whose words and deeds not the least of his brother-men may ever come to any harm ..." Tagore confided in his diary: "I was startled into recognizing in his words the voice of essential humanity." To the end Tagore scrutinised orthodoxy—and in 1934, he struck. That year, an earthquake hit Bihar and killed thousands. Gandhi hailed it as seismic karma, as divine retribution avenging the oppression of Dalits. Tagore rebuked him for his seemingly ignominious implications. He mourned the perennial poverty of Calcutta and the socioeconomic decline of Bengal, and detailed these newly plebeian aesthetics in an unrhymed hundred-line poem whose technique of searing double-vision foreshadowed Satyajit Ray's film Apur Sansar. Fifteen new volumes appeared, among them prose-poem works Punashcha (1932), Shes Saptak (1935), and Patraput (1936). Experimentation continued in his prose-songs and dance-dramas— Chitra (1914), Shyama (1939), and Chandalika (1938)— and in his novels— Dui Bon (1933), Malancha (1934), and Char Adhyay (1934).
Tagore's remit expanded to science in his last years, as hinted in Visva-Parichay, a 1937 collection of essays. His respect for scientific laws and his exploration of biology, physics, and astronomy informed his poetry, which exhibited extensive naturalism and verisimilitude. He wove the process of science, the narratives of scientists, into stories in Se (1937), Tin Sangi (1940), and Galpasalpa (1941). His last five years were marked by chronic pain and two long periods of illness. These began when Tagore lost consciousness in late 1937; he remained comatose and near death for a time. This was followed in late 1940 by a similar spell, from which he never recovered. Poetry from these valetudinary years is among his finest. A period of prolonged agony ended with Tagore's death on 7 August 1941, aged 80. He was in an upstairs room of the Jorasanko mansion in which he grew up. The date is still mourned. A. K. Sen, brother of the first chief election commissioner, received dictation from Tagore on 30 July 1941, a day prior to a scheduled operation: his last poem.
Travels
Between 1878 and 1932, Tagore set foot in more than thirty countries on five continents. In 1912, he took a sheaf of his translated works to England, where they gained attention from missionary and Gandhi protégé Charles F. Andrews, Irish poet William Butler Yeats, Ezra Pound, Robert Bridges, Ernest Rhys, Thomas Sturge Moore, and others. Yeats wrote the preface to the English translation of Gitanjali; Andrews joined Tagore at Santiniketan. In November 1912 Tagore began touring the United States and the United Kingdom, staying in Butterton, Staffordshire with Andrews's clergymen friends. From May 1916 until April 1917, he lectured in Japan and the United States. He denounced nationalism. His essay "Nationalism in India" was scorned and praised; it was admired by Romain Rolland and other pacifists.
Shortly after returning home the 63-year-old Tagore accepted an invitation from the Peruvian government. He travelled to Mexico. Each government pledged 100,000 to his school to commemorate the visits. A week after his 6 November 1924 arrival in Buenos Aires, an ill Tagore shifted to the Villa Miralrío at the behest of Victoria Ocampo. He left for home in January 1925. In May 1926 Tagore reached Naples; the next day he met Mussolini in Rome. Their warm rapport ended when Tagore pronounced upon Il Duces fascist finesse. He had earlier enthused: "[w]ithout any doubt he is a great personality. There is such a massive vigour in that head that it reminds one of Michael Angelo's chisel." A "fire-bath" of fascism was to have educed "the immortal soul of Italy ... clothed in quenchless light".
On 1 November 1926 Tagore arrived to Hungary and spent some time on the shore of Lake Balaton in the city of Balatonfüred, recovering from heart problems at a sanitarium. He planted a tree and a bust statue was placed there in 1956 (a gift from the Indian government, the work of Rasithan Kashar, replaced by a newly gifted statue in 2005) and the lakeside promenade still bears his name since 1957.
On 14 July 1927 Tagore and two companions began a four-month tour of Southeast Asia. They visited Bali, Java, Kuala Lumpur, Malacca, Penang, Siam, and Singapore. The resultant travelogues compose Jatri (1929). In early 1930 he left Bengal for a nearly year-long tour of Europe and the United States. Upon returning to Britain—and as his paintings were exhibited in Paris and London—he lodged at a Birmingham Quaker settlement. He wrote his Oxford Hibbert Lectures and spoke at the annual London Quaker meet. There, addressing relations between the British and the Indians – a topic he would tackle repeatedly over the next two years – Tagore spoke of a "dark chasm of aloofness". He visited Aga Khan III, stayed at Dartington Hall, toured Denmark, Switzerland, and Germany from June to mid-September 1930, then went on into the Soviet Union. In April 1932 Tagore, intrigued by the Persian mystic Hafez, was hosted by Reza Shah Pahlavi. In his other travels, Tagore interacted with Henri Bergson, Albert Einstein, Robert Frost, Thomas Mann, George Bernard Shaw, H.G. Wells, and Romain Rolland. Visits to Persia and Iraq (in 1932) and Sri Lanka (in 1933) composed Tagore's final foreign tour, and his dislike of communalism and nationalism only deepened.
Vice-President of India M. Hamid Ansari has said that Rabindranath Tagore heralded the cultural rapprochement between communities, societies and nations much before it became the liberal norm of conduct.
Tagore was a man ahead of his time. He wrote in 1932, while on a visit to Iran, that "each country of Asia will solve its own historical problems according to its strength, nature and needs, but the lamp they will each carry on their path to progress will converge to illuminate the common ray of knowledge."
Works
Known mostly for his poetry, Tagore wrote novels, essays, short stories, travelogues, dramas, and thousands of songs. Of Tagore's prose, his short stories are perhaps most highly regarded; he is indeed credited with originating the Bengali-language version of the genre. His works are frequently noted for their rhythmic, optimistic, and lyrical nature. Such stories mostly borrow from the lives of common people. Tagore's non-fiction grappled with history, linguistics, and spirituality. He wrote autobiographies. His travelogues, essays, and lectures were compiled into several volumes, including Europe Jatrir Patro (Letters from Europe) and Manusher Dhormo (The Religion of Man). His brief chat with Einstein, "Note on the Nature of Reality", is included as an appendix to the latter. On the occasion of Tagore's 150th birthday, an anthology (titled Kalanukromik Rabindra Rachanabali) of the total body of his works is currently being published in Bengali in chronological order. This includes all versions of each work and fills about eighty volumes. In 2011, Harvard University Press collaborated with Visva-Bharati University to publish The Essential Tagore, the largest anthology of Tagore's works available in English; it was edited by Fakrul Alam and Radha Chakravarthy and marks the 150th anniversary of Tagore's birth.
Drama
Tagore's experiences with drama began when he was sixteen, with his brother Jyotirindranath. He wrote his first original dramatic piece when he was twenty — Valmiki Pratibha which was shown at the Tagore's mansion. Tagore stated that his works sought to articulate "the play of feeling and not of action". In 1890 he wrote Visarjan (an adaptation of his novella Rajarshi), which has been regarded as his finest drama. In the original Bengali language, such works included intricate subplots and extended monologues. Later, Tagore's dramas used more philosophical and allegorical themes. The play Dak Ghar (The Post Office; 1912), describes the child Amal defying his stuffy and puerile confines by ultimately "fall[ing] asleep", hinting his physical death. A story with borderless appeal—gleaning rave reviews in Europe—Dak Ghar dealt with death as, in Tagore's words, "spiritual freedom" from "the world of hoarded wealth and certified creeds". Another is Tagore's Chandalika (Untouchable Girl), which was modelled on an ancient Buddhist legend describing how Ananda, the Gautama Buddha's disciple, asks a tribal girl for water. In Raktakarabi ("Red" or "Blood Oleanders") is an allegorical struggle against a kleptocrat king who rules over the residents of Yaksha puri.
Chitrangada, Chandalika, and Shyama are other key plays that have dance-drama adaptations, which together are known as Rabindra Nritya Natya.
Short stories
Tagore began his career in short stories in 1877—when he was only sixteen—with "Bhikharini" ("The Beggar Woman"). With this, Tagore effectively invented the Bengali-language short story genre. The four years from 1891 to 1895 are known as Tagore's "Sadhana" period (named for one of Tagore's magazines). This period was among Tagore's most fecund, yielding more than half the stories contained in the three-volume Galpaguchchha, which itself is a collection of eighty-four stories. Such stories usually showcase Tagore's reflections upon his surroundings, on modern and fashionable ideas, and on interesting mind puzzles (which Tagore was fond of testing his intellect with). Tagore typically associated his earliest stories (such as those of the "Sadhana" period) with an exuberance of vitality and spontaneity; these characteristics were intimately connected with Tagore's life in the common villages of, among others, Patisar, Shajadpur, and Shilaida while managing the Tagore family's vast landholdings. There, he beheld the lives of India's poor and common people; Tagore thereby took to examining their lives with a penetrative depth and feeling that was singular in Indian literature up to that point. In particular, such stories as "Kabuliwala" ("The Fruitseller from Kabul", published in 1892), "Kshudita Pashan" ("The Hungry Stones") (August 1895), and "Atithi" ("The Runaway", 1895) typified this analytic focus on the downtrodden. Many of the other Galpaguchchha stories were written in Tagore's Sabuj Patra period from 1914 to 1917, also named after one of the magazines that Tagore edited and heavily contributed to.
Novels
Tagore wrote eight novels and four novellas, among them Chaturanga, Shesher Kobita, Char Odhay, and Noukadubi. Ghare Baire (The Home and the World)—through the lens of the idealistic zamindar protagonist Nikhil—excoriates rising Indian nationalism, terrorism, and religious zeal in the Swadeshi movement; a frank expression of Tagore's conflicted sentiments, it emerged from a 1914 bout of depression. The novel ends in Hindu-Muslim violence and Nikhil's—likely mortal—wounding.
Gora raises controversial questions regarding the Indian identity. As with Ghare Baire, matters of self-identity (jāti), personal freedom, and religion are developed in the context of a family story and love triangle. In it an Irish boy orphaned in the Sepoy Mutiny is raised by Hindus as the titular gora—"whitey". Ignorant of his foreign origins, he chastises Hindu religious backsliders out of love for the indigenous Indians and solidarity with them against his hegemon-compatriots. He falls for a Brahmo girl, compelling his worried foster father to reveal his lost past and cease his nativist zeal. As a "true dialectic" advancing "arguments for and against strict traditionalism", it tackles the colonial conundrum by "portray[ing] the value of all positions within a particular frame [...] not only syncretism, not only liberal orthodoxy, but the extremest reactionary traditionalism he defends by an appeal to what humans share." Among these Tagore highlights "identity [...] conceived of as dharma."
In Jogajog (Relationships), the heroine Kumudini—bound by the ideals of Śiva-Sati, exemplified by Dākshāyani—is torn between her pity for the sinking fortunes of her progressive and compassionate elder brother and his foil: her roue of a husband. Tagore flaunts his feminist leanings; pathos depicts the plight and ultimate demise of women trapped by pregnancy, duty, and family honour; he simultaneously trucks with Bengal's putrescent landed gentry. The story revolves around the underlying rivalry between two families—the Chatterjees, aristocrats now on the decline (Biprodas) and the Ghosals (Madhusudan), representing new money and new arrogance. Kumudini, Biprodas' sister, is caught between the two as she is married off to Madhusudan. She had risen in an observant and sheltered traditional home, as had all her female relations.
Others were uplifting: Shesher Kobita—translated twice as Last Poem and Farewell Song—is his most lyrical novel, with poems and rhythmic passages written by a poet protagonist. It contains elements of satire and postmodernism and has stock characters who gleefully attack the reputation of an old, outmoded, oppressively renowned poet who, incidentally, goes by a familiar name: "Rabindranath Tagore". Though his novels remain among the least-appreciated of his works, they have been given renewed attention via film adaptations by Ray and others: Chokher Bali and Ghare Baire are exemplary. In the first, Tagore inscribes Bengali society via its heroine: a rebellious widow who would live for herself alone. He pillories the custom of perpetual mourning on the part of widows, who were not allowed to remarry, who were consigned to seclusion and loneliness. Tagore wrote of it: "I have always regretted the ending".
Poetry
Internationally, Gitanjali () is Tagore's best-known collection of poetry, for which he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1913. Tagore was the first non-European to receive a Nobel Prize in Literature and second non-European to receive a Nobel Prize after Theodore Roosevelt.
Besides Gitanjali, other notable works include Manasi, Sonar Tori ("Golden Boat"), Balaka ("Wild Geese" — the title being a metaphor for migrating souls)
Tagore's poetic style, which proceeds from a lineage established by 15th- and 16th-century Vaishnava poets, ranges from classical formalism to the comic, visionary, and ecstatic. He was influenced by the atavistic mysticism of Vyasa and other rishi-authors of the Upanishads, the Bhakti-Sufi mystic Kabir, and Ramprasad Sen. Tagore's most innovative and mature poetry embodies his exposure to Bengali rural folk music, which included mystic Baul ballads such as those of the bard Lalon. These, rediscovered and repopularised by Tagore, resemble 19th-century Kartābhajā hymns that emphasise inward divinity and rebellion against bourgeois bhadralok religious and social orthodoxy. During his Shelaidaha years, his poems took on a lyrical voice of the moner manush, the Bāuls' "man within the heart" and Tagore's "life force of his deep recesses", or meditating upon the jeevan devata—the demiurge or the "living God within". This figure connected with divinity through appeal to nature and the emotional interplay of human drama. Such tools saw use in his Bhānusiṃha poems chronicling the Radha-Krishna romance, which were repeatedly revised over the course of seventy years.
Later, with the development of new poetic ideas in Bengal – many originating from younger poets seeking to break with Tagore's style – Tagore absorbed new poetic concepts, which allowed him to further develop a unique identity. Examples of this include Africa and Camalia, which are among the better known of his latter poems.
Songs (Rabindra Sangeet)
Tagore was a prolific composer with around 2,230 songs to his credit. His songs are known as rabindrasangit ("Tagore Song"), which merges fluidly into his literature, most of which—poems or parts of novels, stories, or plays alike—were lyricised. Influenced by the thumri style of Hindustani music, they ran the entire gamut of human emotion, ranging from his early dirge-like Brahmo devotional hymns to quasi-erotic compositions. They emulated the tonal colour of classical ragas to varying extents. Some songs mimicked a given raga's melody and rhythm faithfully; others newly blended elements of different ragas. Yet about nine-tenths of his work was not bhanga gaan, the body of tunes revamped with "fresh value" from select Western, Hindustani, Bengali folk and other regional flavours "external" to Tagore's own ancestral culture.
In 1971, Amar Shonar Bangla became the national anthem of Bangladesh. It was written – ironically – to protest the 1905 Partition of Bengal along communal lines: cutting off the Muslim-majority East Bengal from Hindu-dominated West Bengal was to avert a regional bloodbath. Tagore saw the partition as a cunning plan to stop the independence movement, and he aimed to rekindle Bengali unity and tar communalism. Jana Gana Mana was written in shadhu-bhasha, a Sanskritised form of Bengali, and is the first of five stanzas of the Brahmo hymn Bharot Bhagyo Bidhata that Tagore composed. It was first sung in 1911 at a Calcutta session of the Indian National Congress and was adopted in 1950 by the Constituent Assembly of the Republic of India as its national anthem.
The Sri Lanka's National Anthem was inspired by his work.
For Bengalis, the songs' appeal, stemming from the combination of emotive strength and beauty described as surpassing even Tagore's poetry, was such that the Modern Review observed that "[t]here is in Bengal no cultured home where Rabindranath's songs are not sung or at least attempted to be sung... Even illiterate villagers sing his songs". Tagore influenced sitar maestro Vilayat Khan and sarodiyas Buddhadev Dasgupta and Amjad Ali Khan.
Art works
At sixty, Tagore took up drawing and painting; successful exhibitions of his many works—which made a debut appearance in Paris upon encouragement by artists he met in the south of France—were held throughout Europe. He was likely red-green colour blind, resulting in works that exhibited strange colour schemes and off-beat aesthetics. Tagore was influenced by numerous styles, including scrimshaw by the Malanggan people of northern New Ireland, Papua New Guinea, Haida carvings from the Pacific Northwest region of North America, and woodcuts by the German Max Pechstein. His artist's eye for handwriting was revealed in the simple artistic and rhythmic leitmotifs embellishing the scribbles, cross-outs, and word layouts of his manuscripts. Some of Tagore's lyrics corresponded in a synesthetic sense with particular paintings.
India's National Gallery of Modern Art lists 102 works by Tagore in its collections.
Politics
Tagore opposed imperialism and supported Indian nationalists, and these views were first revealed in Manast, which was mostly composed in his twenties. Evidence produced during the Hindu–German Conspiracy Trial and latter accounts affirm his awareness of the Ghadarites, and stated that he sought the support of Japanese Prime Minister Terauchi Masatake and former Premier Ōkuma Shigenobu. Yet he lampooned the Swadeshi movement; he rebuked it in The Cult of the Charkha, an acrid 1925 essay. According to Amartya Sen, Tagore rebelled against strongly nationalist forms of the independence movement, and he wanted to assert India's right to be independent without denying the importance of what India could learn from abroad. He urged the masses to avoid victimology and instead seek self-help and education, and he saw the presence of British administration as a "political symptom of our social disease". He maintained that, even for those at the extremes of poverty, "there can be no question of blind revolution"; preferable to it was a "steady and purposeful education".
Such views enraged many. He escaped assassination—and only narrowly—by Indian expatriates during his stay in a San Francisco hotel in late 1916; the plot failed when his would-be assassins fell into argument. Tagore wrote songs lionising the Indian independence movement. Two of Tagore's more politically charged compositions, "Chitto Jetha Bhayshunyo" ("Where the Mind is Without Fear") and "Ekla Chalo Re" ("If They Answer Not to Thy Call, Walk Alone"), gained mass appeal, with the latter favoured by Gandhi. Though somewhat critical of Gandhian activism, Tagore was key in resolving a Gandhi–Ambedkar dispute involving separate electorates for untouchables, thereby mooting at least one of Gandhi's fasts "unto death".
Repudiation of knighthood
Tagore renounced his knighthood in response to the Jallianwala Bagh massacre in 1919. In the repudiation letter to the Viceroy, Lord Chelmsford, he wrote
Santiniketan and Visva-Bharati
Tagore despised rote classroom schooling: in "The Parrot's Training", a bird is caged and force-fed textbook pages—to death. Tagore, visiting Santa Barbara in 1917, conceived a new type of university: he sought to "make Santiniketan the connecting thread between India and the world [and] a world center for the study of humanity somewhere beyond the limits of nation and geography." The school, which he named Visva-Bharati, had its foundation stone laid on 24 December 1918 and was inaugurated precisely three years later. Tagore employed a brahmacharya system: gurus gave pupils personal guidance—emotional, intellectual, and spiritual. Teaching was often done under trees. He staffed the school, he contributed his Nobel Prize monies, and his duties as steward-mentor at Santiniketan kept him busy: mornings he taught classes; afternoons and evenings he wrote the students' textbooks. He fundraised widely for the school in Europe and the United States between 1919 and 1921.
Theft of Nobel Prize
On 25 March 2004, Tagore's Nobel Prize was stolen from the safety vault of the Visva-Bharati University, along with several other of his belongings. On 7 December 2004, the Swedish Academy decided to present two replicas of Tagore's Nobel Prize, one made of gold and the other made of bronze, to the Visva-Bharati University. It inspired the fictional film Nobel Chor. In 2016, a baul singer named Pradip Bauri accused of sheltering the thieves was arrested and the prize was returned.
Impact and legacy
Every year, many events pay tribute to Tagore: Kabipranam, his birth anniversary, is celebrated by groups scattered across the globe; the annual Tagore Festival held in Urbana, Illinois (USA); Rabindra Path Parikrama walking pilgrimages from Kolkata to Santiniketan; and recitals of his poetry, which are held on important anniversaries. Bengali culture is fraught with this legacy: from language and arts to history and politics. Amartya Sen deemed Tagore a "towering figure", a "deeply relevant and many-sided contemporary thinker". Tagore's Bengali originals—the 1939 Rabīndra Rachanāvalī—is canonised as one of his nation's greatest cultural treasures, and he was roped into a reasonably humble role: "the greatest poet India has produced".
Tagore was renowned throughout much of Europe, North America, and East Asia. He co-founded Dartington Hall School, a progressive coeducational institution; in Japan, he influenced such figures as Nobel laureate Yasunari Kawabata. In colonial Vietnam Tagore was a guide for the restless spirit of the radical writer and publicist Nguyen An Ninh Tagore's works were widely translated into English, Dutch, German, Spanish, and other European languages by Czech Indologist Vincenc Lesný, French Nobel laureate André Gide, Russian poet Anna Akhmatova, former Turkish Prime Minister Bülent Ecevit, and others. In the United States, Tagore's lecturing circuits, particularly those of 1916–1917, were widely attended and wildly acclaimed. Some controversies involving Tagore, possibly fictive, trashed his popularity and sales in Japan and North America after the late 1920s, concluding with his "near total eclipse" outside Bengal. Yet a latent reverence of Tagore was discovered by an astonished Salman Rushdie during a trip to Nicaragua.
By way of translations, Tagore influenced Chileans Pablo Neruda and Gabriela Mistral; Mexican writer Octavio Paz; and Spaniards José Ortega y Gasset, Zenobia Camprubí, and Juan Ramón Jiménez. In the period 1914–1922, the Jiménez-Camprubí pair produced twenty-two Spanish translations of Tagore's English corpus; they heavily revised The Crescent Moon and other key titles. In these years, Jiménez developed "naked poetry". Ortega y Gasset wrote that "Tagore's wide appeal [owes to how] he speaks of longings for perfection that we all have [...] Tagore awakens a dormant sense of childish wonder, and he saturates the air with all kinds of enchanting promises for the reader, who [...] pays little attention to the deeper import of Oriental mysticism". Tagore's works circulated in free editions around 1920—alongside those of Plato, Dante, Cervantes, Goethe, and Tolstoy.
Tagore was deemed over-rated by some. Graham Greene doubted that "anyone but Mr. Yeats can still take his poems very seriously." Several prominent Western admirers—including Pound and, to a lesser extent, even Yeats—criticised Tagore's work. Yeats, unimpressed with his English translations, railed against that "Damn Tagore [...] We got out three good books, Sturge Moore and I, and then, because he thought it more important to see and know English than to be a great poet, he brought out sentimental rubbish and wrecked his reputation. Tagore does not know English, no Indian knows English." William Radice, who "English[ed]" his poems, asked: "What is their place in world literature?" He saw him as "kind of counter-cultur[al]", bearing "a new kind of classicism" that would heal the "collapsed romantic confusion and chaos of the 20th [c]entury." The translated Tagore was "almost nonsensical", and subpar English offerings reduced his trans-national appeal:
Museums
There are eight Tagore museums. Three in India and five in Bangladesh:
Rabindra Bharati Museum, at Jorasanko Thakur Bari, Kolkata, India
Tagore Memorial Museum, at Shilaidaha Kuthibadi, Shilaidaha, Bangladesh
Rabindra Memorial Museum at Shahzadpur Kachharibari, Shahzadpur, Bangladesh
Rabindra Bhavan Museum, in Santiniketan, India
Rabindra Museum, in Mungpoo, near Kalimpong, India
Patisar Rabindra Kacharibari, Patisar, Atrai, Naogaon, Bangladesh
Pithavoge Rabindra Memorial Complex, Pithavoge, Rupsha, Khulna, Bangladesh
Rabindra Complex, Dakkhindihi village, Phultala Upazila, Khulna, Bangladesh
Jorasanko Thakur Bari (Bengali: House of the Thakurs; anglicised to Tagore) in Jorasanko, north of Kolkata, is the ancestral home of the Tagore family. It is currently located on the Rabindra Bharati University campus at 6/4 Dwarakanath Tagore Lane Jorasanko, Kolkata 700007. It is the house in which Tagore was born. It is also the place where he spent most of his childhood and where he died on 7 August 1941.
Rabindra Complex is located in Dakkhindihi village, near Phultala Upazila, from Khulna city, Bangladesh. It was the residence of tagores father-in-law, Beni Madhab Roy Chowdhury. Tagore family had close connection with Dakkhindihi village. The maternal ancestral home of the great poet was also situated at Dakkhindihi village, poets mother Sarada Sundari Devi and his paternal aunt by marriage Tripura Sundari Devi; was born in this village.Young tagore used to visit Dakkhindihi village with his mother to visit his maternal uncles in her mothers ancestral home. Tagore visited this place several times in his life. It has been declared as a protected archaeological site by Department of Archaeology of Bangladesh and converted into a museum. In 1995, the local administration took charge of the house and on 14 November of that year, the Rabindra Complex project was decided. Bangladesh Governments Department of Archeology has carried out the renovation work to make the house a museum titled ‘Rabindra Complex’ in 2011–12 fiscal year. The two-storey museum building has four rooms on the first floor and two rooms on the ground floor at present. The building has eight windows on the ground floor and 21 windows on the first floor. The height of the roof from the floor on the ground floor is 13 feet. There are seven doors, six windows and wall almirahs on the first floor. Over 500 books were kept in the library and all the rooms have been decorated with rare pictures of Rabindranath. Over 10,000 visitors come here every year to see the museum from different parts of the country and also from abroad, said Saifur Rahman, assistant director of the Department of Archeology in Khulna. A bust of Rabindranath Tagore is also there. Every year on 25–27 Baishakh (after the Bengali New Year Celebration), cultural programs are held here which lasts for three days.
List of works
The SNLTR hosts the 1415 BE edition of Tagore's complete Bengali works. Tagore Web also hosts an edition of Tagore's works, including annotated songs. Translations are found at Project Gutenberg and Wikisource. More sources are below.
Original
Translated
Adaptations of novels and short stories in cinema
Bengali
Natir Puja – 1932 – The only film directed by Rabindranath Tagore
Gora — 1938 Gora (novel) — Naresh Mitra
Noukadubi– Nitin Bose
Bou Thakuranir Haat – 1953 (Bou Thakuranir Haat) – Naresh Mitra
Kabuliwala – 1957 (Kabuliwala) – Tapan Sinha
Kshudhita Pashan – 1960 (Kshudhita Pashan) – Tapan Sinha
Teen Kanya – 1961 (Teen Kanya) – Satyajit Ray
Charulata - 1964 (Nastanirh) – Satyajit Ray
Megh o Roudra – 1969 (Megh o Roudra) – Arundhati Devi
Ghare Baire – 1985 (Ghare Baire) – Satyajit Ray
Chokher Bali – 2003 (Chokher Bali) – Rituparno Ghosh
Shasti – 2004 (Shasti) – Chashi Nazrul Islam
Shuva – 2006 (Shuvashini) – Chashi Nazrul Islam
Chaturanga – 2008 (Chaturanga) – Suman Mukhopadhyay
Noukadubi – 2011 (Noukadubi) – Rituparno Ghosh
Elar Char Adhyay – 2012 (Char Adhyay) – Bappaditya Bandyopadhyay
Hindi
Sacrifice – 1927 (Balidan) – Nanand Bhojai and Naval Gandhi
Milan – 1946 (Nauka Dubi) – Nitin Bose
Dak Ghar – 1965 (Dak Ghar) – Zul Vellani
Kabuliwala – 1961 (Kabuliwala) – Bimal Roy
Uphaar – 1971 (Samapti) – Sudhendu Roy
Lekin... – 1991 (Kshudhit Pashaan) – Gulzar
Char Adhyay – 1997 (Char Adhyay) – Kumar Shahani
Kashmakash – 2011 (Nauka Dubi) – Rituparno Ghosh
Stories by Rabindranath Tagore (Anthology TV Series) – 2015 – Anurag Basu
Bioscopewala – 2017 (Kabuliwala) – Deb MedhekarBhikharinIn popular cultureRabindranath Tagore is a 1961 Indian documentary film written and directed by Satyajit Ray, released during the birth centenary of Tagore. It was produced by the Government of India's Films Division.
In Sukanta Roy's Bengali film Chhelebela (2002) Jisshu Sengupta portrayed Tagore.
In Bandana Mukhopadhyay's Bengali film Chirosakha He (2007) Sayandip Bhattacharya played Tagore.
In Rituparno Ghosh's Bengali documentary film Jeevan Smriti (2011) Samadarshi Dutta played Tagore.
In Suman Ghosh's Bengali film Kadambari (2015) Parambrata Chatterjee portrayed Tagore.
See also
List of Indian writers
Kazi Nazrul Islam
Rabindra Jayanti
Rabindra Puraskar
Tagore familyAn Artist in Life — biography by Niharranjan Ray
Taptapadi
Timeline of Rabindranath Tagore
Music of Bengal
References
Notes
Citations
Writers from Kolkata
Bibliography
Primary
Anthologies
Originals
Translations
Secondary
Articles
Books
Other
Texts
Original
Translated
Further reading
External links
School of Wisdom
Analyses
Ezra Pound: "Rabindranath Tagore", The Fortnightly Review'', March 1913
Mary Lago Collection, University of MissouriAudiobooks Texts
Bichitra: Online Tagore Variorum
Talks'''
South Asian American Digital Archive (SAADA)
1861 births
1941 deaths
Presidency University, Kolkata alumni
Alumni of University College London
Bengali people
Bengali Hindus
Bengali philosophers
Bengali writers
Bengali zamindars
Brahmos
Founders of Indian schools and colleges
Indian Nobel laureates
National anthem writers
Nobel laureates in Literature
People associated with Santiniketan
Oriental Seminary alumni
Vangiya Sahitya Parishad
English-language poets from India
19th-century Bengali poets
Bengali-language poets
Indian Hindus
Indian male dramatists and playwrights
Indian male songwriters
Indian male essayists
19th-century Indian painters
Rabindranath
Musicians from Kolkata
19th-century Indian educational theorists
Indian portrait painters
Artist authors
Indian male poets
20th-century Indian painters
19th-century Indian poets
20th-century Indian poets
19th-century Indian musicians
19th-century Indian composers
20th-century Indian composers
19th-century Indian philosophers
20th-century Indian philosophers
20th-century Bengali poets
Bengali male poets
Indian male painters
Poets from West Bengal
19th-century Indian dramatists and playwrights
20th-century Indian dramatists and playwrights
20th-century Indian essayists
19th-century Indian essayists
20th-century Indian novelists
20th-century Indian educational theorists
Knights Bachelor
Painters from West Bengal
19th-century male musicians
Indian classical composers
19th-century classical musicians
Haiku poets
Google Doodles | false | [
"Before I'll Die... is the second and final studio album by Polish band Blog 27, released in 2008 by Magic Records, a subsidiary of Universal Music.\n\nAlbum information\nAll songs on the album were written and co-produced by the singer and co-founder of the band, Tola Szlagowska. Following Ala Boratyn's departure from the band in 2006, Tola was now the only lead singer on the album. The material was recorded in various studios in Warsaw, but mixed in Hollywood, California. Tola had the album's title tattooed on her wrist shortly before its release, even though it contains a grammatical error (it should have been Before I Die). The incorrect title was heavily criticised on celebrity gossip websites, and eventually an ironic warning in Polish was added on the album's cover, which read: \"Parental Advisory. Contains grammatical and orthographical errors :)\".\n\n\"Cute (I'm Not Cute)\" preceded the album as the lead single. Its music video received a four-star review from the American music magazine Blender. The second and final single was \"Fuck U!\", accompanied by a video filmed in Los Angeles. A number of songs from the album was featured in the popular Polish TV series 39 i pół in which the band appeared as B27 and Tola played the part of a character named Ola.\n\nContrarily to the band's debut album, Before I'll Die... did not receive international release. In Poland, it did not sell as well as LOL, but still managed to reached no. 3 in the chart and was eventually certified gold. Several months after the release of the album, Tola relocated to Los Angeles to pursue a degree in music and as a result, Blog 27 ceased activity.\n\nTrack listing\n\"Cute (I'm Not Cute)\" – 3:08\n\"That Lady\" – 2:34\n\"Cry and Die!\" – 3:49\n\"Finally (Outta' Ma Life!)\" – 3:21\n\"Fuck U!\" – 3:19\n\"Do U Care?!\" – 3:16\n\"2 Fast 2 Live\" – 2:59\n\"Nothing's Gonna Change...\" – 4:25 \n\"Whoever Whatever\" – 3:18\n\"Feel It, Shout It!\" – 3:30\n\"Tell Me Y\" – 3:08\n\"Where's Ma Place?\" – 3:30\n+ all songs in instrumental karaoke versions\n\nChart positions\n\nWeekly charts\n\nYear-end charts\n\nCertifications\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n Before I'll Die... on Discogs\n\n2008 albums\nBlog 27 albums",
"Kai Pflaume (born 27 May 1967 in Halle) is a German television presenter and game show host.\n\nBiography \nPflaume presented the television show Nur die Liebe zählt from 1993 to 2011. Different TV shows on broadcaster SAT1 followed since 1993, for example Die Glücksspirale, Rache ist süß, Die Comedy-Falle, Stars am Limit, Die LEGO Show, Träume werden wahr, Deutschland hilft - Spenden für die Opfer der Flutkatastrophe or Die Chance deines Lebens. \n\nIn August 1996, Pflaume married his wife Ilke. The couple has two sons. He once worked at a bank in Germany, where he eventually was called for casting in a television show.\n\nTV filmography \n\n Nur die Liebe zählt\n Die Glücksspirale\n Rache ist süß\n Die Comedy-Falle\n Stars am Limit\n Die LEGO Show\n Träume werden wahr\n Deutschland hilft - Spenden für die Opfer der Flutkatastrophe\n Die Chance deines Lebens\n Rich List\n Das Starquiz mit Kai Pflaume\n Dalli Dalli\n Drei bei Kai\n Der klügste Deutsche 2011\n Wer weiß denn sowas?\n\nAwards \n\n 1993: Bambi Award\n 2014: Bavarian TV Award\n\nExternal links \n\n1967 births\nLiving people\nPeople from Halle (Saale)\nPeople from Bezirk Halle\nGerman television presenters\nGerman game show hosts\nRTL Group people\nARD (broadcaster) people\nSat.1 people"
]
|
[
"Rabindranath Tagore",
"Twilight years: 1932-1941",
"What happened a Tagore twilight years?",
"Fifteen new volumes appeared, among them prose-poem works Punashcha (1932), Shes Saptak (1935), and Patraput (1936).",
"Which names are worth mentioning as a contribution to this part of his life?",
"earthquake hit Bihar and killed thousands. Gandhi hailed it as seismic karma, as divine retribution avenging the oppression of Dalits. Tagore rebuked him",
"Are there any other interesting aspects about this article?",
"Tagore's remit expanded to science in his last years, as hinted in Visva-Parichay, a 1937 collection of essays.",
"Did he win any award or recognition?",
"I don't know.",
"What are the major things that he did in his last years?",
"He wove the process of science, the narratives of scientists, into stories in Se (1937), Tin Sangi (1940), and Galpasalpa (1941).",
"What did he do after that?",
"). His last five years were marked by chronic pain and two long periods of illness.",
"Did he eventually die?",
"A period of prolonged agony ended with Tagore's death on 7 August 1941, aged eighty;"
]
| C_3e16b1a1688e458a8ad42f4ee7308019_0 | What was his age when he died? | 8 | What was Rabindranath Tagor's age when he died? | Rabindranath Tagore | Dutta and Robinson describe this phase of Tagore's life as being one of a "peripatetic litterateur". It affirmed his opinion that human divisions were shallow. During a May 1932 visit to a Bedouin encampment in the Iraqi desert, the tribal chief told him that "Our prophet has said that a true Muslim is he by whose words and deeds not the least of his brother-men may ever come to any harm ..." Tagore confided in his diary: "I was startled into recognizing in his words the voice of essential humanity." To the end Tagore scrutinised orthodoxy--and in 1934, he struck. That year, an earthquake hit Bihar and killed thousands. Gandhi hailed it as seismic karma, as divine retribution avenging the oppression of Dalits. Tagore rebuked him for his seemingly ignominious implications. He mourned the perennial poverty of Calcutta and the socioeconomic decline of Bengal, and detailed these newly plebeian aesthetics in an unrhymed hundred-line poem whose technique of searing double-vision foreshadowed Satyajit Ray's film Apur Sansar. Fifteen new volumes appeared, among them prose-poem works Punashcha (1932), Shes Saptak (1935), and Patraput (1936). Experimentation continued in his prose-songs and dance-dramas-- Chitra (1914), Shyama (1939), and Chandalika (1938)-- and in his novels-- Dui Bon (1933), Malancha (1934), and Char Adhyay (1934). Tagore's remit expanded to science in his last years, as hinted in Visva-Parichay, a 1937 collection of essays. His respect for scientific laws and his exploration of biology, physics, and astronomy informed his poetry, which exhibited extensive naturalism and verisimilitude. He wove the process of science, the narratives of scientists, into stories in Se (1937), Tin Sangi (1940), and Galpasalpa (1941). His last five years were marked by chronic pain and two long periods of illness. These began when Tagore lost consciousness in late 1937; he remained comatose and near death for a time. This was followed in late 1940 by a similar spell, from which he never recovered. Poetry from these valetudinary years is among his finest. A period of prolonged agony ended with Tagore's death on 7 August 1941, aged eighty; he was in an upstairs room of the Jorasanko mansion he was raised in. The date is still mourned. A. K. Sen, brother of the first chief election commissioner, received dictation from Tagore on 30 July 1941, a day prior to a scheduled operation: his last poem. I'm lost in the middle of my birthday. I want my friends, their touch, with the earth's last love. I will take life's final offering, I will take the human's last blessing. Today my sack is empty. I have given completely whatever I had to give. In return if I receive anything--some love, some forgiveness--then I will take it with me when I step on the boat that crosses to the festival of the wordless end. CANNOTANSWER | aged eighty; | Rabindranath Tagore (, ; 7 May 1861 – 7 August 1941) was a Bengali polymath—poet, writer, playwright, composer, philosopher, social reformer and painter. He reshaped Bengali literature and music as well as Indian art with Contextual Modernism in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Author of the "profoundly sensitive, fresh and beautiful" poetry of Gitanjali, he became in 1913 the first non-European and the first lyricist to win the Nobel Prize in Literature. Tagore's poetic songs were viewed as spiritual and mercurial; however, his "elegant prose and magical poetry" remain largely unknown outside Bengal. He was a fellow of the Royal Asiatic Society. Referred to as "the Bard of Bengal", Tagore was known by sobriquets: Gurudev, Kobiguru, Biswakobi.
A Bengali Brahmin from Calcutta with ancestral gentry roots in Burdwan district and Jessore, Tagore wrote poetry as an eight-year-old. At the age of sixteen, he released his first substantial poems under the pseudonym Bhānusiṃha ("Sun Lion"), which were seized upon by literary authorities as long-lost classics. By 1877 he graduated to his first short stories and dramas, published under his real name. As a humanist, universalist, internationalist, and ardent anti-nationalist, he denounced the British Raj and advocated independence from Britain. As an exponent of the Bengal Renaissance, he advanced a vast canon that comprised paintings, sketches and doodles, hundreds of texts, and some two thousand songs; his legacy also endures in his founding of Visva-Bharati University.
Tagore modernised Bengali art by spurning rigid classical forms and resisting linguistic strictures. His novels, stories, songs, dance-dramas, and essays spoke to topics political and personal. Gitanjali (Song Offerings), Gora (Fair-Faced) and Ghare-Baire (The Home and the World) are his best-known works, and his verse, short stories, and novels were acclaimed—or panned—for their lyricism, colloquialism, naturalism, and unnatural contemplation. His compositions were chosen by two nations as national anthems: India's "Jana Gana Mana" and Bangladesh's "Amar Shonar Bangla". The Sri Lankan national anthem was inspired by his work.
Family history
The name Tagore is the anglicised transliteration of Thakur. The original surname of the Tagores was Kushari. They were Rarhi Brahmins and originally belonged to a village named Kush in the district named Burdwan in West Bengal. The biographer of Rabindranath Tagore, Prabhat Kumar Mukhopadhyaya wrote in the first volume of his book Rabindrajibani O Rabindra Sahitya Prabeshak that
{{Cquote|quote=The Kusharis were the descendants of Deen Kushari, the son of Bhatta Narayana; Deen was granted a village named Kush (in Burdwan zilla) by Maharaja Kshitisura, he became its chief and came to be known as Kushari.}}
Life and events
Early life: 1861–1878
The youngest of 13 surviving children, Tagore (nicknamed "Rabi") was born on 7 May 1861 in the Jorasanko mansion in Calcutta, the son of Debendranath Tagore (1817–1905) and Sarada Devi (1830–1875).
Tagore was raised mostly by servants; his mother had died in his early childhood and his father travelled widely. The Tagore family was at the forefront of the Bengal renaissance. They hosted the publication of literary magazines; theatre and recitals of Bengali and Western classical music featured there regularly. Tagore's father invited several professional Dhrupad musicians to stay in the house and teach Indian classical music to the children. Tagore's oldest brother Dwijendranath was a philosopher and poet. Another brother, Satyendranath, was the first Indian appointed to the elite and formerly all-European Indian Civil Service. Yet another brother, Jyotirindranath, was a musician, composer, and playwright. His sister Swarnakumari became a novelist. Jyotirindranath's wife Kadambari Devi, slightly older than Tagore, was a dear friend and powerful influence. Her abrupt suicide in 1884, soon after he married, left him profoundly distraught for years.
Tagore largely avoided classroom schooling and preferred to roam the manor or nearby Bolpur and Panihati, which the family visited. His brother Hemendranath tutored and physically conditioned him—by having him swim the Ganges or trek through hills, by gymnastics, and by practising judo and wrestling. He learned drawing, anatomy, geography and history, literature, mathematics, Sanskrit, and English—his least favourite subject. Tagore loathed formal education—his scholarly travails at the local Presidency College spanned a single day. Years later he held that proper teaching does not explain things; proper teaching stokes curiosity:
After his upanayan (coming-of-age rite) at age eleven, Tagore and his father left Calcutta in February 1873 to tour India for several months, visiting his father's Santiniketan estate and Amritsar before reaching the Himalayan hill station of Dalhousie. There Tagore read biographies, studied history, astronomy, modern science, and Sanskrit, and examined the classical poetry of Kālidāsa. During his 1-month stay at Amritsar in 1873 he was greatly influenced by melodious gurbani and nanak bani being sung at Golden Temple for which both father and son were regular visitors. He mentions about this in his My Reminiscences (1912) He wrote 6 poems relating to Sikhism and a number of articles in Bengali children's magazine about Sikhism.
Tagore returned to Jorosanko and completed a set of major works by 1877, one of them a long poem in the Maithili style of Vidyapati. As a joke, he claimed that these were the lost works of newly discovered 17th-century Vaiṣṇava poet Bhānusiṃha. Regional experts accepted them as the lost works of the fictitious poet. He debuted in the short-story genre in Bengali with "Bhikharini" ("The Beggar Woman"). Published in the same year, Sandhya Sangit (1882) includes the poem "Nirjharer Swapnabhanga" ("The Rousing of the Waterfall").
Shelaidaha: 1878–1901
Because Debendranath wanted his son to become a barrister, Tagore enrolled at a public school in Brighton, East Sussex, England in 1878. He stayed for several months at a house that the Tagore family owned near Brighton and Hove, in Medina Villas; in 1877 his nephew and niece—Suren and Indira Devi, the children of Tagore's brother Satyendranath—were sent together with their mother, Tagore's sister-in-law, to live with him. He briefly read law at University College London, but again left school, opting instead for independent study of Shakespeare's plays Coriolanus, and Antony and Cleopatra and the Religio Medici of Thomas Browne. Lively English, Irish, and Scottish folk tunes impressed Tagore, whose own tradition of Nidhubabu-authored kirtans and tappas and Brahmo hymnody was subdued. In 1880 he returned to Bengal degree-less, resolving to reconcile European novelty with Brahmo traditions, taking the best from each. After returning to Bengal, Tagore regularly published poems, stories, and novels. These had a profound impact within Bengal itself but received little national attention. In 1883 he married 10-year-old Mrinalini Devi, born Bhabatarini, 1873–1902 (this was a common practice at the time). They had five children, two of whom died in childhood.
In 1890 Tagore began managing his vast ancestral estates in Shelaidaha (today a region of Bangladesh); he was joined there by his wife and children in 1898. Tagore released his Manasi poems (1890), among his best-known work. As Zamindar Babu, Tagore criss-crossed the Padma River in command of the Padma, the luxurious family barge (also known as "budgerow"). He collected mostly token rents and blessed villagers who in turn honoured him with banquets—occasionally of dried rice and sour milk. He met Gagan Harkara, through whom he became familiar with Baul Lalon Shah, whose folk songs greatly influenced Tagore. Tagore worked to popularise Lalon's songs. The period 1891–1895, Tagore's Sadhana period, named after one of his magazines, was his most productive; in these years he wrote more than half the stories of the three-volume, 84-story Galpaguchchha. Its ironic and grave tales examined the voluptuous poverty of an idealised rural Bengal.
Santiniketan: 1901–1932
In 1901 Tagore moved to Santiniketan to found an ashram with a marble-floored prayer hall—The Mandir—an experimental school, groves of trees, gardens, a library. There his wife and two of his children died. His father died in 1905. He received monthly payments as part of his inheritance and income from the Maharaja of Tripura, sales of his family's jewellery, his seaside bungalow in Puri, and a derisory 2,000 rupees in book royalties. He gained Bengali and foreign readers alike; he published Naivedya (1901) and Kheya (1906) and translated poems into free verse.
In November 1913, Tagore learned he had won that year's Nobel Prize in Literature: the Swedish Academy appreciated the idealistic—and for Westerners—accessible nature of a small body of his translated material focused on the 1912 Gitanjali: Song Offerings. He was awarded a knighthood by King George V in the 1915 Birthday Honours, but Tagore renounced it after the 1919 Jallianwala Bagh massacre. Renouncing the knighthood, Tagore wrote in a letter addressed to Lord Chelmsford, the then British Viceroy of India, "The disproportionate severity of the punishments inflicted upon the unfortunate people and the methods of carrying them out, we are convinced, are without parallel in the history of civilised governments...The time has come when badges of honour make our shame glaring in their incongruous context of humiliation, and I for my part wish to stand, shorn of all special distinctions, by the side of my country men."
In 1919, he was invited by the president and chairman of Anjuman-e-Islamia, Syed Abdul Majid to visit Sylhet for the first time. The event attracted over 5000 people.
In 1921, Tagore and agricultural economist Leonard Elmhirst set up the "Institute for Rural Reconstruction", later renamed Shriniketan or "Abode of Welfare", in Surul, a village near the ashram. With it, Tagore sought to moderate Gandhi's Swaraj protests, which he occasionally blamed for British India's perceived mental – and thus ultimately colonial – decline. He sought aid from donors, officials, and scholars worldwide to "free village[s] from the shackles of helplessness and ignorance" by "vitalis[ing] knowledge". In the early 1930s he targeted ambient "abnormal caste consciousness" and untouchability. He lectured against these, he penned Dalit heroes for his poems and his dramas, and he campaigned—successfully—to open Guruvayoor Temple to Dalits.
Twilight years: 1932–1941
Dutta and Robinson describe this phase of Tagore's life as being one of a "peripatetic litterateur". It affirmed his opinion that human divisions were shallow. During a May 1932 visit to a Bedouin encampment in the Iraqi desert, the tribal chief told him that "Our Prophet has said that a true Muslim is he by whose words and deeds not the least of his brother-men may ever come to any harm ..." Tagore confided in his diary: "I was startled into recognizing in his words the voice of essential humanity." To the end Tagore scrutinised orthodoxy—and in 1934, he struck. That year, an earthquake hit Bihar and killed thousands. Gandhi hailed it as seismic karma, as divine retribution avenging the oppression of Dalits. Tagore rebuked him for his seemingly ignominious implications. He mourned the perennial poverty of Calcutta and the socioeconomic decline of Bengal, and detailed these newly plebeian aesthetics in an unrhymed hundred-line poem whose technique of searing double-vision foreshadowed Satyajit Ray's film Apur Sansar. Fifteen new volumes appeared, among them prose-poem works Punashcha (1932), Shes Saptak (1935), and Patraput (1936). Experimentation continued in his prose-songs and dance-dramas— Chitra (1914), Shyama (1939), and Chandalika (1938)— and in his novels— Dui Bon (1933), Malancha (1934), and Char Adhyay (1934).
Tagore's remit expanded to science in his last years, as hinted in Visva-Parichay, a 1937 collection of essays. His respect for scientific laws and his exploration of biology, physics, and astronomy informed his poetry, which exhibited extensive naturalism and verisimilitude. He wove the process of science, the narratives of scientists, into stories in Se (1937), Tin Sangi (1940), and Galpasalpa (1941). His last five years were marked by chronic pain and two long periods of illness. These began when Tagore lost consciousness in late 1937; he remained comatose and near death for a time. This was followed in late 1940 by a similar spell, from which he never recovered. Poetry from these valetudinary years is among his finest. A period of prolonged agony ended with Tagore's death on 7 August 1941, aged 80. He was in an upstairs room of the Jorasanko mansion in which he grew up. The date is still mourned. A. K. Sen, brother of the first chief election commissioner, received dictation from Tagore on 30 July 1941, a day prior to a scheduled operation: his last poem.
Travels
Between 1878 and 1932, Tagore set foot in more than thirty countries on five continents. In 1912, he took a sheaf of his translated works to England, where they gained attention from missionary and Gandhi protégé Charles F. Andrews, Irish poet William Butler Yeats, Ezra Pound, Robert Bridges, Ernest Rhys, Thomas Sturge Moore, and others. Yeats wrote the preface to the English translation of Gitanjali; Andrews joined Tagore at Santiniketan. In November 1912 Tagore began touring the United States and the United Kingdom, staying in Butterton, Staffordshire with Andrews's clergymen friends. From May 1916 until April 1917, he lectured in Japan and the United States. He denounced nationalism. His essay "Nationalism in India" was scorned and praised; it was admired by Romain Rolland and other pacifists.
Shortly after returning home the 63-year-old Tagore accepted an invitation from the Peruvian government. He travelled to Mexico. Each government pledged 100,000 to his school to commemorate the visits. A week after his 6 November 1924 arrival in Buenos Aires, an ill Tagore shifted to the Villa Miralrío at the behest of Victoria Ocampo. He left for home in January 1925. In May 1926 Tagore reached Naples; the next day he met Mussolini in Rome. Their warm rapport ended when Tagore pronounced upon Il Duces fascist finesse. He had earlier enthused: "[w]ithout any doubt he is a great personality. There is such a massive vigour in that head that it reminds one of Michael Angelo's chisel." A "fire-bath" of fascism was to have educed "the immortal soul of Italy ... clothed in quenchless light".
On 1 November 1926 Tagore arrived to Hungary and spent some time on the shore of Lake Balaton in the city of Balatonfüred, recovering from heart problems at a sanitarium. He planted a tree and a bust statue was placed there in 1956 (a gift from the Indian government, the work of Rasithan Kashar, replaced by a newly gifted statue in 2005) and the lakeside promenade still bears his name since 1957.
On 14 July 1927 Tagore and two companions began a four-month tour of Southeast Asia. They visited Bali, Java, Kuala Lumpur, Malacca, Penang, Siam, and Singapore. The resultant travelogues compose Jatri (1929). In early 1930 he left Bengal for a nearly year-long tour of Europe and the United States. Upon returning to Britain—and as his paintings were exhibited in Paris and London—he lodged at a Birmingham Quaker settlement. He wrote his Oxford Hibbert Lectures and spoke at the annual London Quaker meet. There, addressing relations between the British and the Indians – a topic he would tackle repeatedly over the next two years – Tagore spoke of a "dark chasm of aloofness". He visited Aga Khan III, stayed at Dartington Hall, toured Denmark, Switzerland, and Germany from June to mid-September 1930, then went on into the Soviet Union. In April 1932 Tagore, intrigued by the Persian mystic Hafez, was hosted by Reza Shah Pahlavi. In his other travels, Tagore interacted with Henri Bergson, Albert Einstein, Robert Frost, Thomas Mann, George Bernard Shaw, H.G. Wells, and Romain Rolland. Visits to Persia and Iraq (in 1932) and Sri Lanka (in 1933) composed Tagore's final foreign tour, and his dislike of communalism and nationalism only deepened.
Vice-President of India M. Hamid Ansari has said that Rabindranath Tagore heralded the cultural rapprochement between communities, societies and nations much before it became the liberal norm of conduct.
Tagore was a man ahead of his time. He wrote in 1932, while on a visit to Iran, that "each country of Asia will solve its own historical problems according to its strength, nature and needs, but the lamp they will each carry on their path to progress will converge to illuminate the common ray of knowledge."
Works
Known mostly for his poetry, Tagore wrote novels, essays, short stories, travelogues, dramas, and thousands of songs. Of Tagore's prose, his short stories are perhaps most highly regarded; he is indeed credited with originating the Bengali-language version of the genre. His works are frequently noted for their rhythmic, optimistic, and lyrical nature. Such stories mostly borrow from the lives of common people. Tagore's non-fiction grappled with history, linguistics, and spirituality. He wrote autobiographies. His travelogues, essays, and lectures were compiled into several volumes, including Europe Jatrir Patro (Letters from Europe) and Manusher Dhormo (The Religion of Man). His brief chat with Einstein, "Note on the Nature of Reality", is included as an appendix to the latter. On the occasion of Tagore's 150th birthday, an anthology (titled Kalanukromik Rabindra Rachanabali) of the total body of his works is currently being published in Bengali in chronological order. This includes all versions of each work and fills about eighty volumes. In 2011, Harvard University Press collaborated with Visva-Bharati University to publish The Essential Tagore, the largest anthology of Tagore's works available in English; it was edited by Fakrul Alam and Radha Chakravarthy and marks the 150th anniversary of Tagore's birth.
Drama
Tagore's experiences with drama began when he was sixteen, with his brother Jyotirindranath. He wrote his first original dramatic piece when he was twenty — Valmiki Pratibha which was shown at the Tagore's mansion. Tagore stated that his works sought to articulate "the play of feeling and not of action". In 1890 he wrote Visarjan (an adaptation of his novella Rajarshi), which has been regarded as his finest drama. In the original Bengali language, such works included intricate subplots and extended monologues. Later, Tagore's dramas used more philosophical and allegorical themes. The play Dak Ghar (The Post Office; 1912), describes the child Amal defying his stuffy and puerile confines by ultimately "fall[ing] asleep", hinting his physical death. A story with borderless appeal—gleaning rave reviews in Europe—Dak Ghar dealt with death as, in Tagore's words, "spiritual freedom" from "the world of hoarded wealth and certified creeds". Another is Tagore's Chandalika (Untouchable Girl), which was modelled on an ancient Buddhist legend describing how Ananda, the Gautama Buddha's disciple, asks a tribal girl for water. In Raktakarabi ("Red" or "Blood Oleanders") is an allegorical struggle against a kleptocrat king who rules over the residents of Yaksha puri.
Chitrangada, Chandalika, and Shyama are other key plays that have dance-drama adaptations, which together are known as Rabindra Nritya Natya.
Short stories
Tagore began his career in short stories in 1877—when he was only sixteen—with "Bhikharini" ("The Beggar Woman"). With this, Tagore effectively invented the Bengali-language short story genre. The four years from 1891 to 1895 are known as Tagore's "Sadhana" period (named for one of Tagore's magazines). This period was among Tagore's most fecund, yielding more than half the stories contained in the three-volume Galpaguchchha, which itself is a collection of eighty-four stories. Such stories usually showcase Tagore's reflections upon his surroundings, on modern and fashionable ideas, and on interesting mind puzzles (which Tagore was fond of testing his intellect with). Tagore typically associated his earliest stories (such as those of the "Sadhana" period) with an exuberance of vitality and spontaneity; these characteristics were intimately connected with Tagore's life in the common villages of, among others, Patisar, Shajadpur, and Shilaida while managing the Tagore family's vast landholdings. There, he beheld the lives of India's poor and common people; Tagore thereby took to examining their lives with a penetrative depth and feeling that was singular in Indian literature up to that point. In particular, such stories as "Kabuliwala" ("The Fruitseller from Kabul", published in 1892), "Kshudita Pashan" ("The Hungry Stones") (August 1895), and "Atithi" ("The Runaway", 1895) typified this analytic focus on the downtrodden. Many of the other Galpaguchchha stories were written in Tagore's Sabuj Patra period from 1914 to 1917, also named after one of the magazines that Tagore edited and heavily contributed to.
Novels
Tagore wrote eight novels and four novellas, among them Chaturanga, Shesher Kobita, Char Odhay, and Noukadubi. Ghare Baire (The Home and the World)—through the lens of the idealistic zamindar protagonist Nikhil—excoriates rising Indian nationalism, terrorism, and religious zeal in the Swadeshi movement; a frank expression of Tagore's conflicted sentiments, it emerged from a 1914 bout of depression. The novel ends in Hindu-Muslim violence and Nikhil's—likely mortal—wounding.
Gora raises controversial questions regarding the Indian identity. As with Ghare Baire, matters of self-identity (jāti), personal freedom, and religion are developed in the context of a family story and love triangle. In it an Irish boy orphaned in the Sepoy Mutiny is raised by Hindus as the titular gora—"whitey". Ignorant of his foreign origins, he chastises Hindu religious backsliders out of love for the indigenous Indians and solidarity with them against his hegemon-compatriots. He falls for a Brahmo girl, compelling his worried foster father to reveal his lost past and cease his nativist zeal. As a "true dialectic" advancing "arguments for and against strict traditionalism", it tackles the colonial conundrum by "portray[ing] the value of all positions within a particular frame [...] not only syncretism, not only liberal orthodoxy, but the extremest reactionary traditionalism he defends by an appeal to what humans share." Among these Tagore highlights "identity [...] conceived of as dharma."
In Jogajog (Relationships), the heroine Kumudini—bound by the ideals of Śiva-Sati, exemplified by Dākshāyani—is torn between her pity for the sinking fortunes of her progressive and compassionate elder brother and his foil: her roue of a husband. Tagore flaunts his feminist leanings; pathos depicts the plight and ultimate demise of women trapped by pregnancy, duty, and family honour; he simultaneously trucks with Bengal's putrescent landed gentry. The story revolves around the underlying rivalry between two families—the Chatterjees, aristocrats now on the decline (Biprodas) and the Ghosals (Madhusudan), representing new money and new arrogance. Kumudini, Biprodas' sister, is caught between the two as she is married off to Madhusudan. She had risen in an observant and sheltered traditional home, as had all her female relations.
Others were uplifting: Shesher Kobita—translated twice as Last Poem and Farewell Song—is his most lyrical novel, with poems and rhythmic passages written by a poet protagonist. It contains elements of satire and postmodernism and has stock characters who gleefully attack the reputation of an old, outmoded, oppressively renowned poet who, incidentally, goes by a familiar name: "Rabindranath Tagore". Though his novels remain among the least-appreciated of his works, they have been given renewed attention via film adaptations by Ray and others: Chokher Bali and Ghare Baire are exemplary. In the first, Tagore inscribes Bengali society via its heroine: a rebellious widow who would live for herself alone. He pillories the custom of perpetual mourning on the part of widows, who were not allowed to remarry, who were consigned to seclusion and loneliness. Tagore wrote of it: "I have always regretted the ending".
Poetry
Internationally, Gitanjali () is Tagore's best-known collection of poetry, for which he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1913. Tagore was the first non-European to receive a Nobel Prize in Literature and second non-European to receive a Nobel Prize after Theodore Roosevelt.
Besides Gitanjali, other notable works include Manasi, Sonar Tori ("Golden Boat"), Balaka ("Wild Geese" — the title being a metaphor for migrating souls)
Tagore's poetic style, which proceeds from a lineage established by 15th- and 16th-century Vaishnava poets, ranges from classical formalism to the comic, visionary, and ecstatic. He was influenced by the atavistic mysticism of Vyasa and other rishi-authors of the Upanishads, the Bhakti-Sufi mystic Kabir, and Ramprasad Sen. Tagore's most innovative and mature poetry embodies his exposure to Bengali rural folk music, which included mystic Baul ballads such as those of the bard Lalon. These, rediscovered and repopularised by Tagore, resemble 19th-century Kartābhajā hymns that emphasise inward divinity and rebellion against bourgeois bhadralok religious and social orthodoxy. During his Shelaidaha years, his poems took on a lyrical voice of the moner manush, the Bāuls' "man within the heart" and Tagore's "life force of his deep recesses", or meditating upon the jeevan devata—the demiurge or the "living God within". This figure connected with divinity through appeal to nature and the emotional interplay of human drama. Such tools saw use in his Bhānusiṃha poems chronicling the Radha-Krishna romance, which were repeatedly revised over the course of seventy years.
Later, with the development of new poetic ideas in Bengal – many originating from younger poets seeking to break with Tagore's style – Tagore absorbed new poetic concepts, which allowed him to further develop a unique identity. Examples of this include Africa and Camalia, which are among the better known of his latter poems.
Songs (Rabindra Sangeet)
Tagore was a prolific composer with around 2,230 songs to his credit. His songs are known as rabindrasangit ("Tagore Song"), which merges fluidly into his literature, most of which—poems or parts of novels, stories, or plays alike—were lyricised. Influenced by the thumri style of Hindustani music, they ran the entire gamut of human emotion, ranging from his early dirge-like Brahmo devotional hymns to quasi-erotic compositions. They emulated the tonal colour of classical ragas to varying extents. Some songs mimicked a given raga's melody and rhythm faithfully; others newly blended elements of different ragas. Yet about nine-tenths of his work was not bhanga gaan, the body of tunes revamped with "fresh value" from select Western, Hindustani, Bengali folk and other regional flavours "external" to Tagore's own ancestral culture.
In 1971, Amar Shonar Bangla became the national anthem of Bangladesh. It was written – ironically – to protest the 1905 Partition of Bengal along communal lines: cutting off the Muslim-majority East Bengal from Hindu-dominated West Bengal was to avert a regional bloodbath. Tagore saw the partition as a cunning plan to stop the independence movement, and he aimed to rekindle Bengali unity and tar communalism. Jana Gana Mana was written in shadhu-bhasha, a Sanskritised form of Bengali, and is the first of five stanzas of the Brahmo hymn Bharot Bhagyo Bidhata that Tagore composed. It was first sung in 1911 at a Calcutta session of the Indian National Congress and was adopted in 1950 by the Constituent Assembly of the Republic of India as its national anthem.
The Sri Lanka's National Anthem was inspired by his work.
For Bengalis, the songs' appeal, stemming from the combination of emotive strength and beauty described as surpassing even Tagore's poetry, was such that the Modern Review observed that "[t]here is in Bengal no cultured home where Rabindranath's songs are not sung or at least attempted to be sung... Even illiterate villagers sing his songs". Tagore influenced sitar maestro Vilayat Khan and sarodiyas Buddhadev Dasgupta and Amjad Ali Khan.
Art works
At sixty, Tagore took up drawing and painting; successful exhibitions of his many works—which made a debut appearance in Paris upon encouragement by artists he met in the south of France—were held throughout Europe. He was likely red-green colour blind, resulting in works that exhibited strange colour schemes and off-beat aesthetics. Tagore was influenced by numerous styles, including scrimshaw by the Malanggan people of northern New Ireland, Papua New Guinea, Haida carvings from the Pacific Northwest region of North America, and woodcuts by the German Max Pechstein. His artist's eye for handwriting was revealed in the simple artistic and rhythmic leitmotifs embellishing the scribbles, cross-outs, and word layouts of his manuscripts. Some of Tagore's lyrics corresponded in a synesthetic sense with particular paintings.
India's National Gallery of Modern Art lists 102 works by Tagore in its collections.
Politics
Tagore opposed imperialism and supported Indian nationalists, and these views were first revealed in Manast, which was mostly composed in his twenties. Evidence produced during the Hindu–German Conspiracy Trial and latter accounts affirm his awareness of the Ghadarites, and stated that he sought the support of Japanese Prime Minister Terauchi Masatake and former Premier Ōkuma Shigenobu. Yet he lampooned the Swadeshi movement; he rebuked it in The Cult of the Charkha, an acrid 1925 essay. According to Amartya Sen, Tagore rebelled against strongly nationalist forms of the independence movement, and he wanted to assert India's right to be independent without denying the importance of what India could learn from abroad. He urged the masses to avoid victimology and instead seek self-help and education, and he saw the presence of British administration as a "political symptom of our social disease". He maintained that, even for those at the extremes of poverty, "there can be no question of blind revolution"; preferable to it was a "steady and purposeful education".
Such views enraged many. He escaped assassination—and only narrowly—by Indian expatriates during his stay in a San Francisco hotel in late 1916; the plot failed when his would-be assassins fell into argument. Tagore wrote songs lionising the Indian independence movement. Two of Tagore's more politically charged compositions, "Chitto Jetha Bhayshunyo" ("Where the Mind is Without Fear") and "Ekla Chalo Re" ("If They Answer Not to Thy Call, Walk Alone"), gained mass appeal, with the latter favoured by Gandhi. Though somewhat critical of Gandhian activism, Tagore was key in resolving a Gandhi–Ambedkar dispute involving separate electorates for untouchables, thereby mooting at least one of Gandhi's fasts "unto death".
Repudiation of knighthood
Tagore renounced his knighthood in response to the Jallianwala Bagh massacre in 1919. In the repudiation letter to the Viceroy, Lord Chelmsford, he wrote
Santiniketan and Visva-Bharati
Tagore despised rote classroom schooling: in "The Parrot's Training", a bird is caged and force-fed textbook pages—to death. Tagore, visiting Santa Barbara in 1917, conceived a new type of university: he sought to "make Santiniketan the connecting thread between India and the world [and] a world center for the study of humanity somewhere beyond the limits of nation and geography." The school, which he named Visva-Bharati, had its foundation stone laid on 24 December 1918 and was inaugurated precisely three years later. Tagore employed a brahmacharya system: gurus gave pupils personal guidance—emotional, intellectual, and spiritual. Teaching was often done under trees. He staffed the school, he contributed his Nobel Prize monies, and his duties as steward-mentor at Santiniketan kept him busy: mornings he taught classes; afternoons and evenings he wrote the students' textbooks. He fundraised widely for the school in Europe and the United States between 1919 and 1921.
Theft of Nobel Prize
On 25 March 2004, Tagore's Nobel Prize was stolen from the safety vault of the Visva-Bharati University, along with several other of his belongings. On 7 December 2004, the Swedish Academy decided to present two replicas of Tagore's Nobel Prize, one made of gold and the other made of bronze, to the Visva-Bharati University. It inspired the fictional film Nobel Chor. In 2016, a baul singer named Pradip Bauri accused of sheltering the thieves was arrested and the prize was returned.
Impact and legacy
Every year, many events pay tribute to Tagore: Kabipranam, his birth anniversary, is celebrated by groups scattered across the globe; the annual Tagore Festival held in Urbana, Illinois (USA); Rabindra Path Parikrama walking pilgrimages from Kolkata to Santiniketan; and recitals of his poetry, which are held on important anniversaries. Bengali culture is fraught with this legacy: from language and arts to history and politics. Amartya Sen deemed Tagore a "towering figure", a "deeply relevant and many-sided contemporary thinker". Tagore's Bengali originals—the 1939 Rabīndra Rachanāvalī—is canonised as one of his nation's greatest cultural treasures, and he was roped into a reasonably humble role: "the greatest poet India has produced".
Tagore was renowned throughout much of Europe, North America, and East Asia. He co-founded Dartington Hall School, a progressive coeducational institution; in Japan, he influenced such figures as Nobel laureate Yasunari Kawabata. In colonial Vietnam Tagore was a guide for the restless spirit of the radical writer and publicist Nguyen An Ninh Tagore's works were widely translated into English, Dutch, German, Spanish, and other European languages by Czech Indologist Vincenc Lesný, French Nobel laureate André Gide, Russian poet Anna Akhmatova, former Turkish Prime Minister Bülent Ecevit, and others. In the United States, Tagore's lecturing circuits, particularly those of 1916–1917, were widely attended and wildly acclaimed. Some controversies involving Tagore, possibly fictive, trashed his popularity and sales in Japan and North America after the late 1920s, concluding with his "near total eclipse" outside Bengal. Yet a latent reverence of Tagore was discovered by an astonished Salman Rushdie during a trip to Nicaragua.
By way of translations, Tagore influenced Chileans Pablo Neruda and Gabriela Mistral; Mexican writer Octavio Paz; and Spaniards José Ortega y Gasset, Zenobia Camprubí, and Juan Ramón Jiménez. In the period 1914–1922, the Jiménez-Camprubí pair produced twenty-two Spanish translations of Tagore's English corpus; they heavily revised The Crescent Moon and other key titles. In these years, Jiménez developed "naked poetry". Ortega y Gasset wrote that "Tagore's wide appeal [owes to how] he speaks of longings for perfection that we all have [...] Tagore awakens a dormant sense of childish wonder, and he saturates the air with all kinds of enchanting promises for the reader, who [...] pays little attention to the deeper import of Oriental mysticism". Tagore's works circulated in free editions around 1920—alongside those of Plato, Dante, Cervantes, Goethe, and Tolstoy.
Tagore was deemed over-rated by some. Graham Greene doubted that "anyone but Mr. Yeats can still take his poems very seriously." Several prominent Western admirers—including Pound and, to a lesser extent, even Yeats—criticised Tagore's work. Yeats, unimpressed with his English translations, railed against that "Damn Tagore [...] We got out three good books, Sturge Moore and I, and then, because he thought it more important to see and know English than to be a great poet, he brought out sentimental rubbish and wrecked his reputation. Tagore does not know English, no Indian knows English." William Radice, who "English[ed]" his poems, asked: "What is their place in world literature?" He saw him as "kind of counter-cultur[al]", bearing "a new kind of classicism" that would heal the "collapsed romantic confusion and chaos of the 20th [c]entury." The translated Tagore was "almost nonsensical", and subpar English offerings reduced his trans-national appeal:
Museums
There are eight Tagore museums. Three in India and five in Bangladesh:
Rabindra Bharati Museum, at Jorasanko Thakur Bari, Kolkata, India
Tagore Memorial Museum, at Shilaidaha Kuthibadi, Shilaidaha, Bangladesh
Rabindra Memorial Museum at Shahzadpur Kachharibari, Shahzadpur, Bangladesh
Rabindra Bhavan Museum, in Santiniketan, India
Rabindra Museum, in Mungpoo, near Kalimpong, India
Patisar Rabindra Kacharibari, Patisar, Atrai, Naogaon, Bangladesh
Pithavoge Rabindra Memorial Complex, Pithavoge, Rupsha, Khulna, Bangladesh
Rabindra Complex, Dakkhindihi village, Phultala Upazila, Khulna, Bangladesh
Jorasanko Thakur Bari (Bengali: House of the Thakurs; anglicised to Tagore) in Jorasanko, north of Kolkata, is the ancestral home of the Tagore family. It is currently located on the Rabindra Bharati University campus at 6/4 Dwarakanath Tagore Lane Jorasanko, Kolkata 700007. It is the house in which Tagore was born. It is also the place where he spent most of his childhood and where he died on 7 August 1941.
Rabindra Complex is located in Dakkhindihi village, near Phultala Upazila, from Khulna city, Bangladesh. It was the residence of tagores father-in-law, Beni Madhab Roy Chowdhury. Tagore family had close connection with Dakkhindihi village. The maternal ancestral home of the great poet was also situated at Dakkhindihi village, poets mother Sarada Sundari Devi and his paternal aunt by marriage Tripura Sundari Devi; was born in this village.Young tagore used to visit Dakkhindihi village with his mother to visit his maternal uncles in her mothers ancestral home. Tagore visited this place several times in his life. It has been declared as a protected archaeological site by Department of Archaeology of Bangladesh and converted into a museum. In 1995, the local administration took charge of the house and on 14 November of that year, the Rabindra Complex project was decided. Bangladesh Governments Department of Archeology has carried out the renovation work to make the house a museum titled ‘Rabindra Complex’ in 2011–12 fiscal year. The two-storey museum building has four rooms on the first floor and two rooms on the ground floor at present. The building has eight windows on the ground floor and 21 windows on the first floor. The height of the roof from the floor on the ground floor is 13 feet. There are seven doors, six windows and wall almirahs on the first floor. Over 500 books were kept in the library and all the rooms have been decorated with rare pictures of Rabindranath. Over 10,000 visitors come here every year to see the museum from different parts of the country and also from abroad, said Saifur Rahman, assistant director of the Department of Archeology in Khulna. A bust of Rabindranath Tagore is also there. Every year on 25–27 Baishakh (after the Bengali New Year Celebration), cultural programs are held here which lasts for three days.
List of works
The SNLTR hosts the 1415 BE edition of Tagore's complete Bengali works. Tagore Web also hosts an edition of Tagore's works, including annotated songs. Translations are found at Project Gutenberg and Wikisource. More sources are below.
Original
Translated
Adaptations of novels and short stories in cinema
Bengali
Natir Puja – 1932 – The only film directed by Rabindranath Tagore
Gora — 1938 Gora (novel) — Naresh Mitra
Noukadubi– Nitin Bose
Bou Thakuranir Haat – 1953 (Bou Thakuranir Haat) – Naresh Mitra
Kabuliwala – 1957 (Kabuliwala) – Tapan Sinha
Kshudhita Pashan – 1960 (Kshudhita Pashan) – Tapan Sinha
Teen Kanya – 1961 (Teen Kanya) – Satyajit Ray
Charulata - 1964 (Nastanirh) – Satyajit Ray
Megh o Roudra – 1969 (Megh o Roudra) – Arundhati Devi
Ghare Baire – 1985 (Ghare Baire) – Satyajit Ray
Chokher Bali – 2003 (Chokher Bali) – Rituparno Ghosh
Shasti – 2004 (Shasti) – Chashi Nazrul Islam
Shuva – 2006 (Shuvashini) – Chashi Nazrul Islam
Chaturanga – 2008 (Chaturanga) – Suman Mukhopadhyay
Noukadubi – 2011 (Noukadubi) – Rituparno Ghosh
Elar Char Adhyay – 2012 (Char Adhyay) – Bappaditya Bandyopadhyay
Hindi
Sacrifice – 1927 (Balidan) – Nanand Bhojai and Naval Gandhi
Milan – 1946 (Nauka Dubi) – Nitin Bose
Dak Ghar – 1965 (Dak Ghar) – Zul Vellani
Kabuliwala – 1961 (Kabuliwala) – Bimal Roy
Uphaar – 1971 (Samapti) – Sudhendu Roy
Lekin... – 1991 (Kshudhit Pashaan) – Gulzar
Char Adhyay – 1997 (Char Adhyay) – Kumar Shahani
Kashmakash – 2011 (Nauka Dubi) – Rituparno Ghosh
Stories by Rabindranath Tagore (Anthology TV Series) – 2015 – Anurag Basu
Bioscopewala – 2017 (Kabuliwala) – Deb MedhekarBhikharinIn popular cultureRabindranath Tagore is a 1961 Indian documentary film written and directed by Satyajit Ray, released during the birth centenary of Tagore. It was produced by the Government of India's Films Division.
In Sukanta Roy's Bengali film Chhelebela (2002) Jisshu Sengupta portrayed Tagore.
In Bandana Mukhopadhyay's Bengali film Chirosakha He (2007) Sayandip Bhattacharya played Tagore.
In Rituparno Ghosh's Bengali documentary film Jeevan Smriti (2011) Samadarshi Dutta played Tagore.
In Suman Ghosh's Bengali film Kadambari (2015) Parambrata Chatterjee portrayed Tagore.
See also
List of Indian writers
Kazi Nazrul Islam
Rabindra Jayanti
Rabindra Puraskar
Tagore familyAn Artist in Life — biography by Niharranjan Ray
Taptapadi
Timeline of Rabindranath Tagore
Music of Bengal
References
Notes
Citations
Writers from Kolkata
Bibliography
Primary
Anthologies
Originals
Translations
Secondary
Articles
Books
Other
Texts
Original
Translated
Further reading
External links
School of Wisdom
Analyses
Ezra Pound: "Rabindranath Tagore", The Fortnightly Review'', March 1913
Mary Lago Collection, University of MissouriAudiobooks Texts
Bichitra: Online Tagore Variorum
Talks'''
South Asian American Digital Archive (SAADA)
1861 births
1941 deaths
Presidency University, Kolkata alumni
Alumni of University College London
Bengali people
Bengali Hindus
Bengali philosophers
Bengali writers
Bengali zamindars
Brahmos
Founders of Indian schools and colleges
Indian Nobel laureates
National anthem writers
Nobel laureates in Literature
People associated with Santiniketan
Oriental Seminary alumni
Vangiya Sahitya Parishad
English-language poets from India
19th-century Bengali poets
Bengali-language poets
Indian Hindus
Indian male dramatists and playwrights
Indian male songwriters
Indian male essayists
19th-century Indian painters
Rabindranath
Musicians from Kolkata
19th-century Indian educational theorists
Indian portrait painters
Artist authors
Indian male poets
20th-century Indian painters
19th-century Indian poets
20th-century Indian poets
19th-century Indian musicians
19th-century Indian composers
20th-century Indian composers
19th-century Indian philosophers
20th-century Indian philosophers
20th-century Bengali poets
Bengali male poets
Indian male painters
Poets from West Bengal
19th-century Indian dramatists and playwrights
20th-century Indian dramatists and playwrights
20th-century Indian essayists
19th-century Indian essayists
20th-century Indian novelists
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Knights Bachelor
Painters from West Bengal
19th-century male musicians
Indian classical composers
19th-century classical musicians
Haiku poets
Google Doodles | false | [
"Pieter Gerritsz van Roestraten (21 April 1630 – 10 July 1700) was a Dutch Golden Age painter of still lifes and genre scenes.\n\nBiography\n\nHe was a student of Frans Hals and married Hals' daughter Adriaentje in 1654. He lived with his wife in Amsterdam before moving to London in 1666 where he later was wounded in the hip during the great fire of London, an injury that caused him to walk with a limp the rest of his life.\n\nIn his biographical sketch of Roestraten, Houbraken relates a popular anecdote that his wife Adriaentje as a baby once defecated on Adriaen Brouwer, who was a young pupil of Frans Hals at the time and had been asked to babysit. When this happened, Brouwer promptly pulled down his pants and did the same to the baby. When Mrs. Hals came in and asked what he was doing, he responded that they were shitting each other.\n\nHoubraken claims he was so good at painting portraits and silver, that Sir Peter Lely made a deal with him to stick to painting silver rather than portraits (which was his specialty) and this Roestraten did, earning forty to fifty pounds sterling for a piece. When his first wife died he remarried, but died soon afterwards. He influenced Christian Berentz and Robert Robinson.\n\nReferences\n\n1630 births\n1700 deaths\nDutch Golden Age painters\nDutch male painters\nArtists from Haarlem",
"Thomas Godfrey (4 December 1736 - 3 August 1763) was an American poet who died at age 26. He is known for writing The Prince of Parthia, the first play written by an American to be performed by a professional cast, as well for his tribute to Chaucer and Alexander Pope known as The Court of Fancy.\n\nHis father, also called Thomas Godfrey, was the co-inventor of the first octant, known popularly as Hadley's quadrant.\n\nBiography\nThomas Godfrey showed talent for artistic expression even at a young age. His father, a Philadelphia inventor, died when Thomas was only 13, and his relatives sent him away to a boarding school in England. Upon returning, he was apprenticed to a watchmaker in Philadelphia, despite his desire to become a painter.\n\nEven during this apprenticeship, some of his poems were published in American Magazine.\n\nAfter the apprenticeship, Godfrey joined the military, being involved with the Pennsylvania forces in an expedition against the French-held Fort Du Quesne in 1758.\n\nShortly thereafter, Godfrey wrote what may be the first play written in the Americas, The Prince of Parthia, which was published two years after his death, and whose first documented performance was two years after that.\n\nHe died of fever after a short riding trip.\n\nWorks\n The Prince of Parthia\n \"VERSES Occasioned by a Young Ladys asking the Author What was a Cure for Love?\"\n The Invitation\n The Court of Fancy\n\nReferences\n\n1736 births\n1763 deaths\nPoets from Pennsylvania\nWriters from Philadelphia\nPeople of colonial Pennsylvania\nColonial American poets\n18th-century American writers"
]
|
[
"Rabindranath Tagore",
"Twilight years: 1932-1941",
"What happened a Tagore twilight years?",
"Fifteen new volumes appeared, among them prose-poem works Punashcha (1932), Shes Saptak (1935), and Patraput (1936).",
"Which names are worth mentioning as a contribution to this part of his life?",
"earthquake hit Bihar and killed thousands. Gandhi hailed it as seismic karma, as divine retribution avenging the oppression of Dalits. Tagore rebuked him",
"Are there any other interesting aspects about this article?",
"Tagore's remit expanded to science in his last years, as hinted in Visva-Parichay, a 1937 collection of essays.",
"Did he win any award or recognition?",
"I don't know.",
"What are the major things that he did in his last years?",
"He wove the process of science, the narratives of scientists, into stories in Se (1937), Tin Sangi (1940), and Galpasalpa (1941).",
"What did he do after that?",
"). His last five years were marked by chronic pain and two long periods of illness.",
"Did he eventually die?",
"A period of prolonged agony ended with Tagore's death on 7 August 1941, aged eighty;",
"What was his age when he died?",
"aged eighty;"
]
| C_3e16b1a1688e458a8ad42f4ee7308019_0 | Where did he die? | 9 | Where did Rabindranath Tagor die? | Rabindranath Tagore | Dutta and Robinson describe this phase of Tagore's life as being one of a "peripatetic litterateur". It affirmed his opinion that human divisions were shallow. During a May 1932 visit to a Bedouin encampment in the Iraqi desert, the tribal chief told him that "Our prophet has said that a true Muslim is he by whose words and deeds not the least of his brother-men may ever come to any harm ..." Tagore confided in his diary: "I was startled into recognizing in his words the voice of essential humanity." To the end Tagore scrutinised orthodoxy--and in 1934, he struck. That year, an earthquake hit Bihar and killed thousands. Gandhi hailed it as seismic karma, as divine retribution avenging the oppression of Dalits. Tagore rebuked him for his seemingly ignominious implications. He mourned the perennial poverty of Calcutta and the socioeconomic decline of Bengal, and detailed these newly plebeian aesthetics in an unrhymed hundred-line poem whose technique of searing double-vision foreshadowed Satyajit Ray's film Apur Sansar. Fifteen new volumes appeared, among them prose-poem works Punashcha (1932), Shes Saptak (1935), and Patraput (1936). Experimentation continued in his prose-songs and dance-dramas-- Chitra (1914), Shyama (1939), and Chandalika (1938)-- and in his novels-- Dui Bon (1933), Malancha (1934), and Char Adhyay (1934). Tagore's remit expanded to science in his last years, as hinted in Visva-Parichay, a 1937 collection of essays. His respect for scientific laws and his exploration of biology, physics, and astronomy informed his poetry, which exhibited extensive naturalism and verisimilitude. He wove the process of science, the narratives of scientists, into stories in Se (1937), Tin Sangi (1940), and Galpasalpa (1941). His last five years were marked by chronic pain and two long periods of illness. These began when Tagore lost consciousness in late 1937; he remained comatose and near death for a time. This was followed in late 1940 by a similar spell, from which he never recovered. Poetry from these valetudinary years is among his finest. A period of prolonged agony ended with Tagore's death on 7 August 1941, aged eighty; he was in an upstairs room of the Jorasanko mansion he was raised in. The date is still mourned. A. K. Sen, brother of the first chief election commissioner, received dictation from Tagore on 30 July 1941, a day prior to a scheduled operation: his last poem. I'm lost in the middle of my birthday. I want my friends, their touch, with the earth's last love. I will take life's final offering, I will take the human's last blessing. Today my sack is empty. I have given completely whatever I had to give. In return if I receive anything--some love, some forgiveness--then I will take it with me when I step on the boat that crosses to the festival of the wordless end. CANNOTANSWER | he was in an upstairs room of the Jorasanko mansion he was raised in. | Rabindranath Tagore (, ; 7 May 1861 – 7 August 1941) was a Bengali polymath—poet, writer, playwright, composer, philosopher, social reformer and painter. He reshaped Bengali literature and music as well as Indian art with Contextual Modernism in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Author of the "profoundly sensitive, fresh and beautiful" poetry of Gitanjali, he became in 1913 the first non-European and the first lyricist to win the Nobel Prize in Literature. Tagore's poetic songs were viewed as spiritual and mercurial; however, his "elegant prose and magical poetry" remain largely unknown outside Bengal. He was a fellow of the Royal Asiatic Society. Referred to as "the Bard of Bengal", Tagore was known by sobriquets: Gurudev, Kobiguru, Biswakobi.
A Bengali Brahmin from Calcutta with ancestral gentry roots in Burdwan district and Jessore, Tagore wrote poetry as an eight-year-old. At the age of sixteen, he released his first substantial poems under the pseudonym Bhānusiṃha ("Sun Lion"), which were seized upon by literary authorities as long-lost classics. By 1877 he graduated to his first short stories and dramas, published under his real name. As a humanist, universalist, internationalist, and ardent anti-nationalist, he denounced the British Raj and advocated independence from Britain. As an exponent of the Bengal Renaissance, he advanced a vast canon that comprised paintings, sketches and doodles, hundreds of texts, and some two thousand songs; his legacy also endures in his founding of Visva-Bharati University.
Tagore modernised Bengali art by spurning rigid classical forms and resisting linguistic strictures. His novels, stories, songs, dance-dramas, and essays spoke to topics political and personal. Gitanjali (Song Offerings), Gora (Fair-Faced) and Ghare-Baire (The Home and the World) are his best-known works, and his verse, short stories, and novels were acclaimed—or panned—for their lyricism, colloquialism, naturalism, and unnatural contemplation. His compositions were chosen by two nations as national anthems: India's "Jana Gana Mana" and Bangladesh's "Amar Shonar Bangla". The Sri Lankan national anthem was inspired by his work.
Family history
The name Tagore is the anglicised transliteration of Thakur. The original surname of the Tagores was Kushari. They were Rarhi Brahmins and originally belonged to a village named Kush in the district named Burdwan in West Bengal. The biographer of Rabindranath Tagore, Prabhat Kumar Mukhopadhyaya wrote in the first volume of his book Rabindrajibani O Rabindra Sahitya Prabeshak that
{{Cquote|quote=The Kusharis were the descendants of Deen Kushari, the son of Bhatta Narayana; Deen was granted a village named Kush (in Burdwan zilla) by Maharaja Kshitisura, he became its chief and came to be known as Kushari.}}
Life and events
Early life: 1861–1878
The youngest of 13 surviving children, Tagore (nicknamed "Rabi") was born on 7 May 1861 in the Jorasanko mansion in Calcutta, the son of Debendranath Tagore (1817–1905) and Sarada Devi (1830–1875).
Tagore was raised mostly by servants; his mother had died in his early childhood and his father travelled widely. The Tagore family was at the forefront of the Bengal renaissance. They hosted the publication of literary magazines; theatre and recitals of Bengali and Western classical music featured there regularly. Tagore's father invited several professional Dhrupad musicians to stay in the house and teach Indian classical music to the children. Tagore's oldest brother Dwijendranath was a philosopher and poet. Another brother, Satyendranath, was the first Indian appointed to the elite and formerly all-European Indian Civil Service. Yet another brother, Jyotirindranath, was a musician, composer, and playwright. His sister Swarnakumari became a novelist. Jyotirindranath's wife Kadambari Devi, slightly older than Tagore, was a dear friend and powerful influence. Her abrupt suicide in 1884, soon after he married, left him profoundly distraught for years.
Tagore largely avoided classroom schooling and preferred to roam the manor or nearby Bolpur and Panihati, which the family visited. His brother Hemendranath tutored and physically conditioned him—by having him swim the Ganges or trek through hills, by gymnastics, and by practising judo and wrestling. He learned drawing, anatomy, geography and history, literature, mathematics, Sanskrit, and English—his least favourite subject. Tagore loathed formal education—his scholarly travails at the local Presidency College spanned a single day. Years later he held that proper teaching does not explain things; proper teaching stokes curiosity:
After his upanayan (coming-of-age rite) at age eleven, Tagore and his father left Calcutta in February 1873 to tour India for several months, visiting his father's Santiniketan estate and Amritsar before reaching the Himalayan hill station of Dalhousie. There Tagore read biographies, studied history, astronomy, modern science, and Sanskrit, and examined the classical poetry of Kālidāsa. During his 1-month stay at Amritsar in 1873 he was greatly influenced by melodious gurbani and nanak bani being sung at Golden Temple for which both father and son were regular visitors. He mentions about this in his My Reminiscences (1912) He wrote 6 poems relating to Sikhism and a number of articles in Bengali children's magazine about Sikhism.
Tagore returned to Jorosanko and completed a set of major works by 1877, one of them a long poem in the Maithili style of Vidyapati. As a joke, he claimed that these were the lost works of newly discovered 17th-century Vaiṣṇava poet Bhānusiṃha. Regional experts accepted them as the lost works of the fictitious poet. He debuted in the short-story genre in Bengali with "Bhikharini" ("The Beggar Woman"). Published in the same year, Sandhya Sangit (1882) includes the poem "Nirjharer Swapnabhanga" ("The Rousing of the Waterfall").
Shelaidaha: 1878–1901
Because Debendranath wanted his son to become a barrister, Tagore enrolled at a public school in Brighton, East Sussex, England in 1878. He stayed for several months at a house that the Tagore family owned near Brighton and Hove, in Medina Villas; in 1877 his nephew and niece—Suren and Indira Devi, the children of Tagore's brother Satyendranath—were sent together with their mother, Tagore's sister-in-law, to live with him. He briefly read law at University College London, but again left school, opting instead for independent study of Shakespeare's plays Coriolanus, and Antony and Cleopatra and the Religio Medici of Thomas Browne. Lively English, Irish, and Scottish folk tunes impressed Tagore, whose own tradition of Nidhubabu-authored kirtans and tappas and Brahmo hymnody was subdued. In 1880 he returned to Bengal degree-less, resolving to reconcile European novelty with Brahmo traditions, taking the best from each. After returning to Bengal, Tagore regularly published poems, stories, and novels. These had a profound impact within Bengal itself but received little national attention. In 1883 he married 10-year-old Mrinalini Devi, born Bhabatarini, 1873–1902 (this was a common practice at the time). They had five children, two of whom died in childhood.
In 1890 Tagore began managing his vast ancestral estates in Shelaidaha (today a region of Bangladesh); he was joined there by his wife and children in 1898. Tagore released his Manasi poems (1890), among his best-known work. As Zamindar Babu, Tagore criss-crossed the Padma River in command of the Padma, the luxurious family barge (also known as "budgerow"). He collected mostly token rents and blessed villagers who in turn honoured him with banquets—occasionally of dried rice and sour milk. He met Gagan Harkara, through whom he became familiar with Baul Lalon Shah, whose folk songs greatly influenced Tagore. Tagore worked to popularise Lalon's songs. The period 1891–1895, Tagore's Sadhana period, named after one of his magazines, was his most productive; in these years he wrote more than half the stories of the three-volume, 84-story Galpaguchchha. Its ironic and grave tales examined the voluptuous poverty of an idealised rural Bengal.
Santiniketan: 1901–1932
In 1901 Tagore moved to Santiniketan to found an ashram with a marble-floored prayer hall—The Mandir—an experimental school, groves of trees, gardens, a library. There his wife and two of his children died. His father died in 1905. He received monthly payments as part of his inheritance and income from the Maharaja of Tripura, sales of his family's jewellery, his seaside bungalow in Puri, and a derisory 2,000 rupees in book royalties. He gained Bengali and foreign readers alike; he published Naivedya (1901) and Kheya (1906) and translated poems into free verse.
In November 1913, Tagore learned he had won that year's Nobel Prize in Literature: the Swedish Academy appreciated the idealistic—and for Westerners—accessible nature of a small body of his translated material focused on the 1912 Gitanjali: Song Offerings. He was awarded a knighthood by King George V in the 1915 Birthday Honours, but Tagore renounced it after the 1919 Jallianwala Bagh massacre. Renouncing the knighthood, Tagore wrote in a letter addressed to Lord Chelmsford, the then British Viceroy of India, "The disproportionate severity of the punishments inflicted upon the unfortunate people and the methods of carrying them out, we are convinced, are without parallel in the history of civilised governments...The time has come when badges of honour make our shame glaring in their incongruous context of humiliation, and I for my part wish to stand, shorn of all special distinctions, by the side of my country men."
In 1919, he was invited by the president and chairman of Anjuman-e-Islamia, Syed Abdul Majid to visit Sylhet for the first time. The event attracted over 5000 people.
In 1921, Tagore and agricultural economist Leonard Elmhirst set up the "Institute for Rural Reconstruction", later renamed Shriniketan or "Abode of Welfare", in Surul, a village near the ashram. With it, Tagore sought to moderate Gandhi's Swaraj protests, which he occasionally blamed for British India's perceived mental – and thus ultimately colonial – decline. He sought aid from donors, officials, and scholars worldwide to "free village[s] from the shackles of helplessness and ignorance" by "vitalis[ing] knowledge". In the early 1930s he targeted ambient "abnormal caste consciousness" and untouchability. He lectured against these, he penned Dalit heroes for his poems and his dramas, and he campaigned—successfully—to open Guruvayoor Temple to Dalits.
Twilight years: 1932–1941
Dutta and Robinson describe this phase of Tagore's life as being one of a "peripatetic litterateur". It affirmed his opinion that human divisions were shallow. During a May 1932 visit to a Bedouin encampment in the Iraqi desert, the tribal chief told him that "Our Prophet has said that a true Muslim is he by whose words and deeds not the least of his brother-men may ever come to any harm ..." Tagore confided in his diary: "I was startled into recognizing in his words the voice of essential humanity." To the end Tagore scrutinised orthodoxy—and in 1934, he struck. That year, an earthquake hit Bihar and killed thousands. Gandhi hailed it as seismic karma, as divine retribution avenging the oppression of Dalits. Tagore rebuked him for his seemingly ignominious implications. He mourned the perennial poverty of Calcutta and the socioeconomic decline of Bengal, and detailed these newly plebeian aesthetics in an unrhymed hundred-line poem whose technique of searing double-vision foreshadowed Satyajit Ray's film Apur Sansar. Fifteen new volumes appeared, among them prose-poem works Punashcha (1932), Shes Saptak (1935), and Patraput (1936). Experimentation continued in his prose-songs and dance-dramas— Chitra (1914), Shyama (1939), and Chandalika (1938)— and in his novels— Dui Bon (1933), Malancha (1934), and Char Adhyay (1934).
Tagore's remit expanded to science in his last years, as hinted in Visva-Parichay, a 1937 collection of essays. His respect for scientific laws and his exploration of biology, physics, and astronomy informed his poetry, which exhibited extensive naturalism and verisimilitude. He wove the process of science, the narratives of scientists, into stories in Se (1937), Tin Sangi (1940), and Galpasalpa (1941). His last five years were marked by chronic pain and two long periods of illness. These began when Tagore lost consciousness in late 1937; he remained comatose and near death for a time. This was followed in late 1940 by a similar spell, from which he never recovered. Poetry from these valetudinary years is among his finest. A period of prolonged agony ended with Tagore's death on 7 August 1941, aged 80. He was in an upstairs room of the Jorasanko mansion in which he grew up. The date is still mourned. A. K. Sen, brother of the first chief election commissioner, received dictation from Tagore on 30 July 1941, a day prior to a scheduled operation: his last poem.
Travels
Between 1878 and 1932, Tagore set foot in more than thirty countries on five continents. In 1912, he took a sheaf of his translated works to England, where they gained attention from missionary and Gandhi protégé Charles F. Andrews, Irish poet William Butler Yeats, Ezra Pound, Robert Bridges, Ernest Rhys, Thomas Sturge Moore, and others. Yeats wrote the preface to the English translation of Gitanjali; Andrews joined Tagore at Santiniketan. In November 1912 Tagore began touring the United States and the United Kingdom, staying in Butterton, Staffordshire with Andrews's clergymen friends. From May 1916 until April 1917, he lectured in Japan and the United States. He denounced nationalism. His essay "Nationalism in India" was scorned and praised; it was admired by Romain Rolland and other pacifists.
Shortly after returning home the 63-year-old Tagore accepted an invitation from the Peruvian government. He travelled to Mexico. Each government pledged 100,000 to his school to commemorate the visits. A week after his 6 November 1924 arrival in Buenos Aires, an ill Tagore shifted to the Villa Miralrío at the behest of Victoria Ocampo. He left for home in January 1925. In May 1926 Tagore reached Naples; the next day he met Mussolini in Rome. Their warm rapport ended when Tagore pronounced upon Il Duces fascist finesse. He had earlier enthused: "[w]ithout any doubt he is a great personality. There is such a massive vigour in that head that it reminds one of Michael Angelo's chisel." A "fire-bath" of fascism was to have educed "the immortal soul of Italy ... clothed in quenchless light".
On 1 November 1926 Tagore arrived to Hungary and spent some time on the shore of Lake Balaton in the city of Balatonfüred, recovering from heart problems at a sanitarium. He planted a tree and a bust statue was placed there in 1956 (a gift from the Indian government, the work of Rasithan Kashar, replaced by a newly gifted statue in 2005) and the lakeside promenade still bears his name since 1957.
On 14 July 1927 Tagore and two companions began a four-month tour of Southeast Asia. They visited Bali, Java, Kuala Lumpur, Malacca, Penang, Siam, and Singapore. The resultant travelogues compose Jatri (1929). In early 1930 he left Bengal for a nearly year-long tour of Europe and the United States. Upon returning to Britain—and as his paintings were exhibited in Paris and London—he lodged at a Birmingham Quaker settlement. He wrote his Oxford Hibbert Lectures and spoke at the annual London Quaker meet. There, addressing relations between the British and the Indians – a topic he would tackle repeatedly over the next two years – Tagore spoke of a "dark chasm of aloofness". He visited Aga Khan III, stayed at Dartington Hall, toured Denmark, Switzerland, and Germany from June to mid-September 1930, then went on into the Soviet Union. In April 1932 Tagore, intrigued by the Persian mystic Hafez, was hosted by Reza Shah Pahlavi. In his other travels, Tagore interacted with Henri Bergson, Albert Einstein, Robert Frost, Thomas Mann, George Bernard Shaw, H.G. Wells, and Romain Rolland. Visits to Persia and Iraq (in 1932) and Sri Lanka (in 1933) composed Tagore's final foreign tour, and his dislike of communalism and nationalism only deepened.
Vice-President of India M. Hamid Ansari has said that Rabindranath Tagore heralded the cultural rapprochement between communities, societies and nations much before it became the liberal norm of conduct.
Tagore was a man ahead of his time. He wrote in 1932, while on a visit to Iran, that "each country of Asia will solve its own historical problems according to its strength, nature and needs, but the lamp they will each carry on their path to progress will converge to illuminate the common ray of knowledge."
Works
Known mostly for his poetry, Tagore wrote novels, essays, short stories, travelogues, dramas, and thousands of songs. Of Tagore's prose, his short stories are perhaps most highly regarded; he is indeed credited with originating the Bengali-language version of the genre. His works are frequently noted for their rhythmic, optimistic, and lyrical nature. Such stories mostly borrow from the lives of common people. Tagore's non-fiction grappled with history, linguistics, and spirituality. He wrote autobiographies. His travelogues, essays, and lectures were compiled into several volumes, including Europe Jatrir Patro (Letters from Europe) and Manusher Dhormo (The Religion of Man). His brief chat with Einstein, "Note on the Nature of Reality", is included as an appendix to the latter. On the occasion of Tagore's 150th birthday, an anthology (titled Kalanukromik Rabindra Rachanabali) of the total body of his works is currently being published in Bengali in chronological order. This includes all versions of each work and fills about eighty volumes. In 2011, Harvard University Press collaborated with Visva-Bharati University to publish The Essential Tagore, the largest anthology of Tagore's works available in English; it was edited by Fakrul Alam and Radha Chakravarthy and marks the 150th anniversary of Tagore's birth.
Drama
Tagore's experiences with drama began when he was sixteen, with his brother Jyotirindranath. He wrote his first original dramatic piece when he was twenty — Valmiki Pratibha which was shown at the Tagore's mansion. Tagore stated that his works sought to articulate "the play of feeling and not of action". In 1890 he wrote Visarjan (an adaptation of his novella Rajarshi), which has been regarded as his finest drama. In the original Bengali language, such works included intricate subplots and extended monologues. Later, Tagore's dramas used more philosophical and allegorical themes. The play Dak Ghar (The Post Office; 1912), describes the child Amal defying his stuffy and puerile confines by ultimately "fall[ing] asleep", hinting his physical death. A story with borderless appeal—gleaning rave reviews in Europe—Dak Ghar dealt with death as, in Tagore's words, "spiritual freedom" from "the world of hoarded wealth and certified creeds". Another is Tagore's Chandalika (Untouchable Girl), which was modelled on an ancient Buddhist legend describing how Ananda, the Gautama Buddha's disciple, asks a tribal girl for water. In Raktakarabi ("Red" or "Blood Oleanders") is an allegorical struggle against a kleptocrat king who rules over the residents of Yaksha puri.
Chitrangada, Chandalika, and Shyama are other key plays that have dance-drama adaptations, which together are known as Rabindra Nritya Natya.
Short stories
Tagore began his career in short stories in 1877—when he was only sixteen—with "Bhikharini" ("The Beggar Woman"). With this, Tagore effectively invented the Bengali-language short story genre. The four years from 1891 to 1895 are known as Tagore's "Sadhana" period (named for one of Tagore's magazines). This period was among Tagore's most fecund, yielding more than half the stories contained in the three-volume Galpaguchchha, which itself is a collection of eighty-four stories. Such stories usually showcase Tagore's reflections upon his surroundings, on modern and fashionable ideas, and on interesting mind puzzles (which Tagore was fond of testing his intellect with). Tagore typically associated his earliest stories (such as those of the "Sadhana" period) with an exuberance of vitality and spontaneity; these characteristics were intimately connected with Tagore's life in the common villages of, among others, Patisar, Shajadpur, and Shilaida while managing the Tagore family's vast landholdings. There, he beheld the lives of India's poor and common people; Tagore thereby took to examining their lives with a penetrative depth and feeling that was singular in Indian literature up to that point. In particular, such stories as "Kabuliwala" ("The Fruitseller from Kabul", published in 1892), "Kshudita Pashan" ("The Hungry Stones") (August 1895), and "Atithi" ("The Runaway", 1895) typified this analytic focus on the downtrodden. Many of the other Galpaguchchha stories were written in Tagore's Sabuj Patra period from 1914 to 1917, also named after one of the magazines that Tagore edited and heavily contributed to.
Novels
Tagore wrote eight novels and four novellas, among them Chaturanga, Shesher Kobita, Char Odhay, and Noukadubi. Ghare Baire (The Home and the World)—through the lens of the idealistic zamindar protagonist Nikhil—excoriates rising Indian nationalism, terrorism, and religious zeal in the Swadeshi movement; a frank expression of Tagore's conflicted sentiments, it emerged from a 1914 bout of depression. The novel ends in Hindu-Muslim violence and Nikhil's—likely mortal—wounding.
Gora raises controversial questions regarding the Indian identity. As with Ghare Baire, matters of self-identity (jāti), personal freedom, and religion are developed in the context of a family story and love triangle. In it an Irish boy orphaned in the Sepoy Mutiny is raised by Hindus as the titular gora—"whitey". Ignorant of his foreign origins, he chastises Hindu religious backsliders out of love for the indigenous Indians and solidarity with them against his hegemon-compatriots. He falls for a Brahmo girl, compelling his worried foster father to reveal his lost past and cease his nativist zeal. As a "true dialectic" advancing "arguments for and against strict traditionalism", it tackles the colonial conundrum by "portray[ing] the value of all positions within a particular frame [...] not only syncretism, not only liberal orthodoxy, but the extremest reactionary traditionalism he defends by an appeal to what humans share." Among these Tagore highlights "identity [...] conceived of as dharma."
In Jogajog (Relationships), the heroine Kumudini—bound by the ideals of Śiva-Sati, exemplified by Dākshāyani—is torn between her pity for the sinking fortunes of her progressive and compassionate elder brother and his foil: her roue of a husband. Tagore flaunts his feminist leanings; pathos depicts the plight and ultimate demise of women trapped by pregnancy, duty, and family honour; he simultaneously trucks with Bengal's putrescent landed gentry. The story revolves around the underlying rivalry between two families—the Chatterjees, aristocrats now on the decline (Biprodas) and the Ghosals (Madhusudan), representing new money and new arrogance. Kumudini, Biprodas' sister, is caught between the two as she is married off to Madhusudan. She had risen in an observant and sheltered traditional home, as had all her female relations.
Others were uplifting: Shesher Kobita—translated twice as Last Poem and Farewell Song—is his most lyrical novel, with poems and rhythmic passages written by a poet protagonist. It contains elements of satire and postmodernism and has stock characters who gleefully attack the reputation of an old, outmoded, oppressively renowned poet who, incidentally, goes by a familiar name: "Rabindranath Tagore". Though his novels remain among the least-appreciated of his works, they have been given renewed attention via film adaptations by Ray and others: Chokher Bali and Ghare Baire are exemplary. In the first, Tagore inscribes Bengali society via its heroine: a rebellious widow who would live for herself alone. He pillories the custom of perpetual mourning on the part of widows, who were not allowed to remarry, who were consigned to seclusion and loneliness. Tagore wrote of it: "I have always regretted the ending".
Poetry
Internationally, Gitanjali () is Tagore's best-known collection of poetry, for which he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1913. Tagore was the first non-European to receive a Nobel Prize in Literature and second non-European to receive a Nobel Prize after Theodore Roosevelt.
Besides Gitanjali, other notable works include Manasi, Sonar Tori ("Golden Boat"), Balaka ("Wild Geese" — the title being a metaphor for migrating souls)
Tagore's poetic style, which proceeds from a lineage established by 15th- and 16th-century Vaishnava poets, ranges from classical formalism to the comic, visionary, and ecstatic. He was influenced by the atavistic mysticism of Vyasa and other rishi-authors of the Upanishads, the Bhakti-Sufi mystic Kabir, and Ramprasad Sen. Tagore's most innovative and mature poetry embodies his exposure to Bengali rural folk music, which included mystic Baul ballads such as those of the bard Lalon. These, rediscovered and repopularised by Tagore, resemble 19th-century Kartābhajā hymns that emphasise inward divinity and rebellion against bourgeois bhadralok religious and social orthodoxy. During his Shelaidaha years, his poems took on a lyrical voice of the moner manush, the Bāuls' "man within the heart" and Tagore's "life force of his deep recesses", or meditating upon the jeevan devata—the demiurge or the "living God within". This figure connected with divinity through appeal to nature and the emotional interplay of human drama. Such tools saw use in his Bhānusiṃha poems chronicling the Radha-Krishna romance, which were repeatedly revised over the course of seventy years.
Later, with the development of new poetic ideas in Bengal – many originating from younger poets seeking to break with Tagore's style – Tagore absorbed new poetic concepts, which allowed him to further develop a unique identity. Examples of this include Africa and Camalia, which are among the better known of his latter poems.
Songs (Rabindra Sangeet)
Tagore was a prolific composer with around 2,230 songs to his credit. His songs are known as rabindrasangit ("Tagore Song"), which merges fluidly into his literature, most of which—poems or parts of novels, stories, or plays alike—were lyricised. Influenced by the thumri style of Hindustani music, they ran the entire gamut of human emotion, ranging from his early dirge-like Brahmo devotional hymns to quasi-erotic compositions. They emulated the tonal colour of classical ragas to varying extents. Some songs mimicked a given raga's melody and rhythm faithfully; others newly blended elements of different ragas. Yet about nine-tenths of his work was not bhanga gaan, the body of tunes revamped with "fresh value" from select Western, Hindustani, Bengali folk and other regional flavours "external" to Tagore's own ancestral culture.
In 1971, Amar Shonar Bangla became the national anthem of Bangladesh. It was written – ironically – to protest the 1905 Partition of Bengal along communal lines: cutting off the Muslim-majority East Bengal from Hindu-dominated West Bengal was to avert a regional bloodbath. Tagore saw the partition as a cunning plan to stop the independence movement, and he aimed to rekindle Bengali unity and tar communalism. Jana Gana Mana was written in shadhu-bhasha, a Sanskritised form of Bengali, and is the first of five stanzas of the Brahmo hymn Bharot Bhagyo Bidhata that Tagore composed. It was first sung in 1911 at a Calcutta session of the Indian National Congress and was adopted in 1950 by the Constituent Assembly of the Republic of India as its national anthem.
The Sri Lanka's National Anthem was inspired by his work.
For Bengalis, the songs' appeal, stemming from the combination of emotive strength and beauty described as surpassing even Tagore's poetry, was such that the Modern Review observed that "[t]here is in Bengal no cultured home where Rabindranath's songs are not sung or at least attempted to be sung... Even illiterate villagers sing his songs". Tagore influenced sitar maestro Vilayat Khan and sarodiyas Buddhadev Dasgupta and Amjad Ali Khan.
Art works
At sixty, Tagore took up drawing and painting; successful exhibitions of his many works—which made a debut appearance in Paris upon encouragement by artists he met in the south of France—were held throughout Europe. He was likely red-green colour blind, resulting in works that exhibited strange colour schemes and off-beat aesthetics. Tagore was influenced by numerous styles, including scrimshaw by the Malanggan people of northern New Ireland, Papua New Guinea, Haida carvings from the Pacific Northwest region of North America, and woodcuts by the German Max Pechstein. His artist's eye for handwriting was revealed in the simple artistic and rhythmic leitmotifs embellishing the scribbles, cross-outs, and word layouts of his manuscripts. Some of Tagore's lyrics corresponded in a synesthetic sense with particular paintings.
India's National Gallery of Modern Art lists 102 works by Tagore in its collections.
Politics
Tagore opposed imperialism and supported Indian nationalists, and these views were first revealed in Manast, which was mostly composed in his twenties. Evidence produced during the Hindu–German Conspiracy Trial and latter accounts affirm his awareness of the Ghadarites, and stated that he sought the support of Japanese Prime Minister Terauchi Masatake and former Premier Ōkuma Shigenobu. Yet he lampooned the Swadeshi movement; he rebuked it in The Cult of the Charkha, an acrid 1925 essay. According to Amartya Sen, Tagore rebelled against strongly nationalist forms of the independence movement, and he wanted to assert India's right to be independent without denying the importance of what India could learn from abroad. He urged the masses to avoid victimology and instead seek self-help and education, and he saw the presence of British administration as a "political symptom of our social disease". He maintained that, even for those at the extremes of poverty, "there can be no question of blind revolution"; preferable to it was a "steady and purposeful education".
Such views enraged many. He escaped assassination—and only narrowly—by Indian expatriates during his stay in a San Francisco hotel in late 1916; the plot failed when his would-be assassins fell into argument. Tagore wrote songs lionising the Indian independence movement. Two of Tagore's more politically charged compositions, "Chitto Jetha Bhayshunyo" ("Where the Mind is Without Fear") and "Ekla Chalo Re" ("If They Answer Not to Thy Call, Walk Alone"), gained mass appeal, with the latter favoured by Gandhi. Though somewhat critical of Gandhian activism, Tagore was key in resolving a Gandhi–Ambedkar dispute involving separate electorates for untouchables, thereby mooting at least one of Gandhi's fasts "unto death".
Repudiation of knighthood
Tagore renounced his knighthood in response to the Jallianwala Bagh massacre in 1919. In the repudiation letter to the Viceroy, Lord Chelmsford, he wrote
Santiniketan and Visva-Bharati
Tagore despised rote classroom schooling: in "The Parrot's Training", a bird is caged and force-fed textbook pages—to death. Tagore, visiting Santa Barbara in 1917, conceived a new type of university: he sought to "make Santiniketan the connecting thread between India and the world [and] a world center for the study of humanity somewhere beyond the limits of nation and geography." The school, which he named Visva-Bharati, had its foundation stone laid on 24 December 1918 and was inaugurated precisely three years later. Tagore employed a brahmacharya system: gurus gave pupils personal guidance—emotional, intellectual, and spiritual. Teaching was often done under trees. He staffed the school, he contributed his Nobel Prize monies, and his duties as steward-mentor at Santiniketan kept him busy: mornings he taught classes; afternoons and evenings he wrote the students' textbooks. He fundraised widely for the school in Europe and the United States between 1919 and 1921.
Theft of Nobel Prize
On 25 March 2004, Tagore's Nobel Prize was stolen from the safety vault of the Visva-Bharati University, along with several other of his belongings. On 7 December 2004, the Swedish Academy decided to present two replicas of Tagore's Nobel Prize, one made of gold and the other made of bronze, to the Visva-Bharati University. It inspired the fictional film Nobel Chor. In 2016, a baul singer named Pradip Bauri accused of sheltering the thieves was arrested and the prize was returned.
Impact and legacy
Every year, many events pay tribute to Tagore: Kabipranam, his birth anniversary, is celebrated by groups scattered across the globe; the annual Tagore Festival held in Urbana, Illinois (USA); Rabindra Path Parikrama walking pilgrimages from Kolkata to Santiniketan; and recitals of his poetry, which are held on important anniversaries. Bengali culture is fraught with this legacy: from language and arts to history and politics. Amartya Sen deemed Tagore a "towering figure", a "deeply relevant and many-sided contemporary thinker". Tagore's Bengali originals—the 1939 Rabīndra Rachanāvalī—is canonised as one of his nation's greatest cultural treasures, and he was roped into a reasonably humble role: "the greatest poet India has produced".
Tagore was renowned throughout much of Europe, North America, and East Asia. He co-founded Dartington Hall School, a progressive coeducational institution; in Japan, he influenced such figures as Nobel laureate Yasunari Kawabata. In colonial Vietnam Tagore was a guide for the restless spirit of the radical writer and publicist Nguyen An Ninh Tagore's works were widely translated into English, Dutch, German, Spanish, and other European languages by Czech Indologist Vincenc Lesný, French Nobel laureate André Gide, Russian poet Anna Akhmatova, former Turkish Prime Minister Bülent Ecevit, and others. In the United States, Tagore's lecturing circuits, particularly those of 1916–1917, were widely attended and wildly acclaimed. Some controversies involving Tagore, possibly fictive, trashed his popularity and sales in Japan and North America after the late 1920s, concluding with his "near total eclipse" outside Bengal. Yet a latent reverence of Tagore was discovered by an astonished Salman Rushdie during a trip to Nicaragua.
By way of translations, Tagore influenced Chileans Pablo Neruda and Gabriela Mistral; Mexican writer Octavio Paz; and Spaniards José Ortega y Gasset, Zenobia Camprubí, and Juan Ramón Jiménez. In the period 1914–1922, the Jiménez-Camprubí pair produced twenty-two Spanish translations of Tagore's English corpus; they heavily revised The Crescent Moon and other key titles. In these years, Jiménez developed "naked poetry". Ortega y Gasset wrote that "Tagore's wide appeal [owes to how] he speaks of longings for perfection that we all have [...] Tagore awakens a dormant sense of childish wonder, and he saturates the air with all kinds of enchanting promises for the reader, who [...] pays little attention to the deeper import of Oriental mysticism". Tagore's works circulated in free editions around 1920—alongside those of Plato, Dante, Cervantes, Goethe, and Tolstoy.
Tagore was deemed over-rated by some. Graham Greene doubted that "anyone but Mr. Yeats can still take his poems very seriously." Several prominent Western admirers—including Pound and, to a lesser extent, even Yeats—criticised Tagore's work. Yeats, unimpressed with his English translations, railed against that "Damn Tagore [...] We got out three good books, Sturge Moore and I, and then, because he thought it more important to see and know English than to be a great poet, he brought out sentimental rubbish and wrecked his reputation. Tagore does not know English, no Indian knows English." William Radice, who "English[ed]" his poems, asked: "What is their place in world literature?" He saw him as "kind of counter-cultur[al]", bearing "a new kind of classicism" that would heal the "collapsed romantic confusion and chaos of the 20th [c]entury." The translated Tagore was "almost nonsensical", and subpar English offerings reduced his trans-national appeal:
Museums
There are eight Tagore museums. Three in India and five in Bangladesh:
Rabindra Bharati Museum, at Jorasanko Thakur Bari, Kolkata, India
Tagore Memorial Museum, at Shilaidaha Kuthibadi, Shilaidaha, Bangladesh
Rabindra Memorial Museum at Shahzadpur Kachharibari, Shahzadpur, Bangladesh
Rabindra Bhavan Museum, in Santiniketan, India
Rabindra Museum, in Mungpoo, near Kalimpong, India
Patisar Rabindra Kacharibari, Patisar, Atrai, Naogaon, Bangladesh
Pithavoge Rabindra Memorial Complex, Pithavoge, Rupsha, Khulna, Bangladesh
Rabindra Complex, Dakkhindihi village, Phultala Upazila, Khulna, Bangladesh
Jorasanko Thakur Bari (Bengali: House of the Thakurs; anglicised to Tagore) in Jorasanko, north of Kolkata, is the ancestral home of the Tagore family. It is currently located on the Rabindra Bharati University campus at 6/4 Dwarakanath Tagore Lane Jorasanko, Kolkata 700007. It is the house in which Tagore was born. It is also the place where he spent most of his childhood and where he died on 7 August 1941.
Rabindra Complex is located in Dakkhindihi village, near Phultala Upazila, from Khulna city, Bangladesh. It was the residence of tagores father-in-law, Beni Madhab Roy Chowdhury. Tagore family had close connection with Dakkhindihi village. The maternal ancestral home of the great poet was also situated at Dakkhindihi village, poets mother Sarada Sundari Devi and his paternal aunt by marriage Tripura Sundari Devi; was born in this village.Young tagore used to visit Dakkhindihi village with his mother to visit his maternal uncles in her mothers ancestral home. Tagore visited this place several times in his life. It has been declared as a protected archaeological site by Department of Archaeology of Bangladesh and converted into a museum. In 1995, the local administration took charge of the house and on 14 November of that year, the Rabindra Complex project was decided. Bangladesh Governments Department of Archeology has carried out the renovation work to make the house a museum titled ‘Rabindra Complex’ in 2011–12 fiscal year. The two-storey museum building has four rooms on the first floor and two rooms on the ground floor at present. The building has eight windows on the ground floor and 21 windows on the first floor. The height of the roof from the floor on the ground floor is 13 feet. There are seven doors, six windows and wall almirahs on the first floor. Over 500 books were kept in the library and all the rooms have been decorated with rare pictures of Rabindranath. Over 10,000 visitors come here every year to see the museum from different parts of the country and also from abroad, said Saifur Rahman, assistant director of the Department of Archeology in Khulna. A bust of Rabindranath Tagore is also there. Every year on 25–27 Baishakh (after the Bengali New Year Celebration), cultural programs are held here which lasts for three days.
List of works
The SNLTR hosts the 1415 BE edition of Tagore's complete Bengali works. Tagore Web also hosts an edition of Tagore's works, including annotated songs. Translations are found at Project Gutenberg and Wikisource. More sources are below.
Original
Translated
Adaptations of novels and short stories in cinema
Bengali
Natir Puja – 1932 – The only film directed by Rabindranath Tagore
Gora — 1938 Gora (novel) — Naresh Mitra
Noukadubi– Nitin Bose
Bou Thakuranir Haat – 1953 (Bou Thakuranir Haat) – Naresh Mitra
Kabuliwala – 1957 (Kabuliwala) – Tapan Sinha
Kshudhita Pashan – 1960 (Kshudhita Pashan) – Tapan Sinha
Teen Kanya – 1961 (Teen Kanya) – Satyajit Ray
Charulata - 1964 (Nastanirh) – Satyajit Ray
Megh o Roudra – 1969 (Megh o Roudra) – Arundhati Devi
Ghare Baire – 1985 (Ghare Baire) – Satyajit Ray
Chokher Bali – 2003 (Chokher Bali) – Rituparno Ghosh
Shasti – 2004 (Shasti) – Chashi Nazrul Islam
Shuva – 2006 (Shuvashini) – Chashi Nazrul Islam
Chaturanga – 2008 (Chaturanga) – Suman Mukhopadhyay
Noukadubi – 2011 (Noukadubi) – Rituparno Ghosh
Elar Char Adhyay – 2012 (Char Adhyay) – Bappaditya Bandyopadhyay
Hindi
Sacrifice – 1927 (Balidan) – Nanand Bhojai and Naval Gandhi
Milan – 1946 (Nauka Dubi) – Nitin Bose
Dak Ghar – 1965 (Dak Ghar) – Zul Vellani
Kabuliwala – 1961 (Kabuliwala) – Bimal Roy
Uphaar – 1971 (Samapti) – Sudhendu Roy
Lekin... – 1991 (Kshudhit Pashaan) – Gulzar
Char Adhyay – 1997 (Char Adhyay) – Kumar Shahani
Kashmakash – 2011 (Nauka Dubi) – Rituparno Ghosh
Stories by Rabindranath Tagore (Anthology TV Series) – 2015 – Anurag Basu
Bioscopewala – 2017 (Kabuliwala) – Deb MedhekarBhikharinIn popular cultureRabindranath Tagore is a 1961 Indian documentary film written and directed by Satyajit Ray, released during the birth centenary of Tagore. It was produced by the Government of India's Films Division.
In Sukanta Roy's Bengali film Chhelebela (2002) Jisshu Sengupta portrayed Tagore.
In Bandana Mukhopadhyay's Bengali film Chirosakha He (2007) Sayandip Bhattacharya played Tagore.
In Rituparno Ghosh's Bengali documentary film Jeevan Smriti (2011) Samadarshi Dutta played Tagore.
In Suman Ghosh's Bengali film Kadambari (2015) Parambrata Chatterjee portrayed Tagore.
See also
List of Indian writers
Kazi Nazrul Islam
Rabindra Jayanti
Rabindra Puraskar
Tagore familyAn Artist in Life — biography by Niharranjan Ray
Taptapadi
Timeline of Rabindranath Tagore
Music of Bengal
References
Notes
Citations
Writers from Kolkata
Bibliography
Primary
Anthologies
Originals
Translations
Secondary
Articles
Books
Other
Texts
Original
Translated
Further reading
External links
School of Wisdom
Analyses
Ezra Pound: "Rabindranath Tagore", The Fortnightly Review'', March 1913
Mary Lago Collection, University of MissouriAudiobooks Texts
Bichitra: Online Tagore Variorum
Talks'''
South Asian American Digital Archive (SAADA)
1861 births
1941 deaths
Presidency University, Kolkata alumni
Alumni of University College London
Bengali people
Bengali Hindus
Bengali philosophers
Bengali writers
Bengali zamindars
Brahmos
Founders of Indian schools and colleges
Indian Nobel laureates
National anthem writers
Nobel laureates in Literature
People associated with Santiniketan
Oriental Seminary alumni
Vangiya Sahitya Parishad
English-language poets from India
19th-century Bengali poets
Bengali-language poets
Indian Hindus
Indian male dramatists and playwrights
Indian male songwriters
Indian male essayists
19th-century Indian painters
Rabindranath
Musicians from Kolkata
19th-century Indian educational theorists
Indian portrait painters
Artist authors
Indian male poets
20th-century Indian painters
19th-century Indian poets
20th-century Indian poets
19th-century Indian musicians
19th-century Indian composers
20th-century Indian composers
19th-century Indian philosophers
20th-century Indian philosophers
20th-century Bengali poets
Bengali male poets
Indian male painters
Poets from West Bengal
19th-century Indian dramatists and playwrights
20th-century Indian dramatists and playwrights
20th-century Indian essayists
19th-century Indian essayists
20th-century Indian novelists
20th-century Indian educational theorists
Knights Bachelor
Painters from West Bengal
19th-century male musicians
Indian classical composers
19th-century classical musicians
Haiku poets
Google Doodles | false | [
"Hagen Friedrich Liebing (18 February 1961 – 25 September 2016), nicknamed \"The Incredible Hagen\", was a German musician and journalist, best known as the bassist for the influential punk band Die Ärzte. \n\nIn 1986, drummer Bela B invited him to join Die Ärzte. The two knew each other from early Berlin punk days. The band disbanded in 1988. Liebing tried his hand at journalism shortly thereafter. He wrote several articles for Der Tagesspiegel, and was the senior music editor of Tip Berlin since the mid-1990s. \n\nWhen Die Ärzte reunited in 1993, Liebing did not join them. However, he did join them on stage as a special guest in 2002. In 2003, he published his memoirs The Incredible Hagen – My Years with Die Ärzte. From 2003 to 2010, he headed the Press and Public Relations at the football club Tennis Borussia Berlin. \n\nLiebing died in Berlin on 25 September 2016, after a battle with a brain tumor.\n\nReferences\n\n1961 births\n2016 deaths\nMusicians from Berlin\nGerman male musicians\nGerman journalists\nDeaths from cancer in Germany\nDeaths from brain tumor",
"Hermann Wilbrand (22 May 1851 – 17 September 1935) was a German ophthalmologist born in Giessen. Wilbrand's father and grandfather were also physicians. \n\nIn 1875, he earned his doctorate at the University of Strassburg, and afterwards was an assistant to Ludwig Laqueur (1839-1909) at Strassburg and to Carl Friedrich Richard Förster (1825-1902) at Breslau. Later he moved to Hamburg, where he became head of the department of ophthalmology at Allgemeines Hospital in 1905.\n\nWilbrand specialized in the field of neuro-ophthalmology and did extensive research involving the pathology and physiology of the eye. He demonstrated that homonymous hemianopsia was caused by lesions in the occipital lobe and optic radiation as well as the optic tract.\n\nAssociated eponyms \n Wilbrand's knee: A group of extramacular ganglion cell axons that extend forward into the posterior optic nerve.\n Charcot-Wilbrand syndrome: Syndrome involving visual agnosia and the inability to re-visualize images. Condition due to occlusion of the posterior cerebral artery of the dominant hemisphere. Named with French neurologist Jean-Martin Charcot (1825-1893).\n\nWritten works \n Die hemianopischen Gesichtsfeldformen und das optische Wahrnehmungscentrum. Wiesbaden, 1890. \n Über Sehstörungen bei funktionellen Nervenleiden. with Alfred Saenger (1860-1921) Leipzig, 1892. \n Die Erhohlungsausdehnung des Gesichtsfeldes. Wiesbaden, (1896). \n Über die Augenerkrankungen in der Frühperiode der Syphilis. with Staelin. Hamburg and Leipzig, 1897. \n Die Neurologie des Auges: ein Handbuch für Nerven- und Augenärtze. (with Alfred Saenger; 9 volumes). Wiesbaden, 1900-1922. \n Die Theorie des Sehens. with Carl Behr (1876-1943) (supplementary volume, 1927), Wiesbaden, 1913. \n Der Faservelauf durch das Chiasma und die intrakraniellen Sehnerven. Berlin, 1929.\n\nReferences\n\n Ophthalmology Hall of Fame (biography of Hermann Wilbrand)\n\n1851 births\n1935 deaths\nGerman ophthalmologists\nPeople from Giessen"
]
|
[
"Rabindranath Tagore",
"Twilight years: 1932-1941",
"What happened a Tagore twilight years?",
"Fifteen new volumes appeared, among them prose-poem works Punashcha (1932), Shes Saptak (1935), and Patraput (1936).",
"Which names are worth mentioning as a contribution to this part of his life?",
"earthquake hit Bihar and killed thousands. Gandhi hailed it as seismic karma, as divine retribution avenging the oppression of Dalits. Tagore rebuked him",
"Are there any other interesting aspects about this article?",
"Tagore's remit expanded to science in his last years, as hinted in Visva-Parichay, a 1937 collection of essays.",
"Did he win any award or recognition?",
"I don't know.",
"What are the major things that he did in his last years?",
"He wove the process of science, the narratives of scientists, into stories in Se (1937), Tin Sangi (1940), and Galpasalpa (1941).",
"What did he do after that?",
"). His last five years were marked by chronic pain and two long periods of illness.",
"Did he eventually die?",
"A period of prolonged agony ended with Tagore's death on 7 August 1941, aged eighty;",
"What was his age when he died?",
"aged eighty;",
"Where did he die?",
"he was in an upstairs room of the Jorasanko mansion he was raised in."
]
| C_3e16b1a1688e458a8ad42f4ee7308019_0 | Was he mourned? | 10 | Was Rabindranath Tagor mourned? | Rabindranath Tagore | Dutta and Robinson describe this phase of Tagore's life as being one of a "peripatetic litterateur". It affirmed his opinion that human divisions were shallow. During a May 1932 visit to a Bedouin encampment in the Iraqi desert, the tribal chief told him that "Our prophet has said that a true Muslim is he by whose words and deeds not the least of his brother-men may ever come to any harm ..." Tagore confided in his diary: "I was startled into recognizing in his words the voice of essential humanity." To the end Tagore scrutinised orthodoxy--and in 1934, he struck. That year, an earthquake hit Bihar and killed thousands. Gandhi hailed it as seismic karma, as divine retribution avenging the oppression of Dalits. Tagore rebuked him for his seemingly ignominious implications. He mourned the perennial poverty of Calcutta and the socioeconomic decline of Bengal, and detailed these newly plebeian aesthetics in an unrhymed hundred-line poem whose technique of searing double-vision foreshadowed Satyajit Ray's film Apur Sansar. Fifteen new volumes appeared, among them prose-poem works Punashcha (1932), Shes Saptak (1935), and Patraput (1936). Experimentation continued in his prose-songs and dance-dramas-- Chitra (1914), Shyama (1939), and Chandalika (1938)-- and in his novels-- Dui Bon (1933), Malancha (1934), and Char Adhyay (1934). Tagore's remit expanded to science in his last years, as hinted in Visva-Parichay, a 1937 collection of essays. His respect for scientific laws and his exploration of biology, physics, and astronomy informed his poetry, which exhibited extensive naturalism and verisimilitude. He wove the process of science, the narratives of scientists, into stories in Se (1937), Tin Sangi (1940), and Galpasalpa (1941). His last five years were marked by chronic pain and two long periods of illness. These began when Tagore lost consciousness in late 1937; he remained comatose and near death for a time. This was followed in late 1940 by a similar spell, from which he never recovered. Poetry from these valetudinary years is among his finest. A period of prolonged agony ended with Tagore's death on 7 August 1941, aged eighty; he was in an upstairs room of the Jorasanko mansion he was raised in. The date is still mourned. A. K. Sen, brother of the first chief election commissioner, received dictation from Tagore on 30 July 1941, a day prior to a scheduled operation: his last poem. I'm lost in the middle of my birthday. I want my friends, their touch, with the earth's last love. I will take life's final offering, I will take the human's last blessing. Today my sack is empty. I have given completely whatever I had to give. In return if I receive anything--some love, some forgiveness--then I will take it with me when I step on the boat that crosses to the festival of the wordless end. CANNOTANSWER | The date is still mourned. | Rabindranath Tagore (, ; 7 May 1861 – 7 August 1941) was a Bengali polymath—poet, writer, playwright, composer, philosopher, social reformer and painter. He reshaped Bengali literature and music as well as Indian art with Contextual Modernism in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Author of the "profoundly sensitive, fresh and beautiful" poetry of Gitanjali, he became in 1913 the first non-European and the first lyricist to win the Nobel Prize in Literature. Tagore's poetic songs were viewed as spiritual and mercurial; however, his "elegant prose and magical poetry" remain largely unknown outside Bengal. He was a fellow of the Royal Asiatic Society. Referred to as "the Bard of Bengal", Tagore was known by sobriquets: Gurudev, Kobiguru, Biswakobi.
A Bengali Brahmin from Calcutta with ancestral gentry roots in Burdwan district and Jessore, Tagore wrote poetry as an eight-year-old. At the age of sixteen, he released his first substantial poems under the pseudonym Bhānusiṃha ("Sun Lion"), which were seized upon by literary authorities as long-lost classics. By 1877 he graduated to his first short stories and dramas, published under his real name. As a humanist, universalist, internationalist, and ardent anti-nationalist, he denounced the British Raj and advocated independence from Britain. As an exponent of the Bengal Renaissance, he advanced a vast canon that comprised paintings, sketches and doodles, hundreds of texts, and some two thousand songs; his legacy also endures in his founding of Visva-Bharati University.
Tagore modernised Bengali art by spurning rigid classical forms and resisting linguistic strictures. His novels, stories, songs, dance-dramas, and essays spoke to topics political and personal. Gitanjali (Song Offerings), Gora (Fair-Faced) and Ghare-Baire (The Home and the World) are his best-known works, and his verse, short stories, and novels were acclaimed—or panned—for their lyricism, colloquialism, naturalism, and unnatural contemplation. His compositions were chosen by two nations as national anthems: India's "Jana Gana Mana" and Bangladesh's "Amar Shonar Bangla". The Sri Lankan national anthem was inspired by his work.
Family history
The name Tagore is the anglicised transliteration of Thakur. The original surname of the Tagores was Kushari. They were Rarhi Brahmins and originally belonged to a village named Kush in the district named Burdwan in West Bengal. The biographer of Rabindranath Tagore, Prabhat Kumar Mukhopadhyaya wrote in the first volume of his book Rabindrajibani O Rabindra Sahitya Prabeshak that
{{Cquote|quote=The Kusharis were the descendants of Deen Kushari, the son of Bhatta Narayana; Deen was granted a village named Kush (in Burdwan zilla) by Maharaja Kshitisura, he became its chief and came to be known as Kushari.}}
Life and events
Early life: 1861–1878
The youngest of 13 surviving children, Tagore (nicknamed "Rabi") was born on 7 May 1861 in the Jorasanko mansion in Calcutta, the son of Debendranath Tagore (1817–1905) and Sarada Devi (1830–1875).
Tagore was raised mostly by servants; his mother had died in his early childhood and his father travelled widely. The Tagore family was at the forefront of the Bengal renaissance. They hosted the publication of literary magazines; theatre and recitals of Bengali and Western classical music featured there regularly. Tagore's father invited several professional Dhrupad musicians to stay in the house and teach Indian classical music to the children. Tagore's oldest brother Dwijendranath was a philosopher and poet. Another brother, Satyendranath, was the first Indian appointed to the elite and formerly all-European Indian Civil Service. Yet another brother, Jyotirindranath, was a musician, composer, and playwright. His sister Swarnakumari became a novelist. Jyotirindranath's wife Kadambari Devi, slightly older than Tagore, was a dear friend and powerful influence. Her abrupt suicide in 1884, soon after he married, left him profoundly distraught for years.
Tagore largely avoided classroom schooling and preferred to roam the manor or nearby Bolpur and Panihati, which the family visited. His brother Hemendranath tutored and physically conditioned him—by having him swim the Ganges or trek through hills, by gymnastics, and by practising judo and wrestling. He learned drawing, anatomy, geography and history, literature, mathematics, Sanskrit, and English—his least favourite subject. Tagore loathed formal education—his scholarly travails at the local Presidency College spanned a single day. Years later he held that proper teaching does not explain things; proper teaching stokes curiosity:
After his upanayan (coming-of-age rite) at age eleven, Tagore and his father left Calcutta in February 1873 to tour India for several months, visiting his father's Santiniketan estate and Amritsar before reaching the Himalayan hill station of Dalhousie. There Tagore read biographies, studied history, astronomy, modern science, and Sanskrit, and examined the classical poetry of Kālidāsa. During his 1-month stay at Amritsar in 1873 he was greatly influenced by melodious gurbani and nanak bani being sung at Golden Temple for which both father and son were regular visitors. He mentions about this in his My Reminiscences (1912) He wrote 6 poems relating to Sikhism and a number of articles in Bengali children's magazine about Sikhism.
Tagore returned to Jorosanko and completed a set of major works by 1877, one of them a long poem in the Maithili style of Vidyapati. As a joke, he claimed that these were the lost works of newly discovered 17th-century Vaiṣṇava poet Bhānusiṃha. Regional experts accepted them as the lost works of the fictitious poet. He debuted in the short-story genre in Bengali with "Bhikharini" ("The Beggar Woman"). Published in the same year, Sandhya Sangit (1882) includes the poem "Nirjharer Swapnabhanga" ("The Rousing of the Waterfall").
Shelaidaha: 1878–1901
Because Debendranath wanted his son to become a barrister, Tagore enrolled at a public school in Brighton, East Sussex, England in 1878. He stayed for several months at a house that the Tagore family owned near Brighton and Hove, in Medina Villas; in 1877 his nephew and niece—Suren and Indira Devi, the children of Tagore's brother Satyendranath—were sent together with their mother, Tagore's sister-in-law, to live with him. He briefly read law at University College London, but again left school, opting instead for independent study of Shakespeare's plays Coriolanus, and Antony and Cleopatra and the Religio Medici of Thomas Browne. Lively English, Irish, and Scottish folk tunes impressed Tagore, whose own tradition of Nidhubabu-authored kirtans and tappas and Brahmo hymnody was subdued. In 1880 he returned to Bengal degree-less, resolving to reconcile European novelty with Brahmo traditions, taking the best from each. After returning to Bengal, Tagore regularly published poems, stories, and novels. These had a profound impact within Bengal itself but received little national attention. In 1883 he married 10-year-old Mrinalini Devi, born Bhabatarini, 1873–1902 (this was a common practice at the time). They had five children, two of whom died in childhood.
In 1890 Tagore began managing his vast ancestral estates in Shelaidaha (today a region of Bangladesh); he was joined there by his wife and children in 1898. Tagore released his Manasi poems (1890), among his best-known work. As Zamindar Babu, Tagore criss-crossed the Padma River in command of the Padma, the luxurious family barge (also known as "budgerow"). He collected mostly token rents and blessed villagers who in turn honoured him with banquets—occasionally of dried rice and sour milk. He met Gagan Harkara, through whom he became familiar with Baul Lalon Shah, whose folk songs greatly influenced Tagore. Tagore worked to popularise Lalon's songs. The period 1891–1895, Tagore's Sadhana period, named after one of his magazines, was his most productive; in these years he wrote more than half the stories of the three-volume, 84-story Galpaguchchha. Its ironic and grave tales examined the voluptuous poverty of an idealised rural Bengal.
Santiniketan: 1901–1932
In 1901 Tagore moved to Santiniketan to found an ashram with a marble-floored prayer hall—The Mandir—an experimental school, groves of trees, gardens, a library. There his wife and two of his children died. His father died in 1905. He received monthly payments as part of his inheritance and income from the Maharaja of Tripura, sales of his family's jewellery, his seaside bungalow in Puri, and a derisory 2,000 rupees in book royalties. He gained Bengali and foreign readers alike; he published Naivedya (1901) and Kheya (1906) and translated poems into free verse.
In November 1913, Tagore learned he had won that year's Nobel Prize in Literature: the Swedish Academy appreciated the idealistic—and for Westerners—accessible nature of a small body of his translated material focused on the 1912 Gitanjali: Song Offerings. He was awarded a knighthood by King George V in the 1915 Birthday Honours, but Tagore renounced it after the 1919 Jallianwala Bagh massacre. Renouncing the knighthood, Tagore wrote in a letter addressed to Lord Chelmsford, the then British Viceroy of India, "The disproportionate severity of the punishments inflicted upon the unfortunate people and the methods of carrying them out, we are convinced, are without parallel in the history of civilised governments...The time has come when badges of honour make our shame glaring in their incongruous context of humiliation, and I for my part wish to stand, shorn of all special distinctions, by the side of my country men."
In 1919, he was invited by the president and chairman of Anjuman-e-Islamia, Syed Abdul Majid to visit Sylhet for the first time. The event attracted over 5000 people.
In 1921, Tagore and agricultural economist Leonard Elmhirst set up the "Institute for Rural Reconstruction", later renamed Shriniketan or "Abode of Welfare", in Surul, a village near the ashram. With it, Tagore sought to moderate Gandhi's Swaraj protests, which he occasionally blamed for British India's perceived mental – and thus ultimately colonial – decline. He sought aid from donors, officials, and scholars worldwide to "free village[s] from the shackles of helplessness and ignorance" by "vitalis[ing] knowledge". In the early 1930s he targeted ambient "abnormal caste consciousness" and untouchability. He lectured against these, he penned Dalit heroes for his poems and his dramas, and he campaigned—successfully—to open Guruvayoor Temple to Dalits.
Twilight years: 1932–1941
Dutta and Robinson describe this phase of Tagore's life as being one of a "peripatetic litterateur". It affirmed his opinion that human divisions were shallow. During a May 1932 visit to a Bedouin encampment in the Iraqi desert, the tribal chief told him that "Our Prophet has said that a true Muslim is he by whose words and deeds not the least of his brother-men may ever come to any harm ..." Tagore confided in his diary: "I was startled into recognizing in his words the voice of essential humanity." To the end Tagore scrutinised orthodoxy—and in 1934, he struck. That year, an earthquake hit Bihar and killed thousands. Gandhi hailed it as seismic karma, as divine retribution avenging the oppression of Dalits. Tagore rebuked him for his seemingly ignominious implications. He mourned the perennial poverty of Calcutta and the socioeconomic decline of Bengal, and detailed these newly plebeian aesthetics in an unrhymed hundred-line poem whose technique of searing double-vision foreshadowed Satyajit Ray's film Apur Sansar. Fifteen new volumes appeared, among them prose-poem works Punashcha (1932), Shes Saptak (1935), and Patraput (1936). Experimentation continued in his prose-songs and dance-dramas— Chitra (1914), Shyama (1939), and Chandalika (1938)— and in his novels— Dui Bon (1933), Malancha (1934), and Char Adhyay (1934).
Tagore's remit expanded to science in his last years, as hinted in Visva-Parichay, a 1937 collection of essays. His respect for scientific laws and his exploration of biology, physics, and astronomy informed his poetry, which exhibited extensive naturalism and verisimilitude. He wove the process of science, the narratives of scientists, into stories in Se (1937), Tin Sangi (1940), and Galpasalpa (1941). His last five years were marked by chronic pain and two long periods of illness. These began when Tagore lost consciousness in late 1937; he remained comatose and near death for a time. This was followed in late 1940 by a similar spell, from which he never recovered. Poetry from these valetudinary years is among his finest. A period of prolonged agony ended with Tagore's death on 7 August 1941, aged 80. He was in an upstairs room of the Jorasanko mansion in which he grew up. The date is still mourned. A. K. Sen, brother of the first chief election commissioner, received dictation from Tagore on 30 July 1941, a day prior to a scheduled operation: his last poem.
Travels
Between 1878 and 1932, Tagore set foot in more than thirty countries on five continents. In 1912, he took a sheaf of his translated works to England, where they gained attention from missionary and Gandhi protégé Charles F. Andrews, Irish poet William Butler Yeats, Ezra Pound, Robert Bridges, Ernest Rhys, Thomas Sturge Moore, and others. Yeats wrote the preface to the English translation of Gitanjali; Andrews joined Tagore at Santiniketan. In November 1912 Tagore began touring the United States and the United Kingdom, staying in Butterton, Staffordshire with Andrews's clergymen friends. From May 1916 until April 1917, he lectured in Japan and the United States. He denounced nationalism. His essay "Nationalism in India" was scorned and praised; it was admired by Romain Rolland and other pacifists.
Shortly after returning home the 63-year-old Tagore accepted an invitation from the Peruvian government. He travelled to Mexico. Each government pledged 100,000 to his school to commemorate the visits. A week after his 6 November 1924 arrival in Buenos Aires, an ill Tagore shifted to the Villa Miralrío at the behest of Victoria Ocampo. He left for home in January 1925. In May 1926 Tagore reached Naples; the next day he met Mussolini in Rome. Their warm rapport ended when Tagore pronounced upon Il Duces fascist finesse. He had earlier enthused: "[w]ithout any doubt he is a great personality. There is such a massive vigour in that head that it reminds one of Michael Angelo's chisel." A "fire-bath" of fascism was to have educed "the immortal soul of Italy ... clothed in quenchless light".
On 1 November 1926 Tagore arrived to Hungary and spent some time on the shore of Lake Balaton in the city of Balatonfüred, recovering from heart problems at a sanitarium. He planted a tree and a bust statue was placed there in 1956 (a gift from the Indian government, the work of Rasithan Kashar, replaced by a newly gifted statue in 2005) and the lakeside promenade still bears his name since 1957.
On 14 July 1927 Tagore and two companions began a four-month tour of Southeast Asia. They visited Bali, Java, Kuala Lumpur, Malacca, Penang, Siam, and Singapore. The resultant travelogues compose Jatri (1929). In early 1930 he left Bengal for a nearly year-long tour of Europe and the United States. Upon returning to Britain—and as his paintings were exhibited in Paris and London—he lodged at a Birmingham Quaker settlement. He wrote his Oxford Hibbert Lectures and spoke at the annual London Quaker meet. There, addressing relations between the British and the Indians – a topic he would tackle repeatedly over the next two years – Tagore spoke of a "dark chasm of aloofness". He visited Aga Khan III, stayed at Dartington Hall, toured Denmark, Switzerland, and Germany from June to mid-September 1930, then went on into the Soviet Union. In April 1932 Tagore, intrigued by the Persian mystic Hafez, was hosted by Reza Shah Pahlavi. In his other travels, Tagore interacted with Henri Bergson, Albert Einstein, Robert Frost, Thomas Mann, George Bernard Shaw, H.G. Wells, and Romain Rolland. Visits to Persia and Iraq (in 1932) and Sri Lanka (in 1933) composed Tagore's final foreign tour, and his dislike of communalism and nationalism only deepened.
Vice-President of India M. Hamid Ansari has said that Rabindranath Tagore heralded the cultural rapprochement between communities, societies and nations much before it became the liberal norm of conduct.
Tagore was a man ahead of his time. He wrote in 1932, while on a visit to Iran, that "each country of Asia will solve its own historical problems according to its strength, nature and needs, but the lamp they will each carry on their path to progress will converge to illuminate the common ray of knowledge."
Works
Known mostly for his poetry, Tagore wrote novels, essays, short stories, travelogues, dramas, and thousands of songs. Of Tagore's prose, his short stories are perhaps most highly regarded; he is indeed credited with originating the Bengali-language version of the genre. His works are frequently noted for their rhythmic, optimistic, and lyrical nature. Such stories mostly borrow from the lives of common people. Tagore's non-fiction grappled with history, linguistics, and spirituality. He wrote autobiographies. His travelogues, essays, and lectures were compiled into several volumes, including Europe Jatrir Patro (Letters from Europe) and Manusher Dhormo (The Religion of Man). His brief chat with Einstein, "Note on the Nature of Reality", is included as an appendix to the latter. On the occasion of Tagore's 150th birthday, an anthology (titled Kalanukromik Rabindra Rachanabali) of the total body of his works is currently being published in Bengali in chronological order. This includes all versions of each work and fills about eighty volumes. In 2011, Harvard University Press collaborated with Visva-Bharati University to publish The Essential Tagore, the largest anthology of Tagore's works available in English; it was edited by Fakrul Alam and Radha Chakravarthy and marks the 150th anniversary of Tagore's birth.
Drama
Tagore's experiences with drama began when he was sixteen, with his brother Jyotirindranath. He wrote his first original dramatic piece when he was twenty — Valmiki Pratibha which was shown at the Tagore's mansion. Tagore stated that his works sought to articulate "the play of feeling and not of action". In 1890 he wrote Visarjan (an adaptation of his novella Rajarshi), which has been regarded as his finest drama. In the original Bengali language, such works included intricate subplots and extended monologues. Later, Tagore's dramas used more philosophical and allegorical themes. The play Dak Ghar (The Post Office; 1912), describes the child Amal defying his stuffy and puerile confines by ultimately "fall[ing] asleep", hinting his physical death. A story with borderless appeal—gleaning rave reviews in Europe—Dak Ghar dealt with death as, in Tagore's words, "spiritual freedom" from "the world of hoarded wealth and certified creeds". Another is Tagore's Chandalika (Untouchable Girl), which was modelled on an ancient Buddhist legend describing how Ananda, the Gautama Buddha's disciple, asks a tribal girl for water. In Raktakarabi ("Red" or "Blood Oleanders") is an allegorical struggle against a kleptocrat king who rules over the residents of Yaksha puri.
Chitrangada, Chandalika, and Shyama are other key plays that have dance-drama adaptations, which together are known as Rabindra Nritya Natya.
Short stories
Tagore began his career in short stories in 1877—when he was only sixteen—with "Bhikharini" ("The Beggar Woman"). With this, Tagore effectively invented the Bengali-language short story genre. The four years from 1891 to 1895 are known as Tagore's "Sadhana" period (named for one of Tagore's magazines). This period was among Tagore's most fecund, yielding more than half the stories contained in the three-volume Galpaguchchha, which itself is a collection of eighty-four stories. Such stories usually showcase Tagore's reflections upon his surroundings, on modern and fashionable ideas, and on interesting mind puzzles (which Tagore was fond of testing his intellect with). Tagore typically associated his earliest stories (such as those of the "Sadhana" period) with an exuberance of vitality and spontaneity; these characteristics were intimately connected with Tagore's life in the common villages of, among others, Patisar, Shajadpur, and Shilaida while managing the Tagore family's vast landholdings. There, he beheld the lives of India's poor and common people; Tagore thereby took to examining their lives with a penetrative depth and feeling that was singular in Indian literature up to that point. In particular, such stories as "Kabuliwala" ("The Fruitseller from Kabul", published in 1892), "Kshudita Pashan" ("The Hungry Stones") (August 1895), and "Atithi" ("The Runaway", 1895) typified this analytic focus on the downtrodden. Many of the other Galpaguchchha stories were written in Tagore's Sabuj Patra period from 1914 to 1917, also named after one of the magazines that Tagore edited and heavily contributed to.
Novels
Tagore wrote eight novels and four novellas, among them Chaturanga, Shesher Kobita, Char Odhay, and Noukadubi. Ghare Baire (The Home and the World)—through the lens of the idealistic zamindar protagonist Nikhil—excoriates rising Indian nationalism, terrorism, and religious zeal in the Swadeshi movement; a frank expression of Tagore's conflicted sentiments, it emerged from a 1914 bout of depression. The novel ends in Hindu-Muslim violence and Nikhil's—likely mortal—wounding.
Gora raises controversial questions regarding the Indian identity. As with Ghare Baire, matters of self-identity (jāti), personal freedom, and religion are developed in the context of a family story and love triangle. In it an Irish boy orphaned in the Sepoy Mutiny is raised by Hindus as the titular gora—"whitey". Ignorant of his foreign origins, he chastises Hindu religious backsliders out of love for the indigenous Indians and solidarity with them against his hegemon-compatriots. He falls for a Brahmo girl, compelling his worried foster father to reveal his lost past and cease his nativist zeal. As a "true dialectic" advancing "arguments for and against strict traditionalism", it tackles the colonial conundrum by "portray[ing] the value of all positions within a particular frame [...] not only syncretism, not only liberal orthodoxy, but the extremest reactionary traditionalism he defends by an appeal to what humans share." Among these Tagore highlights "identity [...] conceived of as dharma."
In Jogajog (Relationships), the heroine Kumudini—bound by the ideals of Śiva-Sati, exemplified by Dākshāyani—is torn between her pity for the sinking fortunes of her progressive and compassionate elder brother and his foil: her roue of a husband. Tagore flaunts his feminist leanings; pathos depicts the plight and ultimate demise of women trapped by pregnancy, duty, and family honour; he simultaneously trucks with Bengal's putrescent landed gentry. The story revolves around the underlying rivalry between two families—the Chatterjees, aristocrats now on the decline (Biprodas) and the Ghosals (Madhusudan), representing new money and new arrogance. Kumudini, Biprodas' sister, is caught between the two as she is married off to Madhusudan. She had risen in an observant and sheltered traditional home, as had all her female relations.
Others were uplifting: Shesher Kobita—translated twice as Last Poem and Farewell Song—is his most lyrical novel, with poems and rhythmic passages written by a poet protagonist. It contains elements of satire and postmodernism and has stock characters who gleefully attack the reputation of an old, outmoded, oppressively renowned poet who, incidentally, goes by a familiar name: "Rabindranath Tagore". Though his novels remain among the least-appreciated of his works, they have been given renewed attention via film adaptations by Ray and others: Chokher Bali and Ghare Baire are exemplary. In the first, Tagore inscribes Bengali society via its heroine: a rebellious widow who would live for herself alone. He pillories the custom of perpetual mourning on the part of widows, who were not allowed to remarry, who were consigned to seclusion and loneliness. Tagore wrote of it: "I have always regretted the ending".
Poetry
Internationally, Gitanjali () is Tagore's best-known collection of poetry, for which he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1913. Tagore was the first non-European to receive a Nobel Prize in Literature and second non-European to receive a Nobel Prize after Theodore Roosevelt.
Besides Gitanjali, other notable works include Manasi, Sonar Tori ("Golden Boat"), Balaka ("Wild Geese" — the title being a metaphor for migrating souls)
Tagore's poetic style, which proceeds from a lineage established by 15th- and 16th-century Vaishnava poets, ranges from classical formalism to the comic, visionary, and ecstatic. He was influenced by the atavistic mysticism of Vyasa and other rishi-authors of the Upanishads, the Bhakti-Sufi mystic Kabir, and Ramprasad Sen. Tagore's most innovative and mature poetry embodies his exposure to Bengali rural folk music, which included mystic Baul ballads such as those of the bard Lalon. These, rediscovered and repopularised by Tagore, resemble 19th-century Kartābhajā hymns that emphasise inward divinity and rebellion against bourgeois bhadralok religious and social orthodoxy. During his Shelaidaha years, his poems took on a lyrical voice of the moner manush, the Bāuls' "man within the heart" and Tagore's "life force of his deep recesses", or meditating upon the jeevan devata—the demiurge or the "living God within". This figure connected with divinity through appeal to nature and the emotional interplay of human drama. Such tools saw use in his Bhānusiṃha poems chronicling the Radha-Krishna romance, which were repeatedly revised over the course of seventy years.
Later, with the development of new poetic ideas in Bengal – many originating from younger poets seeking to break with Tagore's style – Tagore absorbed new poetic concepts, which allowed him to further develop a unique identity. Examples of this include Africa and Camalia, which are among the better known of his latter poems.
Songs (Rabindra Sangeet)
Tagore was a prolific composer with around 2,230 songs to his credit. His songs are known as rabindrasangit ("Tagore Song"), which merges fluidly into his literature, most of which—poems or parts of novels, stories, or plays alike—were lyricised. Influenced by the thumri style of Hindustani music, they ran the entire gamut of human emotion, ranging from his early dirge-like Brahmo devotional hymns to quasi-erotic compositions. They emulated the tonal colour of classical ragas to varying extents. Some songs mimicked a given raga's melody and rhythm faithfully; others newly blended elements of different ragas. Yet about nine-tenths of his work was not bhanga gaan, the body of tunes revamped with "fresh value" from select Western, Hindustani, Bengali folk and other regional flavours "external" to Tagore's own ancestral culture.
In 1971, Amar Shonar Bangla became the national anthem of Bangladesh. It was written – ironically – to protest the 1905 Partition of Bengal along communal lines: cutting off the Muslim-majority East Bengal from Hindu-dominated West Bengal was to avert a regional bloodbath. Tagore saw the partition as a cunning plan to stop the independence movement, and he aimed to rekindle Bengali unity and tar communalism. Jana Gana Mana was written in shadhu-bhasha, a Sanskritised form of Bengali, and is the first of five stanzas of the Brahmo hymn Bharot Bhagyo Bidhata that Tagore composed. It was first sung in 1911 at a Calcutta session of the Indian National Congress and was adopted in 1950 by the Constituent Assembly of the Republic of India as its national anthem.
The Sri Lanka's National Anthem was inspired by his work.
For Bengalis, the songs' appeal, stemming from the combination of emotive strength and beauty described as surpassing even Tagore's poetry, was such that the Modern Review observed that "[t]here is in Bengal no cultured home where Rabindranath's songs are not sung or at least attempted to be sung... Even illiterate villagers sing his songs". Tagore influenced sitar maestro Vilayat Khan and sarodiyas Buddhadev Dasgupta and Amjad Ali Khan.
Art works
At sixty, Tagore took up drawing and painting; successful exhibitions of his many works—which made a debut appearance in Paris upon encouragement by artists he met in the south of France—were held throughout Europe. He was likely red-green colour blind, resulting in works that exhibited strange colour schemes and off-beat aesthetics. Tagore was influenced by numerous styles, including scrimshaw by the Malanggan people of northern New Ireland, Papua New Guinea, Haida carvings from the Pacific Northwest region of North America, and woodcuts by the German Max Pechstein. His artist's eye for handwriting was revealed in the simple artistic and rhythmic leitmotifs embellishing the scribbles, cross-outs, and word layouts of his manuscripts. Some of Tagore's lyrics corresponded in a synesthetic sense with particular paintings.
India's National Gallery of Modern Art lists 102 works by Tagore in its collections.
Politics
Tagore opposed imperialism and supported Indian nationalists, and these views were first revealed in Manast, which was mostly composed in his twenties. Evidence produced during the Hindu–German Conspiracy Trial and latter accounts affirm his awareness of the Ghadarites, and stated that he sought the support of Japanese Prime Minister Terauchi Masatake and former Premier Ōkuma Shigenobu. Yet he lampooned the Swadeshi movement; he rebuked it in The Cult of the Charkha, an acrid 1925 essay. According to Amartya Sen, Tagore rebelled against strongly nationalist forms of the independence movement, and he wanted to assert India's right to be independent without denying the importance of what India could learn from abroad. He urged the masses to avoid victimology and instead seek self-help and education, and he saw the presence of British administration as a "political symptom of our social disease". He maintained that, even for those at the extremes of poverty, "there can be no question of blind revolution"; preferable to it was a "steady and purposeful education".
Such views enraged many. He escaped assassination—and only narrowly—by Indian expatriates during his stay in a San Francisco hotel in late 1916; the plot failed when his would-be assassins fell into argument. Tagore wrote songs lionising the Indian independence movement. Two of Tagore's more politically charged compositions, "Chitto Jetha Bhayshunyo" ("Where the Mind is Without Fear") and "Ekla Chalo Re" ("If They Answer Not to Thy Call, Walk Alone"), gained mass appeal, with the latter favoured by Gandhi. Though somewhat critical of Gandhian activism, Tagore was key in resolving a Gandhi–Ambedkar dispute involving separate electorates for untouchables, thereby mooting at least one of Gandhi's fasts "unto death".
Repudiation of knighthood
Tagore renounced his knighthood in response to the Jallianwala Bagh massacre in 1919. In the repudiation letter to the Viceroy, Lord Chelmsford, he wrote
Santiniketan and Visva-Bharati
Tagore despised rote classroom schooling: in "The Parrot's Training", a bird is caged and force-fed textbook pages—to death. Tagore, visiting Santa Barbara in 1917, conceived a new type of university: he sought to "make Santiniketan the connecting thread between India and the world [and] a world center for the study of humanity somewhere beyond the limits of nation and geography." The school, which he named Visva-Bharati, had its foundation stone laid on 24 December 1918 and was inaugurated precisely three years later. Tagore employed a brahmacharya system: gurus gave pupils personal guidance—emotional, intellectual, and spiritual. Teaching was often done under trees. He staffed the school, he contributed his Nobel Prize monies, and his duties as steward-mentor at Santiniketan kept him busy: mornings he taught classes; afternoons and evenings he wrote the students' textbooks. He fundraised widely for the school in Europe and the United States between 1919 and 1921.
Theft of Nobel Prize
On 25 March 2004, Tagore's Nobel Prize was stolen from the safety vault of the Visva-Bharati University, along with several other of his belongings. On 7 December 2004, the Swedish Academy decided to present two replicas of Tagore's Nobel Prize, one made of gold and the other made of bronze, to the Visva-Bharati University. It inspired the fictional film Nobel Chor. In 2016, a baul singer named Pradip Bauri accused of sheltering the thieves was arrested and the prize was returned.
Impact and legacy
Every year, many events pay tribute to Tagore: Kabipranam, his birth anniversary, is celebrated by groups scattered across the globe; the annual Tagore Festival held in Urbana, Illinois (USA); Rabindra Path Parikrama walking pilgrimages from Kolkata to Santiniketan; and recitals of his poetry, which are held on important anniversaries. Bengali culture is fraught with this legacy: from language and arts to history and politics. Amartya Sen deemed Tagore a "towering figure", a "deeply relevant and many-sided contemporary thinker". Tagore's Bengali originals—the 1939 Rabīndra Rachanāvalī—is canonised as one of his nation's greatest cultural treasures, and he was roped into a reasonably humble role: "the greatest poet India has produced".
Tagore was renowned throughout much of Europe, North America, and East Asia. He co-founded Dartington Hall School, a progressive coeducational institution; in Japan, he influenced such figures as Nobel laureate Yasunari Kawabata. In colonial Vietnam Tagore was a guide for the restless spirit of the radical writer and publicist Nguyen An Ninh Tagore's works were widely translated into English, Dutch, German, Spanish, and other European languages by Czech Indologist Vincenc Lesný, French Nobel laureate André Gide, Russian poet Anna Akhmatova, former Turkish Prime Minister Bülent Ecevit, and others. In the United States, Tagore's lecturing circuits, particularly those of 1916–1917, were widely attended and wildly acclaimed. Some controversies involving Tagore, possibly fictive, trashed his popularity and sales in Japan and North America after the late 1920s, concluding with his "near total eclipse" outside Bengal. Yet a latent reverence of Tagore was discovered by an astonished Salman Rushdie during a trip to Nicaragua.
By way of translations, Tagore influenced Chileans Pablo Neruda and Gabriela Mistral; Mexican writer Octavio Paz; and Spaniards José Ortega y Gasset, Zenobia Camprubí, and Juan Ramón Jiménez. In the period 1914–1922, the Jiménez-Camprubí pair produced twenty-two Spanish translations of Tagore's English corpus; they heavily revised The Crescent Moon and other key titles. In these years, Jiménez developed "naked poetry". Ortega y Gasset wrote that "Tagore's wide appeal [owes to how] he speaks of longings for perfection that we all have [...] Tagore awakens a dormant sense of childish wonder, and he saturates the air with all kinds of enchanting promises for the reader, who [...] pays little attention to the deeper import of Oriental mysticism". Tagore's works circulated in free editions around 1920—alongside those of Plato, Dante, Cervantes, Goethe, and Tolstoy.
Tagore was deemed over-rated by some. Graham Greene doubted that "anyone but Mr. Yeats can still take his poems very seriously." Several prominent Western admirers—including Pound and, to a lesser extent, even Yeats—criticised Tagore's work. Yeats, unimpressed with his English translations, railed against that "Damn Tagore [...] We got out three good books, Sturge Moore and I, and then, because he thought it more important to see and know English than to be a great poet, he brought out sentimental rubbish and wrecked his reputation. Tagore does not know English, no Indian knows English." William Radice, who "English[ed]" his poems, asked: "What is their place in world literature?" He saw him as "kind of counter-cultur[al]", bearing "a new kind of classicism" that would heal the "collapsed romantic confusion and chaos of the 20th [c]entury." The translated Tagore was "almost nonsensical", and subpar English offerings reduced his trans-national appeal:
Museums
There are eight Tagore museums. Three in India and five in Bangladesh:
Rabindra Bharati Museum, at Jorasanko Thakur Bari, Kolkata, India
Tagore Memorial Museum, at Shilaidaha Kuthibadi, Shilaidaha, Bangladesh
Rabindra Memorial Museum at Shahzadpur Kachharibari, Shahzadpur, Bangladesh
Rabindra Bhavan Museum, in Santiniketan, India
Rabindra Museum, in Mungpoo, near Kalimpong, India
Patisar Rabindra Kacharibari, Patisar, Atrai, Naogaon, Bangladesh
Pithavoge Rabindra Memorial Complex, Pithavoge, Rupsha, Khulna, Bangladesh
Rabindra Complex, Dakkhindihi village, Phultala Upazila, Khulna, Bangladesh
Jorasanko Thakur Bari (Bengali: House of the Thakurs; anglicised to Tagore) in Jorasanko, north of Kolkata, is the ancestral home of the Tagore family. It is currently located on the Rabindra Bharati University campus at 6/4 Dwarakanath Tagore Lane Jorasanko, Kolkata 700007. It is the house in which Tagore was born. It is also the place where he spent most of his childhood and where he died on 7 August 1941.
Rabindra Complex is located in Dakkhindihi village, near Phultala Upazila, from Khulna city, Bangladesh. It was the residence of tagores father-in-law, Beni Madhab Roy Chowdhury. Tagore family had close connection with Dakkhindihi village. The maternal ancestral home of the great poet was also situated at Dakkhindihi village, poets mother Sarada Sundari Devi and his paternal aunt by marriage Tripura Sundari Devi; was born in this village.Young tagore used to visit Dakkhindihi village with his mother to visit his maternal uncles in her mothers ancestral home. Tagore visited this place several times in his life. It has been declared as a protected archaeological site by Department of Archaeology of Bangladesh and converted into a museum. In 1995, the local administration took charge of the house and on 14 November of that year, the Rabindra Complex project was decided. Bangladesh Governments Department of Archeology has carried out the renovation work to make the house a museum titled ‘Rabindra Complex’ in 2011–12 fiscal year. The two-storey museum building has four rooms on the first floor and two rooms on the ground floor at present. The building has eight windows on the ground floor and 21 windows on the first floor. The height of the roof from the floor on the ground floor is 13 feet. There are seven doors, six windows and wall almirahs on the first floor. Over 500 books were kept in the library and all the rooms have been decorated with rare pictures of Rabindranath. Over 10,000 visitors come here every year to see the museum from different parts of the country and also from abroad, said Saifur Rahman, assistant director of the Department of Archeology in Khulna. A bust of Rabindranath Tagore is also there. Every year on 25–27 Baishakh (after the Bengali New Year Celebration), cultural programs are held here which lasts for three days.
List of works
The SNLTR hosts the 1415 BE edition of Tagore's complete Bengali works. Tagore Web also hosts an edition of Tagore's works, including annotated songs. Translations are found at Project Gutenberg and Wikisource. More sources are below.
Original
Translated
Adaptations of novels and short stories in cinema
Bengali
Natir Puja – 1932 – The only film directed by Rabindranath Tagore
Gora — 1938 Gora (novel) — Naresh Mitra
Noukadubi– Nitin Bose
Bou Thakuranir Haat – 1953 (Bou Thakuranir Haat) – Naresh Mitra
Kabuliwala – 1957 (Kabuliwala) – Tapan Sinha
Kshudhita Pashan – 1960 (Kshudhita Pashan) – Tapan Sinha
Teen Kanya – 1961 (Teen Kanya) – Satyajit Ray
Charulata - 1964 (Nastanirh) – Satyajit Ray
Megh o Roudra – 1969 (Megh o Roudra) – Arundhati Devi
Ghare Baire – 1985 (Ghare Baire) – Satyajit Ray
Chokher Bali – 2003 (Chokher Bali) – Rituparno Ghosh
Shasti – 2004 (Shasti) – Chashi Nazrul Islam
Shuva – 2006 (Shuvashini) – Chashi Nazrul Islam
Chaturanga – 2008 (Chaturanga) – Suman Mukhopadhyay
Noukadubi – 2011 (Noukadubi) – Rituparno Ghosh
Elar Char Adhyay – 2012 (Char Adhyay) – Bappaditya Bandyopadhyay
Hindi
Sacrifice – 1927 (Balidan) – Nanand Bhojai and Naval Gandhi
Milan – 1946 (Nauka Dubi) – Nitin Bose
Dak Ghar – 1965 (Dak Ghar) – Zul Vellani
Kabuliwala – 1961 (Kabuliwala) – Bimal Roy
Uphaar – 1971 (Samapti) – Sudhendu Roy
Lekin... – 1991 (Kshudhit Pashaan) – Gulzar
Char Adhyay – 1997 (Char Adhyay) – Kumar Shahani
Kashmakash – 2011 (Nauka Dubi) – Rituparno Ghosh
Stories by Rabindranath Tagore (Anthology TV Series) – 2015 – Anurag Basu
Bioscopewala – 2017 (Kabuliwala) – Deb MedhekarBhikharinIn popular cultureRabindranath Tagore is a 1961 Indian documentary film written and directed by Satyajit Ray, released during the birth centenary of Tagore. It was produced by the Government of India's Films Division.
In Sukanta Roy's Bengali film Chhelebela (2002) Jisshu Sengupta portrayed Tagore.
In Bandana Mukhopadhyay's Bengali film Chirosakha He (2007) Sayandip Bhattacharya played Tagore.
In Rituparno Ghosh's Bengali documentary film Jeevan Smriti (2011) Samadarshi Dutta played Tagore.
In Suman Ghosh's Bengali film Kadambari (2015) Parambrata Chatterjee portrayed Tagore.
See also
List of Indian writers
Kazi Nazrul Islam
Rabindra Jayanti
Rabindra Puraskar
Tagore familyAn Artist in Life — biography by Niharranjan Ray
Taptapadi
Timeline of Rabindranath Tagore
Music of Bengal
References
Notes
Citations
Writers from Kolkata
Bibliography
Primary
Anthologies
Originals
Translations
Secondary
Articles
Books
Other
Texts
Original
Translated
Further reading
External links
School of Wisdom
Analyses
Ezra Pound: "Rabindranath Tagore", The Fortnightly Review'', March 1913
Mary Lago Collection, University of MissouriAudiobooks Texts
Bichitra: Online Tagore Variorum
Talks'''
South Asian American Digital Archive (SAADA)
1861 births
1941 deaths
Presidency University, Kolkata alumni
Alumni of University College London
Bengali people
Bengali Hindus
Bengali philosophers
Bengali writers
Bengali zamindars
Brahmos
Founders of Indian schools and colleges
Indian Nobel laureates
National anthem writers
Nobel laureates in Literature
People associated with Santiniketan
Oriental Seminary alumni
Vangiya Sahitya Parishad
English-language poets from India
19th-century Bengali poets
Bengali-language poets
Indian Hindus
Indian male dramatists and playwrights
Indian male songwriters
Indian male essayists
19th-century Indian painters
Rabindranath
Musicians from Kolkata
19th-century Indian educational theorists
Indian portrait painters
Artist authors
Indian male poets
20th-century Indian painters
19th-century Indian poets
20th-century Indian poets
19th-century Indian musicians
19th-century Indian composers
20th-century Indian composers
19th-century Indian philosophers
20th-century Indian philosophers
20th-century Bengali poets
Bengali male poets
Indian male painters
Poets from West Bengal
19th-century Indian dramatists and playwrights
20th-century Indian dramatists and playwrights
20th-century Indian essayists
19th-century Indian essayists
20th-century Indian novelists
20th-century Indian educational theorists
Knights Bachelor
Painters from West Bengal
19th-century male musicians
Indian classical composers
19th-century classical musicians
Haiku poets
Google Doodles | true | [
"Gruffudd ab Adda (fl. mid 14th century) was a Welsh language poet and musician. Gruffudd was a contemporary of Dafydd ap Gwilym, whose death he mourned in elegy.\n\nSee also\n\n Gruffudd ab Adda at Wikisource\n\nMedieval Welsh poets\nWelsh-language poets\n14th-century Welsh poets\n14th-century Welsh people",
"Abduallah Hussein Alkorshomi () was the Prime Minister of the Yemen Arab Republic from 2 September 1969 until 5 February 1970. He served under President Abdul Rahman al-Iryani.\n\nHe was born in 1932 in the village of Bayt Baws in Bani Matar District in Sanaa Governorate. He died July 26, 2007, and was buried in the Bayt Baws Graveyard.\n\nReferences \n \"Former prime minister and roads guru mourned\", by Zaid al-Alaya’a, Jul 31, 2007, Yemen Observer. Retrieved April 15, 2010.\n\nPrime Ministers of North Yemen\n1932 births\n2007 deaths"
]
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[
"Public Enemy (band)",
"Mainstream success (1987-1994)"
]
| C_5f538def651c4ca184396d5fc3197ebe_0 | What mainstream success did the band have? | 1 | What mainstream success did Public Enemy have? | Public Enemy (band) | Their debut album, Yo! Bum Rush the Show, was released in 1987 to critical acclaim. The album was the group's first step toward stardom. In October 1987, music critic Simon Reynolds dubbed Public Enemy "a superlative rock band". They released their second album It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back in 1988, which performed better in the charts than their previous release, and included the hit single "Don't Believe the Hype" in addition to "Bring the Noise". Nation of Millions... was the first hip hop album to be voted album of the year in The Village Voice's influential Pazz & Jop critics' poll. In 1989, the group returned to the studio to record Fear of a Black Planet, which continued their politically charged themes. The album was supposed to be released in late 1989, but was pushed back to April 1990. It was the most successful of any of their albums and, in 2005, was selected for preservation in the Library of Congress. It included the singles "Welcome To The Terrordome", "911 Is a Joke", which criticized emergency response units for taking longer to arrive at emergencies in the black community than those in the white community, and "Fight the Power". "Fight the Power" is regarded as one of the most popular and influential songs in hip hop history. It was the theme song of Spike Lee's Do the Right Thing. The group's next release, Apocalypse '91...The Enemy Strikes Black, continued this trend, with songs like "Can't Truss It", which addressed the history of slavery and how the black community can fight back against oppression; "I Don't Wanna be Called Yo Nigga", a track that takes issue with the use of the word nigga outside of its original derogatory context. The album also included the controversial song and video "By the Time I Get to Arizona", which chronicled the black community's frustration that some US states did not recognize Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday as a national holiday. The video featured members of Public Enemy taking out their frustrations on politicians in the states not recognizing the holiday. In 1992, the group was one of the first rap acts to perform at the Reading Festival, in England, headlining the second day of the three-day festival. CANNOTANSWER | Nation of Millions... was the first hip hop album to be voted album of the year in The Village Voice's influential Pazz & Jop critics' poll. | false | [
"Mainstream jazz is a term coined in the 1950s by music journalist Stanley Dance, who considered anything within the popular jazz of the Swing Era \"mainstream\", and did not include the bebop style.\n\nJazz in the mainstream \n\nAfter Dance defined mainstream jazz in the 1950s, the definition changed with the evolution and progression of jazz music. What was mainstream then would not be considered mainstream now. In a general sense, mainstream jazz can be considered what was most popular at the time: For example, during the Swing era, swing and big band music were in their prime and what target audiences were looking for. Although bebop was introduced into jazz during that time, audiences had not developed an ear for it.\n\nMainstream jazz musicians \nThe jazz musicians listed below were either considered \"mainstream\" musicians, or were influenced by mainstream musicians.\n\nSwing era \n Duke Ellington was an important influence on mainstream jazz; his music during the swing era was not known for breaking rules. \n Coleman Hawkins made significant contributions to big band music prior to introducing bebop to his style. \n Johnny Hodges was a member of Duke Ellington's Orchestra and became a familiar voice within the orchestra itself. \n Benny Carter was a major influence on the big band style. \n Roy Eldridge has been named one of the most influential jazz musicians both within the swing era and to the development of bebop. His trumpet playing was influenced by Louis Armstrong.\n\nMainstream jazz in popular culture \nIn the 1950s and 1960s, jazz was a mainstream part of pop culture. Jazz music was on the radio and Hollywood frequently incorporated jazz in television and films.\n\nReferences \n\n \nJazz genres",
"Wither Blister Burn & Peel is the second album by the American industrial rock band Stabbing Westward, released on Columbia Records. The album was recorded in New York in May 1995, and released in New York City and Los Angeles on January 4, 1996. The album was released throughout the rest of the United States on January 23, 1996. It includes the singles \"What Do I Have To Do?\" and \"Shame\". Wither Blister Burn & Peel was certified gold on September 27, 1996.\n\n\"What Do I Have To Do?\" was the band's first hit, thanks to heavy MTV exposure, first reaching the Modern Rock Tracks chart, where it would peak at #11, then achieving even greater success on the Mainstream Rock Tracks chart, where it peaked at #7. \"Shame\" was released soon after, matching \"What Do I Have To Do\"'s #7 peak on the Mainstream Rock chart, and peaking at #14 on the Modern Rock chart.\n\nTrack listing\n\nPersonnel \n Christopher Hall – lead vocals, guitar, drum machine programming\n Jim Sellers – bass, guitar\n Walter Flakus – keyboards, programming, backing vocals\n Andy Kubiszewski – drums, guitar, keyboards\n\nAppearances \nThe song \"What Do I Have to Do?\" was featured in the movie Masterminds in 1997. It was later featured in the Smallville episode \"Tempest\" in 2002.\n\nReferences \n\n1996 albums\nAlbums produced by John Fryer (producer)\nColumbia Records albums\nStabbing Westward albums",
"Big Brother & the Holding Company is the debut album of Big Brother and the Holding Company, with Janis Joplin, their main singer. Recorded during three days in December 1966 for Mainstream Records, it was released in the summer of 1967, shortly after the band's major success at the Monterey Pop Festival. Columbia took over the band's contract and re-released the album, adding two extra tracks, and putting Joplin's name on the cover. Several tracks on the album were released as singles, the most successful being \"Down on Me\" on its second release, in 1968.\n\nRecording\nThe band signed to Bob Shad's local record label Mainstream Records while stranded in Chicago after a promoter ran out of money when their concerts did not attract the expected attendance. Initial recordings took place in Chicago in September 1966, but these were not satisfactory, and the band returned to San Francisco. The band recorded the tracks \"Blindman\" and \"All Is Loneliness\" in Los Angeles, and these were released by Mainstream as a single, which did not sell well. After playing at a \"happening\" at Stanford in early December 1966, the band traveled to Los Angeles to record 10 tracks between 12 and 14 December 1966, produced by Bob Shad.\n\nRelease and reception\n\nThe album was released by Mainstream Records in August 1967, shortly after the band's major success at the Monterey Pop Festival. Two tracks, \"Coo Coo\" and \"The Last Time\", were released separately as a single, while the tracks from the previous single, \"Blindman\" and \"All Is Loneliness\", were added to the remaining eight tracks. When Columbia took over the band's contract and re-released the album, they included \"Coo Coo\" and \"The Last Time\", and put \"featuring Janis Joplin\" on the cover. The album has been reissued in various formats several times since 1967.\n\nThe album was a minor success, peaking at number 60 and almost producing a Top 40 hit with the song \"Down on Me\". In a retrospective review for Allmusic, Joe Viglione feels the production by Bob Shad is weak, though the material and the performances are respectable.\n\nTrack listing\n\nPersonnel\nBig Brother and the Holding Company\n Janis Joplin – vocals\n Peter Albin – bass guitar\n Sam Andrew – guitar, vocals\n David Getz – drums\nJames Gurley – guitar, vocals\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n \n\n1967 debut albums\nBig Brother and the Holding Company albums\nAlbums produced by Bob Shad\nMainstream Records albums"
]
|
|
[
"Public Enemy (band)",
"Mainstream success (1987-1994)",
"What mainstream success did the band have?",
"Nation of Millions... was the first hip hop album to be voted album of the year in The Village Voice's influential Pazz & Jop critics' poll."
]
| C_5f538def651c4ca184396d5fc3197ebe_0 | What hit singles did the album had? | 2 | What hit singles did Nation of Millions have? | Public Enemy (band) | Their debut album, Yo! Bum Rush the Show, was released in 1987 to critical acclaim. The album was the group's first step toward stardom. In October 1987, music critic Simon Reynolds dubbed Public Enemy "a superlative rock band". They released their second album It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back in 1988, which performed better in the charts than their previous release, and included the hit single "Don't Believe the Hype" in addition to "Bring the Noise". Nation of Millions... was the first hip hop album to be voted album of the year in The Village Voice's influential Pazz & Jop critics' poll. In 1989, the group returned to the studio to record Fear of a Black Planet, which continued their politically charged themes. The album was supposed to be released in late 1989, but was pushed back to April 1990. It was the most successful of any of their albums and, in 2005, was selected for preservation in the Library of Congress. It included the singles "Welcome To The Terrordome", "911 Is a Joke", which criticized emergency response units for taking longer to arrive at emergencies in the black community than those in the white community, and "Fight the Power". "Fight the Power" is regarded as one of the most popular and influential songs in hip hop history. It was the theme song of Spike Lee's Do the Right Thing. The group's next release, Apocalypse '91...The Enemy Strikes Black, continued this trend, with songs like "Can't Truss It", which addressed the history of slavery and how the black community can fight back against oppression; "I Don't Wanna be Called Yo Nigga", a track that takes issue with the use of the word nigga outside of its original derogatory context. The album also included the controversial song and video "By the Time I Get to Arizona", which chronicled the black community's frustration that some US states did not recognize Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday as a national holiday. The video featured members of Public Enemy taking out their frustrations on politicians in the states not recognizing the holiday. In 1992, the group was one of the first rap acts to perform at the Reading Festival, in England, headlining the second day of the three-day festival. CANNOTANSWER | Can't Truss It | false | [
"Instant Pleasure is Rockell's second album, released on October 10, 2000, on Robbins Entertainment. It is more pop oriented than her debut and was mostly produced by Tony Moran and Hex Hector. The album features the hit singles \"What U Did 2 Me\", \"Tears\" and \"The Dance\".\n\nTrack listing\n\nChart positions\nSingles - Billboard (North America)\n\n2000 albums\nRockell albums",
"American music artist Marvin Gaye released 25 studio albums, four live albums, one soundtrack album, 24 compilation albums, and 83 singles. In 1961 Gaye signed a recording contract with Tamla Records, owned by Motown. The first release under the label was The Soulful Moods of Marvin Gaye. Gaye's first album to chart was a duet album with Mary Wells titled Together, peaking at number forty-two on the Billboard pop album chart. His 1965 album, Moods of Marvin Gaye, became his first album to reach the top ten of the R&B album charts and spawned four hit singles. Gaye recorded more than thirty hit singles for Motown throughout the 1960s, becoming established as \"the Prince of Motown\". Gaye topped the charts in 1968 with his rendition of \"I Heard It Through the Grapevine\", while his 1969 album, M.P.G., became his first number one R&B album. Gaye's landmark album, 1971's What's Going On became the first album by a solo artist to launch three top ten singles, including the title track. His 1973 single, \"Let's Get It On\", topped the charts while its subsequent album reached number two on the charts becoming his most successful Motown album to date. In 1982, after 21 years with Motown, Gaye signed with Columbia Records and issued Midnight Love, which included his most successful single to date, \"Sexual Healing\". Following his death in 1984, three albums were released posthumously while some of Gaye's landmark works were re-issued.\n\nGaye recorded sixty seven charted singles on the Billboard charts, with forty-one reaching the top forty, eighteen reaching the top ten and three peaking at number one on the Billboard Hot 100. Sixty of his singles reached the top forty of the R&B charts, with thirty-eight of those reaching the top ten and thirteen peaking at number one. Gaye also had success in international charts, his biggest success in sales and chart positions peaking in the UK while achieving modest success in other countries.\n\nStudio albums\n\n1960s\n\n1970–1984\n\nPosthumous\n\nCollaborative albums\n\nSoundtrack albums\n\nLive albums\n\nCompilation albums\nThere has been over 300 official and unofficial compilation albums released across the world for Marvin Gaye. Below is a selected discography of compilation albums with chart history.\n\n1960s–1970s\n\n1980s–1990s\n\n2000-present\n\nSingles\n\n1960s\n\n1970–1984\n\nPosthumous\n\nBillboard Year-End performances\n\nFootnotes\n What's Going On did not chart in Ireland until 2006.\n What's Going On did not chart in the UK until 1996.\n With Mary Wells.\n With Kim Weston.\n With Tammi Terrell.\n By Gladys Knight & the Pips.\n \"What's Going On\" did not chart in The UK until 1983.\n With Diana Ross.\n With Diana Ross, Smokey Robinson and Stevie Wonder.\n \"A Funky Space Reincarnation\" peaked at #8 on the Bubbling Under Hot 100 chart.\n \"Sanctified Lady\" peaked at #1 on the Bubbling Under Hot 100 chart.\n Erick Sermon featuring Marvin Gaye.\n By Cha Cha.\n Erick Sermon featuring LL Cool J and Scarface.\n By The Temptations.\n\nMusic videos\n\nOther appearances\n\nNotes\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n Marvin Gaye – The Early Years: a detailed list of singles released by Marvin Gaye in the mid-to-late-1950s\n Marvin Gaye – US singles: 1961–1990\n Marvin Gaye – US albums: 1961–1985\n\nRhythm and blues discographies\nDiscography\nDiscographies of American artists\nSoul music discographies",
"House of Lords is the fourth album by Lords of the Underground, their first album in eight years. The album was released on August 21, 2007 for Affluent Records and was produced by Marley Marl, K-Def and DJ Lord Jazz. Like the group's previous album Resurrection the album received very little promotion and was a commercial failure, and it did not make it to the Billboard charts nor did it produce any hit singles.\n\nTrack listing\n\"Intro\"- 0:44\n\"I Love Hip Hop\"- 3:14\n\"Fab 3\"- 3:22\n\"English Mami\"- 3:38\n\"Yes Were Fresh\"- 3:20\n\"Belly of the Beast\"- 3:53\n\"Hum It Out\"- 3:22\n\"Slick Talk\"- 3:25\n\"Say My Name\"- 3:54\n\"No Pass\"- 2:37\n\"To Love Me\"- 4:02\n\"The Clinic\"- 3:32\n\"Certified\"- 2:47\n\"What Yall Wanna Know\"- 3:26\n\"What Is an MC\"- 3:21\n\"Remember Me\"- 3:39\n\nLords of the Underground albums\n2007 albums"
]
|
|
[
"Public Enemy (band)",
"Mainstream success (1987-1994)",
"What mainstream success did the band have?",
"Nation of Millions... was the first hip hop album to be voted album of the year in The Village Voice's influential Pazz & Jop critics' poll.",
"What hit singles did the album had?",
"Can't Truss It"
]
| C_5f538def651c4ca184396d5fc3197ebe_0 | Did the album had any other singles? | 3 | Other than 'Can't Truss It', did the album have any other singles? | Public Enemy (band) | Their debut album, Yo! Bum Rush the Show, was released in 1987 to critical acclaim. The album was the group's first step toward stardom. In October 1987, music critic Simon Reynolds dubbed Public Enemy "a superlative rock band". They released their second album It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back in 1988, which performed better in the charts than their previous release, and included the hit single "Don't Believe the Hype" in addition to "Bring the Noise". Nation of Millions... was the first hip hop album to be voted album of the year in The Village Voice's influential Pazz & Jop critics' poll. In 1989, the group returned to the studio to record Fear of a Black Planet, which continued their politically charged themes. The album was supposed to be released in late 1989, but was pushed back to April 1990. It was the most successful of any of their albums and, in 2005, was selected for preservation in the Library of Congress. It included the singles "Welcome To The Terrordome", "911 Is a Joke", which criticized emergency response units for taking longer to arrive at emergencies in the black community than those in the white community, and "Fight the Power". "Fight the Power" is regarded as one of the most popular and influential songs in hip hop history. It was the theme song of Spike Lee's Do the Right Thing. The group's next release, Apocalypse '91...The Enemy Strikes Black, continued this trend, with songs like "Can't Truss It", which addressed the history of slavery and how the black community can fight back against oppression; "I Don't Wanna be Called Yo Nigga", a track that takes issue with the use of the word nigga outside of its original derogatory context. The album also included the controversial song and video "By the Time I Get to Arizona", which chronicled the black community's frustration that some US states did not recognize Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday as a national holiday. The video featured members of Public Enemy taking out their frustrations on politicians in the states not recognizing the holiday. In 1992, the group was one of the first rap acts to perform at the Reading Festival, in England, headlining the second day of the three-day festival. CANNOTANSWER | By the Time I Get to Arizona | false | [
"\"I've Had It\" is a song written by Carl Bonura and Ray Ceroni and performed by The Bell Notes.\n\nChart performance\n\"I've Had It\" reached #6 on the U.S. pop chart and #19 on the U.S. R&B chart in 1959.\nThe song was ranked #62 on Billboard's Year-End Hot 100 singles of 1959.\n\nOther charting versions\nLonnie Mack released a version of the song which reached #128 on the U.S. pop chart in 1964.\nFanny released a version of the song which reached #79 on the U.S. pop chart in 1974.\n\nOther versions\nThe Starlets released a version of the song as a single in 1965, but it did not chart.\nAlex Chilton released a version of the song on his 1979 album Like Flies on Sherbert.\nLouise Goffin released a version of the song as a single in 1981, but it did not chart.\nGene Summers released a version of the song on his 1993 compilation album School of Rock 'n Roll.\nThe Slades released a version of the song on the 1998 various artist album The Domino Records Story.\nThe Mojo Men released a version of the song on their 2008 compilation album Not Too Old to Start Cryin': The Lost 1966 Masters.\nFabulous Poodles released a version of the song on their 2018 compilation album Mirror Stars: The Complete Pye Recordings 1976-1980.\n\nReferences\n\n1958 songs\n1958 singles\n1964 singles\n1965 singles\n1974 singles\n1981 singles\nFraternity Records singles\nCasablanca Records singles\nAsylum Records singles",
"American rock band The Rapture has released four studio albums, two extended plays, and thirteen singles.\n\nThe band first released their mini-album Mirror in 1999 under Gravity Records. This project did not chart in any countries. In 2002, the band released the song \"House of Jealous Lovers\", which originally didn't chart in any countries, but due to a re-recorded re-release of the song in 2003, it peaked at 27 on the UK Singles Chart. Later that year, the Rapture released their debut full-length studio album Echoes under DFA Records. After parting ways with the DFA, the band released their second full-length studio album, titled Pieces of the People We Love, in 2006. After a short hiatus, the band signed with DFA again and released In the Grace of Your Love in 2011. The Rapture officially disbanded in 2014.\n\nAlbums\n\nStudio albums\n\nMini-album\n\nExtended plays\n\nSingles\n\nSplit singles\n\nMusic videos\n\nOther appearances\n\nReferences\n\nDiscographies of American artists\nRock music group discographies",
"Donna Cruz Sings Her Greatest Hits is the second compilation album by the Filipino singer Donna Cruz, released in the Philippines in 2001 by Viva Records. The album was Cruz's first album not to receive a PARI certification; all of her studio albums and a previous compilation album, The Best of Donna, were certified either gold or platinum. Though it was labeled as a greatest hits compilation, several songs on the track listing had not been released as singles, and some of Cruz's singles did not appear on the album.\n\nBackground\nReleased during Cruz's break from the entertainment industry, Donna Cruz Sings Her Greatest Hits did not include any newly recorded material. Cruz's version of \"Jubilee Song\", which was not found on any of Cruz's albums (as she never recorded studio albums after Hulog Ng Langit in 1999) was included. It was seen as an updated version of Cruz's greatest hits as it included her latest singles \"Hulog ng Langit\" and \"Ikaw Pala 'Yon\".\n\nTrack listing\n\nReferences\n\n2001 compilation albums\nViva Records (Philippines) compilation albums\nDonna Cruz albums"
]
|
|
[
"Public Enemy (band)",
"Mainstream success (1987-1994)",
"What mainstream success did the band have?",
"Nation of Millions... was the first hip hop album to be voted album of the year in The Village Voice's influential Pazz & Jop critics' poll.",
"What hit singles did the album had?",
"Can't Truss It",
"Did the album had any other singles?",
"By the Time I Get to Arizona"
]
| C_5f538def651c4ca184396d5fc3197ebe_0 | Are there any other interesting aspects about this article? | 4 | In addition to the singles from Nation of Millions, are there any other interesting aspects about this article? | Public Enemy (band) | Their debut album, Yo! Bum Rush the Show, was released in 1987 to critical acclaim. The album was the group's first step toward stardom. In October 1987, music critic Simon Reynolds dubbed Public Enemy "a superlative rock band". They released their second album It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back in 1988, which performed better in the charts than their previous release, and included the hit single "Don't Believe the Hype" in addition to "Bring the Noise". Nation of Millions... was the first hip hop album to be voted album of the year in The Village Voice's influential Pazz & Jop critics' poll. In 1989, the group returned to the studio to record Fear of a Black Planet, which continued their politically charged themes. The album was supposed to be released in late 1989, but was pushed back to April 1990. It was the most successful of any of their albums and, in 2005, was selected for preservation in the Library of Congress. It included the singles "Welcome To The Terrordome", "911 Is a Joke", which criticized emergency response units for taking longer to arrive at emergencies in the black community than those in the white community, and "Fight the Power". "Fight the Power" is regarded as one of the most popular and influential songs in hip hop history. It was the theme song of Spike Lee's Do the Right Thing. The group's next release, Apocalypse '91...The Enemy Strikes Black, continued this trend, with songs like "Can't Truss It", which addressed the history of slavery and how the black community can fight back against oppression; "I Don't Wanna be Called Yo Nigga", a track that takes issue with the use of the word nigga outside of its original derogatory context. The album also included the controversial song and video "By the Time I Get to Arizona", which chronicled the black community's frustration that some US states did not recognize Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday as a national holiday. The video featured members of Public Enemy taking out their frustrations on politicians in the states not recognizing the holiday. In 1992, the group was one of the first rap acts to perform at the Reading Festival, in England, headlining the second day of the three-day festival. CANNOTANSWER | Fight the Power" is regarded as one of the most popular and influential songs in hip hop history. It was the theme song of Spike Lee's Do the Right Thing. | 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",
"This article is about the demographic features of the population of Saint Mary's, including population density, internet access, crime rate, and other aspects of the population.\n\nPopulation \nAccording to the 2011 census the population of Saint Mary was 7,341.\n\nOther demographics statistics (2011)\n\nCensus Data (2011)\n\nIndividual\n\nHousehold \nThere are 2,512 households in Saint Mary Parish.\n\nSee also\nDemographics of Antigua and Barbuda\n\nReferences\n\nAntigua and Barbuda Christians\nDemographics of Antigua and Barbuda"
]
|
|
[
"Lionel Conacher",
"Professional career"
]
| C_036f3202ece346f199d988e1cd657070_0 | Where did he play? | 1 | Where did Lionel Conacher play? | Lionel Conacher | Conacher scored the first goal in Pirates history on American Thanksgiving Day Thursday November 26, 1925, against the Boston Bruins. He scored nine goals in 33 games in 1925-26, then returned to Toronto to play professional baseball with the Toronto Maple Leafs. An outfielder on the team, Conacher and the Maple Leafs won the International League championship then defeated the Louisville Colonels to win the Little World Series. He returned to Pittsburgh for the 1926-27 NHL season, but was dealt early in the year to the New York Americans in exchange for Charlie Langlois and $2,000. The trade nearly proved disastrous for Conacher. He scored 8 goals in 1926-27 and improved to 11 in 1927-28, but playing for a team owned by notorious bootlegger Bill Dwyer resulted in his becoming a heavy drinker. Conacher served as player-coach in 1929-30, but his play and health had deteriorated. Two events in that off-season saved Conacher: he swore off alcohol completely upon the birth of his first child, and his playing rights were sold to the Montreal Maroons. Conacher periodically struggled with Montreal, and at one point was placed on waivers with no other team willing to take over his contract. Nonetheless, his overall play and point totals increased for three consecutive seasons with the Maroons, peaking at 28 points in 1932-33. He was named to the Second All-Star Team that season, but was traded to the Chicago Black Hawks in exchange for Teddy Graham. Conacher was a key figure in the club's first-ever Stanley Cup victory that season. He finished second to the Canadiens' Aurel Joliat in the voting for the Hart Trophy and earned a spot on the NHL's First All-Star Team. On Wednesday October 3, 1934, Conacher was involved in one of the largest transactions in league history. He was dealt to the Montreal Canadiens, along with Leroy Goldsworthy and Roger Jenkins in exchange for Montreal superstar Howie Morenz, Lorne Chabot and Marty Burke. The deal was only part of a series of trades involving four teams that represented one of the biggest deals in NHL history. Immediately following the Chicago trade, Conacher was sent back to the Maroons, along with Herb Cain, in exchange for the rights to Nelson Crutchfield. Conacher spent his last three NHL seasons with the Maroons and won his second Stanley Cup in 1935. He ended his hockey career after the team was eliminated from the playoffs by the New York Rangers on April 23, 1937. That final year he was runner-up to Babe Siebert in the 1937 Hart Trophy voting and was placed on the NHL Second All-Star Team. CANNOTANSWER | Conacher scored the first goal in Pirates history | Lionel Pretoria Conacher, MP (; May 24, 1900 – May 26, 1954), nicknamed "The Big Train", was a Canadian athlete and politician. Voted the country's top athlete of the first half of the 20th century, he won championships in numerous sports. His first passion was football; he was a member of the 1921 Grey Cup champion Toronto Argonauts. He was a member of the Toronto Maple Leafs baseball team that won the International League championship in 1926. In hockey, he won a Memorial Cup in 1920, and the Stanley Cup twice: with the Chicago Black Hawks in 1934 and the Montreal Maroons in 1935. Additionally, he won wrestling, boxing and lacrosse championships during his playing career. He is one of three players, including Joe Miller and Carl Voss, to have their names engraved on both the Grey Cup and Stanley Cup.
Conacher retired as an athlete in 1937 to enter politics. He won election to the Legislative Assembly of Ontario in 1937, and in 1949 won a seat in the House of Commons. Many of his political positions revolved around sports. He worked to eliminate corruption in boxing while serving as a Member of Provincial Parliament (MPP) in Ontario, also serving as the chairman of the Ontario Athletic Commission. Additionally, he served a term as director of recreation and entertainment for the Royal Canadian Air Force. It was also on the sports field that Conacher died: He suffered a heart attack twenty minutes after hitting a triple in a softball game played on the lawn of Parliament Hill.
Numerous organizations have honoured Conacher's career. In addition to being named Canada's athlete of the half-century, he was named the country's top football player over the same period. He was inducted into Canada's Sports Hall of Fame in 1955, the Canadian Football Hall of Fame in 1964, the Canadian Lacrosse Hall of Fame in 1965, the Hockey Hall of Fame in 1994, and the Ontario Sports Hall of Fame in 1996. Additionally, the Canadian Press gives the Lionel Conacher Award to its male athlete of the year.
Early life
Conacher was born in Toronto, Ontario on May 24, 1901. His middle name was given after the South African city of Pretoria, where British troops were fighting the Boer War at the time of his birth. He was the eldest son of Benjamin and Elizabeth Conacher, and the third of ten children overall. He had four brothers and five sisters. The family grew up in the neighbourhood of Davenport, which his brother Charlie described as "one of Toronto's higher class slums".
His father was a teamster, and struggled to earn enough money to support the family. In the winter, he ploughed the snow off outdoor skating rinks to earn additional money. Conacher left school after the eighth grade to go to work and help support his siblings. For ten hours a day, he hauled sod, earning an extra dollar a week for his family.
All ten children were encouraged to participate in sports by the principal of Jesse Ketchum School, who felt that such pursuits would keep his students from getting into trouble. Conacher discovered that he was among the better players in any sport he tried, and quickly became a star at Canadian football, ice hockey and lacrosse. He realized his athletic ability could offer an escape from poverty.
Amateur career
Conacher was a prolific athlete, excelling in numerous sports at the same time. He played with 14 different teams during his teenage years, winning 11 championships. He was 16 years old when he won the Ontario lightweight wrestling championship, and at 20 won the Canadian amateur light-heavyweight boxing championship. In 1921, he fought, and was knocked out by heavyweight champion Jack Dempsey in an exhibition match. One year he famously hit a triple to win the Toronto city baseball championship, then rushed to the other side of the city to find his lacrosse team trailing 3–0 in the Ontario provincial final. He scored four goals and an assist to lead them to a comeback victory.
Football
Rugby football was the first sport Conacher played, and it was his favourite. He first played organized football at the age of 12 as a middle wing with the Capitals in the Toronto Rugby Football League. He played four seasons with the team between 1912 and 1915, during which the Capitals won the city championship each year. He won the Ontario championship as a junior with the Toronto Central YMCA in 1918, and in 1919 moved up to the intermediate level. With the intermediate Capitals, he was moved into an offensive role as a halfback. He excelled in the role, and his team reached Ontario Rugby Football Union (ORFU) final. In that final, the Capitals' opponents from Sarnia made stopping Conacher their priority, a strategy that proved the difference as Sarnia won the championship.
Conacher moved to the senior level in 1920 with the Toronto Rugby Club where his team again won the ORFU championship, but lost the eastern semifinal to the Toronto Argonauts of the Interprovincial Rugby Football Union (IRFU). His play impressed the Argonauts, who signed him for the 1921 season. In his first game with the Argonauts, he scored 23 of the team's 27 points, and led the IRFU in scoring, accounting for 14 touchdowns and 90 of his team's 167 points as they went undefeated in six games. The Argonauts won the eastern championship, and faced the Edmonton Eskimos (renamed Edmonton 'Elks' in 1922) in the first east–west Grey Cup championship in Canadian history. Conacher rushed for 211 yards and scored 15 points in Toronto's 23–0 victory to claim the national title.
Named captain in 1922, Conacher led the Argonauts to another undefeated season in IRFU play, finishing with five wins and one tie, as he rushed for about 950 yards. The Argonauts reached the Eastern final, but lost to Queen's University, 12–11. In that game, Conacher was the entire Argonaut offense rushing 35 times for 227 yards but Pep Leadley's 21 yard field goal towards the end of the game gave Queens' its victory.
Ice hockey
The expense of playing hockey initially kept Conacher off the ice. He did not learn to skate until he was 16. Consequently, hockey was among his weakest sports. He played with the Toronto Century Rovers, and then the Aura Lee Athletic Club, but saw limited ice time. Determined to improve his game, he closely watched the top players from the bench and sought to emulate what made them successful. His efforts paid off, and by 1918–19, was considered a star defenceman for Aura Lee. He joined the Toronto Canoe Club Paddlers, a team of all-star calibre players in 1919–20, and with them won the Memorial Cup, Canada's national junior championship. Conacher then returned to the Aura Lees to play for their senior team for two years.
National Hockey League (NHL) teams took notice of Conacher's ability. The Toronto St. Pats offered him $3,000 a season – three times the average salary – to play for them in 1920–21, while in 1921, the Montreal Canadiens offered $5,000 and support setting up a business. He turned both down as he was not yet willing to surrender his status as an amateur athlete. His decisions to refuse the offers led to speculation that he was being paid under the table. He and Billy Burch were accused of deliberately throwing a game in 1922, but were absolved of guilt by the Amateur Athletic Union of Canada.
Move to Pittsburgh
Conacher remained in senior hockey and while playing for the North Toronto Seniors in 1923, was a part of the first hockey game ever broadcast on radio. That summer, he received an offer from Roy Schooley, the manager of the Duquesne Gardens and owner of the Pittsburgh Yellow Jackets of the United States Amateur Hockey Association (USAHA), to play for his team. While he would retain his amateur status, Schooley set Conacher up with a job in the insurance business and paid his university tuition so that he could improve his education. He brought many of his teammates with him to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, all of whom received jobs in the community, and he attended school at Bellefonte Academy for a year before enrolling at Duquesne University.
He played football for both schools in the fall, and served as the Yellow Jackets' captain in the winter where he led the team to consecutive USAHA titles in 1924 and 1925. In the summers, Conacher returned to Toronto and played lacrosse and baseball. The Yellow Jackets turned professional in 1925 when they were renamed the Pittsburgh Pirates and joined the National Hockey League (NHL). Conacher finally chose to turn professional with the team, a decision that surprised fans and teammates in Toronto, who knew of his favourtism for the game of football.
Professional career
Conacher scored the first goal in Pirates history on American Thanksgiving Day Thursday November 26, 1925, against the Boston Bruins. He scored nine goals in 33 games in , then returned to Toronto to play professional baseball with the Toronto Maple Leafs. An outfielder on the team, Conacher and the Maple Leafs won the International League championship then defeated the Louisville Colonels to win the Little World Series.
He returned to Pittsburgh for the NHL season, but was dealt early in the year to the New York Americans in exchange for Charlie Langlois and $2,000. The trade nearly proved disastrous for Conacher. He scored 8 goals in and improved to 11 in , but playing for a team owned by notorious bootlegger Bill Dwyer resulted in his becoming a heavy drinker. Conacher served as player-coach in , but his play and health had deteriorated. Two events in that off-season saved Conacher: he swore off alcohol completely upon the birth of his first child, and his playing rights were sold to the Montreal Maroons.
Conacher periodically struggled with Montreal, and at one point was placed on waivers with no other team willing to take over his contract. Nonetheless, his overall play and point totals increased for three consecutive seasons with the Maroons, peaking at 28 points in . He was named to the Second All-Star Team that season, but was traded to the Chicago Black Hawks in exchange for Teddy Graham. Conacher was a key figure in the club's first-ever Stanley Cup victory that season. He finished second to the Canadiens' Aurel Joliat in the voting for the Hart Trophy and earned a spot on the NHL's First All-Star Team.
On Wednesday October 3, 1934, Conacher was involved in one of the largest transactions in league history. He was dealt to the Montreal Canadiens, along with Leroy Goldsworthy and Roger Jenkins in exchange for Montreal superstar Howie Morenz, Lorne Chabot and Marty Burke. The deal was only part of a series of trades involving four teams that represented one of the biggest deals in NHL history. Immediately following the Chicago trade, Conacher was sent back to the Maroons, along with Herb Cain, in exchange for the rights to Nelson Crutchfield. Conacher spent his last three NHL seasons with the Maroons and won his second Stanley Cup in 1935. He ended his hockey career after the team was eliminated from the playoffs by the New York Rangers on April 23, 1937. That final year he was runner-up to Babe Siebert in the 1937 Hart Trophy voting and was placed on the NHL Second All-Star Team.
Canadian professional football
Conacher had not played competitive football since turning professional. At one point he was offered a position as coach of the Montreal AAA Winged Wheelers, but disappointed the Interprovincial Rugby Football Union club when he turned down the job due to his other commitments. He was not absent the game long, however, as Conacher returned to football in 1933. He was part of an effort to launch a new professional league that would feature both Canadian and American teams. The league never came to fruition, but Conacher organized what became the first professional football team in Canada. He captained the team, based out of Toronto, which was known as the Crosse and Blackwell Chefs following a sponsorship with a local food products company. Conacher recruited former amateur players who had likewise left the sport in favour of paying jobs in other pro sports, including his brother Charlie.
The first game was held Thanksgiving Day in 1933, an exhibition contest against the Rochester Arpeakos. A crowd of 10,000 attended the game to watch Conacher play his first competitive football game in Canada in ten years. He did not disappoint, scoring two touchdowns and setting up a third for the Chefs, and was hailed as the game's star despite an 18–15 loss. Toronto lost a return match in Rochester, but in the third and final game of their season, the Chefs defeated a team from Buffalo at Toronto by a score of 18–0. Conacher was again the star, rushing for two touchdowns and scoring 13 of his team's points. He organized the team for a second year in 1934, known as the Wrigley Aromints due to new sponsorship, and again played an exhibition schedule as the team remained unaffiliated with any league. The team again played three games, winning all three. However, at the age of 34 years, Conacher found that the game was too hard on his body physically, and neither he nor his team returned for a third season.
Lacrosse
Led by the owners of the Montreal Canadiens, the arena operators of Canada's NHL teams invented the sport of box lacrosse in 1931 in a bid to fill arena dates in the summer. The field variant of the sport had been in decline in Canada as the popularity of baseball and football grew, and it was hoped that lacrosse played in the confines of a hockey rink would create a faster, more exciting game. A summer professional circuit, the International Professional Lacrosse League was created with representative teams of the Montreal Maroons, Montreal Canadiens, Toronto Maple Leafs and an entry from Cornwall, Ontario. Several NHL players who had played the field game before abandoning it to turn professional in hockey signed with the teams, including Conacher, who joined the Maroons. The Maroons' inaugural game came against the Maple Leafs, and though Toronto won 9–7, Conacher stole the spotlight from the victors. He scored six of Montreal's goals, assisted on the seventh, and earned the praise of his fellow players. When the Maroons went to Toronto, the Maple Leafs hosted a "Lionel Conacher Night" to celebrate the city's native son. The Maroons did not figure into the playoff for the championship, but Conacher led the league in scoring with 107 points. His dominance in the league was such that his total nearly doubled his nearest rival, who finished with 56 points. In one game, against Toronto, he scored ten goals in a 17–12 victory. He chose not to return to lacrosse for the 1932 season, choosing instead to sign a contract to wrestle professionally during the hockey off-seasons.
Political career
Bracondale
When Conacher retired from professional hockey, he ran as a Liberal in the 1937 Ontario general election. He was elected as a Member of Provincial Parliament (MPP) representing the Toronto Bracondale electoral district in the Ontario Legislative Assembly, defeating the district's incumbent, Conservative Arthur Russell Nesbitt. Bracondale had a colourful electoral past, and this election night was no different. The October 6 election was a very close race between Nesbitt and Conacher.
Conacher represented Bracondale from October 6, 1937, until June 30, 1943, when the Legislature was dissolved for the 1943 Ontario general election. He was challenged for the Liberal nomination in Bracondale by Toronto city alderman E. C. Bogart. Bogart won and then lost the seat to the Co-operative Commwealth's Rae Luckock a few weeks later.
Conacher also served as the sports director for the Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF) during World War II. He and Canadian Amateur Hockey Association past-president George Dudley, announced plans for military teams based at all RCAF commands across Canada to play in senior ice hockey leagues.
Trinity
In the 1945 Canadian general election, Conacher represented the Liberal Party of Canada for a seat in the House of Commons of Canada, where he came second in Toronto's Trinity electoral district, losing to the Progressive Conservative incumbent. He ran again in Trinity for the Liberals in the 1949 Canadian general election, and this time he was elected. He was re-elected for a final time in the 1953 election.
In the spring of 1954 Conacher was in Ottawa attending to his parliamentary duties when he was asked to play in the annual softball game between MPs and members of the parliamentary press gallery. On May 26, in the sixth inning, in his last at-bat-ever, he hit a long drive into left field, stretching a single into a triple, when he sprinted to third base. He stood, breathing heavily and then collapsed face-first from having been hit in the head with a pitch in an earlier inning. One of the other MPs was a doctor who tried to assist him, but there was little that could be done for Conacher and within twenty minutes he was pronounced dead. The next day Conacher was supposed to attend his daughter's graduation from the University of Toronto. A big funeral was held, and his brother Charlie flew in from England to be there. He was buried at St. Johns York Mills Anglican Church Cemetery in Toronto.
Awards
He was named Canada's Greatest Male Athlete of the Half-Century (1950). In 1981 the Pro Football Researchers Association called Conacher "Canada's Answer to Jim Thorpe". He is a member of the Canadian Sports Hall of Fame (1955), the Canadian Football Hall of Fame (1963), the Canadian Lacrosse Hall of Fame (1966), and Hockey Hall of Fame (1994). The award for the Canadian Press Canadian male athlete of the year is called the Lionel Conacher Award.
Family
Conacher's younger brothers, Charlie Conacher, and Roy Conacher, were also Hall of Fame hockey players. His namesake, Lionel Jr., was a first round draft pick in 1960 and played a season with the Montreal Alouettes of the Canadian Football League. His son Brian Conacher represented Canada at the 1964 Winter Olympics and played for the Toronto Maple Leafs of the National Hockey League, winning a Stanley Cup with them in 1966–67 NHL season. Pete Conacher, Lionel's nephew and the son of Charlie, also played in the NHL, as did another nephew of Lionel's, Murray Henderson, who was the son of Lionel's sister Catherine. Current NHL player Cory Conacher is also a distant relative of Lionel's.
Career statistics
Ice hockey
* Stanley Cup Champion.
NHL coaching record
See also
List of Canadian sports personalities
References
Citations
Bibliography
External links
History by the Minute Video
Lionel Conacher, Greatest Sporting Moments, Virtual Museum of Canada Exhibit
1900 births
1954 deaths
Baseball people from Ontario
Canadian baseball players
Canadian Football Hall of Fame inductees
Canadian football punters
Canadian football running backs
Canadian ice hockey coaches
Canadian ice hockey defencemen
Canadian lacrosse players
Canadian people of Scottish descent
Canadian male boxers
Canadian male sport wrestlers
Canadian sportsperson-politicians
Chicago Blackhawks players
Duquesne Dukes football players
Hockey Hall of Fame inductees
Ice hockey people from Ontario
Ice hockey player-coaches
Liberal Party of Canada MPs
Members of the House of Commons of Canada from Ontario
Memorial Cup winners
Montreal Maroons players
New York Americans coaches
New York Americans players
Ontario Liberal Party MPPs
Persons of National Historic Significance (Canada)
Pittsburgh Pirates (NHL) players
Pittsburgh Yellow Jackets (USAHA) players
Players of Canadian football from Ontario
Politicians from Toronto
Royal Canadian Air Force officers
Royal Canadian Air Force personnel of World War II
Sportspeople from Toronto
Stanley Cup champions
Toronto Argonauts players
Toronto Maple Leafs (International League) players | true | [
"Michael Patrick (born September 9, 1944) is a retired American sportscaster, known for his long tenure with ESPN.\n\nEarly career\nPatrick began his broadcasting career in the fall of 1966 at WVSC-Radio in Somerset, Pennsylvania. In 1970, he was named Sports Director at WJXT-TV in Jacksonville, Florida, where he provided play-by-play for Jacksonville Sharks' World Football League (WFL) telecasts (1973–74). He also called Jacksonville University basketball games on both radio and television.\n\nFrom 1975 until 1982, he worked for WJLA-TV as a sports reporter and weekend anchor. During this period, Patrick also did play-by-play for Maryland Terrapins football and basketball broadcasts as well as pre-season games for the Washington Football Team when WJLA had the TV rights to broadcast those games.\n\nESPN\n\nBeginning in 1982, Patrick worked for ESPN, where he is best known for his role as play-by-play announcer on the network's Sunday Night Football telecasts, with Paul Maguire and Joe Theismann from 1987–2005. Patrick was briefly replaced in 2004 by Pat Summerall, while he recovered from heart bypass surgery.\n\nHe has also called college football, men's and women's college basketball, and the College World Series for the network, as well as several NFL playoff games for ABC Sports while the network held the Monday Night Football television package.\n\nIn 2006, Patrick became the lead play-by-play announcer for ESPN on College Football Primetime, along with Todd Blackledge and field reporter Holly Rowe. In July 2009, ESPN announced that Patrick would begin calling Saturday afternoon ESPN/ABC college football for the 2009 college football season, which he did through 2017.\n\nIn addition, Patrick called the NCAA Women's Division I Basketball Championship from 1996 through 2009 and the College World Series in Omaha, Nebraska from 2003 until 2014.\n\nOn February 21, 2018, Patrick retired from ESPN after 35 years with the network.\n\nNon ESPN-related assignments\n\nPatrick also did play-by-play of Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) football and basketball games for Jefferson-Pilot (now Lincoln Financial Sports) between 1984 and 1986.\n\nPatrick is the play-by-play man for MVP 06: NCAA Baseball as well as MVP 07: NCAA Baseball.\n\nFor 2015, 2016 and 2017, Patrick did play-by-play for the Cleveland Browns preseason football games.\n\nPatrick resides in northern Virginia with his wife, Janet.\n\nReferences\n\n1944 births\nLiving people\nAmerican television sports announcers\nCollege baseball announcers in the United States\nWomen's college basketball announcers in the United States\nCollege basketball announcers in the United States\nCollege football announcers\nGeorge Washington University alumni\nMaryland Terrapins men's basketball announcers\nMaryland Terrapins football announcers\nNational Football League announcers\nPeople from Clarksburg, West Virginia\nWorld Football League announcers\nJournalists from West Virginia\nTelevision anchors from Jacksonville, Florida",
"Bryan Hall (born August 19, 1934) nicknamed \"Hallsy\", is a Canadian radio and television personality and retired radio play-by-play broadcaster for the Edmonton Eskimos on 630 CHED in Edmonton, Alberta.\n\nCareer\nHall was born on August 19, 1934 in Toronto, Ontario. His father was a lawyer, who died when Hall was 9, and his mother a nurse. Hall got his first broadcasting job at the age of 19, after moving to Edmonton, at CKUA where he did news, a jazz show, and sports. At the suggestion of a columnist for the Edmonton Journal, Hall also took up a vacant sportscaster job at CHED, which he held from 1955 to 1962. In 1962, Hall moved to Toronto to take up a job covering sports with CHUM, but quickly moved back to Edmonton 3 years later, this time, back to CJCA, where he did play-by-play for the CFL's Edmonton Eskimos with the network from 1965 to 1993. During his time with CJCA, he also pioneered the first open-line sports talk radio show in Edmonton. In the decade of the 70s, Hall worked as a racetrack announcer at Edmonton Northlands Park calling over 10,000 thoroughbred races. When CJCA ceased broadcasting operations in 1993, Hall moved back to CHED to take up the position of sports director - continuing to do play-by-play of Edmonton Eskimos games until 2009.\nAfter 45 years of play-by-play for Edmonton Eskimos games, Hall retired in 2009. During his play-by-play career, he also did play-by-play for the Edmonton Oilers, Edmonton Oil Kings, and Edmonton Flyers. The media centre, The Bryan Hall Media Centre, in Commonwealth Stadium was named after Hall when he retired in 2009. Though retired from doing play-by-play, Hall, in his 65th year of broadcasting, currently does 14 daily shows in the morning on CHED, I News and Global Television. Hall is also known for doing radio advertisements on CHED for local Christenson Developments, Crosstown Motors, and Lay-z-boy Furniture He was inducted into the Canadian Football Hall of Fame in 1989, and the Alberta Sports Hall of Fame in 2004.\n\nBroadcasting positions\nCKUA - 1953–55\nCHED - 1955–62\nCHUM - 1962–65\nCJCA - 1965–93\nCHED - 1993–current\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n\n1934 births\nLiving people\nAlberta Sports Hall of Fame inductees\nCanadian Football Hall of Fame inductees\nCanadian Football League announcers\nCanadian radio sportscasters\nEdmonton Elks personnel\nEdmonton Oilers announcers\nSportspeople from Toronto\nWorld Hockey Association broadcasters"
]
|
[
"Lionel Conacher",
"Professional career",
"Where did he play?",
"Conacher scored the first goal in Pirates history"
]
| C_036f3202ece346f199d988e1cd657070_0 | Where did he play? | 2 | Where did Lionel Conacher play? | Lionel Conacher | Conacher scored the first goal in Pirates history on American Thanksgiving Day Thursday November 26, 1925, against the Boston Bruins. He scored nine goals in 33 games in 1925-26, then returned to Toronto to play professional baseball with the Toronto Maple Leafs. An outfielder on the team, Conacher and the Maple Leafs won the International League championship then defeated the Louisville Colonels to win the Little World Series. He returned to Pittsburgh for the 1926-27 NHL season, but was dealt early in the year to the New York Americans in exchange for Charlie Langlois and $2,000. The trade nearly proved disastrous for Conacher. He scored 8 goals in 1926-27 and improved to 11 in 1927-28, but playing for a team owned by notorious bootlegger Bill Dwyer resulted in his becoming a heavy drinker. Conacher served as player-coach in 1929-30, but his play and health had deteriorated. Two events in that off-season saved Conacher: he swore off alcohol completely upon the birth of his first child, and his playing rights were sold to the Montreal Maroons. Conacher periodically struggled with Montreal, and at one point was placed on waivers with no other team willing to take over his contract. Nonetheless, his overall play and point totals increased for three consecutive seasons with the Maroons, peaking at 28 points in 1932-33. He was named to the Second All-Star Team that season, but was traded to the Chicago Black Hawks in exchange for Teddy Graham. Conacher was a key figure in the club's first-ever Stanley Cup victory that season. He finished second to the Canadiens' Aurel Joliat in the voting for the Hart Trophy and earned a spot on the NHL's First All-Star Team. On Wednesday October 3, 1934, Conacher was involved in one of the largest transactions in league history. He was dealt to the Montreal Canadiens, along with Leroy Goldsworthy and Roger Jenkins in exchange for Montreal superstar Howie Morenz, Lorne Chabot and Marty Burke. The deal was only part of a series of trades involving four teams that represented one of the biggest deals in NHL history. Immediately following the Chicago trade, Conacher was sent back to the Maroons, along with Herb Cain, in exchange for the rights to Nelson Crutchfield. Conacher spent his last three NHL seasons with the Maroons and won his second Stanley Cup in 1935. He ended his hockey career after the team was eliminated from the playoffs by the New York Rangers on April 23, 1937. That final year he was runner-up to Babe Siebert in the 1937 Hart Trophy voting and was placed on the NHL Second All-Star Team. CANNOTANSWER | Conacher scored the first goal in Pirates history | Lionel Pretoria Conacher, MP (; May 24, 1900 – May 26, 1954), nicknamed "The Big Train", was a Canadian athlete and politician. Voted the country's top athlete of the first half of the 20th century, he won championships in numerous sports. His first passion was football; he was a member of the 1921 Grey Cup champion Toronto Argonauts. He was a member of the Toronto Maple Leafs baseball team that won the International League championship in 1926. In hockey, he won a Memorial Cup in 1920, and the Stanley Cup twice: with the Chicago Black Hawks in 1934 and the Montreal Maroons in 1935. Additionally, he won wrestling, boxing and lacrosse championships during his playing career. He is one of three players, including Joe Miller and Carl Voss, to have their names engraved on both the Grey Cup and Stanley Cup.
Conacher retired as an athlete in 1937 to enter politics. He won election to the Legislative Assembly of Ontario in 1937, and in 1949 won a seat in the House of Commons. Many of his political positions revolved around sports. He worked to eliminate corruption in boxing while serving as a Member of Provincial Parliament (MPP) in Ontario, also serving as the chairman of the Ontario Athletic Commission. Additionally, he served a term as director of recreation and entertainment for the Royal Canadian Air Force. It was also on the sports field that Conacher died: He suffered a heart attack twenty minutes after hitting a triple in a softball game played on the lawn of Parliament Hill.
Numerous organizations have honoured Conacher's career. In addition to being named Canada's athlete of the half-century, he was named the country's top football player over the same period. He was inducted into Canada's Sports Hall of Fame in 1955, the Canadian Football Hall of Fame in 1964, the Canadian Lacrosse Hall of Fame in 1965, the Hockey Hall of Fame in 1994, and the Ontario Sports Hall of Fame in 1996. Additionally, the Canadian Press gives the Lionel Conacher Award to its male athlete of the year.
Early life
Conacher was born in Toronto, Ontario on May 24, 1901. His middle name was given after the South African city of Pretoria, where British troops were fighting the Boer War at the time of his birth. He was the eldest son of Benjamin and Elizabeth Conacher, and the third of ten children overall. He had four brothers and five sisters. The family grew up in the neighbourhood of Davenport, which his brother Charlie described as "one of Toronto's higher class slums".
His father was a teamster, and struggled to earn enough money to support the family. In the winter, he ploughed the snow off outdoor skating rinks to earn additional money. Conacher left school after the eighth grade to go to work and help support his siblings. For ten hours a day, he hauled sod, earning an extra dollar a week for his family.
All ten children were encouraged to participate in sports by the principal of Jesse Ketchum School, who felt that such pursuits would keep his students from getting into trouble. Conacher discovered that he was among the better players in any sport he tried, and quickly became a star at Canadian football, ice hockey and lacrosse. He realized his athletic ability could offer an escape from poverty.
Amateur career
Conacher was a prolific athlete, excelling in numerous sports at the same time. He played with 14 different teams during his teenage years, winning 11 championships. He was 16 years old when he won the Ontario lightweight wrestling championship, and at 20 won the Canadian amateur light-heavyweight boxing championship. In 1921, he fought, and was knocked out by heavyweight champion Jack Dempsey in an exhibition match. One year he famously hit a triple to win the Toronto city baseball championship, then rushed to the other side of the city to find his lacrosse team trailing 3–0 in the Ontario provincial final. He scored four goals and an assist to lead them to a comeback victory.
Football
Rugby football was the first sport Conacher played, and it was his favourite. He first played organized football at the age of 12 as a middle wing with the Capitals in the Toronto Rugby Football League. He played four seasons with the team between 1912 and 1915, during which the Capitals won the city championship each year. He won the Ontario championship as a junior with the Toronto Central YMCA in 1918, and in 1919 moved up to the intermediate level. With the intermediate Capitals, he was moved into an offensive role as a halfback. He excelled in the role, and his team reached Ontario Rugby Football Union (ORFU) final. In that final, the Capitals' opponents from Sarnia made stopping Conacher their priority, a strategy that proved the difference as Sarnia won the championship.
Conacher moved to the senior level in 1920 with the Toronto Rugby Club where his team again won the ORFU championship, but lost the eastern semifinal to the Toronto Argonauts of the Interprovincial Rugby Football Union (IRFU). His play impressed the Argonauts, who signed him for the 1921 season. In his first game with the Argonauts, he scored 23 of the team's 27 points, and led the IRFU in scoring, accounting for 14 touchdowns and 90 of his team's 167 points as they went undefeated in six games. The Argonauts won the eastern championship, and faced the Edmonton Eskimos (renamed Edmonton 'Elks' in 1922) in the first east–west Grey Cup championship in Canadian history. Conacher rushed for 211 yards and scored 15 points in Toronto's 23–0 victory to claim the national title.
Named captain in 1922, Conacher led the Argonauts to another undefeated season in IRFU play, finishing with five wins and one tie, as he rushed for about 950 yards. The Argonauts reached the Eastern final, but lost to Queen's University, 12–11. In that game, Conacher was the entire Argonaut offense rushing 35 times for 227 yards but Pep Leadley's 21 yard field goal towards the end of the game gave Queens' its victory.
Ice hockey
The expense of playing hockey initially kept Conacher off the ice. He did not learn to skate until he was 16. Consequently, hockey was among his weakest sports. He played with the Toronto Century Rovers, and then the Aura Lee Athletic Club, but saw limited ice time. Determined to improve his game, he closely watched the top players from the bench and sought to emulate what made them successful. His efforts paid off, and by 1918–19, was considered a star defenceman for Aura Lee. He joined the Toronto Canoe Club Paddlers, a team of all-star calibre players in 1919–20, and with them won the Memorial Cup, Canada's national junior championship. Conacher then returned to the Aura Lees to play for their senior team for two years.
National Hockey League (NHL) teams took notice of Conacher's ability. The Toronto St. Pats offered him $3,000 a season – three times the average salary – to play for them in 1920–21, while in 1921, the Montreal Canadiens offered $5,000 and support setting up a business. He turned both down as he was not yet willing to surrender his status as an amateur athlete. His decisions to refuse the offers led to speculation that he was being paid under the table. He and Billy Burch were accused of deliberately throwing a game in 1922, but were absolved of guilt by the Amateur Athletic Union of Canada.
Move to Pittsburgh
Conacher remained in senior hockey and while playing for the North Toronto Seniors in 1923, was a part of the first hockey game ever broadcast on radio. That summer, he received an offer from Roy Schooley, the manager of the Duquesne Gardens and owner of the Pittsburgh Yellow Jackets of the United States Amateur Hockey Association (USAHA), to play for his team. While he would retain his amateur status, Schooley set Conacher up with a job in the insurance business and paid his university tuition so that he could improve his education. He brought many of his teammates with him to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, all of whom received jobs in the community, and he attended school at Bellefonte Academy for a year before enrolling at Duquesne University.
He played football for both schools in the fall, and served as the Yellow Jackets' captain in the winter where he led the team to consecutive USAHA titles in 1924 and 1925. In the summers, Conacher returned to Toronto and played lacrosse and baseball. The Yellow Jackets turned professional in 1925 when they were renamed the Pittsburgh Pirates and joined the National Hockey League (NHL). Conacher finally chose to turn professional with the team, a decision that surprised fans and teammates in Toronto, who knew of his favourtism for the game of football.
Professional career
Conacher scored the first goal in Pirates history on American Thanksgiving Day Thursday November 26, 1925, against the Boston Bruins. He scored nine goals in 33 games in , then returned to Toronto to play professional baseball with the Toronto Maple Leafs. An outfielder on the team, Conacher and the Maple Leafs won the International League championship then defeated the Louisville Colonels to win the Little World Series.
He returned to Pittsburgh for the NHL season, but was dealt early in the year to the New York Americans in exchange for Charlie Langlois and $2,000. The trade nearly proved disastrous for Conacher. He scored 8 goals in and improved to 11 in , but playing for a team owned by notorious bootlegger Bill Dwyer resulted in his becoming a heavy drinker. Conacher served as player-coach in , but his play and health had deteriorated. Two events in that off-season saved Conacher: he swore off alcohol completely upon the birth of his first child, and his playing rights were sold to the Montreal Maroons.
Conacher periodically struggled with Montreal, and at one point was placed on waivers with no other team willing to take over his contract. Nonetheless, his overall play and point totals increased for three consecutive seasons with the Maroons, peaking at 28 points in . He was named to the Second All-Star Team that season, but was traded to the Chicago Black Hawks in exchange for Teddy Graham. Conacher was a key figure in the club's first-ever Stanley Cup victory that season. He finished second to the Canadiens' Aurel Joliat in the voting for the Hart Trophy and earned a spot on the NHL's First All-Star Team.
On Wednesday October 3, 1934, Conacher was involved in one of the largest transactions in league history. He was dealt to the Montreal Canadiens, along with Leroy Goldsworthy and Roger Jenkins in exchange for Montreal superstar Howie Morenz, Lorne Chabot and Marty Burke. The deal was only part of a series of trades involving four teams that represented one of the biggest deals in NHL history. Immediately following the Chicago trade, Conacher was sent back to the Maroons, along with Herb Cain, in exchange for the rights to Nelson Crutchfield. Conacher spent his last three NHL seasons with the Maroons and won his second Stanley Cup in 1935. He ended his hockey career after the team was eliminated from the playoffs by the New York Rangers on April 23, 1937. That final year he was runner-up to Babe Siebert in the 1937 Hart Trophy voting and was placed on the NHL Second All-Star Team.
Canadian professional football
Conacher had not played competitive football since turning professional. At one point he was offered a position as coach of the Montreal AAA Winged Wheelers, but disappointed the Interprovincial Rugby Football Union club when he turned down the job due to his other commitments. He was not absent the game long, however, as Conacher returned to football in 1933. He was part of an effort to launch a new professional league that would feature both Canadian and American teams. The league never came to fruition, but Conacher organized what became the first professional football team in Canada. He captained the team, based out of Toronto, which was known as the Crosse and Blackwell Chefs following a sponsorship with a local food products company. Conacher recruited former amateur players who had likewise left the sport in favour of paying jobs in other pro sports, including his brother Charlie.
The first game was held Thanksgiving Day in 1933, an exhibition contest against the Rochester Arpeakos. A crowd of 10,000 attended the game to watch Conacher play his first competitive football game in Canada in ten years. He did not disappoint, scoring two touchdowns and setting up a third for the Chefs, and was hailed as the game's star despite an 18–15 loss. Toronto lost a return match in Rochester, but in the third and final game of their season, the Chefs defeated a team from Buffalo at Toronto by a score of 18–0. Conacher was again the star, rushing for two touchdowns and scoring 13 of his team's points. He organized the team for a second year in 1934, known as the Wrigley Aromints due to new sponsorship, and again played an exhibition schedule as the team remained unaffiliated with any league. The team again played three games, winning all three. However, at the age of 34 years, Conacher found that the game was too hard on his body physically, and neither he nor his team returned for a third season.
Lacrosse
Led by the owners of the Montreal Canadiens, the arena operators of Canada's NHL teams invented the sport of box lacrosse in 1931 in a bid to fill arena dates in the summer. The field variant of the sport had been in decline in Canada as the popularity of baseball and football grew, and it was hoped that lacrosse played in the confines of a hockey rink would create a faster, more exciting game. A summer professional circuit, the International Professional Lacrosse League was created with representative teams of the Montreal Maroons, Montreal Canadiens, Toronto Maple Leafs and an entry from Cornwall, Ontario. Several NHL players who had played the field game before abandoning it to turn professional in hockey signed with the teams, including Conacher, who joined the Maroons. The Maroons' inaugural game came against the Maple Leafs, and though Toronto won 9–7, Conacher stole the spotlight from the victors. He scored six of Montreal's goals, assisted on the seventh, and earned the praise of his fellow players. When the Maroons went to Toronto, the Maple Leafs hosted a "Lionel Conacher Night" to celebrate the city's native son. The Maroons did not figure into the playoff for the championship, but Conacher led the league in scoring with 107 points. His dominance in the league was such that his total nearly doubled his nearest rival, who finished with 56 points. In one game, against Toronto, he scored ten goals in a 17–12 victory. He chose not to return to lacrosse for the 1932 season, choosing instead to sign a contract to wrestle professionally during the hockey off-seasons.
Political career
Bracondale
When Conacher retired from professional hockey, he ran as a Liberal in the 1937 Ontario general election. He was elected as a Member of Provincial Parliament (MPP) representing the Toronto Bracondale electoral district in the Ontario Legislative Assembly, defeating the district's incumbent, Conservative Arthur Russell Nesbitt. Bracondale had a colourful electoral past, and this election night was no different. The October 6 election was a very close race between Nesbitt and Conacher.
Conacher represented Bracondale from October 6, 1937, until June 30, 1943, when the Legislature was dissolved for the 1943 Ontario general election. He was challenged for the Liberal nomination in Bracondale by Toronto city alderman E. C. Bogart. Bogart won and then lost the seat to the Co-operative Commwealth's Rae Luckock a few weeks later.
Conacher also served as the sports director for the Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF) during World War II. He and Canadian Amateur Hockey Association past-president George Dudley, announced plans for military teams based at all RCAF commands across Canada to play in senior ice hockey leagues.
Trinity
In the 1945 Canadian general election, Conacher represented the Liberal Party of Canada for a seat in the House of Commons of Canada, where he came second in Toronto's Trinity electoral district, losing to the Progressive Conservative incumbent. He ran again in Trinity for the Liberals in the 1949 Canadian general election, and this time he was elected. He was re-elected for a final time in the 1953 election.
In the spring of 1954 Conacher was in Ottawa attending to his parliamentary duties when he was asked to play in the annual softball game between MPs and members of the parliamentary press gallery. On May 26, in the sixth inning, in his last at-bat-ever, he hit a long drive into left field, stretching a single into a triple, when he sprinted to third base. He stood, breathing heavily and then collapsed face-first from having been hit in the head with a pitch in an earlier inning. One of the other MPs was a doctor who tried to assist him, but there was little that could be done for Conacher and within twenty minutes he was pronounced dead. The next day Conacher was supposed to attend his daughter's graduation from the University of Toronto. A big funeral was held, and his brother Charlie flew in from England to be there. He was buried at St. Johns York Mills Anglican Church Cemetery in Toronto.
Awards
He was named Canada's Greatest Male Athlete of the Half-Century (1950). In 1981 the Pro Football Researchers Association called Conacher "Canada's Answer to Jim Thorpe". He is a member of the Canadian Sports Hall of Fame (1955), the Canadian Football Hall of Fame (1963), the Canadian Lacrosse Hall of Fame (1966), and Hockey Hall of Fame (1994). The award for the Canadian Press Canadian male athlete of the year is called the Lionel Conacher Award.
Family
Conacher's younger brothers, Charlie Conacher, and Roy Conacher, were also Hall of Fame hockey players. His namesake, Lionel Jr., was a first round draft pick in 1960 and played a season with the Montreal Alouettes of the Canadian Football League. His son Brian Conacher represented Canada at the 1964 Winter Olympics and played for the Toronto Maple Leafs of the National Hockey League, winning a Stanley Cup with them in 1966–67 NHL season. Pete Conacher, Lionel's nephew and the son of Charlie, also played in the NHL, as did another nephew of Lionel's, Murray Henderson, who was the son of Lionel's sister Catherine. Current NHL player Cory Conacher is also a distant relative of Lionel's.
Career statistics
Ice hockey
* Stanley Cup Champion.
NHL coaching record
See also
List of Canadian sports personalities
References
Citations
Bibliography
External links
History by the Minute Video
Lionel Conacher, Greatest Sporting Moments, Virtual Museum of Canada Exhibit
1900 births
1954 deaths
Baseball people from Ontario
Canadian baseball players
Canadian Football Hall of Fame inductees
Canadian football punters
Canadian football running backs
Canadian ice hockey coaches
Canadian ice hockey defencemen
Canadian lacrosse players
Canadian people of Scottish descent
Canadian male boxers
Canadian male sport wrestlers
Canadian sportsperson-politicians
Chicago Blackhawks players
Duquesne Dukes football players
Hockey Hall of Fame inductees
Ice hockey people from Ontario
Ice hockey player-coaches
Liberal Party of Canada MPs
Members of the House of Commons of Canada from Ontario
Memorial Cup winners
Montreal Maroons players
New York Americans coaches
New York Americans players
Ontario Liberal Party MPPs
Persons of National Historic Significance (Canada)
Pittsburgh Pirates (NHL) players
Pittsburgh Yellow Jackets (USAHA) players
Players of Canadian football from Ontario
Politicians from Toronto
Royal Canadian Air Force officers
Royal Canadian Air Force personnel of World War II
Sportspeople from Toronto
Stanley Cup champions
Toronto Argonauts players
Toronto Maple Leafs (International League) players | true | [
"Michael Patrick (born September 9, 1944) is a retired American sportscaster, known for his long tenure with ESPN.\n\nEarly career\nPatrick began his broadcasting career in the fall of 1966 at WVSC-Radio in Somerset, Pennsylvania. In 1970, he was named Sports Director at WJXT-TV in Jacksonville, Florida, where he provided play-by-play for Jacksonville Sharks' World Football League (WFL) telecasts (1973–74). He also called Jacksonville University basketball games on both radio and television.\n\nFrom 1975 until 1982, he worked for WJLA-TV as a sports reporter and weekend anchor. During this period, Patrick also did play-by-play for Maryland Terrapins football and basketball broadcasts as well as pre-season games for the Washington Football Team when WJLA had the TV rights to broadcast those games.\n\nESPN\n\nBeginning in 1982, Patrick worked for ESPN, where he is best known for his role as play-by-play announcer on the network's Sunday Night Football telecasts, with Paul Maguire and Joe Theismann from 1987–2005. Patrick was briefly replaced in 2004 by Pat Summerall, while he recovered from heart bypass surgery.\n\nHe has also called college football, men's and women's college basketball, and the College World Series for the network, as well as several NFL playoff games for ABC Sports while the network held the Monday Night Football television package.\n\nIn 2006, Patrick became the lead play-by-play announcer for ESPN on College Football Primetime, along with Todd Blackledge and field reporter Holly Rowe. In July 2009, ESPN announced that Patrick would begin calling Saturday afternoon ESPN/ABC college football for the 2009 college football season, which he did through 2017.\n\nIn addition, Patrick called the NCAA Women's Division I Basketball Championship from 1996 through 2009 and the College World Series in Omaha, Nebraska from 2003 until 2014.\n\nOn February 21, 2018, Patrick retired from ESPN after 35 years with the network.\n\nNon ESPN-related assignments\n\nPatrick also did play-by-play of Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) football and basketball games for Jefferson-Pilot (now Lincoln Financial Sports) between 1984 and 1986.\n\nPatrick is the play-by-play man for MVP 06: NCAA Baseball as well as MVP 07: NCAA Baseball.\n\nFor 2015, 2016 and 2017, Patrick did play-by-play for the Cleveland Browns preseason football games.\n\nPatrick resides in northern Virginia with his wife, Janet.\n\nReferences\n\n1944 births\nLiving people\nAmerican television sports announcers\nCollege baseball announcers in the United States\nWomen's college basketball announcers in the United States\nCollege basketball announcers in the United States\nCollege football announcers\nGeorge Washington University alumni\nMaryland Terrapins men's basketball announcers\nMaryland Terrapins football announcers\nNational Football League announcers\nPeople from Clarksburg, West Virginia\nWorld Football League announcers\nJournalists from West Virginia\nTelevision anchors from Jacksonville, Florida",
"Bryan Hall (born August 19, 1934) nicknamed \"Hallsy\", is a Canadian radio and television personality and retired radio play-by-play broadcaster for the Edmonton Eskimos on 630 CHED in Edmonton, Alberta.\n\nCareer\nHall was born on August 19, 1934 in Toronto, Ontario. His father was a lawyer, who died when Hall was 9, and his mother a nurse. Hall got his first broadcasting job at the age of 19, after moving to Edmonton, at CKUA where he did news, a jazz show, and sports. At the suggestion of a columnist for the Edmonton Journal, Hall also took up a vacant sportscaster job at CHED, which he held from 1955 to 1962. In 1962, Hall moved to Toronto to take up a job covering sports with CHUM, but quickly moved back to Edmonton 3 years later, this time, back to CJCA, where he did play-by-play for the CFL's Edmonton Eskimos with the network from 1965 to 1993. During his time with CJCA, he also pioneered the first open-line sports talk radio show in Edmonton. In the decade of the 70s, Hall worked as a racetrack announcer at Edmonton Northlands Park calling over 10,000 thoroughbred races. When CJCA ceased broadcasting operations in 1993, Hall moved back to CHED to take up the position of sports director - continuing to do play-by-play of Edmonton Eskimos games until 2009.\nAfter 45 years of play-by-play for Edmonton Eskimos games, Hall retired in 2009. During his play-by-play career, he also did play-by-play for the Edmonton Oilers, Edmonton Oil Kings, and Edmonton Flyers. The media centre, The Bryan Hall Media Centre, in Commonwealth Stadium was named after Hall when he retired in 2009. Though retired from doing play-by-play, Hall, in his 65th year of broadcasting, currently does 14 daily shows in the morning on CHED, I News and Global Television. Hall is also known for doing radio advertisements on CHED for local Christenson Developments, Crosstown Motors, and Lay-z-boy Furniture He was inducted into the Canadian Football Hall of Fame in 1989, and the Alberta Sports Hall of Fame in 2004.\n\nBroadcasting positions\nCKUA - 1953–55\nCHED - 1955–62\nCHUM - 1962–65\nCJCA - 1965–93\nCHED - 1993–current\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n\n1934 births\nLiving people\nAlberta Sports Hall of Fame inductees\nCanadian Football Hall of Fame inductees\nCanadian Football League announcers\nCanadian radio sportscasters\nEdmonton Elks personnel\nEdmonton Oilers announcers\nSportspeople from Toronto\nWorld Hockey Association broadcasters"
]
|
[
"Lionel Conacher",
"Professional career",
"Where did he play?",
"Conacher scored the first goal in Pirates history",
"Where did he play?",
"then returned to Toronto to play professional baseball with the Toronto Maple Leafs."
]
| C_036f3202ece346f199d988e1cd657070_0 | How long did he play for the team? | 3 | How long did Lionel Conacher play for the Toronto Maple Leafs? | Lionel Conacher | Conacher scored the first goal in Pirates history on American Thanksgiving Day Thursday November 26, 1925, against the Boston Bruins. He scored nine goals in 33 games in 1925-26, then returned to Toronto to play professional baseball with the Toronto Maple Leafs. An outfielder on the team, Conacher and the Maple Leafs won the International League championship then defeated the Louisville Colonels to win the Little World Series. He returned to Pittsburgh for the 1926-27 NHL season, but was dealt early in the year to the New York Americans in exchange for Charlie Langlois and $2,000. The trade nearly proved disastrous for Conacher. He scored 8 goals in 1926-27 and improved to 11 in 1927-28, but playing for a team owned by notorious bootlegger Bill Dwyer resulted in his becoming a heavy drinker. Conacher served as player-coach in 1929-30, but his play and health had deteriorated. Two events in that off-season saved Conacher: he swore off alcohol completely upon the birth of his first child, and his playing rights were sold to the Montreal Maroons. Conacher periodically struggled with Montreal, and at one point was placed on waivers with no other team willing to take over his contract. Nonetheless, his overall play and point totals increased for three consecutive seasons with the Maroons, peaking at 28 points in 1932-33. He was named to the Second All-Star Team that season, but was traded to the Chicago Black Hawks in exchange for Teddy Graham. Conacher was a key figure in the club's first-ever Stanley Cup victory that season. He finished second to the Canadiens' Aurel Joliat in the voting for the Hart Trophy and earned a spot on the NHL's First All-Star Team. On Wednesday October 3, 1934, Conacher was involved in one of the largest transactions in league history. He was dealt to the Montreal Canadiens, along with Leroy Goldsworthy and Roger Jenkins in exchange for Montreal superstar Howie Morenz, Lorne Chabot and Marty Burke. The deal was only part of a series of trades involving four teams that represented one of the biggest deals in NHL history. Immediately following the Chicago trade, Conacher was sent back to the Maroons, along with Herb Cain, in exchange for the rights to Nelson Crutchfield. Conacher spent his last three NHL seasons with the Maroons and won his second Stanley Cup in 1935. He ended his hockey career after the team was eliminated from the playoffs by the New York Rangers on April 23, 1937. That final year he was runner-up to Babe Siebert in the 1937 Hart Trophy voting and was placed on the NHL Second All-Star Team. CANNOTANSWER | He returned to Pittsburgh for the 1926-27 NHL season, | Lionel Pretoria Conacher, MP (; May 24, 1900 – May 26, 1954), nicknamed "The Big Train", was a Canadian athlete and politician. Voted the country's top athlete of the first half of the 20th century, he won championships in numerous sports. His first passion was football; he was a member of the 1921 Grey Cup champion Toronto Argonauts. He was a member of the Toronto Maple Leafs baseball team that won the International League championship in 1926. In hockey, he won a Memorial Cup in 1920, and the Stanley Cup twice: with the Chicago Black Hawks in 1934 and the Montreal Maroons in 1935. Additionally, he won wrestling, boxing and lacrosse championships during his playing career. He is one of three players, including Joe Miller and Carl Voss, to have their names engraved on both the Grey Cup and Stanley Cup.
Conacher retired as an athlete in 1937 to enter politics. He won election to the Legislative Assembly of Ontario in 1937, and in 1949 won a seat in the House of Commons. Many of his political positions revolved around sports. He worked to eliminate corruption in boxing while serving as a Member of Provincial Parliament (MPP) in Ontario, also serving as the chairman of the Ontario Athletic Commission. Additionally, he served a term as director of recreation and entertainment for the Royal Canadian Air Force. It was also on the sports field that Conacher died: He suffered a heart attack twenty minutes after hitting a triple in a softball game played on the lawn of Parliament Hill.
Numerous organizations have honoured Conacher's career. In addition to being named Canada's athlete of the half-century, he was named the country's top football player over the same period. He was inducted into Canada's Sports Hall of Fame in 1955, the Canadian Football Hall of Fame in 1964, the Canadian Lacrosse Hall of Fame in 1965, the Hockey Hall of Fame in 1994, and the Ontario Sports Hall of Fame in 1996. Additionally, the Canadian Press gives the Lionel Conacher Award to its male athlete of the year.
Early life
Conacher was born in Toronto, Ontario on May 24, 1901. His middle name was given after the South African city of Pretoria, where British troops were fighting the Boer War at the time of his birth. He was the eldest son of Benjamin and Elizabeth Conacher, and the third of ten children overall. He had four brothers and five sisters. The family grew up in the neighbourhood of Davenport, which his brother Charlie described as "one of Toronto's higher class slums".
His father was a teamster, and struggled to earn enough money to support the family. In the winter, he ploughed the snow off outdoor skating rinks to earn additional money. Conacher left school after the eighth grade to go to work and help support his siblings. For ten hours a day, he hauled sod, earning an extra dollar a week for his family.
All ten children were encouraged to participate in sports by the principal of Jesse Ketchum School, who felt that such pursuits would keep his students from getting into trouble. Conacher discovered that he was among the better players in any sport he tried, and quickly became a star at Canadian football, ice hockey and lacrosse. He realized his athletic ability could offer an escape from poverty.
Amateur career
Conacher was a prolific athlete, excelling in numerous sports at the same time. He played with 14 different teams during his teenage years, winning 11 championships. He was 16 years old when he won the Ontario lightweight wrestling championship, and at 20 won the Canadian amateur light-heavyweight boxing championship. In 1921, he fought, and was knocked out by heavyweight champion Jack Dempsey in an exhibition match. One year he famously hit a triple to win the Toronto city baseball championship, then rushed to the other side of the city to find his lacrosse team trailing 3–0 in the Ontario provincial final. He scored four goals and an assist to lead them to a comeback victory.
Football
Rugby football was the first sport Conacher played, and it was his favourite. He first played organized football at the age of 12 as a middle wing with the Capitals in the Toronto Rugby Football League. He played four seasons with the team between 1912 and 1915, during which the Capitals won the city championship each year. He won the Ontario championship as a junior with the Toronto Central YMCA in 1918, and in 1919 moved up to the intermediate level. With the intermediate Capitals, he was moved into an offensive role as a halfback. He excelled in the role, and his team reached Ontario Rugby Football Union (ORFU) final. In that final, the Capitals' opponents from Sarnia made stopping Conacher their priority, a strategy that proved the difference as Sarnia won the championship.
Conacher moved to the senior level in 1920 with the Toronto Rugby Club where his team again won the ORFU championship, but lost the eastern semifinal to the Toronto Argonauts of the Interprovincial Rugby Football Union (IRFU). His play impressed the Argonauts, who signed him for the 1921 season. In his first game with the Argonauts, he scored 23 of the team's 27 points, and led the IRFU in scoring, accounting for 14 touchdowns and 90 of his team's 167 points as they went undefeated in six games. The Argonauts won the eastern championship, and faced the Edmonton Eskimos (renamed Edmonton 'Elks' in 1922) in the first east–west Grey Cup championship in Canadian history. Conacher rushed for 211 yards and scored 15 points in Toronto's 23–0 victory to claim the national title.
Named captain in 1922, Conacher led the Argonauts to another undefeated season in IRFU play, finishing with five wins and one tie, as he rushed for about 950 yards. The Argonauts reached the Eastern final, but lost to Queen's University, 12–11. In that game, Conacher was the entire Argonaut offense rushing 35 times for 227 yards but Pep Leadley's 21 yard field goal towards the end of the game gave Queens' its victory.
Ice hockey
The expense of playing hockey initially kept Conacher off the ice. He did not learn to skate until he was 16. Consequently, hockey was among his weakest sports. He played with the Toronto Century Rovers, and then the Aura Lee Athletic Club, but saw limited ice time. Determined to improve his game, he closely watched the top players from the bench and sought to emulate what made them successful. His efforts paid off, and by 1918–19, was considered a star defenceman for Aura Lee. He joined the Toronto Canoe Club Paddlers, a team of all-star calibre players in 1919–20, and with them won the Memorial Cup, Canada's national junior championship. Conacher then returned to the Aura Lees to play for their senior team for two years.
National Hockey League (NHL) teams took notice of Conacher's ability. The Toronto St. Pats offered him $3,000 a season – three times the average salary – to play for them in 1920–21, while in 1921, the Montreal Canadiens offered $5,000 and support setting up a business. He turned both down as he was not yet willing to surrender his status as an amateur athlete. His decisions to refuse the offers led to speculation that he was being paid under the table. He and Billy Burch were accused of deliberately throwing a game in 1922, but were absolved of guilt by the Amateur Athletic Union of Canada.
Move to Pittsburgh
Conacher remained in senior hockey and while playing for the North Toronto Seniors in 1923, was a part of the first hockey game ever broadcast on radio. That summer, he received an offer from Roy Schooley, the manager of the Duquesne Gardens and owner of the Pittsburgh Yellow Jackets of the United States Amateur Hockey Association (USAHA), to play for his team. While he would retain his amateur status, Schooley set Conacher up with a job in the insurance business and paid his university tuition so that he could improve his education. He brought many of his teammates with him to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, all of whom received jobs in the community, and he attended school at Bellefonte Academy for a year before enrolling at Duquesne University.
He played football for both schools in the fall, and served as the Yellow Jackets' captain in the winter where he led the team to consecutive USAHA titles in 1924 and 1925. In the summers, Conacher returned to Toronto and played lacrosse and baseball. The Yellow Jackets turned professional in 1925 when they were renamed the Pittsburgh Pirates and joined the National Hockey League (NHL). Conacher finally chose to turn professional with the team, a decision that surprised fans and teammates in Toronto, who knew of his favourtism for the game of football.
Professional career
Conacher scored the first goal in Pirates history on American Thanksgiving Day Thursday November 26, 1925, against the Boston Bruins. He scored nine goals in 33 games in , then returned to Toronto to play professional baseball with the Toronto Maple Leafs. An outfielder on the team, Conacher and the Maple Leafs won the International League championship then defeated the Louisville Colonels to win the Little World Series.
He returned to Pittsburgh for the NHL season, but was dealt early in the year to the New York Americans in exchange for Charlie Langlois and $2,000. The trade nearly proved disastrous for Conacher. He scored 8 goals in and improved to 11 in , but playing for a team owned by notorious bootlegger Bill Dwyer resulted in his becoming a heavy drinker. Conacher served as player-coach in , but his play and health had deteriorated. Two events in that off-season saved Conacher: he swore off alcohol completely upon the birth of his first child, and his playing rights were sold to the Montreal Maroons.
Conacher periodically struggled with Montreal, and at one point was placed on waivers with no other team willing to take over his contract. Nonetheless, his overall play and point totals increased for three consecutive seasons with the Maroons, peaking at 28 points in . He was named to the Second All-Star Team that season, but was traded to the Chicago Black Hawks in exchange for Teddy Graham. Conacher was a key figure in the club's first-ever Stanley Cup victory that season. He finished second to the Canadiens' Aurel Joliat in the voting for the Hart Trophy and earned a spot on the NHL's First All-Star Team.
On Wednesday October 3, 1934, Conacher was involved in one of the largest transactions in league history. He was dealt to the Montreal Canadiens, along with Leroy Goldsworthy and Roger Jenkins in exchange for Montreal superstar Howie Morenz, Lorne Chabot and Marty Burke. The deal was only part of a series of trades involving four teams that represented one of the biggest deals in NHL history. Immediately following the Chicago trade, Conacher was sent back to the Maroons, along with Herb Cain, in exchange for the rights to Nelson Crutchfield. Conacher spent his last three NHL seasons with the Maroons and won his second Stanley Cup in 1935. He ended his hockey career after the team was eliminated from the playoffs by the New York Rangers on April 23, 1937. That final year he was runner-up to Babe Siebert in the 1937 Hart Trophy voting and was placed on the NHL Second All-Star Team.
Canadian professional football
Conacher had not played competitive football since turning professional. At one point he was offered a position as coach of the Montreal AAA Winged Wheelers, but disappointed the Interprovincial Rugby Football Union club when he turned down the job due to his other commitments. He was not absent the game long, however, as Conacher returned to football in 1933. He was part of an effort to launch a new professional league that would feature both Canadian and American teams. The league never came to fruition, but Conacher organized what became the first professional football team in Canada. He captained the team, based out of Toronto, which was known as the Crosse and Blackwell Chefs following a sponsorship with a local food products company. Conacher recruited former amateur players who had likewise left the sport in favour of paying jobs in other pro sports, including his brother Charlie.
The first game was held Thanksgiving Day in 1933, an exhibition contest against the Rochester Arpeakos. A crowd of 10,000 attended the game to watch Conacher play his first competitive football game in Canada in ten years. He did not disappoint, scoring two touchdowns and setting up a third for the Chefs, and was hailed as the game's star despite an 18–15 loss. Toronto lost a return match in Rochester, but in the third and final game of their season, the Chefs defeated a team from Buffalo at Toronto by a score of 18–0. Conacher was again the star, rushing for two touchdowns and scoring 13 of his team's points. He organized the team for a second year in 1934, known as the Wrigley Aromints due to new sponsorship, and again played an exhibition schedule as the team remained unaffiliated with any league. The team again played three games, winning all three. However, at the age of 34 years, Conacher found that the game was too hard on his body physically, and neither he nor his team returned for a third season.
Lacrosse
Led by the owners of the Montreal Canadiens, the arena operators of Canada's NHL teams invented the sport of box lacrosse in 1931 in a bid to fill arena dates in the summer. The field variant of the sport had been in decline in Canada as the popularity of baseball and football grew, and it was hoped that lacrosse played in the confines of a hockey rink would create a faster, more exciting game. A summer professional circuit, the International Professional Lacrosse League was created with representative teams of the Montreal Maroons, Montreal Canadiens, Toronto Maple Leafs and an entry from Cornwall, Ontario. Several NHL players who had played the field game before abandoning it to turn professional in hockey signed with the teams, including Conacher, who joined the Maroons. The Maroons' inaugural game came against the Maple Leafs, and though Toronto won 9–7, Conacher stole the spotlight from the victors. He scored six of Montreal's goals, assisted on the seventh, and earned the praise of his fellow players. When the Maroons went to Toronto, the Maple Leafs hosted a "Lionel Conacher Night" to celebrate the city's native son. The Maroons did not figure into the playoff for the championship, but Conacher led the league in scoring with 107 points. His dominance in the league was such that his total nearly doubled his nearest rival, who finished with 56 points. In one game, against Toronto, he scored ten goals in a 17–12 victory. He chose not to return to lacrosse for the 1932 season, choosing instead to sign a contract to wrestle professionally during the hockey off-seasons.
Political career
Bracondale
When Conacher retired from professional hockey, he ran as a Liberal in the 1937 Ontario general election. He was elected as a Member of Provincial Parliament (MPP) representing the Toronto Bracondale electoral district in the Ontario Legislative Assembly, defeating the district's incumbent, Conservative Arthur Russell Nesbitt. Bracondale had a colourful electoral past, and this election night was no different. The October 6 election was a very close race between Nesbitt and Conacher.
Conacher represented Bracondale from October 6, 1937, until June 30, 1943, when the Legislature was dissolved for the 1943 Ontario general election. He was challenged for the Liberal nomination in Bracondale by Toronto city alderman E. C. Bogart. Bogart won and then lost the seat to the Co-operative Commwealth's Rae Luckock a few weeks later.
Conacher also served as the sports director for the Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF) during World War II. He and Canadian Amateur Hockey Association past-president George Dudley, announced plans for military teams based at all RCAF commands across Canada to play in senior ice hockey leagues.
Trinity
In the 1945 Canadian general election, Conacher represented the Liberal Party of Canada for a seat in the House of Commons of Canada, where he came second in Toronto's Trinity electoral district, losing to the Progressive Conservative incumbent. He ran again in Trinity for the Liberals in the 1949 Canadian general election, and this time he was elected. He was re-elected for a final time in the 1953 election.
In the spring of 1954 Conacher was in Ottawa attending to his parliamentary duties when he was asked to play in the annual softball game between MPs and members of the parliamentary press gallery. On May 26, in the sixth inning, in his last at-bat-ever, he hit a long drive into left field, stretching a single into a triple, when he sprinted to third base. He stood, breathing heavily and then collapsed face-first from having been hit in the head with a pitch in an earlier inning. One of the other MPs was a doctor who tried to assist him, but there was little that could be done for Conacher and within twenty minutes he was pronounced dead. The next day Conacher was supposed to attend his daughter's graduation from the University of Toronto. A big funeral was held, and his brother Charlie flew in from England to be there. He was buried at St. Johns York Mills Anglican Church Cemetery in Toronto.
Awards
He was named Canada's Greatest Male Athlete of the Half-Century (1950). In 1981 the Pro Football Researchers Association called Conacher "Canada's Answer to Jim Thorpe". He is a member of the Canadian Sports Hall of Fame (1955), the Canadian Football Hall of Fame (1963), the Canadian Lacrosse Hall of Fame (1966), and Hockey Hall of Fame (1994). The award for the Canadian Press Canadian male athlete of the year is called the Lionel Conacher Award.
Family
Conacher's younger brothers, Charlie Conacher, and Roy Conacher, were also Hall of Fame hockey players. His namesake, Lionel Jr., was a first round draft pick in 1960 and played a season with the Montreal Alouettes of the Canadian Football League. His son Brian Conacher represented Canada at the 1964 Winter Olympics and played for the Toronto Maple Leafs of the National Hockey League, winning a Stanley Cup with them in 1966–67 NHL season. Pete Conacher, Lionel's nephew and the son of Charlie, also played in the NHL, as did another nephew of Lionel's, Murray Henderson, who was the son of Lionel's sister Catherine. Current NHL player Cory Conacher is also a distant relative of Lionel's.
Career statistics
Ice hockey
* Stanley Cup Champion.
NHL coaching record
See also
List of Canadian sports personalities
References
Citations
Bibliography
External links
History by the Minute Video
Lionel Conacher, Greatest Sporting Moments, Virtual Museum of Canada Exhibit
1900 births
1954 deaths
Baseball people from Ontario
Canadian baseball players
Canadian Football Hall of Fame inductees
Canadian football punters
Canadian football running backs
Canadian ice hockey coaches
Canadian ice hockey defencemen
Canadian lacrosse players
Canadian people of Scottish descent
Canadian male boxers
Canadian male sport wrestlers
Canadian sportsperson-politicians
Chicago Blackhawks players
Duquesne Dukes football players
Hockey Hall of Fame inductees
Ice hockey people from Ontario
Ice hockey player-coaches
Liberal Party of Canada MPs
Members of the House of Commons of Canada from Ontario
Memorial Cup winners
Montreal Maroons players
New York Americans coaches
New York Americans players
Ontario Liberal Party MPPs
Persons of National Historic Significance (Canada)
Pittsburgh Pirates (NHL) players
Pittsburgh Yellow Jackets (USAHA) players
Players of Canadian football from Ontario
Politicians from Toronto
Royal Canadian Air Force officers
Royal Canadian Air Force personnel of World War II
Sportspeople from Toronto
Stanley Cup champions
Toronto Argonauts players
Toronto Maple Leafs (International League) players | false | [
"The Shreveport Knights were a professional American football team that played during the 1999 season as part of the Regional Football League. They played their home games at Independence Stadium in Shreveport, Louisiana.\n\nThe team was announced as one of the league's charter members on November 12, 1998. The team was initially named the \"Shreveport-Bossier City Southern Knights\", however this was too long and the name was shortened. For their lone season, Fred Akers served as head coach, and Jason Martin, who had played college football for the Louisiana Tech Bulldogs, was the starting quarterback. The team's colors were purple, green, and gold.\n\nAlthough the team was scheduled to play a 12-game regular season, poor attendance and sagging revenues would prove too much for the new league. After playing to a 3–4 record, the Knights were unable to use their home stadium, for financial reasons. For the eighth game of the season, adjustment by the league resulted in Shreveport being rescheduled to play on the road, but when the Knights did not travel to the game, they were assessed a forfeit. Shortly thereafter, the league ended the regular season, and the Knights did not qualify for the playoffs with their 3–5 record. After the season, the team and the league ceased operation.\n\n1999 season schedule\n\n Shreveport had been scheduled to host New Orleans on June 5, but Shreveport was unable to use their stadium. The league rescheduled New Orleans to play in Mississippi on that date, and Shreveport was rescheduled to play in Ohio on June 6. A forfeit was assessed to Shreveport when they did not travel to play Ohio.\n\nReferences\n\nFurther reading\n\nExternal links\nRemember the RFL\n\nSouthern\nRegional Football League teams\nAmerican football teams established in 1998\nAmerican football teams disestablished in 1999\n1998 establishments in Louisiana\n1999 disestablishments in Louisiana",
"The following list shows NCAA Division I football programs by winning percentage during the 1910–1919 football seasons. During this time the NCAA did not have any formal divisions. The following list reflects the records according to the NCAA. Due to the Spanish flu pandemic of 1918, many teams did not field a team during the 1918 season. This list takes into account results modified later due to NCAA action, such as vacated victories and forfeits.\n\n Chart notes\n\n Did not field a team during the 1918 season due to the Spanish flu pandemic.\n Centre joined Division I in 1919.\n Mare Island Marines was a military team that competed in 1917 & 1918 during World War I.\n Great Lakes Navy was a military team that competed in 1918 during World War I.\n Swarthmore joined Division I for the 1912 season.\n Tulsa joined Division I in 1914.\n Princeton did not field a team during the 1917 & 1918 seasons.\n Rice's first season was in 1912.\n Chattanooga left Division I after the 1910 season.\n Georgia did not field a team in 1917 & 1918.\n Rutgers rejoined Division I in 1914, but did not play Division I during the 1915 season.\n Presbyterian joined Division I in 1915.\n USC did not field a team during the 1911-1913 seasons.\n California resumed football play in 1915.\n Carlisle dropped football after the 1917 season.\n North Carolina did not field a team during the 1917 & 1918 seasons.\n Stanford restarted their football team in 1919.\n Temple did not field a team from 1918-1921.\n Columbia resumed football play in 1915.\n Furman joined Division I in 1915.\n Spring Hill played Division I during the 1919 season.\n West Virginia Wesleyan joined Division I for the 1913-1916 seasons.\n UTEP's first season was in 1914.\n SMU's first season was in 1916.\n Mississippi College joined Division I for the 1911, 1912, 1915, 1916 & 1919 seasons.\n Arizona State only fielded a team for the 1914-1916 and 1919 seasons.\n Haskell joined Division I for the 1910 & 1914-1916 seasons.\n Newberry joined Division I in 1914 and also did not field a team in 1918.\n Idaho joined Division I for the 1917 season.\n Wofford joined Division I in 1914.\n Dickinson left Division I after the 1910 season.\n Erskine joined Division I for the 1919 season.\n Oglethorpe joined Division I in 1919.\n UCLA's first season was in 1919.\n Grinnell joined Division I in 1919.\n Samford did not play Division I during the 1913-1918 seasons.\n Montana joined Division I for the 1917 season.\n Carnegie Mellon joined Division I for the 1910 season.\n\nSee also\n NCAA Division I FBS football win-loss records\n NCAA Division I football win-loss records in the 1920s\n\nReferences\n\nLists of college football team records"
]
|
[
"Lionel Conacher",
"Professional career",
"Where did he play?",
"Conacher scored the first goal in Pirates history",
"Where did he play?",
"then returned to Toronto to play professional baseball with the Toronto Maple Leafs.",
"How long did he play for the team?",
"He returned to Pittsburgh for the 1926-27 NHL season,"
]
| C_036f3202ece346f199d988e1cd657070_0 | Did he leave to play somewhere else? | 4 | Did Lionel Conacher leave to play somewhere else besides Pittsburgh? | Lionel Conacher | Conacher scored the first goal in Pirates history on American Thanksgiving Day Thursday November 26, 1925, against the Boston Bruins. He scored nine goals in 33 games in 1925-26, then returned to Toronto to play professional baseball with the Toronto Maple Leafs. An outfielder on the team, Conacher and the Maple Leafs won the International League championship then defeated the Louisville Colonels to win the Little World Series. He returned to Pittsburgh for the 1926-27 NHL season, but was dealt early in the year to the New York Americans in exchange for Charlie Langlois and $2,000. The trade nearly proved disastrous for Conacher. He scored 8 goals in 1926-27 and improved to 11 in 1927-28, but playing for a team owned by notorious bootlegger Bill Dwyer resulted in his becoming a heavy drinker. Conacher served as player-coach in 1929-30, but his play and health had deteriorated. Two events in that off-season saved Conacher: he swore off alcohol completely upon the birth of his first child, and his playing rights were sold to the Montreal Maroons. Conacher periodically struggled with Montreal, and at one point was placed on waivers with no other team willing to take over his contract. Nonetheless, his overall play and point totals increased for three consecutive seasons with the Maroons, peaking at 28 points in 1932-33. He was named to the Second All-Star Team that season, but was traded to the Chicago Black Hawks in exchange for Teddy Graham. Conacher was a key figure in the club's first-ever Stanley Cup victory that season. He finished second to the Canadiens' Aurel Joliat in the voting for the Hart Trophy and earned a spot on the NHL's First All-Star Team. On Wednesday October 3, 1934, Conacher was involved in one of the largest transactions in league history. He was dealt to the Montreal Canadiens, along with Leroy Goldsworthy and Roger Jenkins in exchange for Montreal superstar Howie Morenz, Lorne Chabot and Marty Burke. The deal was only part of a series of trades involving four teams that represented one of the biggest deals in NHL history. Immediately following the Chicago trade, Conacher was sent back to the Maroons, along with Herb Cain, in exchange for the rights to Nelson Crutchfield. Conacher spent his last three NHL seasons with the Maroons and won his second Stanley Cup in 1935. He ended his hockey career after the team was eliminated from the playoffs by the New York Rangers on April 23, 1937. That final year he was runner-up to Babe Siebert in the 1937 Hart Trophy voting and was placed on the NHL Second All-Star Team. CANNOTANSWER | his playing rights were sold to the Montreal Maroons. | Lionel Pretoria Conacher, MP (; May 24, 1900 – May 26, 1954), nicknamed "The Big Train", was a Canadian athlete and politician. Voted the country's top athlete of the first half of the 20th century, he won championships in numerous sports. His first passion was football; he was a member of the 1921 Grey Cup champion Toronto Argonauts. He was a member of the Toronto Maple Leafs baseball team that won the International League championship in 1926. In hockey, he won a Memorial Cup in 1920, and the Stanley Cup twice: with the Chicago Black Hawks in 1934 and the Montreal Maroons in 1935. Additionally, he won wrestling, boxing and lacrosse championships during his playing career. He is one of three players, including Joe Miller and Carl Voss, to have their names engraved on both the Grey Cup and Stanley Cup.
Conacher retired as an athlete in 1937 to enter politics. He won election to the Legislative Assembly of Ontario in 1937, and in 1949 won a seat in the House of Commons. Many of his political positions revolved around sports. He worked to eliminate corruption in boxing while serving as a Member of Provincial Parliament (MPP) in Ontario, also serving as the chairman of the Ontario Athletic Commission. Additionally, he served a term as director of recreation and entertainment for the Royal Canadian Air Force. It was also on the sports field that Conacher died: He suffered a heart attack twenty minutes after hitting a triple in a softball game played on the lawn of Parliament Hill.
Numerous organizations have honoured Conacher's career. In addition to being named Canada's athlete of the half-century, he was named the country's top football player over the same period. He was inducted into Canada's Sports Hall of Fame in 1955, the Canadian Football Hall of Fame in 1964, the Canadian Lacrosse Hall of Fame in 1965, the Hockey Hall of Fame in 1994, and the Ontario Sports Hall of Fame in 1996. Additionally, the Canadian Press gives the Lionel Conacher Award to its male athlete of the year.
Early life
Conacher was born in Toronto, Ontario on May 24, 1901. His middle name was given after the South African city of Pretoria, where British troops were fighting the Boer War at the time of his birth. He was the eldest son of Benjamin and Elizabeth Conacher, and the third of ten children overall. He had four brothers and five sisters. The family grew up in the neighbourhood of Davenport, which his brother Charlie described as "one of Toronto's higher class slums".
His father was a teamster, and struggled to earn enough money to support the family. In the winter, he ploughed the snow off outdoor skating rinks to earn additional money. Conacher left school after the eighth grade to go to work and help support his siblings. For ten hours a day, he hauled sod, earning an extra dollar a week for his family.
All ten children were encouraged to participate in sports by the principal of Jesse Ketchum School, who felt that such pursuits would keep his students from getting into trouble. Conacher discovered that he was among the better players in any sport he tried, and quickly became a star at Canadian football, ice hockey and lacrosse. He realized his athletic ability could offer an escape from poverty.
Amateur career
Conacher was a prolific athlete, excelling in numerous sports at the same time. He played with 14 different teams during his teenage years, winning 11 championships. He was 16 years old when he won the Ontario lightweight wrestling championship, and at 20 won the Canadian amateur light-heavyweight boxing championship. In 1921, he fought, and was knocked out by heavyweight champion Jack Dempsey in an exhibition match. One year he famously hit a triple to win the Toronto city baseball championship, then rushed to the other side of the city to find his lacrosse team trailing 3–0 in the Ontario provincial final. He scored four goals and an assist to lead them to a comeback victory.
Football
Rugby football was the first sport Conacher played, and it was his favourite. He first played organized football at the age of 12 as a middle wing with the Capitals in the Toronto Rugby Football League. He played four seasons with the team between 1912 and 1915, during which the Capitals won the city championship each year. He won the Ontario championship as a junior with the Toronto Central YMCA in 1918, and in 1919 moved up to the intermediate level. With the intermediate Capitals, he was moved into an offensive role as a halfback. He excelled in the role, and his team reached Ontario Rugby Football Union (ORFU) final. In that final, the Capitals' opponents from Sarnia made stopping Conacher their priority, a strategy that proved the difference as Sarnia won the championship.
Conacher moved to the senior level in 1920 with the Toronto Rugby Club where his team again won the ORFU championship, but lost the eastern semifinal to the Toronto Argonauts of the Interprovincial Rugby Football Union (IRFU). His play impressed the Argonauts, who signed him for the 1921 season. In his first game with the Argonauts, he scored 23 of the team's 27 points, and led the IRFU in scoring, accounting for 14 touchdowns and 90 of his team's 167 points as they went undefeated in six games. The Argonauts won the eastern championship, and faced the Edmonton Eskimos (renamed Edmonton 'Elks' in 1922) in the first east–west Grey Cup championship in Canadian history. Conacher rushed for 211 yards and scored 15 points in Toronto's 23–0 victory to claim the national title.
Named captain in 1922, Conacher led the Argonauts to another undefeated season in IRFU play, finishing with five wins and one tie, as he rushed for about 950 yards. The Argonauts reached the Eastern final, but lost to Queen's University, 12–11. In that game, Conacher was the entire Argonaut offense rushing 35 times for 227 yards but Pep Leadley's 21 yard field goal towards the end of the game gave Queens' its victory.
Ice hockey
The expense of playing hockey initially kept Conacher off the ice. He did not learn to skate until he was 16. Consequently, hockey was among his weakest sports. He played with the Toronto Century Rovers, and then the Aura Lee Athletic Club, but saw limited ice time. Determined to improve his game, he closely watched the top players from the bench and sought to emulate what made them successful. His efforts paid off, and by 1918–19, was considered a star defenceman for Aura Lee. He joined the Toronto Canoe Club Paddlers, a team of all-star calibre players in 1919–20, and with them won the Memorial Cup, Canada's national junior championship. Conacher then returned to the Aura Lees to play for their senior team for two years.
National Hockey League (NHL) teams took notice of Conacher's ability. The Toronto St. Pats offered him $3,000 a season – three times the average salary – to play for them in 1920–21, while in 1921, the Montreal Canadiens offered $5,000 and support setting up a business. He turned both down as he was not yet willing to surrender his status as an amateur athlete. His decisions to refuse the offers led to speculation that he was being paid under the table. He and Billy Burch were accused of deliberately throwing a game in 1922, but were absolved of guilt by the Amateur Athletic Union of Canada.
Move to Pittsburgh
Conacher remained in senior hockey and while playing for the North Toronto Seniors in 1923, was a part of the first hockey game ever broadcast on radio. That summer, he received an offer from Roy Schooley, the manager of the Duquesne Gardens and owner of the Pittsburgh Yellow Jackets of the United States Amateur Hockey Association (USAHA), to play for his team. While he would retain his amateur status, Schooley set Conacher up with a job in the insurance business and paid his university tuition so that he could improve his education. He brought many of his teammates with him to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, all of whom received jobs in the community, and he attended school at Bellefonte Academy for a year before enrolling at Duquesne University.
He played football for both schools in the fall, and served as the Yellow Jackets' captain in the winter where he led the team to consecutive USAHA titles in 1924 and 1925. In the summers, Conacher returned to Toronto and played lacrosse and baseball. The Yellow Jackets turned professional in 1925 when they were renamed the Pittsburgh Pirates and joined the National Hockey League (NHL). Conacher finally chose to turn professional with the team, a decision that surprised fans and teammates in Toronto, who knew of his favourtism for the game of football.
Professional career
Conacher scored the first goal in Pirates history on American Thanksgiving Day Thursday November 26, 1925, against the Boston Bruins. He scored nine goals in 33 games in , then returned to Toronto to play professional baseball with the Toronto Maple Leafs. An outfielder on the team, Conacher and the Maple Leafs won the International League championship then defeated the Louisville Colonels to win the Little World Series.
He returned to Pittsburgh for the NHL season, but was dealt early in the year to the New York Americans in exchange for Charlie Langlois and $2,000. The trade nearly proved disastrous for Conacher. He scored 8 goals in and improved to 11 in , but playing for a team owned by notorious bootlegger Bill Dwyer resulted in his becoming a heavy drinker. Conacher served as player-coach in , but his play and health had deteriorated. Two events in that off-season saved Conacher: he swore off alcohol completely upon the birth of his first child, and his playing rights were sold to the Montreal Maroons.
Conacher periodically struggled with Montreal, and at one point was placed on waivers with no other team willing to take over his contract. Nonetheless, his overall play and point totals increased for three consecutive seasons with the Maroons, peaking at 28 points in . He was named to the Second All-Star Team that season, but was traded to the Chicago Black Hawks in exchange for Teddy Graham. Conacher was a key figure in the club's first-ever Stanley Cup victory that season. He finished second to the Canadiens' Aurel Joliat in the voting for the Hart Trophy and earned a spot on the NHL's First All-Star Team.
On Wednesday October 3, 1934, Conacher was involved in one of the largest transactions in league history. He was dealt to the Montreal Canadiens, along with Leroy Goldsworthy and Roger Jenkins in exchange for Montreal superstar Howie Morenz, Lorne Chabot and Marty Burke. The deal was only part of a series of trades involving four teams that represented one of the biggest deals in NHL history. Immediately following the Chicago trade, Conacher was sent back to the Maroons, along with Herb Cain, in exchange for the rights to Nelson Crutchfield. Conacher spent his last three NHL seasons with the Maroons and won his second Stanley Cup in 1935. He ended his hockey career after the team was eliminated from the playoffs by the New York Rangers on April 23, 1937. That final year he was runner-up to Babe Siebert in the 1937 Hart Trophy voting and was placed on the NHL Second All-Star Team.
Canadian professional football
Conacher had not played competitive football since turning professional. At one point he was offered a position as coach of the Montreal AAA Winged Wheelers, but disappointed the Interprovincial Rugby Football Union club when he turned down the job due to his other commitments. He was not absent the game long, however, as Conacher returned to football in 1933. He was part of an effort to launch a new professional league that would feature both Canadian and American teams. The league never came to fruition, but Conacher organized what became the first professional football team in Canada. He captained the team, based out of Toronto, which was known as the Crosse and Blackwell Chefs following a sponsorship with a local food products company. Conacher recruited former amateur players who had likewise left the sport in favour of paying jobs in other pro sports, including his brother Charlie.
The first game was held Thanksgiving Day in 1933, an exhibition contest against the Rochester Arpeakos. A crowd of 10,000 attended the game to watch Conacher play his first competitive football game in Canada in ten years. He did not disappoint, scoring two touchdowns and setting up a third for the Chefs, and was hailed as the game's star despite an 18–15 loss. Toronto lost a return match in Rochester, but in the third and final game of their season, the Chefs defeated a team from Buffalo at Toronto by a score of 18–0. Conacher was again the star, rushing for two touchdowns and scoring 13 of his team's points. He organized the team for a second year in 1934, known as the Wrigley Aromints due to new sponsorship, and again played an exhibition schedule as the team remained unaffiliated with any league. The team again played three games, winning all three. However, at the age of 34 years, Conacher found that the game was too hard on his body physically, and neither he nor his team returned for a third season.
Lacrosse
Led by the owners of the Montreal Canadiens, the arena operators of Canada's NHL teams invented the sport of box lacrosse in 1931 in a bid to fill arena dates in the summer. The field variant of the sport had been in decline in Canada as the popularity of baseball and football grew, and it was hoped that lacrosse played in the confines of a hockey rink would create a faster, more exciting game. A summer professional circuit, the International Professional Lacrosse League was created with representative teams of the Montreal Maroons, Montreal Canadiens, Toronto Maple Leafs and an entry from Cornwall, Ontario. Several NHL players who had played the field game before abandoning it to turn professional in hockey signed with the teams, including Conacher, who joined the Maroons. The Maroons' inaugural game came against the Maple Leafs, and though Toronto won 9–7, Conacher stole the spotlight from the victors. He scored six of Montreal's goals, assisted on the seventh, and earned the praise of his fellow players. When the Maroons went to Toronto, the Maple Leafs hosted a "Lionel Conacher Night" to celebrate the city's native son. The Maroons did not figure into the playoff for the championship, but Conacher led the league in scoring with 107 points. His dominance in the league was such that his total nearly doubled his nearest rival, who finished with 56 points. In one game, against Toronto, he scored ten goals in a 17–12 victory. He chose not to return to lacrosse for the 1932 season, choosing instead to sign a contract to wrestle professionally during the hockey off-seasons.
Political career
Bracondale
When Conacher retired from professional hockey, he ran as a Liberal in the 1937 Ontario general election. He was elected as a Member of Provincial Parliament (MPP) representing the Toronto Bracondale electoral district in the Ontario Legislative Assembly, defeating the district's incumbent, Conservative Arthur Russell Nesbitt. Bracondale had a colourful electoral past, and this election night was no different. The October 6 election was a very close race between Nesbitt and Conacher.
Conacher represented Bracondale from October 6, 1937, until June 30, 1943, when the Legislature was dissolved for the 1943 Ontario general election. He was challenged for the Liberal nomination in Bracondale by Toronto city alderman E. C. Bogart. Bogart won and then lost the seat to the Co-operative Commwealth's Rae Luckock a few weeks later.
Conacher also served as the sports director for the Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF) during World War II. He and Canadian Amateur Hockey Association past-president George Dudley, announced plans for military teams based at all RCAF commands across Canada to play in senior ice hockey leagues.
Trinity
In the 1945 Canadian general election, Conacher represented the Liberal Party of Canada for a seat in the House of Commons of Canada, where he came second in Toronto's Trinity electoral district, losing to the Progressive Conservative incumbent. He ran again in Trinity for the Liberals in the 1949 Canadian general election, and this time he was elected. He was re-elected for a final time in the 1953 election.
In the spring of 1954 Conacher was in Ottawa attending to his parliamentary duties when he was asked to play in the annual softball game between MPs and members of the parliamentary press gallery. On May 26, in the sixth inning, in his last at-bat-ever, he hit a long drive into left field, stretching a single into a triple, when he sprinted to third base. He stood, breathing heavily and then collapsed face-first from having been hit in the head with a pitch in an earlier inning. One of the other MPs was a doctor who tried to assist him, but there was little that could be done for Conacher and within twenty minutes he was pronounced dead. The next day Conacher was supposed to attend his daughter's graduation from the University of Toronto. A big funeral was held, and his brother Charlie flew in from England to be there. He was buried at St. Johns York Mills Anglican Church Cemetery in Toronto.
Awards
He was named Canada's Greatest Male Athlete of the Half-Century (1950). In 1981 the Pro Football Researchers Association called Conacher "Canada's Answer to Jim Thorpe". He is a member of the Canadian Sports Hall of Fame (1955), the Canadian Football Hall of Fame (1963), the Canadian Lacrosse Hall of Fame (1966), and Hockey Hall of Fame (1994). The award for the Canadian Press Canadian male athlete of the year is called the Lionel Conacher Award.
Family
Conacher's younger brothers, Charlie Conacher, and Roy Conacher, were also Hall of Fame hockey players. His namesake, Lionel Jr., was a first round draft pick in 1960 and played a season with the Montreal Alouettes of the Canadian Football League. His son Brian Conacher represented Canada at the 1964 Winter Olympics and played for the Toronto Maple Leafs of the National Hockey League, winning a Stanley Cup with them in 1966–67 NHL season. Pete Conacher, Lionel's nephew and the son of Charlie, also played in the NHL, as did another nephew of Lionel's, Murray Henderson, who was the son of Lionel's sister Catherine. Current NHL player Cory Conacher is also a distant relative of Lionel's.
Career statistics
Ice hockey
* Stanley Cup Champion.
NHL coaching record
See also
List of Canadian sports personalities
References
Citations
Bibliography
External links
History by the Minute Video
Lionel Conacher, Greatest Sporting Moments, Virtual Museum of Canada Exhibit
1900 births
1954 deaths
Baseball people from Ontario
Canadian baseball players
Canadian Football Hall of Fame inductees
Canadian football punters
Canadian football running backs
Canadian ice hockey coaches
Canadian ice hockey defencemen
Canadian lacrosse players
Canadian people of Scottish descent
Canadian male boxers
Canadian male sport wrestlers
Canadian sportsperson-politicians
Chicago Blackhawks players
Duquesne Dukes football players
Hockey Hall of Fame inductees
Ice hockey people from Ontario
Ice hockey player-coaches
Liberal Party of Canada MPs
Members of the House of Commons of Canada from Ontario
Memorial Cup winners
Montreal Maroons players
New York Americans coaches
New York Americans players
Ontario Liberal Party MPPs
Persons of National Historic Significance (Canada)
Pittsburgh Pirates (NHL) players
Pittsburgh Yellow Jackets (USAHA) players
Players of Canadian football from Ontario
Politicians from Toronto
Royal Canadian Air Force officers
Royal Canadian Air Force personnel of World War II
Sportspeople from Toronto
Stanley Cup champions
Toronto Argonauts players
Toronto Maple Leafs (International League) players | true | [
"Somewhere Else may refer to:\n\nAlbums \n Somewhere Else (Lydia Loveless album), 2014\n Somewhere Else (Eva Avila album), 2006\n Somewhere Else (Marillion album), 2007\n Somewhere Else (Sun Ra album), 1993\n Somewhere Else (Barry Altschul album), 1979\n Somewhere Else (Sally Shapiro album), 2013\n\nSongs \n \"Somewhere Else\", a 1997 song by China Drum\n \"Somewhere Else\", a 2003 song by rock band Travis from their album 12 Memories\n \"Somewhere Else\" (Razorlight song), a 2005 song by Razorlight from their debut album Up All Night\n \"Somewhere Else\", a 2008 song by VenetianPrincess\n \"Somewhere Else\" (Toby Keith song), the third and final single by Toby Keith from his 2010 album Bullets in the Gun, released in 2011\n\nOther uses \n \"Somewhere Else\" (The Good Place), an episode of the American comedy television series\n\nSee also\n Elsewhere (disambiguation)",
"\"Somewhere Else\" is a song by English indie rock band Razorlight, and was featured as a bonus track on the 2005 re-release of their debut album, Up All Night. It was their first new material following that album and became their biggest hit to date in the United Kingdom at the time when released as a single, debuting at number two in the UK Singles Chart, only to be bettered by \"America\", which charted at number one in October 2006. In 2007, the lyrics: \"and I met a girl/She asked me my name/I told her what it was\", were voted the third worst lyrics of all time.\n\nMusic video\nThe video features Johnny Borrell walking around various place in London, before returning to where he started at the beginning. A large portion of the video was filmed inside and outside the Northumberland Arms pub.\n\nTrack listings\n\nUK 7-inch vinyl\nA. \"Somewhere Else\"\nB. \"Dub the Right Profile\"\n\nUK CD single\n \"Somewhere Else\"\n \"Keep the Right Profile\"\n\nUK enhanced CD single\n \"Somewhere Else\"\n \"Hang By, Hang By\"\n \"Up All Night\" (live in California)\n Enhanced section: link to download five free live tracks\n\nCharts\n\nWeekly charts\n\nYear-end charts\n\nCertifications\n\nRelease history\n\nReferences\n\n2004 songs\n2005 singles\nRazorlight songs\nSongs written by Johnny Borrell\nUniversal Records singles\nVertigo Records singles"
]
|
[
"Lionel Conacher",
"Professional career",
"Where did he play?",
"Conacher scored the first goal in Pirates history",
"Where did he play?",
"then returned to Toronto to play professional baseball with the Toronto Maple Leafs.",
"How long did he play for the team?",
"He returned to Pittsburgh for the 1926-27 NHL season,",
"Did he leave to play somewhere else?",
"his playing rights were sold to the Montreal Maroons."
]
| C_036f3202ece346f199d988e1cd657070_0 | did he win any championships? | 5 | did Lionel Conacher win any championships? | Lionel Conacher | Conacher scored the first goal in Pirates history on American Thanksgiving Day Thursday November 26, 1925, against the Boston Bruins. He scored nine goals in 33 games in 1925-26, then returned to Toronto to play professional baseball with the Toronto Maple Leafs. An outfielder on the team, Conacher and the Maple Leafs won the International League championship then defeated the Louisville Colonels to win the Little World Series. He returned to Pittsburgh for the 1926-27 NHL season, but was dealt early in the year to the New York Americans in exchange for Charlie Langlois and $2,000. The trade nearly proved disastrous for Conacher. He scored 8 goals in 1926-27 and improved to 11 in 1927-28, but playing for a team owned by notorious bootlegger Bill Dwyer resulted in his becoming a heavy drinker. Conacher served as player-coach in 1929-30, but his play and health had deteriorated. Two events in that off-season saved Conacher: he swore off alcohol completely upon the birth of his first child, and his playing rights were sold to the Montreal Maroons. Conacher periodically struggled with Montreal, and at one point was placed on waivers with no other team willing to take over his contract. Nonetheless, his overall play and point totals increased for three consecutive seasons with the Maroons, peaking at 28 points in 1932-33. He was named to the Second All-Star Team that season, but was traded to the Chicago Black Hawks in exchange for Teddy Graham. Conacher was a key figure in the club's first-ever Stanley Cup victory that season. He finished second to the Canadiens' Aurel Joliat in the voting for the Hart Trophy and earned a spot on the NHL's First All-Star Team. On Wednesday October 3, 1934, Conacher was involved in one of the largest transactions in league history. He was dealt to the Montreal Canadiens, along with Leroy Goldsworthy and Roger Jenkins in exchange for Montreal superstar Howie Morenz, Lorne Chabot and Marty Burke. The deal was only part of a series of trades involving four teams that represented one of the biggest deals in NHL history. Immediately following the Chicago trade, Conacher was sent back to the Maroons, along with Herb Cain, in exchange for the rights to Nelson Crutchfield. Conacher spent his last three NHL seasons with the Maroons and won his second Stanley Cup in 1935. He ended his hockey career after the team was eliminated from the playoffs by the New York Rangers on April 23, 1937. That final year he was runner-up to Babe Siebert in the 1937 Hart Trophy voting and was placed on the NHL Second All-Star Team. CANNOTANSWER | Conacher and the Maple Leafs won the International League championship then defeated the Louisville Colonels to win the Little World Series. | Lionel Pretoria Conacher, MP (; May 24, 1900 – May 26, 1954), nicknamed "The Big Train", was a Canadian athlete and politician. Voted the country's top athlete of the first half of the 20th century, he won championships in numerous sports. His first passion was football; he was a member of the 1921 Grey Cup champion Toronto Argonauts. He was a member of the Toronto Maple Leafs baseball team that won the International League championship in 1926. In hockey, he won a Memorial Cup in 1920, and the Stanley Cup twice: with the Chicago Black Hawks in 1934 and the Montreal Maroons in 1935. Additionally, he won wrestling, boxing and lacrosse championships during his playing career. He is one of three players, including Joe Miller and Carl Voss, to have their names engraved on both the Grey Cup and Stanley Cup.
Conacher retired as an athlete in 1937 to enter politics. He won election to the Legislative Assembly of Ontario in 1937, and in 1949 won a seat in the House of Commons. Many of his political positions revolved around sports. He worked to eliminate corruption in boxing while serving as a Member of Provincial Parliament (MPP) in Ontario, also serving as the chairman of the Ontario Athletic Commission. Additionally, he served a term as director of recreation and entertainment for the Royal Canadian Air Force. It was also on the sports field that Conacher died: He suffered a heart attack twenty minutes after hitting a triple in a softball game played on the lawn of Parliament Hill.
Numerous organizations have honoured Conacher's career. In addition to being named Canada's athlete of the half-century, he was named the country's top football player over the same period. He was inducted into Canada's Sports Hall of Fame in 1955, the Canadian Football Hall of Fame in 1964, the Canadian Lacrosse Hall of Fame in 1965, the Hockey Hall of Fame in 1994, and the Ontario Sports Hall of Fame in 1996. Additionally, the Canadian Press gives the Lionel Conacher Award to its male athlete of the year.
Early life
Conacher was born in Toronto, Ontario on May 24, 1901. His middle name was given after the South African city of Pretoria, where British troops were fighting the Boer War at the time of his birth. He was the eldest son of Benjamin and Elizabeth Conacher, and the third of ten children overall. He had four brothers and five sisters. The family grew up in the neighbourhood of Davenport, which his brother Charlie described as "one of Toronto's higher class slums".
His father was a teamster, and struggled to earn enough money to support the family. In the winter, he ploughed the snow off outdoor skating rinks to earn additional money. Conacher left school after the eighth grade to go to work and help support his siblings. For ten hours a day, he hauled sod, earning an extra dollar a week for his family.
All ten children were encouraged to participate in sports by the principal of Jesse Ketchum School, who felt that such pursuits would keep his students from getting into trouble. Conacher discovered that he was among the better players in any sport he tried, and quickly became a star at Canadian football, ice hockey and lacrosse. He realized his athletic ability could offer an escape from poverty.
Amateur career
Conacher was a prolific athlete, excelling in numerous sports at the same time. He played with 14 different teams during his teenage years, winning 11 championships. He was 16 years old when he won the Ontario lightweight wrestling championship, and at 20 won the Canadian amateur light-heavyweight boxing championship. In 1921, he fought, and was knocked out by heavyweight champion Jack Dempsey in an exhibition match. One year he famously hit a triple to win the Toronto city baseball championship, then rushed to the other side of the city to find his lacrosse team trailing 3–0 in the Ontario provincial final. He scored four goals and an assist to lead them to a comeback victory.
Football
Rugby football was the first sport Conacher played, and it was his favourite. He first played organized football at the age of 12 as a middle wing with the Capitals in the Toronto Rugby Football League. He played four seasons with the team between 1912 and 1915, during which the Capitals won the city championship each year. He won the Ontario championship as a junior with the Toronto Central YMCA in 1918, and in 1919 moved up to the intermediate level. With the intermediate Capitals, he was moved into an offensive role as a halfback. He excelled in the role, and his team reached Ontario Rugby Football Union (ORFU) final. In that final, the Capitals' opponents from Sarnia made stopping Conacher their priority, a strategy that proved the difference as Sarnia won the championship.
Conacher moved to the senior level in 1920 with the Toronto Rugby Club where his team again won the ORFU championship, but lost the eastern semifinal to the Toronto Argonauts of the Interprovincial Rugby Football Union (IRFU). His play impressed the Argonauts, who signed him for the 1921 season. In his first game with the Argonauts, he scored 23 of the team's 27 points, and led the IRFU in scoring, accounting for 14 touchdowns and 90 of his team's 167 points as they went undefeated in six games. The Argonauts won the eastern championship, and faced the Edmonton Eskimos (renamed Edmonton 'Elks' in 1922) in the first east–west Grey Cup championship in Canadian history. Conacher rushed for 211 yards and scored 15 points in Toronto's 23–0 victory to claim the national title.
Named captain in 1922, Conacher led the Argonauts to another undefeated season in IRFU play, finishing with five wins and one tie, as he rushed for about 950 yards. The Argonauts reached the Eastern final, but lost to Queen's University, 12–11. In that game, Conacher was the entire Argonaut offense rushing 35 times for 227 yards but Pep Leadley's 21 yard field goal towards the end of the game gave Queens' its victory.
Ice hockey
The expense of playing hockey initially kept Conacher off the ice. He did not learn to skate until he was 16. Consequently, hockey was among his weakest sports. He played with the Toronto Century Rovers, and then the Aura Lee Athletic Club, but saw limited ice time. Determined to improve his game, he closely watched the top players from the bench and sought to emulate what made them successful. His efforts paid off, and by 1918–19, was considered a star defenceman for Aura Lee. He joined the Toronto Canoe Club Paddlers, a team of all-star calibre players in 1919–20, and with them won the Memorial Cup, Canada's national junior championship. Conacher then returned to the Aura Lees to play for their senior team for two years.
National Hockey League (NHL) teams took notice of Conacher's ability. The Toronto St. Pats offered him $3,000 a season – three times the average salary – to play for them in 1920–21, while in 1921, the Montreal Canadiens offered $5,000 and support setting up a business. He turned both down as he was not yet willing to surrender his status as an amateur athlete. His decisions to refuse the offers led to speculation that he was being paid under the table. He and Billy Burch were accused of deliberately throwing a game in 1922, but were absolved of guilt by the Amateur Athletic Union of Canada.
Move to Pittsburgh
Conacher remained in senior hockey and while playing for the North Toronto Seniors in 1923, was a part of the first hockey game ever broadcast on radio. That summer, he received an offer from Roy Schooley, the manager of the Duquesne Gardens and owner of the Pittsburgh Yellow Jackets of the United States Amateur Hockey Association (USAHA), to play for his team. While he would retain his amateur status, Schooley set Conacher up with a job in the insurance business and paid his university tuition so that he could improve his education. He brought many of his teammates with him to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, all of whom received jobs in the community, and he attended school at Bellefonte Academy for a year before enrolling at Duquesne University.
He played football for both schools in the fall, and served as the Yellow Jackets' captain in the winter where he led the team to consecutive USAHA titles in 1924 and 1925. In the summers, Conacher returned to Toronto and played lacrosse and baseball. The Yellow Jackets turned professional in 1925 when they were renamed the Pittsburgh Pirates and joined the National Hockey League (NHL). Conacher finally chose to turn professional with the team, a decision that surprised fans and teammates in Toronto, who knew of his favourtism for the game of football.
Professional career
Conacher scored the first goal in Pirates history on American Thanksgiving Day Thursday November 26, 1925, against the Boston Bruins. He scored nine goals in 33 games in , then returned to Toronto to play professional baseball with the Toronto Maple Leafs. An outfielder on the team, Conacher and the Maple Leafs won the International League championship then defeated the Louisville Colonels to win the Little World Series.
He returned to Pittsburgh for the NHL season, but was dealt early in the year to the New York Americans in exchange for Charlie Langlois and $2,000. The trade nearly proved disastrous for Conacher. He scored 8 goals in and improved to 11 in , but playing for a team owned by notorious bootlegger Bill Dwyer resulted in his becoming a heavy drinker. Conacher served as player-coach in , but his play and health had deteriorated. Two events in that off-season saved Conacher: he swore off alcohol completely upon the birth of his first child, and his playing rights were sold to the Montreal Maroons.
Conacher periodically struggled with Montreal, and at one point was placed on waivers with no other team willing to take over his contract. Nonetheless, his overall play and point totals increased for three consecutive seasons with the Maroons, peaking at 28 points in . He was named to the Second All-Star Team that season, but was traded to the Chicago Black Hawks in exchange for Teddy Graham. Conacher was a key figure in the club's first-ever Stanley Cup victory that season. He finished second to the Canadiens' Aurel Joliat in the voting for the Hart Trophy and earned a spot on the NHL's First All-Star Team.
On Wednesday October 3, 1934, Conacher was involved in one of the largest transactions in league history. He was dealt to the Montreal Canadiens, along with Leroy Goldsworthy and Roger Jenkins in exchange for Montreal superstar Howie Morenz, Lorne Chabot and Marty Burke. The deal was only part of a series of trades involving four teams that represented one of the biggest deals in NHL history. Immediately following the Chicago trade, Conacher was sent back to the Maroons, along with Herb Cain, in exchange for the rights to Nelson Crutchfield. Conacher spent his last three NHL seasons with the Maroons and won his second Stanley Cup in 1935. He ended his hockey career after the team was eliminated from the playoffs by the New York Rangers on April 23, 1937. That final year he was runner-up to Babe Siebert in the 1937 Hart Trophy voting and was placed on the NHL Second All-Star Team.
Canadian professional football
Conacher had not played competitive football since turning professional. At one point he was offered a position as coach of the Montreal AAA Winged Wheelers, but disappointed the Interprovincial Rugby Football Union club when he turned down the job due to his other commitments. He was not absent the game long, however, as Conacher returned to football in 1933. He was part of an effort to launch a new professional league that would feature both Canadian and American teams. The league never came to fruition, but Conacher organized what became the first professional football team in Canada. He captained the team, based out of Toronto, which was known as the Crosse and Blackwell Chefs following a sponsorship with a local food products company. Conacher recruited former amateur players who had likewise left the sport in favour of paying jobs in other pro sports, including his brother Charlie.
The first game was held Thanksgiving Day in 1933, an exhibition contest against the Rochester Arpeakos. A crowd of 10,000 attended the game to watch Conacher play his first competitive football game in Canada in ten years. He did not disappoint, scoring two touchdowns and setting up a third for the Chefs, and was hailed as the game's star despite an 18–15 loss. Toronto lost a return match in Rochester, but in the third and final game of their season, the Chefs defeated a team from Buffalo at Toronto by a score of 18–0. Conacher was again the star, rushing for two touchdowns and scoring 13 of his team's points. He organized the team for a second year in 1934, known as the Wrigley Aromints due to new sponsorship, and again played an exhibition schedule as the team remained unaffiliated with any league. The team again played three games, winning all three. However, at the age of 34 years, Conacher found that the game was too hard on his body physically, and neither he nor his team returned for a third season.
Lacrosse
Led by the owners of the Montreal Canadiens, the arena operators of Canada's NHL teams invented the sport of box lacrosse in 1931 in a bid to fill arena dates in the summer. The field variant of the sport had been in decline in Canada as the popularity of baseball and football grew, and it was hoped that lacrosse played in the confines of a hockey rink would create a faster, more exciting game. A summer professional circuit, the International Professional Lacrosse League was created with representative teams of the Montreal Maroons, Montreal Canadiens, Toronto Maple Leafs and an entry from Cornwall, Ontario. Several NHL players who had played the field game before abandoning it to turn professional in hockey signed with the teams, including Conacher, who joined the Maroons. The Maroons' inaugural game came against the Maple Leafs, and though Toronto won 9–7, Conacher stole the spotlight from the victors. He scored six of Montreal's goals, assisted on the seventh, and earned the praise of his fellow players. When the Maroons went to Toronto, the Maple Leafs hosted a "Lionel Conacher Night" to celebrate the city's native son. The Maroons did not figure into the playoff for the championship, but Conacher led the league in scoring with 107 points. His dominance in the league was such that his total nearly doubled his nearest rival, who finished with 56 points. In one game, against Toronto, he scored ten goals in a 17–12 victory. He chose not to return to lacrosse for the 1932 season, choosing instead to sign a contract to wrestle professionally during the hockey off-seasons.
Political career
Bracondale
When Conacher retired from professional hockey, he ran as a Liberal in the 1937 Ontario general election. He was elected as a Member of Provincial Parliament (MPP) representing the Toronto Bracondale electoral district in the Ontario Legislative Assembly, defeating the district's incumbent, Conservative Arthur Russell Nesbitt. Bracondale had a colourful electoral past, and this election night was no different. The October 6 election was a very close race between Nesbitt and Conacher.
Conacher represented Bracondale from October 6, 1937, until June 30, 1943, when the Legislature was dissolved for the 1943 Ontario general election. He was challenged for the Liberal nomination in Bracondale by Toronto city alderman E. C. Bogart. Bogart won and then lost the seat to the Co-operative Commwealth's Rae Luckock a few weeks later.
Conacher also served as the sports director for the Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF) during World War II. He and Canadian Amateur Hockey Association past-president George Dudley, announced plans for military teams based at all RCAF commands across Canada to play in senior ice hockey leagues.
Trinity
In the 1945 Canadian general election, Conacher represented the Liberal Party of Canada for a seat in the House of Commons of Canada, where he came second in Toronto's Trinity electoral district, losing to the Progressive Conservative incumbent. He ran again in Trinity for the Liberals in the 1949 Canadian general election, and this time he was elected. He was re-elected for a final time in the 1953 election.
In the spring of 1954 Conacher was in Ottawa attending to his parliamentary duties when he was asked to play in the annual softball game between MPs and members of the parliamentary press gallery. On May 26, in the sixth inning, in his last at-bat-ever, he hit a long drive into left field, stretching a single into a triple, when he sprinted to third base. He stood, breathing heavily and then collapsed face-first from having been hit in the head with a pitch in an earlier inning. One of the other MPs was a doctor who tried to assist him, but there was little that could be done for Conacher and within twenty minutes he was pronounced dead. The next day Conacher was supposed to attend his daughter's graduation from the University of Toronto. A big funeral was held, and his brother Charlie flew in from England to be there. He was buried at St. Johns York Mills Anglican Church Cemetery in Toronto.
Awards
He was named Canada's Greatest Male Athlete of the Half-Century (1950). In 1981 the Pro Football Researchers Association called Conacher "Canada's Answer to Jim Thorpe". He is a member of the Canadian Sports Hall of Fame (1955), the Canadian Football Hall of Fame (1963), the Canadian Lacrosse Hall of Fame (1966), and Hockey Hall of Fame (1994). The award for the Canadian Press Canadian male athlete of the year is called the Lionel Conacher Award.
Family
Conacher's younger brothers, Charlie Conacher, and Roy Conacher, were also Hall of Fame hockey players. His namesake, Lionel Jr., was a first round draft pick in 1960 and played a season with the Montreal Alouettes of the Canadian Football League. His son Brian Conacher represented Canada at the 1964 Winter Olympics and played for the Toronto Maple Leafs of the National Hockey League, winning a Stanley Cup with them in 1966–67 NHL season. Pete Conacher, Lionel's nephew and the son of Charlie, also played in the NHL, as did another nephew of Lionel's, Murray Henderson, who was the son of Lionel's sister Catherine. Current NHL player Cory Conacher is also a distant relative of Lionel's.
Career statistics
Ice hockey
* Stanley Cup Champion.
NHL coaching record
See also
List of Canadian sports personalities
References
Citations
Bibliography
External links
History by the Minute Video
Lionel Conacher, Greatest Sporting Moments, Virtual Museum of Canada Exhibit
1900 births
1954 deaths
Baseball people from Ontario
Canadian baseball players
Canadian Football Hall of Fame inductees
Canadian football punters
Canadian football running backs
Canadian ice hockey coaches
Canadian ice hockey defencemen
Canadian lacrosse players
Canadian people of Scottish descent
Canadian male boxers
Canadian male sport wrestlers
Canadian sportsperson-politicians
Chicago Blackhawks players
Duquesne Dukes football players
Hockey Hall of Fame inductees
Ice hockey people from Ontario
Ice hockey player-coaches
Liberal Party of Canada MPs
Members of the House of Commons of Canada from Ontario
Memorial Cup winners
Montreal Maroons players
New York Americans coaches
New York Americans players
Ontario Liberal Party MPPs
Persons of National Historic Significance (Canada)
Pittsburgh Pirates (NHL) players
Pittsburgh Yellow Jackets (USAHA) players
Players of Canadian football from Ontario
Politicians from Toronto
Royal Canadian Air Force officers
Royal Canadian Air Force personnel of World War II
Sportspeople from Toronto
Stanley Cup champions
Toronto Argonauts players
Toronto Maple Leafs (International League) players | true | [
"South Africa competed at the 2007 World Championships in Athletics, but did not win any medals.\n\nCompetitors\n\nReferences\n\nNations at the 2007 World Championships in Athletics\nWorld Championships in Athletics\nSouth Africa at the World Championships in Athletics",
"Romania competed at the 2012 European Athletics Championships in Helsinki, Finland, from 27 June to 1 July 2012. It did not win any medals.\n\nResults\n\nMen\n\nTrack\n\nField\n\nWomen\n\nTrack\n\nField\n\nSources\n\nNations at the 2012 European Athletics Championships\nRomania at the European Athletics Championships\nEuropean Athletics Championships"
]
|
[
"Lionel Conacher",
"Professional career",
"Where did he play?",
"Conacher scored the first goal in Pirates history",
"Where did he play?",
"then returned to Toronto to play professional baseball with the Toronto Maple Leafs.",
"How long did he play for the team?",
"He returned to Pittsburgh for the 1926-27 NHL season,",
"Did he leave to play somewhere else?",
"his playing rights were sold to the Montreal Maroons.",
"did he win any championships?",
"Conacher and the Maple Leafs won the International League championship then defeated the Louisville Colonels to win the Little World Series."
]
| C_036f3202ece346f199d988e1cd657070_0 | What other championships did he win? | 6 | What other championships did Lionel Conacher win besides the International League championship? | Lionel Conacher | Conacher scored the first goal in Pirates history on American Thanksgiving Day Thursday November 26, 1925, against the Boston Bruins. He scored nine goals in 33 games in 1925-26, then returned to Toronto to play professional baseball with the Toronto Maple Leafs. An outfielder on the team, Conacher and the Maple Leafs won the International League championship then defeated the Louisville Colonels to win the Little World Series. He returned to Pittsburgh for the 1926-27 NHL season, but was dealt early in the year to the New York Americans in exchange for Charlie Langlois and $2,000. The trade nearly proved disastrous for Conacher. He scored 8 goals in 1926-27 and improved to 11 in 1927-28, but playing for a team owned by notorious bootlegger Bill Dwyer resulted in his becoming a heavy drinker. Conacher served as player-coach in 1929-30, but his play and health had deteriorated. Two events in that off-season saved Conacher: he swore off alcohol completely upon the birth of his first child, and his playing rights were sold to the Montreal Maroons. Conacher periodically struggled with Montreal, and at one point was placed on waivers with no other team willing to take over his contract. Nonetheless, his overall play and point totals increased for three consecutive seasons with the Maroons, peaking at 28 points in 1932-33. He was named to the Second All-Star Team that season, but was traded to the Chicago Black Hawks in exchange for Teddy Graham. Conacher was a key figure in the club's first-ever Stanley Cup victory that season. He finished second to the Canadiens' Aurel Joliat in the voting for the Hart Trophy and earned a spot on the NHL's First All-Star Team. On Wednesday October 3, 1934, Conacher was involved in one of the largest transactions in league history. He was dealt to the Montreal Canadiens, along with Leroy Goldsworthy and Roger Jenkins in exchange for Montreal superstar Howie Morenz, Lorne Chabot and Marty Burke. The deal was only part of a series of trades involving four teams that represented one of the biggest deals in NHL history. Immediately following the Chicago trade, Conacher was sent back to the Maroons, along with Herb Cain, in exchange for the rights to Nelson Crutchfield. Conacher spent his last three NHL seasons with the Maroons and won his second Stanley Cup in 1935. He ended his hockey career after the team was eliminated from the playoffs by the New York Rangers on April 23, 1937. That final year he was runner-up to Babe Siebert in the 1937 Hart Trophy voting and was placed on the NHL Second All-Star Team. CANNOTANSWER | Conacher spent his last three NHL seasons with the Maroons and won his second Stanley Cup in 1935. | Lionel Pretoria Conacher, MP (; May 24, 1900 – May 26, 1954), nicknamed "The Big Train", was a Canadian athlete and politician. Voted the country's top athlete of the first half of the 20th century, he won championships in numerous sports. His first passion was football; he was a member of the 1921 Grey Cup champion Toronto Argonauts. He was a member of the Toronto Maple Leafs baseball team that won the International League championship in 1926. In hockey, he won a Memorial Cup in 1920, and the Stanley Cup twice: with the Chicago Black Hawks in 1934 and the Montreal Maroons in 1935. Additionally, he won wrestling, boxing and lacrosse championships during his playing career. He is one of three players, including Joe Miller and Carl Voss, to have their names engraved on both the Grey Cup and Stanley Cup.
Conacher retired as an athlete in 1937 to enter politics. He won election to the Legislative Assembly of Ontario in 1937, and in 1949 won a seat in the House of Commons. Many of his political positions revolved around sports. He worked to eliminate corruption in boxing while serving as a Member of Provincial Parliament (MPP) in Ontario, also serving as the chairman of the Ontario Athletic Commission. Additionally, he served a term as director of recreation and entertainment for the Royal Canadian Air Force. It was also on the sports field that Conacher died: He suffered a heart attack twenty minutes after hitting a triple in a softball game played on the lawn of Parliament Hill.
Numerous organizations have honoured Conacher's career. In addition to being named Canada's athlete of the half-century, he was named the country's top football player over the same period. He was inducted into Canada's Sports Hall of Fame in 1955, the Canadian Football Hall of Fame in 1964, the Canadian Lacrosse Hall of Fame in 1965, the Hockey Hall of Fame in 1994, and the Ontario Sports Hall of Fame in 1996. Additionally, the Canadian Press gives the Lionel Conacher Award to its male athlete of the year.
Early life
Conacher was born in Toronto, Ontario on May 24, 1901. His middle name was given after the South African city of Pretoria, where British troops were fighting the Boer War at the time of his birth. He was the eldest son of Benjamin and Elizabeth Conacher, and the third of ten children overall. He had four brothers and five sisters. The family grew up in the neighbourhood of Davenport, which his brother Charlie described as "one of Toronto's higher class slums".
His father was a teamster, and struggled to earn enough money to support the family. In the winter, he ploughed the snow off outdoor skating rinks to earn additional money. Conacher left school after the eighth grade to go to work and help support his siblings. For ten hours a day, he hauled sod, earning an extra dollar a week for his family.
All ten children were encouraged to participate in sports by the principal of Jesse Ketchum School, who felt that such pursuits would keep his students from getting into trouble. Conacher discovered that he was among the better players in any sport he tried, and quickly became a star at Canadian football, ice hockey and lacrosse. He realized his athletic ability could offer an escape from poverty.
Amateur career
Conacher was a prolific athlete, excelling in numerous sports at the same time. He played with 14 different teams during his teenage years, winning 11 championships. He was 16 years old when he won the Ontario lightweight wrestling championship, and at 20 won the Canadian amateur light-heavyweight boxing championship. In 1921, he fought, and was knocked out by heavyweight champion Jack Dempsey in an exhibition match. One year he famously hit a triple to win the Toronto city baseball championship, then rushed to the other side of the city to find his lacrosse team trailing 3–0 in the Ontario provincial final. He scored four goals and an assist to lead them to a comeback victory.
Football
Rugby football was the first sport Conacher played, and it was his favourite. He first played organized football at the age of 12 as a middle wing with the Capitals in the Toronto Rugby Football League. He played four seasons with the team between 1912 and 1915, during which the Capitals won the city championship each year. He won the Ontario championship as a junior with the Toronto Central YMCA in 1918, and in 1919 moved up to the intermediate level. With the intermediate Capitals, he was moved into an offensive role as a halfback. He excelled in the role, and his team reached Ontario Rugby Football Union (ORFU) final. In that final, the Capitals' opponents from Sarnia made stopping Conacher their priority, a strategy that proved the difference as Sarnia won the championship.
Conacher moved to the senior level in 1920 with the Toronto Rugby Club where his team again won the ORFU championship, but lost the eastern semifinal to the Toronto Argonauts of the Interprovincial Rugby Football Union (IRFU). His play impressed the Argonauts, who signed him for the 1921 season. In his first game with the Argonauts, he scored 23 of the team's 27 points, and led the IRFU in scoring, accounting for 14 touchdowns and 90 of his team's 167 points as they went undefeated in six games. The Argonauts won the eastern championship, and faced the Edmonton Eskimos (renamed Edmonton 'Elks' in 1922) in the first east–west Grey Cup championship in Canadian history. Conacher rushed for 211 yards and scored 15 points in Toronto's 23–0 victory to claim the national title.
Named captain in 1922, Conacher led the Argonauts to another undefeated season in IRFU play, finishing with five wins and one tie, as he rushed for about 950 yards. The Argonauts reached the Eastern final, but lost to Queen's University, 12–11. In that game, Conacher was the entire Argonaut offense rushing 35 times for 227 yards but Pep Leadley's 21 yard field goal towards the end of the game gave Queens' its victory.
Ice hockey
The expense of playing hockey initially kept Conacher off the ice. He did not learn to skate until he was 16. Consequently, hockey was among his weakest sports. He played with the Toronto Century Rovers, and then the Aura Lee Athletic Club, but saw limited ice time. Determined to improve his game, he closely watched the top players from the bench and sought to emulate what made them successful. His efforts paid off, and by 1918–19, was considered a star defenceman for Aura Lee. He joined the Toronto Canoe Club Paddlers, a team of all-star calibre players in 1919–20, and with them won the Memorial Cup, Canada's national junior championship. Conacher then returned to the Aura Lees to play for their senior team for two years.
National Hockey League (NHL) teams took notice of Conacher's ability. The Toronto St. Pats offered him $3,000 a season – three times the average salary – to play for them in 1920–21, while in 1921, the Montreal Canadiens offered $5,000 and support setting up a business. He turned both down as he was not yet willing to surrender his status as an amateur athlete. His decisions to refuse the offers led to speculation that he was being paid under the table. He and Billy Burch were accused of deliberately throwing a game in 1922, but were absolved of guilt by the Amateur Athletic Union of Canada.
Move to Pittsburgh
Conacher remained in senior hockey and while playing for the North Toronto Seniors in 1923, was a part of the first hockey game ever broadcast on radio. That summer, he received an offer from Roy Schooley, the manager of the Duquesne Gardens and owner of the Pittsburgh Yellow Jackets of the United States Amateur Hockey Association (USAHA), to play for his team. While he would retain his amateur status, Schooley set Conacher up with a job in the insurance business and paid his university tuition so that he could improve his education. He brought many of his teammates with him to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, all of whom received jobs in the community, and he attended school at Bellefonte Academy for a year before enrolling at Duquesne University.
He played football for both schools in the fall, and served as the Yellow Jackets' captain in the winter where he led the team to consecutive USAHA titles in 1924 and 1925. In the summers, Conacher returned to Toronto and played lacrosse and baseball. The Yellow Jackets turned professional in 1925 when they were renamed the Pittsburgh Pirates and joined the National Hockey League (NHL). Conacher finally chose to turn professional with the team, a decision that surprised fans and teammates in Toronto, who knew of his favourtism for the game of football.
Professional career
Conacher scored the first goal in Pirates history on American Thanksgiving Day Thursday November 26, 1925, against the Boston Bruins. He scored nine goals in 33 games in , then returned to Toronto to play professional baseball with the Toronto Maple Leafs. An outfielder on the team, Conacher and the Maple Leafs won the International League championship then defeated the Louisville Colonels to win the Little World Series.
He returned to Pittsburgh for the NHL season, but was dealt early in the year to the New York Americans in exchange for Charlie Langlois and $2,000. The trade nearly proved disastrous for Conacher. He scored 8 goals in and improved to 11 in , but playing for a team owned by notorious bootlegger Bill Dwyer resulted in his becoming a heavy drinker. Conacher served as player-coach in , but his play and health had deteriorated. Two events in that off-season saved Conacher: he swore off alcohol completely upon the birth of his first child, and his playing rights were sold to the Montreal Maroons.
Conacher periodically struggled with Montreal, and at one point was placed on waivers with no other team willing to take over his contract. Nonetheless, his overall play and point totals increased for three consecutive seasons with the Maroons, peaking at 28 points in . He was named to the Second All-Star Team that season, but was traded to the Chicago Black Hawks in exchange for Teddy Graham. Conacher was a key figure in the club's first-ever Stanley Cup victory that season. He finished second to the Canadiens' Aurel Joliat in the voting for the Hart Trophy and earned a spot on the NHL's First All-Star Team.
On Wednesday October 3, 1934, Conacher was involved in one of the largest transactions in league history. He was dealt to the Montreal Canadiens, along with Leroy Goldsworthy and Roger Jenkins in exchange for Montreal superstar Howie Morenz, Lorne Chabot and Marty Burke. The deal was only part of a series of trades involving four teams that represented one of the biggest deals in NHL history. Immediately following the Chicago trade, Conacher was sent back to the Maroons, along with Herb Cain, in exchange for the rights to Nelson Crutchfield. Conacher spent his last three NHL seasons with the Maroons and won his second Stanley Cup in 1935. He ended his hockey career after the team was eliminated from the playoffs by the New York Rangers on April 23, 1937. That final year he was runner-up to Babe Siebert in the 1937 Hart Trophy voting and was placed on the NHL Second All-Star Team.
Canadian professional football
Conacher had not played competitive football since turning professional. At one point he was offered a position as coach of the Montreal AAA Winged Wheelers, but disappointed the Interprovincial Rugby Football Union club when he turned down the job due to his other commitments. He was not absent the game long, however, as Conacher returned to football in 1933. He was part of an effort to launch a new professional league that would feature both Canadian and American teams. The league never came to fruition, but Conacher organized what became the first professional football team in Canada. He captained the team, based out of Toronto, which was known as the Crosse and Blackwell Chefs following a sponsorship with a local food products company. Conacher recruited former amateur players who had likewise left the sport in favour of paying jobs in other pro sports, including his brother Charlie.
The first game was held Thanksgiving Day in 1933, an exhibition contest against the Rochester Arpeakos. A crowd of 10,000 attended the game to watch Conacher play his first competitive football game in Canada in ten years. He did not disappoint, scoring two touchdowns and setting up a third for the Chefs, and was hailed as the game's star despite an 18–15 loss. Toronto lost a return match in Rochester, but in the third and final game of their season, the Chefs defeated a team from Buffalo at Toronto by a score of 18–0. Conacher was again the star, rushing for two touchdowns and scoring 13 of his team's points. He organized the team for a second year in 1934, known as the Wrigley Aromints due to new sponsorship, and again played an exhibition schedule as the team remained unaffiliated with any league. The team again played three games, winning all three. However, at the age of 34 years, Conacher found that the game was too hard on his body physically, and neither he nor his team returned for a third season.
Lacrosse
Led by the owners of the Montreal Canadiens, the arena operators of Canada's NHL teams invented the sport of box lacrosse in 1931 in a bid to fill arena dates in the summer. The field variant of the sport had been in decline in Canada as the popularity of baseball and football grew, and it was hoped that lacrosse played in the confines of a hockey rink would create a faster, more exciting game. A summer professional circuit, the International Professional Lacrosse League was created with representative teams of the Montreal Maroons, Montreal Canadiens, Toronto Maple Leafs and an entry from Cornwall, Ontario. Several NHL players who had played the field game before abandoning it to turn professional in hockey signed with the teams, including Conacher, who joined the Maroons. The Maroons' inaugural game came against the Maple Leafs, and though Toronto won 9–7, Conacher stole the spotlight from the victors. He scored six of Montreal's goals, assisted on the seventh, and earned the praise of his fellow players. When the Maroons went to Toronto, the Maple Leafs hosted a "Lionel Conacher Night" to celebrate the city's native son. The Maroons did not figure into the playoff for the championship, but Conacher led the league in scoring with 107 points. His dominance in the league was such that his total nearly doubled his nearest rival, who finished with 56 points. In one game, against Toronto, he scored ten goals in a 17–12 victory. He chose not to return to lacrosse for the 1932 season, choosing instead to sign a contract to wrestle professionally during the hockey off-seasons.
Political career
Bracondale
When Conacher retired from professional hockey, he ran as a Liberal in the 1937 Ontario general election. He was elected as a Member of Provincial Parliament (MPP) representing the Toronto Bracondale electoral district in the Ontario Legislative Assembly, defeating the district's incumbent, Conservative Arthur Russell Nesbitt. Bracondale had a colourful electoral past, and this election night was no different. The October 6 election was a very close race between Nesbitt and Conacher.
Conacher represented Bracondale from October 6, 1937, until June 30, 1943, when the Legislature was dissolved for the 1943 Ontario general election. He was challenged for the Liberal nomination in Bracondale by Toronto city alderman E. C. Bogart. Bogart won and then lost the seat to the Co-operative Commwealth's Rae Luckock a few weeks later.
Conacher also served as the sports director for the Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF) during World War II. He and Canadian Amateur Hockey Association past-president George Dudley, announced plans for military teams based at all RCAF commands across Canada to play in senior ice hockey leagues.
Trinity
In the 1945 Canadian general election, Conacher represented the Liberal Party of Canada for a seat in the House of Commons of Canada, where he came second in Toronto's Trinity electoral district, losing to the Progressive Conservative incumbent. He ran again in Trinity for the Liberals in the 1949 Canadian general election, and this time he was elected. He was re-elected for a final time in the 1953 election.
In the spring of 1954 Conacher was in Ottawa attending to his parliamentary duties when he was asked to play in the annual softball game between MPs and members of the parliamentary press gallery. On May 26, in the sixth inning, in his last at-bat-ever, he hit a long drive into left field, stretching a single into a triple, when he sprinted to third base. He stood, breathing heavily and then collapsed face-first from having been hit in the head with a pitch in an earlier inning. One of the other MPs was a doctor who tried to assist him, but there was little that could be done for Conacher and within twenty minutes he was pronounced dead. The next day Conacher was supposed to attend his daughter's graduation from the University of Toronto. A big funeral was held, and his brother Charlie flew in from England to be there. He was buried at St. Johns York Mills Anglican Church Cemetery in Toronto.
Awards
He was named Canada's Greatest Male Athlete of the Half-Century (1950). In 1981 the Pro Football Researchers Association called Conacher "Canada's Answer to Jim Thorpe". He is a member of the Canadian Sports Hall of Fame (1955), the Canadian Football Hall of Fame (1963), the Canadian Lacrosse Hall of Fame (1966), and Hockey Hall of Fame (1994). The award for the Canadian Press Canadian male athlete of the year is called the Lionel Conacher Award.
Family
Conacher's younger brothers, Charlie Conacher, and Roy Conacher, were also Hall of Fame hockey players. His namesake, Lionel Jr., was a first round draft pick in 1960 and played a season with the Montreal Alouettes of the Canadian Football League. His son Brian Conacher represented Canada at the 1964 Winter Olympics and played for the Toronto Maple Leafs of the National Hockey League, winning a Stanley Cup with them in 1966–67 NHL season. Pete Conacher, Lionel's nephew and the son of Charlie, also played in the NHL, as did another nephew of Lionel's, Murray Henderson, who was the son of Lionel's sister Catherine. Current NHL player Cory Conacher is also a distant relative of Lionel's.
Career statistics
Ice hockey
* Stanley Cup Champion.
NHL coaching record
See also
List of Canadian sports personalities
References
Citations
Bibliography
External links
History by the Minute Video
Lionel Conacher, Greatest Sporting Moments, Virtual Museum of Canada Exhibit
1900 births
1954 deaths
Baseball people from Ontario
Canadian baseball players
Canadian Football Hall of Fame inductees
Canadian football punters
Canadian football running backs
Canadian ice hockey coaches
Canadian ice hockey defencemen
Canadian lacrosse players
Canadian people of Scottish descent
Canadian male boxers
Canadian male sport wrestlers
Canadian sportsperson-politicians
Chicago Blackhawks players
Duquesne Dukes football players
Hockey Hall of Fame inductees
Ice hockey people from Ontario
Ice hockey player-coaches
Liberal Party of Canada MPs
Members of the House of Commons of Canada from Ontario
Memorial Cup winners
Montreal Maroons players
New York Americans coaches
New York Americans players
Ontario Liberal Party MPPs
Persons of National Historic Significance (Canada)
Pittsburgh Pirates (NHL) players
Pittsburgh Yellow Jackets (USAHA) players
Players of Canadian football from Ontario
Politicians from Toronto
Royal Canadian Air Force officers
Royal Canadian Air Force personnel of World War II
Sportspeople from Toronto
Stanley Cup champions
Toronto Argonauts players
Toronto Maple Leafs (International League) players | true | [
"Nabor Castillo Pérez (born October 4, 1990 in Pachuca, Hidalgo) is a judoka from Mexico.\n\nAfter winning gold in Pan American Judo Championships he said that before championships he had hoped to win a medal but did not know what color it would be. His primary intention when entering was to gain points to qualify for the 2012 Summer Olympics. He did so, and reached the third round in London, beating Khom Ratanakmony before losing to Elio Verde.\n\nCastillo was the first Mexican judoka to win a medal at a World Judo Grand Prix event.\n\nAchievements\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n \n\nMexican male judoka\n1990 births\nLiving people\nJudoka at the 2011 Pan American Games\nJudoka at the 2012 Summer Olympics\nOlympic judoka of Mexico\nPan American Games medalists in judo\nPan American Games silver medalists for Mexico\nMedalists at the 2011 Pan American Games",
"Karl Cordin (born 3 November 1948) is an Austrian former alpine skier who did only compete in Downhill Races; he competed in the 1972 Winter Olympics, becoming 7th silver medal at FIS Alpine World Ski Championships 1970 in downhill.\n\nBiography\nCording did win three World Cup races: on February 21, 1970, at Jackson Hole, on December 20th, 1970, at Val-d’Isère, and on December 18, 1973, at Zell am See; he did become five-times second and twice third too. He also could achieve the Downhill World Cup in 1969-70.\nHe won the silver medal in the FIS Alpine Skiing World Championships 1970 and became fourth in the FIS Alpine Skiing World Championships 1974; in both races he was overtaken by a racer with a higher number. In 1970, he was in lead (and it looked that he could gain the gold medal) - but Bernhard Russi did win. In 1974, he was on the way to win the bronze medal, but Willi Frommelt did catch it.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n \n\n1948 births\nLiving people\nAustrian male alpine skiers\nOlympic alpine skiers of Austria\nAlpine skiers at the 1972 Winter Olympics\nFIS Alpine Ski World Cup champions"
]
|
[
"Lionel Conacher",
"Professional career",
"Where did he play?",
"Conacher scored the first goal in Pirates history",
"Where did he play?",
"then returned to Toronto to play professional baseball with the Toronto Maple Leafs.",
"How long did he play for the team?",
"He returned to Pittsburgh for the 1926-27 NHL season,",
"Did he leave to play somewhere else?",
"his playing rights were sold to the Montreal Maroons.",
"did he win any championships?",
"Conacher and the Maple Leafs won the International League championship then defeated the Louisville Colonels to win the Little World Series.",
"What other championships did he win?",
"Conacher spent his last three NHL seasons with the Maroons and won his second Stanley Cup in 1935."
]
| C_036f3202ece346f199d988e1cd657070_0 | Did he retire? | 7 | Did Lionel Conacher retire? | Lionel Conacher | Conacher scored the first goal in Pirates history on American Thanksgiving Day Thursday November 26, 1925, against the Boston Bruins. He scored nine goals in 33 games in 1925-26, then returned to Toronto to play professional baseball with the Toronto Maple Leafs. An outfielder on the team, Conacher and the Maple Leafs won the International League championship then defeated the Louisville Colonels to win the Little World Series. He returned to Pittsburgh for the 1926-27 NHL season, but was dealt early in the year to the New York Americans in exchange for Charlie Langlois and $2,000. The trade nearly proved disastrous for Conacher. He scored 8 goals in 1926-27 and improved to 11 in 1927-28, but playing for a team owned by notorious bootlegger Bill Dwyer resulted in his becoming a heavy drinker. Conacher served as player-coach in 1929-30, but his play and health had deteriorated. Two events in that off-season saved Conacher: he swore off alcohol completely upon the birth of his first child, and his playing rights were sold to the Montreal Maroons. Conacher periodically struggled with Montreal, and at one point was placed on waivers with no other team willing to take over his contract. Nonetheless, his overall play and point totals increased for three consecutive seasons with the Maroons, peaking at 28 points in 1932-33. He was named to the Second All-Star Team that season, but was traded to the Chicago Black Hawks in exchange for Teddy Graham. Conacher was a key figure in the club's first-ever Stanley Cup victory that season. He finished second to the Canadiens' Aurel Joliat in the voting for the Hart Trophy and earned a spot on the NHL's First All-Star Team. On Wednesday October 3, 1934, Conacher was involved in one of the largest transactions in league history. He was dealt to the Montreal Canadiens, along with Leroy Goldsworthy and Roger Jenkins in exchange for Montreal superstar Howie Morenz, Lorne Chabot and Marty Burke. The deal was only part of a series of trades involving four teams that represented one of the biggest deals in NHL history. Immediately following the Chicago trade, Conacher was sent back to the Maroons, along with Herb Cain, in exchange for the rights to Nelson Crutchfield. Conacher spent his last three NHL seasons with the Maroons and won his second Stanley Cup in 1935. He ended his hockey career after the team was eliminated from the playoffs by the New York Rangers on April 23, 1937. That final year he was runner-up to Babe Siebert in the 1937 Hart Trophy voting and was placed on the NHL Second All-Star Team. CANNOTANSWER | He ended his hockey career after the team was eliminated from the playoffs by the New York Rangers on April 23, 1937. | Lionel Pretoria Conacher, MP (; May 24, 1900 – May 26, 1954), nicknamed "The Big Train", was a Canadian athlete and politician. Voted the country's top athlete of the first half of the 20th century, he won championships in numerous sports. His first passion was football; he was a member of the 1921 Grey Cup champion Toronto Argonauts. He was a member of the Toronto Maple Leafs baseball team that won the International League championship in 1926. In hockey, he won a Memorial Cup in 1920, and the Stanley Cup twice: with the Chicago Black Hawks in 1934 and the Montreal Maroons in 1935. Additionally, he won wrestling, boxing and lacrosse championships during his playing career. He is one of three players, including Joe Miller and Carl Voss, to have their names engraved on both the Grey Cup and Stanley Cup.
Conacher retired as an athlete in 1937 to enter politics. He won election to the Legislative Assembly of Ontario in 1937, and in 1949 won a seat in the House of Commons. Many of his political positions revolved around sports. He worked to eliminate corruption in boxing while serving as a Member of Provincial Parliament (MPP) in Ontario, also serving as the chairman of the Ontario Athletic Commission. Additionally, he served a term as director of recreation and entertainment for the Royal Canadian Air Force. It was also on the sports field that Conacher died: He suffered a heart attack twenty minutes after hitting a triple in a softball game played on the lawn of Parliament Hill.
Numerous organizations have honoured Conacher's career. In addition to being named Canada's athlete of the half-century, he was named the country's top football player over the same period. He was inducted into Canada's Sports Hall of Fame in 1955, the Canadian Football Hall of Fame in 1964, the Canadian Lacrosse Hall of Fame in 1965, the Hockey Hall of Fame in 1994, and the Ontario Sports Hall of Fame in 1996. Additionally, the Canadian Press gives the Lionel Conacher Award to its male athlete of the year.
Early life
Conacher was born in Toronto, Ontario on May 24, 1901. His middle name was given after the South African city of Pretoria, where British troops were fighting the Boer War at the time of his birth. He was the eldest son of Benjamin and Elizabeth Conacher, and the third of ten children overall. He had four brothers and five sisters. The family grew up in the neighbourhood of Davenport, which his brother Charlie described as "one of Toronto's higher class slums".
His father was a teamster, and struggled to earn enough money to support the family. In the winter, he ploughed the snow off outdoor skating rinks to earn additional money. Conacher left school after the eighth grade to go to work and help support his siblings. For ten hours a day, he hauled sod, earning an extra dollar a week for his family.
All ten children were encouraged to participate in sports by the principal of Jesse Ketchum School, who felt that such pursuits would keep his students from getting into trouble. Conacher discovered that he was among the better players in any sport he tried, and quickly became a star at Canadian football, ice hockey and lacrosse. He realized his athletic ability could offer an escape from poverty.
Amateur career
Conacher was a prolific athlete, excelling in numerous sports at the same time. He played with 14 different teams during his teenage years, winning 11 championships. He was 16 years old when he won the Ontario lightweight wrestling championship, and at 20 won the Canadian amateur light-heavyweight boxing championship. In 1921, he fought, and was knocked out by heavyweight champion Jack Dempsey in an exhibition match. One year he famously hit a triple to win the Toronto city baseball championship, then rushed to the other side of the city to find his lacrosse team trailing 3–0 in the Ontario provincial final. He scored four goals and an assist to lead them to a comeback victory.
Football
Rugby football was the first sport Conacher played, and it was his favourite. He first played organized football at the age of 12 as a middle wing with the Capitals in the Toronto Rugby Football League. He played four seasons with the team between 1912 and 1915, during which the Capitals won the city championship each year. He won the Ontario championship as a junior with the Toronto Central YMCA in 1918, and in 1919 moved up to the intermediate level. With the intermediate Capitals, he was moved into an offensive role as a halfback. He excelled in the role, and his team reached Ontario Rugby Football Union (ORFU) final. In that final, the Capitals' opponents from Sarnia made stopping Conacher their priority, a strategy that proved the difference as Sarnia won the championship.
Conacher moved to the senior level in 1920 with the Toronto Rugby Club where his team again won the ORFU championship, but lost the eastern semifinal to the Toronto Argonauts of the Interprovincial Rugby Football Union (IRFU). His play impressed the Argonauts, who signed him for the 1921 season. In his first game with the Argonauts, he scored 23 of the team's 27 points, and led the IRFU in scoring, accounting for 14 touchdowns and 90 of his team's 167 points as they went undefeated in six games. The Argonauts won the eastern championship, and faced the Edmonton Eskimos (renamed Edmonton 'Elks' in 1922) in the first east–west Grey Cup championship in Canadian history. Conacher rushed for 211 yards and scored 15 points in Toronto's 23–0 victory to claim the national title.
Named captain in 1922, Conacher led the Argonauts to another undefeated season in IRFU play, finishing with five wins and one tie, as he rushed for about 950 yards. The Argonauts reached the Eastern final, but lost to Queen's University, 12–11. In that game, Conacher was the entire Argonaut offense rushing 35 times for 227 yards but Pep Leadley's 21 yard field goal towards the end of the game gave Queens' its victory.
Ice hockey
The expense of playing hockey initially kept Conacher off the ice. He did not learn to skate until he was 16. Consequently, hockey was among his weakest sports. He played with the Toronto Century Rovers, and then the Aura Lee Athletic Club, but saw limited ice time. Determined to improve his game, he closely watched the top players from the bench and sought to emulate what made them successful. His efforts paid off, and by 1918–19, was considered a star defenceman for Aura Lee. He joined the Toronto Canoe Club Paddlers, a team of all-star calibre players in 1919–20, and with them won the Memorial Cup, Canada's national junior championship. Conacher then returned to the Aura Lees to play for their senior team for two years.
National Hockey League (NHL) teams took notice of Conacher's ability. The Toronto St. Pats offered him $3,000 a season – three times the average salary – to play for them in 1920–21, while in 1921, the Montreal Canadiens offered $5,000 and support setting up a business. He turned both down as he was not yet willing to surrender his status as an amateur athlete. His decisions to refuse the offers led to speculation that he was being paid under the table. He and Billy Burch were accused of deliberately throwing a game in 1922, but were absolved of guilt by the Amateur Athletic Union of Canada.
Move to Pittsburgh
Conacher remained in senior hockey and while playing for the North Toronto Seniors in 1923, was a part of the first hockey game ever broadcast on radio. That summer, he received an offer from Roy Schooley, the manager of the Duquesne Gardens and owner of the Pittsburgh Yellow Jackets of the United States Amateur Hockey Association (USAHA), to play for his team. While he would retain his amateur status, Schooley set Conacher up with a job in the insurance business and paid his university tuition so that he could improve his education. He brought many of his teammates with him to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, all of whom received jobs in the community, and he attended school at Bellefonte Academy for a year before enrolling at Duquesne University.
He played football for both schools in the fall, and served as the Yellow Jackets' captain in the winter where he led the team to consecutive USAHA titles in 1924 and 1925. In the summers, Conacher returned to Toronto and played lacrosse and baseball. The Yellow Jackets turned professional in 1925 when they were renamed the Pittsburgh Pirates and joined the National Hockey League (NHL). Conacher finally chose to turn professional with the team, a decision that surprised fans and teammates in Toronto, who knew of his favourtism for the game of football.
Professional career
Conacher scored the first goal in Pirates history on American Thanksgiving Day Thursday November 26, 1925, against the Boston Bruins. He scored nine goals in 33 games in , then returned to Toronto to play professional baseball with the Toronto Maple Leafs. An outfielder on the team, Conacher and the Maple Leafs won the International League championship then defeated the Louisville Colonels to win the Little World Series.
He returned to Pittsburgh for the NHL season, but was dealt early in the year to the New York Americans in exchange for Charlie Langlois and $2,000. The trade nearly proved disastrous for Conacher. He scored 8 goals in and improved to 11 in , but playing for a team owned by notorious bootlegger Bill Dwyer resulted in his becoming a heavy drinker. Conacher served as player-coach in , but his play and health had deteriorated. Two events in that off-season saved Conacher: he swore off alcohol completely upon the birth of his first child, and his playing rights were sold to the Montreal Maroons.
Conacher periodically struggled with Montreal, and at one point was placed on waivers with no other team willing to take over his contract. Nonetheless, his overall play and point totals increased for three consecutive seasons with the Maroons, peaking at 28 points in . He was named to the Second All-Star Team that season, but was traded to the Chicago Black Hawks in exchange for Teddy Graham. Conacher was a key figure in the club's first-ever Stanley Cup victory that season. He finished second to the Canadiens' Aurel Joliat in the voting for the Hart Trophy and earned a spot on the NHL's First All-Star Team.
On Wednesday October 3, 1934, Conacher was involved in one of the largest transactions in league history. He was dealt to the Montreal Canadiens, along with Leroy Goldsworthy and Roger Jenkins in exchange for Montreal superstar Howie Morenz, Lorne Chabot and Marty Burke. The deal was only part of a series of trades involving four teams that represented one of the biggest deals in NHL history. Immediately following the Chicago trade, Conacher was sent back to the Maroons, along with Herb Cain, in exchange for the rights to Nelson Crutchfield. Conacher spent his last three NHL seasons with the Maroons and won his second Stanley Cup in 1935. He ended his hockey career after the team was eliminated from the playoffs by the New York Rangers on April 23, 1937. That final year he was runner-up to Babe Siebert in the 1937 Hart Trophy voting and was placed on the NHL Second All-Star Team.
Canadian professional football
Conacher had not played competitive football since turning professional. At one point he was offered a position as coach of the Montreal AAA Winged Wheelers, but disappointed the Interprovincial Rugby Football Union club when he turned down the job due to his other commitments. He was not absent the game long, however, as Conacher returned to football in 1933. He was part of an effort to launch a new professional league that would feature both Canadian and American teams. The league never came to fruition, but Conacher organized what became the first professional football team in Canada. He captained the team, based out of Toronto, which was known as the Crosse and Blackwell Chefs following a sponsorship with a local food products company. Conacher recruited former amateur players who had likewise left the sport in favour of paying jobs in other pro sports, including his brother Charlie.
The first game was held Thanksgiving Day in 1933, an exhibition contest against the Rochester Arpeakos. A crowd of 10,000 attended the game to watch Conacher play his first competitive football game in Canada in ten years. He did not disappoint, scoring two touchdowns and setting up a third for the Chefs, and was hailed as the game's star despite an 18–15 loss. Toronto lost a return match in Rochester, but in the third and final game of their season, the Chefs defeated a team from Buffalo at Toronto by a score of 18–0. Conacher was again the star, rushing for two touchdowns and scoring 13 of his team's points. He organized the team for a second year in 1934, known as the Wrigley Aromints due to new sponsorship, and again played an exhibition schedule as the team remained unaffiliated with any league. The team again played three games, winning all three. However, at the age of 34 years, Conacher found that the game was too hard on his body physically, and neither he nor his team returned for a third season.
Lacrosse
Led by the owners of the Montreal Canadiens, the arena operators of Canada's NHL teams invented the sport of box lacrosse in 1931 in a bid to fill arena dates in the summer. The field variant of the sport had been in decline in Canada as the popularity of baseball and football grew, and it was hoped that lacrosse played in the confines of a hockey rink would create a faster, more exciting game. A summer professional circuit, the International Professional Lacrosse League was created with representative teams of the Montreal Maroons, Montreal Canadiens, Toronto Maple Leafs and an entry from Cornwall, Ontario. Several NHL players who had played the field game before abandoning it to turn professional in hockey signed with the teams, including Conacher, who joined the Maroons. The Maroons' inaugural game came against the Maple Leafs, and though Toronto won 9–7, Conacher stole the spotlight from the victors. He scored six of Montreal's goals, assisted on the seventh, and earned the praise of his fellow players. When the Maroons went to Toronto, the Maple Leafs hosted a "Lionel Conacher Night" to celebrate the city's native son. The Maroons did not figure into the playoff for the championship, but Conacher led the league in scoring with 107 points. His dominance in the league was such that his total nearly doubled his nearest rival, who finished with 56 points. In one game, against Toronto, he scored ten goals in a 17–12 victory. He chose not to return to lacrosse for the 1932 season, choosing instead to sign a contract to wrestle professionally during the hockey off-seasons.
Political career
Bracondale
When Conacher retired from professional hockey, he ran as a Liberal in the 1937 Ontario general election. He was elected as a Member of Provincial Parliament (MPP) representing the Toronto Bracondale electoral district in the Ontario Legislative Assembly, defeating the district's incumbent, Conservative Arthur Russell Nesbitt. Bracondale had a colourful electoral past, and this election night was no different. The October 6 election was a very close race between Nesbitt and Conacher.
Conacher represented Bracondale from October 6, 1937, until June 30, 1943, when the Legislature was dissolved for the 1943 Ontario general election. He was challenged for the Liberal nomination in Bracondale by Toronto city alderman E. C. Bogart. Bogart won and then lost the seat to the Co-operative Commwealth's Rae Luckock a few weeks later.
Conacher also served as the sports director for the Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF) during World War II. He and Canadian Amateur Hockey Association past-president George Dudley, announced plans for military teams based at all RCAF commands across Canada to play in senior ice hockey leagues.
Trinity
In the 1945 Canadian general election, Conacher represented the Liberal Party of Canada for a seat in the House of Commons of Canada, where he came second in Toronto's Trinity electoral district, losing to the Progressive Conservative incumbent. He ran again in Trinity for the Liberals in the 1949 Canadian general election, and this time he was elected. He was re-elected for a final time in the 1953 election.
In the spring of 1954 Conacher was in Ottawa attending to his parliamentary duties when he was asked to play in the annual softball game between MPs and members of the parliamentary press gallery. On May 26, in the sixth inning, in his last at-bat-ever, he hit a long drive into left field, stretching a single into a triple, when he sprinted to third base. He stood, breathing heavily and then collapsed face-first from having been hit in the head with a pitch in an earlier inning. One of the other MPs was a doctor who tried to assist him, but there was little that could be done for Conacher and within twenty minutes he was pronounced dead. The next day Conacher was supposed to attend his daughter's graduation from the University of Toronto. A big funeral was held, and his brother Charlie flew in from England to be there. He was buried at St. Johns York Mills Anglican Church Cemetery in Toronto.
Awards
He was named Canada's Greatest Male Athlete of the Half-Century (1950). In 1981 the Pro Football Researchers Association called Conacher "Canada's Answer to Jim Thorpe". He is a member of the Canadian Sports Hall of Fame (1955), the Canadian Football Hall of Fame (1963), the Canadian Lacrosse Hall of Fame (1966), and Hockey Hall of Fame (1994). The award for the Canadian Press Canadian male athlete of the year is called the Lionel Conacher Award.
Family
Conacher's younger brothers, Charlie Conacher, and Roy Conacher, were also Hall of Fame hockey players. His namesake, Lionel Jr., was a first round draft pick in 1960 and played a season with the Montreal Alouettes of the Canadian Football League. His son Brian Conacher represented Canada at the 1964 Winter Olympics and played for the Toronto Maple Leafs of the National Hockey League, winning a Stanley Cup with them in 1966–67 NHL season. Pete Conacher, Lionel's nephew and the son of Charlie, also played in the NHL, as did another nephew of Lionel's, Murray Henderson, who was the son of Lionel's sister Catherine. Current NHL player Cory Conacher is also a distant relative of Lionel's.
Career statistics
Ice hockey
* Stanley Cup Champion.
NHL coaching record
See also
List of Canadian sports personalities
References
Citations
Bibliography
External links
History by the Minute Video
Lionel Conacher, Greatest Sporting Moments, Virtual Museum of Canada Exhibit
1900 births
1954 deaths
Baseball people from Ontario
Canadian baseball players
Canadian Football Hall of Fame inductees
Canadian football punters
Canadian football running backs
Canadian ice hockey coaches
Canadian ice hockey defencemen
Canadian lacrosse players
Canadian people of Scottish descent
Canadian male boxers
Canadian male sport wrestlers
Canadian sportsperson-politicians
Chicago Blackhawks players
Duquesne Dukes football players
Hockey Hall of Fame inductees
Ice hockey people from Ontario
Ice hockey player-coaches
Liberal Party of Canada MPs
Members of the House of Commons of Canada from Ontario
Memorial Cup winners
Montreal Maroons players
New York Americans coaches
New York Americans players
Ontario Liberal Party MPPs
Persons of National Historic Significance (Canada)
Pittsburgh Pirates (NHL) players
Pittsburgh Yellow Jackets (USAHA) players
Players of Canadian football from Ontario
Politicians from Toronto
Royal Canadian Air Force officers
Royal Canadian Air Force personnel of World War II
Sportspeople from Toronto
Stanley Cup champions
Toronto Argonauts players
Toronto Maple Leafs (International League) 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",
"Matt McKay (born 21 January 1981) is an English footballer who played as a midfielder in the Football League for Chester City.\n\nMcKay joined Everton from Chester on transfer deadline day on 26 March 1998. He did not make any appearances for the Everton first team and was forced to retire at the early age of 21 due to injury.\n\nReferences\n\nChester City F.C. players\nAssociation football midfielders\nEverton F.C. players\n1981 births\nLiving people\nEnglish footballers\nFootballers from Warrington"
]
|
[
"Lionel Conacher",
"Professional career",
"Where did he play?",
"Conacher scored the first goal in Pirates history",
"Where did he play?",
"then returned to Toronto to play professional baseball with the Toronto Maple Leafs.",
"How long did he play for the team?",
"He returned to Pittsburgh for the 1926-27 NHL season,",
"Did he leave to play somewhere else?",
"his playing rights were sold to the Montreal Maroons.",
"did he win any championships?",
"Conacher and the Maple Leafs won the International League championship then defeated the Louisville Colonels to win the Little World Series.",
"What other championships did he win?",
"Conacher spent his last three NHL seasons with the Maroons and won his second Stanley Cup in 1935.",
"Did he retire?",
"He ended his hockey career after the team was eliminated from the playoffs by the New York Rangers on April 23, 1937."
]
| C_036f3202ece346f199d988e1cd657070_0 | what positions did he play? | 8 | what positions did Lionel Conacher play? | Lionel Conacher | Conacher scored the first goal in Pirates history on American Thanksgiving Day Thursday November 26, 1925, against the Boston Bruins. He scored nine goals in 33 games in 1925-26, then returned to Toronto to play professional baseball with the Toronto Maple Leafs. An outfielder on the team, Conacher and the Maple Leafs won the International League championship then defeated the Louisville Colonels to win the Little World Series. He returned to Pittsburgh for the 1926-27 NHL season, but was dealt early in the year to the New York Americans in exchange for Charlie Langlois and $2,000. The trade nearly proved disastrous for Conacher. He scored 8 goals in 1926-27 and improved to 11 in 1927-28, but playing for a team owned by notorious bootlegger Bill Dwyer resulted in his becoming a heavy drinker. Conacher served as player-coach in 1929-30, but his play and health had deteriorated. Two events in that off-season saved Conacher: he swore off alcohol completely upon the birth of his first child, and his playing rights were sold to the Montreal Maroons. Conacher periodically struggled with Montreal, and at one point was placed on waivers with no other team willing to take over his contract. Nonetheless, his overall play and point totals increased for three consecutive seasons with the Maroons, peaking at 28 points in 1932-33. He was named to the Second All-Star Team that season, but was traded to the Chicago Black Hawks in exchange for Teddy Graham. Conacher was a key figure in the club's first-ever Stanley Cup victory that season. He finished second to the Canadiens' Aurel Joliat in the voting for the Hart Trophy and earned a spot on the NHL's First All-Star Team. On Wednesday October 3, 1934, Conacher was involved in one of the largest transactions in league history. He was dealt to the Montreal Canadiens, along with Leroy Goldsworthy and Roger Jenkins in exchange for Montreal superstar Howie Morenz, Lorne Chabot and Marty Burke. The deal was only part of a series of trades involving four teams that represented one of the biggest deals in NHL history. Immediately following the Chicago trade, Conacher was sent back to the Maroons, along with Herb Cain, in exchange for the rights to Nelson Crutchfield. Conacher spent his last three NHL seasons with the Maroons and won his second Stanley Cup in 1935. He ended his hockey career after the team was eliminated from the playoffs by the New York Rangers on April 23, 1937. That final year he was runner-up to Babe Siebert in the 1937 Hart Trophy voting and was placed on the NHL Second All-Star Team. CANNOTANSWER | CANNOTANSWER | Lionel Pretoria Conacher, MP (; May 24, 1900 – May 26, 1954), nicknamed "The Big Train", was a Canadian athlete and politician. Voted the country's top athlete of the first half of the 20th century, he won championships in numerous sports. His first passion was football; he was a member of the 1921 Grey Cup champion Toronto Argonauts. He was a member of the Toronto Maple Leafs baseball team that won the International League championship in 1926. In hockey, he won a Memorial Cup in 1920, and the Stanley Cup twice: with the Chicago Black Hawks in 1934 and the Montreal Maroons in 1935. Additionally, he won wrestling, boxing and lacrosse championships during his playing career. He is one of three players, including Joe Miller and Carl Voss, to have their names engraved on both the Grey Cup and Stanley Cup.
Conacher retired as an athlete in 1937 to enter politics. He won election to the Legislative Assembly of Ontario in 1937, and in 1949 won a seat in the House of Commons. Many of his political positions revolved around sports. He worked to eliminate corruption in boxing while serving as a Member of Provincial Parliament (MPP) in Ontario, also serving as the chairman of the Ontario Athletic Commission. Additionally, he served a term as director of recreation and entertainment for the Royal Canadian Air Force. It was also on the sports field that Conacher died: He suffered a heart attack twenty minutes after hitting a triple in a softball game played on the lawn of Parliament Hill.
Numerous organizations have honoured Conacher's career. In addition to being named Canada's athlete of the half-century, he was named the country's top football player over the same period. He was inducted into Canada's Sports Hall of Fame in 1955, the Canadian Football Hall of Fame in 1964, the Canadian Lacrosse Hall of Fame in 1965, the Hockey Hall of Fame in 1994, and the Ontario Sports Hall of Fame in 1996. Additionally, the Canadian Press gives the Lionel Conacher Award to its male athlete of the year.
Early life
Conacher was born in Toronto, Ontario on May 24, 1901. His middle name was given after the South African city of Pretoria, where British troops were fighting the Boer War at the time of his birth. He was the eldest son of Benjamin and Elizabeth Conacher, and the third of ten children overall. He had four brothers and five sisters. The family grew up in the neighbourhood of Davenport, which his brother Charlie described as "one of Toronto's higher class slums".
His father was a teamster, and struggled to earn enough money to support the family. In the winter, he ploughed the snow off outdoor skating rinks to earn additional money. Conacher left school after the eighth grade to go to work and help support his siblings. For ten hours a day, he hauled sod, earning an extra dollar a week for his family.
All ten children were encouraged to participate in sports by the principal of Jesse Ketchum School, who felt that such pursuits would keep his students from getting into trouble. Conacher discovered that he was among the better players in any sport he tried, and quickly became a star at Canadian football, ice hockey and lacrosse. He realized his athletic ability could offer an escape from poverty.
Amateur career
Conacher was a prolific athlete, excelling in numerous sports at the same time. He played with 14 different teams during his teenage years, winning 11 championships. He was 16 years old when he won the Ontario lightweight wrestling championship, and at 20 won the Canadian amateur light-heavyweight boxing championship. In 1921, he fought, and was knocked out by heavyweight champion Jack Dempsey in an exhibition match. One year he famously hit a triple to win the Toronto city baseball championship, then rushed to the other side of the city to find his lacrosse team trailing 3–0 in the Ontario provincial final. He scored four goals and an assist to lead them to a comeback victory.
Football
Rugby football was the first sport Conacher played, and it was his favourite. He first played organized football at the age of 12 as a middle wing with the Capitals in the Toronto Rugby Football League. He played four seasons with the team between 1912 and 1915, during which the Capitals won the city championship each year. He won the Ontario championship as a junior with the Toronto Central YMCA in 1918, and in 1919 moved up to the intermediate level. With the intermediate Capitals, he was moved into an offensive role as a halfback. He excelled in the role, and his team reached Ontario Rugby Football Union (ORFU) final. In that final, the Capitals' opponents from Sarnia made stopping Conacher their priority, a strategy that proved the difference as Sarnia won the championship.
Conacher moved to the senior level in 1920 with the Toronto Rugby Club where his team again won the ORFU championship, but lost the eastern semifinal to the Toronto Argonauts of the Interprovincial Rugby Football Union (IRFU). His play impressed the Argonauts, who signed him for the 1921 season. In his first game with the Argonauts, he scored 23 of the team's 27 points, and led the IRFU in scoring, accounting for 14 touchdowns and 90 of his team's 167 points as they went undefeated in six games. The Argonauts won the eastern championship, and faced the Edmonton Eskimos (renamed Edmonton 'Elks' in 1922) in the first east–west Grey Cup championship in Canadian history. Conacher rushed for 211 yards and scored 15 points in Toronto's 23–0 victory to claim the national title.
Named captain in 1922, Conacher led the Argonauts to another undefeated season in IRFU play, finishing with five wins and one tie, as he rushed for about 950 yards. The Argonauts reached the Eastern final, but lost to Queen's University, 12–11. In that game, Conacher was the entire Argonaut offense rushing 35 times for 227 yards but Pep Leadley's 21 yard field goal towards the end of the game gave Queens' its victory.
Ice hockey
The expense of playing hockey initially kept Conacher off the ice. He did not learn to skate until he was 16. Consequently, hockey was among his weakest sports. He played with the Toronto Century Rovers, and then the Aura Lee Athletic Club, but saw limited ice time. Determined to improve his game, he closely watched the top players from the bench and sought to emulate what made them successful. His efforts paid off, and by 1918–19, was considered a star defenceman for Aura Lee. He joined the Toronto Canoe Club Paddlers, a team of all-star calibre players in 1919–20, and with them won the Memorial Cup, Canada's national junior championship. Conacher then returned to the Aura Lees to play for their senior team for two years.
National Hockey League (NHL) teams took notice of Conacher's ability. The Toronto St. Pats offered him $3,000 a season – three times the average salary – to play for them in 1920–21, while in 1921, the Montreal Canadiens offered $5,000 and support setting up a business. He turned both down as he was not yet willing to surrender his status as an amateur athlete. His decisions to refuse the offers led to speculation that he was being paid under the table. He and Billy Burch were accused of deliberately throwing a game in 1922, but were absolved of guilt by the Amateur Athletic Union of Canada.
Move to Pittsburgh
Conacher remained in senior hockey and while playing for the North Toronto Seniors in 1923, was a part of the first hockey game ever broadcast on radio. That summer, he received an offer from Roy Schooley, the manager of the Duquesne Gardens and owner of the Pittsburgh Yellow Jackets of the United States Amateur Hockey Association (USAHA), to play for his team. While he would retain his amateur status, Schooley set Conacher up with a job in the insurance business and paid his university tuition so that he could improve his education. He brought many of his teammates with him to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, all of whom received jobs in the community, and he attended school at Bellefonte Academy for a year before enrolling at Duquesne University.
He played football for both schools in the fall, and served as the Yellow Jackets' captain in the winter where he led the team to consecutive USAHA titles in 1924 and 1925. In the summers, Conacher returned to Toronto and played lacrosse and baseball. The Yellow Jackets turned professional in 1925 when they were renamed the Pittsburgh Pirates and joined the National Hockey League (NHL). Conacher finally chose to turn professional with the team, a decision that surprised fans and teammates in Toronto, who knew of his favourtism for the game of football.
Professional career
Conacher scored the first goal in Pirates history on American Thanksgiving Day Thursday November 26, 1925, against the Boston Bruins. He scored nine goals in 33 games in , then returned to Toronto to play professional baseball with the Toronto Maple Leafs. An outfielder on the team, Conacher and the Maple Leafs won the International League championship then defeated the Louisville Colonels to win the Little World Series.
He returned to Pittsburgh for the NHL season, but was dealt early in the year to the New York Americans in exchange for Charlie Langlois and $2,000. The trade nearly proved disastrous for Conacher. He scored 8 goals in and improved to 11 in , but playing for a team owned by notorious bootlegger Bill Dwyer resulted in his becoming a heavy drinker. Conacher served as player-coach in , but his play and health had deteriorated. Two events in that off-season saved Conacher: he swore off alcohol completely upon the birth of his first child, and his playing rights were sold to the Montreal Maroons.
Conacher periodically struggled with Montreal, and at one point was placed on waivers with no other team willing to take over his contract. Nonetheless, his overall play and point totals increased for three consecutive seasons with the Maroons, peaking at 28 points in . He was named to the Second All-Star Team that season, but was traded to the Chicago Black Hawks in exchange for Teddy Graham. Conacher was a key figure in the club's first-ever Stanley Cup victory that season. He finished second to the Canadiens' Aurel Joliat in the voting for the Hart Trophy and earned a spot on the NHL's First All-Star Team.
On Wednesday October 3, 1934, Conacher was involved in one of the largest transactions in league history. He was dealt to the Montreal Canadiens, along with Leroy Goldsworthy and Roger Jenkins in exchange for Montreal superstar Howie Morenz, Lorne Chabot and Marty Burke. The deal was only part of a series of trades involving four teams that represented one of the biggest deals in NHL history. Immediately following the Chicago trade, Conacher was sent back to the Maroons, along with Herb Cain, in exchange for the rights to Nelson Crutchfield. Conacher spent his last three NHL seasons with the Maroons and won his second Stanley Cup in 1935. He ended his hockey career after the team was eliminated from the playoffs by the New York Rangers on April 23, 1937. That final year he was runner-up to Babe Siebert in the 1937 Hart Trophy voting and was placed on the NHL Second All-Star Team.
Canadian professional football
Conacher had not played competitive football since turning professional. At one point he was offered a position as coach of the Montreal AAA Winged Wheelers, but disappointed the Interprovincial Rugby Football Union club when he turned down the job due to his other commitments. He was not absent the game long, however, as Conacher returned to football in 1933. He was part of an effort to launch a new professional league that would feature both Canadian and American teams. The league never came to fruition, but Conacher organized what became the first professional football team in Canada. He captained the team, based out of Toronto, which was known as the Crosse and Blackwell Chefs following a sponsorship with a local food products company. Conacher recruited former amateur players who had likewise left the sport in favour of paying jobs in other pro sports, including his brother Charlie.
The first game was held Thanksgiving Day in 1933, an exhibition contest against the Rochester Arpeakos. A crowd of 10,000 attended the game to watch Conacher play his first competitive football game in Canada in ten years. He did not disappoint, scoring two touchdowns and setting up a third for the Chefs, and was hailed as the game's star despite an 18–15 loss. Toronto lost a return match in Rochester, but in the third and final game of their season, the Chefs defeated a team from Buffalo at Toronto by a score of 18–0. Conacher was again the star, rushing for two touchdowns and scoring 13 of his team's points. He organized the team for a second year in 1934, known as the Wrigley Aromints due to new sponsorship, and again played an exhibition schedule as the team remained unaffiliated with any league. The team again played three games, winning all three. However, at the age of 34 years, Conacher found that the game was too hard on his body physically, and neither he nor his team returned for a third season.
Lacrosse
Led by the owners of the Montreal Canadiens, the arena operators of Canada's NHL teams invented the sport of box lacrosse in 1931 in a bid to fill arena dates in the summer. The field variant of the sport had been in decline in Canada as the popularity of baseball and football grew, and it was hoped that lacrosse played in the confines of a hockey rink would create a faster, more exciting game. A summer professional circuit, the International Professional Lacrosse League was created with representative teams of the Montreal Maroons, Montreal Canadiens, Toronto Maple Leafs and an entry from Cornwall, Ontario. Several NHL players who had played the field game before abandoning it to turn professional in hockey signed with the teams, including Conacher, who joined the Maroons. The Maroons' inaugural game came against the Maple Leafs, and though Toronto won 9–7, Conacher stole the spotlight from the victors. He scored six of Montreal's goals, assisted on the seventh, and earned the praise of his fellow players. When the Maroons went to Toronto, the Maple Leafs hosted a "Lionel Conacher Night" to celebrate the city's native son. The Maroons did not figure into the playoff for the championship, but Conacher led the league in scoring with 107 points. His dominance in the league was such that his total nearly doubled his nearest rival, who finished with 56 points. In one game, against Toronto, he scored ten goals in a 17–12 victory. He chose not to return to lacrosse for the 1932 season, choosing instead to sign a contract to wrestle professionally during the hockey off-seasons.
Political career
Bracondale
When Conacher retired from professional hockey, he ran as a Liberal in the 1937 Ontario general election. He was elected as a Member of Provincial Parliament (MPP) representing the Toronto Bracondale electoral district in the Ontario Legislative Assembly, defeating the district's incumbent, Conservative Arthur Russell Nesbitt. Bracondale had a colourful electoral past, and this election night was no different. The October 6 election was a very close race between Nesbitt and Conacher.
Conacher represented Bracondale from October 6, 1937, until June 30, 1943, when the Legislature was dissolved for the 1943 Ontario general election. He was challenged for the Liberal nomination in Bracondale by Toronto city alderman E. C. Bogart. Bogart won and then lost the seat to the Co-operative Commwealth's Rae Luckock a few weeks later.
Conacher also served as the sports director for the Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF) during World War II. He and Canadian Amateur Hockey Association past-president George Dudley, announced plans for military teams based at all RCAF commands across Canada to play in senior ice hockey leagues.
Trinity
In the 1945 Canadian general election, Conacher represented the Liberal Party of Canada for a seat in the House of Commons of Canada, where he came second in Toronto's Trinity electoral district, losing to the Progressive Conservative incumbent. He ran again in Trinity for the Liberals in the 1949 Canadian general election, and this time he was elected. He was re-elected for a final time in the 1953 election.
In the spring of 1954 Conacher was in Ottawa attending to his parliamentary duties when he was asked to play in the annual softball game between MPs and members of the parliamentary press gallery. On May 26, in the sixth inning, in his last at-bat-ever, he hit a long drive into left field, stretching a single into a triple, when he sprinted to third base. He stood, breathing heavily and then collapsed face-first from having been hit in the head with a pitch in an earlier inning. One of the other MPs was a doctor who tried to assist him, but there was little that could be done for Conacher and within twenty minutes he was pronounced dead. The next day Conacher was supposed to attend his daughter's graduation from the University of Toronto. A big funeral was held, and his brother Charlie flew in from England to be there. He was buried at St. Johns York Mills Anglican Church Cemetery in Toronto.
Awards
He was named Canada's Greatest Male Athlete of the Half-Century (1950). In 1981 the Pro Football Researchers Association called Conacher "Canada's Answer to Jim Thorpe". He is a member of the Canadian Sports Hall of Fame (1955), the Canadian Football Hall of Fame (1963), the Canadian Lacrosse Hall of Fame (1966), and Hockey Hall of Fame (1994). The award for the Canadian Press Canadian male athlete of the year is called the Lionel Conacher Award.
Family
Conacher's younger brothers, Charlie Conacher, and Roy Conacher, were also Hall of Fame hockey players. His namesake, Lionel Jr., was a first round draft pick in 1960 and played a season with the Montreal Alouettes of the Canadian Football League. His son Brian Conacher represented Canada at the 1964 Winter Olympics and played for the Toronto Maple Leafs of the National Hockey League, winning a Stanley Cup with them in 1966–67 NHL season. Pete Conacher, Lionel's nephew and the son of Charlie, also played in the NHL, as did another nephew of Lionel's, Murray Henderson, who was the son of Lionel's sister Catherine. Current NHL player Cory Conacher is also a distant relative of Lionel's.
Career statistics
Ice hockey
* Stanley Cup Champion.
NHL coaching record
See also
List of Canadian sports personalities
References
Citations
Bibliography
External links
History by the Minute Video
Lionel Conacher, Greatest Sporting Moments, Virtual Museum of Canada Exhibit
1900 births
1954 deaths
Baseball people from Ontario
Canadian baseball players
Canadian Football Hall of Fame inductees
Canadian football punters
Canadian football running backs
Canadian ice hockey coaches
Canadian ice hockey defencemen
Canadian lacrosse players
Canadian people of Scottish descent
Canadian male boxers
Canadian male sport wrestlers
Canadian sportsperson-politicians
Chicago Blackhawks players
Duquesne Dukes football players
Hockey Hall of Fame inductees
Ice hockey people from Ontario
Ice hockey player-coaches
Liberal Party of Canada MPs
Members of the House of Commons of Canada from Ontario
Memorial Cup winners
Montreal Maroons players
New York Americans coaches
New York Americans players
Ontario Liberal Party MPPs
Persons of National Historic Significance (Canada)
Pittsburgh Pirates (NHL) players
Pittsburgh Yellow Jackets (USAHA) players
Players of Canadian football from Ontario
Politicians from Toronto
Royal Canadian Air Force officers
Royal Canadian Air Force personnel of World War II
Sportspeople from Toronto
Stanley Cup champions
Toronto Argonauts players
Toronto Maple Leafs (International League) players | false | [
"The 2019–20 Danish Superliga (officially the 3F Superliga for sponsorship reasons) was the 30th season of the Danish Superliga. F.C. Copenhagen were the defending champions. The season started on 12 July 2019 and was scheduled to end in May 2020, before being suspended due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The season instead ended on 29 July 2020.\n\nTeams\nVejle Boldklub finished as loser in the relegation play-offs in the 2018–19 season and was relegated to the 2019–20 1st Division along with Vendsyssel FF who lost their relegation play-offs as well.\n\nThe relegated teams were replaced by 2018–19 1st Division champions Silkeborg IF, who returned after one year of absence, as well as the play-off winners Lyngby Boldklub who also returned after a one-year absence.\n\nStadia and locations\n\nPersonnel and sponsoring\nNote: Flags indicate national team as has been defined under FIFA eligibility rules. Players and Managers may hold more than one non-FIFA nationality.\n\nManagerial changes\n\nRegular season\n\nLeague table\n\nPositions by round\n\nResults\n\nChampionship round\nPoints and goals will carry over in full from the regular season.\n\nPositions by round\nBelow the positions per round are shown. As teams did not all start with an equal number of points, the initial pre-playoffs positions are also given.\n\nRelegation round\nPoints and goals will carry over in full from the regular season. Starting next season in the Superliga there will again be only 12 clubs.\n\nGroup A\n\nPositions by round\nBelow the positions per round are shown. As teams did not all start with an equal number of points, the initial pre-playoffs positions are also given.\n\nGroup B\n\nPositions by round\nBelow the positions per round are shown. As teams did not all start with an equal number of points, the initial pre-playoffs positions are also given.\n\nEuropean play-offs\nThe winning team from the 4-team knockout tournament advanced to a Europa League play-off match. In the final, the team with the most points from the relegation round group stage would host the second leg.\n\nThe match between Horsens and SønderjyskE was cancelled due to the latter's victory in the Danish Cup, which automatically qualified the team for Europa League and allowed Horsens to advance directly to the second round.\n\nQuarter-finals\n\nSemi-finals\n\nEuropean play-off match\n\nRelegation play-offs\nThe two sides who finished 3rd in the relegation round will play a two-legged tie to determine who stays up and who is relegated to the 2020–21 Danish 1st Division.\n\nLyngby won 4–3 on aggregate. As a result Hobro was relegated, while Lyngby BK would remain in the Superliga in 2020-21.\n\nSeason statistics\n\nTop scorers\n\nAttendances\n\nDue to the COVID-19 pandemic some games were played without spectators and some games were played with a reduced amount allowed.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\nSuperliga (uefa.com)\n\nDanish Superliga seasons\nDenmark\nSuperliga\nDanish Superliga",
"The 2020–21 Danish Superliga (officially the 3F Superliga for sponsorship reasons) was the 31st season of the Danish Superliga. The season began on 11 September with reigning champions FC Midtjylland playing against the winners of the Danish Cup, SønderjyskE, losing 2–0 away from home. \n\nThis season marked the first season with the video assistant referee (VAR) system.\n\nTeams\nTwelve teams competed in the league – the top ten teams from the previous season, the winner of the Relegation Playoffs and the champion of the 2019–20 Danish 1st Division. Lyngby BK retained its position in the Superliga by winning the Relegation Playoffs and Vejle BK joined the top flight after winning the 1st Division title.\n\nStadiums and locations\n\nPersonnel and sponsoring\nNote: Flags indicate national team as has been defined under FIFA eligibility rules. Players and Managers may hold more than one non-FIFA nationality.\n\nManagerial changes\n\nRegular season\n\nLeague table\n\nPositions by round\n\nResults\n\nChampionship round\nPoints and goals carried over in full from the regular season.\n\nPositions by round\nBelow the positions per round are shown. As teams did not all start with an equal number of points, the initial pre-playoffs positions are also given.\n\nRelegation round\nPoints and goals carried over in full from the regular season.\n\nPositions by round\nBelow the positions per round are shown. As teams did not all start with an equal number of points, the initial pre-playoffs positions are also given.\n\nEuropean play-offs\nThe fourth-placed team of the championship round, AGF, advanced to a Europa Conference League play-off match against the winning team of the relegation round, AaB. The winners earned a place in the Europa Conference League second qualifying round.\n\nEuropean play-off match\n\nSeason statistics\n\nTop goalscorers\nAs of 28 May 2021.\n\nTop assists \nAs of 28 May 2021.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\nSuperliga (uefa.com)\n\nDanish Superliga seasons\nDenmark\nSuperliga"
]
|
[
"Lionel Conacher",
"Professional career",
"Where did he play?",
"Conacher scored the first goal in Pirates history",
"Where did he play?",
"then returned to Toronto to play professional baseball with the Toronto Maple Leafs.",
"How long did he play for the team?",
"He returned to Pittsburgh for the 1926-27 NHL season,",
"Did he leave to play somewhere else?",
"his playing rights were sold to the Montreal Maroons.",
"did he win any championships?",
"Conacher and the Maple Leafs won the International League championship then defeated the Louisville Colonels to win the Little World Series.",
"What other championships did he win?",
"Conacher spent his last three NHL seasons with the Maroons and won his second Stanley Cup in 1935.",
"Did he retire?",
"He ended his hockey career after the team was eliminated from the playoffs by the New York Rangers on April 23, 1937.",
"what positions did he play?",
"I don't know."
]
| C_036f3202ece346f199d988e1cd657070_0 | was he traded? | 9 | was Lionel Conacher traded? | Lionel Conacher | Conacher scored the first goal in Pirates history on American Thanksgiving Day Thursday November 26, 1925, against the Boston Bruins. He scored nine goals in 33 games in 1925-26, then returned to Toronto to play professional baseball with the Toronto Maple Leafs. An outfielder on the team, Conacher and the Maple Leafs won the International League championship then defeated the Louisville Colonels to win the Little World Series. He returned to Pittsburgh for the 1926-27 NHL season, but was dealt early in the year to the New York Americans in exchange for Charlie Langlois and $2,000. The trade nearly proved disastrous for Conacher. He scored 8 goals in 1926-27 and improved to 11 in 1927-28, but playing for a team owned by notorious bootlegger Bill Dwyer resulted in his becoming a heavy drinker. Conacher served as player-coach in 1929-30, but his play and health had deteriorated. Two events in that off-season saved Conacher: he swore off alcohol completely upon the birth of his first child, and his playing rights were sold to the Montreal Maroons. Conacher periodically struggled with Montreal, and at one point was placed on waivers with no other team willing to take over his contract. Nonetheless, his overall play and point totals increased for three consecutive seasons with the Maroons, peaking at 28 points in 1932-33. He was named to the Second All-Star Team that season, but was traded to the Chicago Black Hawks in exchange for Teddy Graham. Conacher was a key figure in the club's first-ever Stanley Cup victory that season. He finished second to the Canadiens' Aurel Joliat in the voting for the Hart Trophy and earned a spot on the NHL's First All-Star Team. On Wednesday October 3, 1934, Conacher was involved in one of the largest transactions in league history. He was dealt to the Montreal Canadiens, along with Leroy Goldsworthy and Roger Jenkins in exchange for Montreal superstar Howie Morenz, Lorne Chabot and Marty Burke. The deal was only part of a series of trades involving four teams that represented one of the biggest deals in NHL history. Immediately following the Chicago trade, Conacher was sent back to the Maroons, along with Herb Cain, in exchange for the rights to Nelson Crutchfield. Conacher spent his last three NHL seasons with the Maroons and won his second Stanley Cup in 1935. He ended his hockey career after the team was eliminated from the playoffs by the New York Rangers on April 23, 1937. That final year he was runner-up to Babe Siebert in the 1937 Hart Trophy voting and was placed on the NHL Second All-Star Team. CANNOTANSWER | Immediately following the Chicago trade, Conacher was sent back to the Maroons, along with Herb Cain, | Lionel Pretoria Conacher, MP (; May 24, 1900 – May 26, 1954), nicknamed "The Big Train", was a Canadian athlete and politician. Voted the country's top athlete of the first half of the 20th century, he won championships in numerous sports. His first passion was football; he was a member of the 1921 Grey Cup champion Toronto Argonauts. He was a member of the Toronto Maple Leafs baseball team that won the International League championship in 1926. In hockey, he won a Memorial Cup in 1920, and the Stanley Cup twice: with the Chicago Black Hawks in 1934 and the Montreal Maroons in 1935. Additionally, he won wrestling, boxing and lacrosse championships during his playing career. He is one of three players, including Joe Miller and Carl Voss, to have their names engraved on both the Grey Cup and Stanley Cup.
Conacher retired as an athlete in 1937 to enter politics. He won election to the Legislative Assembly of Ontario in 1937, and in 1949 won a seat in the House of Commons. Many of his political positions revolved around sports. He worked to eliminate corruption in boxing while serving as a Member of Provincial Parliament (MPP) in Ontario, also serving as the chairman of the Ontario Athletic Commission. Additionally, he served a term as director of recreation and entertainment for the Royal Canadian Air Force. It was also on the sports field that Conacher died: He suffered a heart attack twenty minutes after hitting a triple in a softball game played on the lawn of Parliament Hill.
Numerous organizations have honoured Conacher's career. In addition to being named Canada's athlete of the half-century, he was named the country's top football player over the same period. He was inducted into Canada's Sports Hall of Fame in 1955, the Canadian Football Hall of Fame in 1964, the Canadian Lacrosse Hall of Fame in 1965, the Hockey Hall of Fame in 1994, and the Ontario Sports Hall of Fame in 1996. Additionally, the Canadian Press gives the Lionel Conacher Award to its male athlete of the year.
Early life
Conacher was born in Toronto, Ontario on May 24, 1901. His middle name was given after the South African city of Pretoria, where British troops were fighting the Boer War at the time of his birth. He was the eldest son of Benjamin and Elizabeth Conacher, and the third of ten children overall. He had four brothers and five sisters. The family grew up in the neighbourhood of Davenport, which his brother Charlie described as "one of Toronto's higher class slums".
His father was a teamster, and struggled to earn enough money to support the family. In the winter, he ploughed the snow off outdoor skating rinks to earn additional money. Conacher left school after the eighth grade to go to work and help support his siblings. For ten hours a day, he hauled sod, earning an extra dollar a week for his family.
All ten children were encouraged to participate in sports by the principal of Jesse Ketchum School, who felt that such pursuits would keep his students from getting into trouble. Conacher discovered that he was among the better players in any sport he tried, and quickly became a star at Canadian football, ice hockey and lacrosse. He realized his athletic ability could offer an escape from poverty.
Amateur career
Conacher was a prolific athlete, excelling in numerous sports at the same time. He played with 14 different teams during his teenage years, winning 11 championships. He was 16 years old when he won the Ontario lightweight wrestling championship, and at 20 won the Canadian amateur light-heavyweight boxing championship. In 1921, he fought, and was knocked out by heavyweight champion Jack Dempsey in an exhibition match. One year he famously hit a triple to win the Toronto city baseball championship, then rushed to the other side of the city to find his lacrosse team trailing 3–0 in the Ontario provincial final. He scored four goals and an assist to lead them to a comeback victory.
Football
Rugby football was the first sport Conacher played, and it was his favourite. He first played organized football at the age of 12 as a middle wing with the Capitals in the Toronto Rugby Football League. He played four seasons with the team between 1912 and 1915, during which the Capitals won the city championship each year. He won the Ontario championship as a junior with the Toronto Central YMCA in 1918, and in 1919 moved up to the intermediate level. With the intermediate Capitals, he was moved into an offensive role as a halfback. He excelled in the role, and his team reached Ontario Rugby Football Union (ORFU) final. In that final, the Capitals' opponents from Sarnia made stopping Conacher their priority, a strategy that proved the difference as Sarnia won the championship.
Conacher moved to the senior level in 1920 with the Toronto Rugby Club where his team again won the ORFU championship, but lost the eastern semifinal to the Toronto Argonauts of the Interprovincial Rugby Football Union (IRFU). His play impressed the Argonauts, who signed him for the 1921 season. In his first game with the Argonauts, he scored 23 of the team's 27 points, and led the IRFU in scoring, accounting for 14 touchdowns and 90 of his team's 167 points as they went undefeated in six games. The Argonauts won the eastern championship, and faced the Edmonton Eskimos (renamed Edmonton 'Elks' in 1922) in the first east–west Grey Cup championship in Canadian history. Conacher rushed for 211 yards and scored 15 points in Toronto's 23–0 victory to claim the national title.
Named captain in 1922, Conacher led the Argonauts to another undefeated season in IRFU play, finishing with five wins and one tie, as he rushed for about 950 yards. The Argonauts reached the Eastern final, but lost to Queen's University, 12–11. In that game, Conacher was the entire Argonaut offense rushing 35 times for 227 yards but Pep Leadley's 21 yard field goal towards the end of the game gave Queens' its victory.
Ice hockey
The expense of playing hockey initially kept Conacher off the ice. He did not learn to skate until he was 16. Consequently, hockey was among his weakest sports. He played with the Toronto Century Rovers, and then the Aura Lee Athletic Club, but saw limited ice time. Determined to improve his game, he closely watched the top players from the bench and sought to emulate what made them successful. His efforts paid off, and by 1918–19, was considered a star defenceman for Aura Lee. He joined the Toronto Canoe Club Paddlers, a team of all-star calibre players in 1919–20, and with them won the Memorial Cup, Canada's national junior championship. Conacher then returned to the Aura Lees to play for their senior team for two years.
National Hockey League (NHL) teams took notice of Conacher's ability. The Toronto St. Pats offered him $3,000 a season – three times the average salary – to play for them in 1920–21, while in 1921, the Montreal Canadiens offered $5,000 and support setting up a business. He turned both down as he was not yet willing to surrender his status as an amateur athlete. His decisions to refuse the offers led to speculation that he was being paid under the table. He and Billy Burch were accused of deliberately throwing a game in 1922, but were absolved of guilt by the Amateur Athletic Union of Canada.
Move to Pittsburgh
Conacher remained in senior hockey and while playing for the North Toronto Seniors in 1923, was a part of the first hockey game ever broadcast on radio. That summer, he received an offer from Roy Schooley, the manager of the Duquesne Gardens and owner of the Pittsburgh Yellow Jackets of the United States Amateur Hockey Association (USAHA), to play for his team. While he would retain his amateur status, Schooley set Conacher up with a job in the insurance business and paid his university tuition so that he could improve his education. He brought many of his teammates with him to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, all of whom received jobs in the community, and he attended school at Bellefonte Academy for a year before enrolling at Duquesne University.
He played football for both schools in the fall, and served as the Yellow Jackets' captain in the winter where he led the team to consecutive USAHA titles in 1924 and 1925. In the summers, Conacher returned to Toronto and played lacrosse and baseball. The Yellow Jackets turned professional in 1925 when they were renamed the Pittsburgh Pirates and joined the National Hockey League (NHL). Conacher finally chose to turn professional with the team, a decision that surprised fans and teammates in Toronto, who knew of his favourtism for the game of football.
Professional career
Conacher scored the first goal in Pirates history on American Thanksgiving Day Thursday November 26, 1925, against the Boston Bruins. He scored nine goals in 33 games in , then returned to Toronto to play professional baseball with the Toronto Maple Leafs. An outfielder on the team, Conacher and the Maple Leafs won the International League championship then defeated the Louisville Colonels to win the Little World Series.
He returned to Pittsburgh for the NHL season, but was dealt early in the year to the New York Americans in exchange for Charlie Langlois and $2,000. The trade nearly proved disastrous for Conacher. He scored 8 goals in and improved to 11 in , but playing for a team owned by notorious bootlegger Bill Dwyer resulted in his becoming a heavy drinker. Conacher served as player-coach in , but his play and health had deteriorated. Two events in that off-season saved Conacher: he swore off alcohol completely upon the birth of his first child, and his playing rights were sold to the Montreal Maroons.
Conacher periodically struggled with Montreal, and at one point was placed on waivers with no other team willing to take over his contract. Nonetheless, his overall play and point totals increased for three consecutive seasons with the Maroons, peaking at 28 points in . He was named to the Second All-Star Team that season, but was traded to the Chicago Black Hawks in exchange for Teddy Graham. Conacher was a key figure in the club's first-ever Stanley Cup victory that season. He finished second to the Canadiens' Aurel Joliat in the voting for the Hart Trophy and earned a spot on the NHL's First All-Star Team.
On Wednesday October 3, 1934, Conacher was involved in one of the largest transactions in league history. He was dealt to the Montreal Canadiens, along with Leroy Goldsworthy and Roger Jenkins in exchange for Montreal superstar Howie Morenz, Lorne Chabot and Marty Burke. The deal was only part of a series of trades involving four teams that represented one of the biggest deals in NHL history. Immediately following the Chicago trade, Conacher was sent back to the Maroons, along with Herb Cain, in exchange for the rights to Nelson Crutchfield. Conacher spent his last three NHL seasons with the Maroons and won his second Stanley Cup in 1935. He ended his hockey career after the team was eliminated from the playoffs by the New York Rangers on April 23, 1937. That final year he was runner-up to Babe Siebert in the 1937 Hart Trophy voting and was placed on the NHL Second All-Star Team.
Canadian professional football
Conacher had not played competitive football since turning professional. At one point he was offered a position as coach of the Montreal AAA Winged Wheelers, but disappointed the Interprovincial Rugby Football Union club when he turned down the job due to his other commitments. He was not absent the game long, however, as Conacher returned to football in 1933. He was part of an effort to launch a new professional league that would feature both Canadian and American teams. The league never came to fruition, but Conacher organized what became the first professional football team in Canada. He captained the team, based out of Toronto, which was known as the Crosse and Blackwell Chefs following a sponsorship with a local food products company. Conacher recruited former amateur players who had likewise left the sport in favour of paying jobs in other pro sports, including his brother Charlie.
The first game was held Thanksgiving Day in 1933, an exhibition contest against the Rochester Arpeakos. A crowd of 10,000 attended the game to watch Conacher play his first competitive football game in Canada in ten years. He did not disappoint, scoring two touchdowns and setting up a third for the Chefs, and was hailed as the game's star despite an 18–15 loss. Toronto lost a return match in Rochester, but in the third and final game of their season, the Chefs defeated a team from Buffalo at Toronto by a score of 18–0. Conacher was again the star, rushing for two touchdowns and scoring 13 of his team's points. He organized the team for a second year in 1934, known as the Wrigley Aromints due to new sponsorship, and again played an exhibition schedule as the team remained unaffiliated with any league. The team again played three games, winning all three. However, at the age of 34 years, Conacher found that the game was too hard on his body physically, and neither he nor his team returned for a third season.
Lacrosse
Led by the owners of the Montreal Canadiens, the arena operators of Canada's NHL teams invented the sport of box lacrosse in 1931 in a bid to fill arena dates in the summer. The field variant of the sport had been in decline in Canada as the popularity of baseball and football grew, and it was hoped that lacrosse played in the confines of a hockey rink would create a faster, more exciting game. A summer professional circuit, the International Professional Lacrosse League was created with representative teams of the Montreal Maroons, Montreal Canadiens, Toronto Maple Leafs and an entry from Cornwall, Ontario. Several NHL players who had played the field game before abandoning it to turn professional in hockey signed with the teams, including Conacher, who joined the Maroons. The Maroons' inaugural game came against the Maple Leafs, and though Toronto won 9–7, Conacher stole the spotlight from the victors. He scored six of Montreal's goals, assisted on the seventh, and earned the praise of his fellow players. When the Maroons went to Toronto, the Maple Leafs hosted a "Lionel Conacher Night" to celebrate the city's native son. The Maroons did not figure into the playoff for the championship, but Conacher led the league in scoring with 107 points. His dominance in the league was such that his total nearly doubled his nearest rival, who finished with 56 points. In one game, against Toronto, he scored ten goals in a 17–12 victory. He chose not to return to lacrosse for the 1932 season, choosing instead to sign a contract to wrestle professionally during the hockey off-seasons.
Political career
Bracondale
When Conacher retired from professional hockey, he ran as a Liberal in the 1937 Ontario general election. He was elected as a Member of Provincial Parliament (MPP) representing the Toronto Bracondale electoral district in the Ontario Legislative Assembly, defeating the district's incumbent, Conservative Arthur Russell Nesbitt. Bracondale had a colourful electoral past, and this election night was no different. The October 6 election was a very close race between Nesbitt and Conacher.
Conacher represented Bracondale from October 6, 1937, until June 30, 1943, when the Legislature was dissolved for the 1943 Ontario general election. He was challenged for the Liberal nomination in Bracondale by Toronto city alderman E. C. Bogart. Bogart won and then lost the seat to the Co-operative Commwealth's Rae Luckock a few weeks later.
Conacher also served as the sports director for the Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF) during World War II. He and Canadian Amateur Hockey Association past-president George Dudley, announced plans for military teams based at all RCAF commands across Canada to play in senior ice hockey leagues.
Trinity
In the 1945 Canadian general election, Conacher represented the Liberal Party of Canada for a seat in the House of Commons of Canada, where he came second in Toronto's Trinity electoral district, losing to the Progressive Conservative incumbent. He ran again in Trinity for the Liberals in the 1949 Canadian general election, and this time he was elected. He was re-elected for a final time in the 1953 election.
In the spring of 1954 Conacher was in Ottawa attending to his parliamentary duties when he was asked to play in the annual softball game between MPs and members of the parliamentary press gallery. On May 26, in the sixth inning, in his last at-bat-ever, he hit a long drive into left field, stretching a single into a triple, when he sprinted to third base. He stood, breathing heavily and then collapsed face-first from having been hit in the head with a pitch in an earlier inning. One of the other MPs was a doctor who tried to assist him, but there was little that could be done for Conacher and within twenty minutes he was pronounced dead. The next day Conacher was supposed to attend his daughter's graduation from the University of Toronto. A big funeral was held, and his brother Charlie flew in from England to be there. He was buried at St. Johns York Mills Anglican Church Cemetery in Toronto.
Awards
He was named Canada's Greatest Male Athlete of the Half-Century (1950). In 1981 the Pro Football Researchers Association called Conacher "Canada's Answer to Jim Thorpe". He is a member of the Canadian Sports Hall of Fame (1955), the Canadian Football Hall of Fame (1963), the Canadian Lacrosse Hall of Fame (1966), and Hockey Hall of Fame (1994). The award for the Canadian Press Canadian male athlete of the year is called the Lionel Conacher Award.
Family
Conacher's younger brothers, Charlie Conacher, and Roy Conacher, were also Hall of Fame hockey players. His namesake, Lionel Jr., was a first round draft pick in 1960 and played a season with the Montreal Alouettes of the Canadian Football League. His son Brian Conacher represented Canada at the 1964 Winter Olympics and played for the Toronto Maple Leafs of the National Hockey League, winning a Stanley Cup with them in 1966–67 NHL season. Pete Conacher, Lionel's nephew and the son of Charlie, also played in the NHL, as did another nephew of Lionel's, Murray Henderson, who was the son of Lionel's sister Catherine. Current NHL player Cory Conacher is also a distant relative of Lionel's.
Career statistics
Ice hockey
* Stanley Cup Champion.
NHL coaching record
See also
List of Canadian sports personalities
References
Citations
Bibliography
External links
History by the Minute Video
Lionel Conacher, Greatest Sporting Moments, Virtual Museum of Canada Exhibit
1900 births
1954 deaths
Baseball people from Ontario
Canadian baseball players
Canadian Football Hall of Fame inductees
Canadian football punters
Canadian football running backs
Canadian ice hockey coaches
Canadian ice hockey defencemen
Canadian lacrosse players
Canadian people of Scottish descent
Canadian male boxers
Canadian male sport wrestlers
Canadian sportsperson-politicians
Chicago Blackhawks players
Duquesne Dukes football players
Hockey Hall of Fame inductees
Ice hockey people from Ontario
Ice hockey player-coaches
Liberal Party of Canada MPs
Members of the House of Commons of Canada from Ontario
Memorial Cup winners
Montreal Maroons players
New York Americans coaches
New York Americans players
Ontario Liberal Party MPPs
Persons of National Historic Significance (Canada)
Pittsburgh Pirates (NHL) players
Pittsburgh Yellow Jackets (USAHA) players
Players of Canadian football from Ontario
Politicians from Toronto
Royal Canadian Air Force officers
Royal Canadian Air Force personnel of World War II
Sportspeople from Toronto
Stanley Cup champions
Toronto Argonauts players
Toronto Maple Leafs (International League) players | true | [
"The Pittsburgh Penguins are a team in the National Hockey League (NHL).\n\nHistory\nJoe Daley became the first of 20 players selected by the Penguins in the 1967 NHL Expansion Draft on June 6, 1967. The next day, the Penguins participated in their first amateur draft, where they selected Steve Rexe second overall.\n\nThe Penguins obtained the first-overall pick in 1984, and selected Mario Lemieux from the Laval Voisins of the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League (QMJHL). Lemieux won the Calder Memorial Trophy as the NHL's best rookie in 1985. He went on to win six Art Ross trophies as the NHL's leading scorer, captained the team to Stanley Cup championships in 1991 and 1992, and was inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame in 1997 following his first retirement. He later came back to play in another five seasons for the Penguins, and in 1999, became chairman and co-owner of the team. As owner, Lemieux negotiated an agreement to construct a new arena, the Consol Energy Center, ensuring the team's future in Pittsburgh. After the Penguins' 2009 Stanley Cup victory, Lemieux became the first person to win a Stanley Cup as both a player and an owner.\n\nIn 1990, the Penguins drafted Czechoslovakian Jaromír Jágr with the fifth overall pick. Following the Velvet Revolution of 1989, Jagr was the first Czechoslovak to attend the NHL Draft with the government's permission, becoming the first drafted without having to defect to the West. Jagr was also the first European drafted in the first round by the Penguins after selecting only Canadians in their first 23 years. He was the first of four consecutive first round Europeans, and eight in ten years from 1990 to 1999. That draft was also notable in being the first time that less than half of Pittsburgh's picks were used on players born in Canada and the first time that a majority of their selections did not hail from Canada (6 players came from the United States, 4 from Canada).\n\nArtem Kopot, an up-and-coming Russian defenseman with the Soviet under-18 team who had also played 28 games with his hometown Traktor Chelyabinsk in 1991–92, was the first Russian player to be drafted by the Penguins, selected in the sixth round, 139th overall, of the 1992 NHL Entry Draft. Less than a month after being selected by the Penguins and five days before his 20th birthday, Kopot was involved in a fatal one-car accident in his hometown of Chelyabinsk. Kopot was the only person in the vehicle.\n\nBrooks Orpik was the first American drafted by the Penguins in the first round when he was selected in 2000 from Boston College. Along with Ryan Whitney in 2002 and Beau Bennett in 2010, the Penguins have only selected three Americans in the first round as of 2021.\n\nThe Penguins traded for the first overall pick for 2003, which they used to select goaltender Marc-Andre Fleury. Fleury was the third goaltender selected first overall behind Michel Plasse and Rick DiPietro. Pittsburgh's first-round selection, second overall, in 2004, Evgeni Malkin, was the Penguins' second Calder Trophy winner. The Penguins earned another first overall selection in 2005 and selected Sidney Crosby in what was nicknamed the \"Sidney Crosby Sweepstakes.\"\n\n1967 NHL Expansion Draft selections\n\nPittsburgh's first players were selected from the Original Six Teams\n\nNHL draft selections\n\nNote: Statistics listed include totals from all teams in the National Hockey League.\nNote: Stats current as of July 1, 2021.\n\n¿ Played in the WHA.\n\nDraftees by nationality\n\nNotes\n The Penguins first-round pick in 1969 was traded to the Boston Bruins.\n The Penguins first-round pick in 1971 was traded to the St. Louis Blues.\n The Penguins first-round pick in 1972 was traded to the Minnesota North Stars.\n The Penguins first-round pick in 1977 was traded to the Toronto Maple Leafs.\n The Penguins first-round pick in 1978 was traded to the Philadelphia Flyers.\n The Penguins first-round pick in 1979 was traded to the Washington Capitals.\n The Penguins first-round pick in 1981 was traded to the Montreal Canadiens.\n The Penguins obtained the 9th overall pick in 1984 from the Winnipeg Jets.\n The Penguins obtained the 16th overall pick in 1984 from the Philadelphia Flyers.\n The Penguins obtained the 1st overall pick in 2003 from the Florida Panthers.\n The Penguins first-round pick in 2008 was traded to the Atlanta Thrashers.\n The Penguins obtained the 8th overall pick in 2012 from the Carolina Hurricanes.\n The Penguins first-round pick in 2013 was traded to the Calgary Flames.\n The Penguins first-round pick in 2015 was traded to the Edmonton Oilers.\n The Penguins first-round pick in 2016 was traded to the Toronto Maple Leafs.\n The Penguins first-round pick in 2017 was traded to the St. Louis Blues.\n The Penguins first-round pick in 2018 was traded to the Ottawa Senators.\n\nReferences\nDraft order\n\nOther\n\n \ndraft picks\nPittsburgh Penguins",
"This list is for 2005–06 NHL transactions within professional ice hockey league of players in North America. The following contains team-to-team transactions that occurred in the National Hockey League during the 2005–06 NHL season. It lists what team each player has been traded to, or claimed by, and for which players or draft picks, if applicable.\n\nJuly \n\nNotes\n Philadelphia traded this pick to Phoenix on July 30, 2005.\n This pick was previously acquired by Carolina on a trade with Phoenix on June 26, 2004. Phoenix acquired Carolina's 3rd round pick in 2004 for this pick.\n This pick was previously acquired by Carolina on a trade with Atlanta on June 26, 2004. Atlanta acquired Carolina's 4th round pick in 2004 for this pick.\n This pick was previously acquired by Minnesota on a trade with Colorado on February 25, 2004. Colorado acquired Darby Hendrickson and Minnesota's 8th round pick in 2004 for this pick.\n This pick was previously acquired by Atlanta on a trade with San Jose on July 30, 2005. San Jose acquired Atlanta's 1st round pick in 2005 for San Jose's 1st round, 2nd round and this pick in 2005.\n This pick was previously acquired by the New York Rangers on a trade with Philadelphia on March 8, 2004. Philadelphia acquired Vladimir Malakhov for Rick Kozak and this pick.\n San Jose traded this pick to the New York Islanders on June 24, 2006.\n Philadelphia traded this pick to Phoenix on March 9, 2006. Phoenix traded this pick to Detroit on June 24, 2006.\n Carolina traded this pick to St. Louis on January 30, 2006.\n This pick was previously acquired by Philadelphia on a trade with Dallas on March 8, 2004. Dallas acquired Chris Therien for Dallas' 8th round pick in 2004 and this pick.\n Philadelphia traded this pick to Phoenix on March 9, 2006. Phoenix traded this pick to Detroit on June 24, 2006.\n This pick was previously acquired by Carolina on a trade with Toronto on March 9, 2004. Toronto acquired Ron Francis for this pick.\n Carolina traded this pick to Chicago on December 30, 2005. Chicago traded this pick to Toronto on June 24, 2006.\n This pick was previously acquired by Philadelphia on a trade with Anaheim on July 30, 2005. Anaheim acquired Todd Fedoruk for this pick.\n This pick was previously acquired by Phoenix on a trade with Columbus on July 6, 2004. Columbus acquired Radoslav Suchy and Phoenix's 6th round pick in 2005 for this pick.\n This pick was previously acquired by Washington on a trade with Ottawa on February 18, 2004. Ottawa acquired Peter Bondra for Brooks Laich and this pick.\n\nAugust \n\nNotes\n Edmonton traded this pick back to Boston on August 30, 2005. Boston traded this pick to the New York Islanders on June 24, 2006. The Islanders traded this pick to San Jose on June 24, 2006.\n Philadelphia traded this pick to Los Angeles on August 4, 2005.\n The conditions of this pick are unknown. New York Islanders traded this pick to Colorado on June 24, 2006.\n The conditions of this pick are unknown. Vancouver traded this pick to Anaheim on March 9, 2006.\n This pick was previously acquired by Philadelphia on a trade with Nashville on August 2, 2005. Nashville acquired Danny Markov for this pick.\n Calgary traded this pick to Colorado on June 23, 2007.\n The conditions of this pick are unknown. Anaheim traded this pick back to the Rangers on January 8, 2006. The Rangers traded this pick to Washington on June 24, 2006.\n The conditions of this pick are unknown.\n This pick was previously acquired by Edmonton on a trade with Boston on August 1, 2005. Boston acquired Brad Isbister for this pick. Boston traded this pick to the New York Islanders on June 24, 2006. The Islanders traded this pick to San Jose on June 24, 2006.\n\nSeptember \n\nNotes\n The conditions of this pick are unknown. Pittsburgh traded this pick to Florida on June 24, 2006.\n The conditions of this pick are unknown.\n\nOctober \n\nNotes\n The conditions of this pick are unknown.\n The conditions were not met.\n\nNovember \n\nNotes\n Boston traded this pick to the New York Islanders on June 24, 2006.\n The conditions of this pick are unknown.\n The conditions of this pick are unknown.\n\nDecember \n\nNotes\n Washington traded this pick to the New York Rangers on June 24, 2006.\n Philadelphia traded this pick to Montreal on June 24, 2006.\n Carolina traded this pick to St. Louis on January 30, 2006.\n\nJanuary \n\nNotes\n This pick was previously acquired by Anaheim on a trade with the New York Rangers on August 23, 2005. The Rangers acquired Steve Rucchin for Trevor Gillies and this pick. The Rangers traded this pick to Washington on June 24, 2006.\n The Flyers had an option to swap the 4th round pick in the 2006 draft and 3rd round pick in the 2007 draft with Phoenix. The option was exercised for the 2006 draft but not for the 2007 draft.\n Phoenix traded this pick to the New York Islanders on June 24, 2006.\n This pick was included to complete a trade with Chicago on December 30, 2005. Originally, Chicago acquired Radim Vrbata for future considerations. Carolina traded this pick to St. Louis in January 30, 2006.\n This pick was previously acquired by Carolina on a trade with Columbus on July 30, 2005. Columbus acquired Carolina's 5th round pick in 2005 (Jared Boll) for Derrick Walser and this pick. Chicago traded this pick to Toronto on June 24, 2006.\n St. Louis traded this pick to New Jersey on June 24, 2006.\n This pick was previously acquired by Carolina on a trade with Toronto on July 30, 2005. Toronto acquired Jeff O\"Neill for this pick.\n This pick was previously acquired by Carolina on a trade with Chicago on December 30, 2005. Chicago acquired Radim Vrbata for future considerations which was completed on January 20, 2006. Chicago acquired Danny Richmond and Carolina's 4th round pick for Anton Babchuk and this pick.\n\nFebruary\n\nMarch \n\nNotes\n Minnesota traded this pick to Los Angeles on June 24, 2006.\n The conditions of this pick are unknown. Minnesota traded this pick to Atlanta on June 14, 2006.\n Columbus had an option to take either Toronto's 2006 5th round pick or Toronto's 2007 4th round pick. Columbus took the 2006 5th round pick.\n The Rangers traded this pick to Anaheim on March 9, 2006.\n The conditions to get this pick was if Los Angeles made the 2006 playoffs. Not exercised since Los Angeles missed the 2006 playoffs.\n\nTrade deadline \n\nNotes\n The condition was for a 4th round pick. If Steve McCarthy re-signs with Atlanta, it becomes a 3rd round pick. Vancouver traded this pick back to Atlanta on June 14, 2006.\n San Jose traded this pick to Columbus on June 24, 2006.\n This pick was previously acquired by the New York Rangers on a trade with San Jose on March 8, 2006. San Jose acquired Ville Nieminen for this pick.\n Pittsburgh traded this pick to San Jose on July 20, 2006. San Jose traded this pick to Washington on June 22, 2007. Washington traded this pick to Philadelphia on June 23, 2007.\n This pick was previously acquired by Vancouver on a trade with the New York Islanders on August 3, 2005. The Islanders acquired Brent Sopel for this pick.\n The condition for this pick was if Oleg Kvasha did not re-sign with Phoenix, Phoenix would receive the New York Islanders 5th round pick in the 2006 NHL Draft. Kvasha did not re-sign with Phoenix.\n The New York Islanders traded this pick to Boston on June 24, 2006.\n The New York Islanders traded this pick to Phoenix on June 24, 2006.\n This pick was previously acquired by Philadelphia on a trade with Florida on July 30, 2005. Florida acquired Philadelphia's 2005 1st round pick (#20 - Kenndal McArdle) for Florida's 2005 1st round pick (#29 - Steve Downie) and this pick. Phoenix traded this pick to Detroit on June 24, 2006.\n This pick was previously acquired by Philadelphia on a trade with Tampa Bay on July 30, 2005. Tampa Bay acquired Philadelphia's 2005 3rd round pick (#89 - Chris Lawrence) and 2005 4th round pick (#102 - Blair Jones) for this pick. Phoenix traded this pick to Detroit on June 24, 2006.\n Phoenix traded this pick to the New York Islanders on June 24, 2006.\n St. Louis traded this pick to the New Jersey on June 24, 2006.\n Chicago traded this pick to the Toronto on June 24, 2006.\n\nJune\n\nSee also\n2005–06 NHL season\n2005 NHL Entry Draft\n2005 in sports\n2006 in sports\n2006–07 NHL transactions\n\nReferences\n Free agents and pre-season trades at proicehockey.about.com\n hockeydb.com - search for player and select \"show trades\"\n\nNational Hockey League transactions\nTrans"
]
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[
"Lionel Conacher",
"Professional career",
"Where did he play?",
"Conacher scored the first goal in Pirates history",
"Where did he play?",
"then returned to Toronto to play professional baseball with the Toronto Maple Leafs.",
"How long did he play for the team?",
"He returned to Pittsburgh for the 1926-27 NHL season,",
"Did he leave to play somewhere else?",
"his playing rights were sold to the Montreal Maroons.",
"did he win any championships?",
"Conacher and the Maple Leafs won the International League championship then defeated the Louisville Colonels to win the Little World Series.",
"What other championships did he win?",
"Conacher spent his last three NHL seasons with the Maroons and won his second Stanley Cup in 1935.",
"Did he retire?",
"He ended his hockey career after the team was eliminated from the playoffs by the New York Rangers on April 23, 1937.",
"what positions did he play?",
"I don't know.",
"was he traded?",
"Immediately following the Chicago trade, Conacher was sent back to the Maroons, along with Herb Cain,"
]
| C_036f3202ece346f199d988e1cd657070_0 | did he break any records? | 10 | did Lionel Conacher break any records? | Lionel Conacher | Conacher scored the first goal in Pirates history on American Thanksgiving Day Thursday November 26, 1925, against the Boston Bruins. He scored nine goals in 33 games in 1925-26, then returned to Toronto to play professional baseball with the Toronto Maple Leafs. An outfielder on the team, Conacher and the Maple Leafs won the International League championship then defeated the Louisville Colonels to win the Little World Series. He returned to Pittsburgh for the 1926-27 NHL season, but was dealt early in the year to the New York Americans in exchange for Charlie Langlois and $2,000. The trade nearly proved disastrous for Conacher. He scored 8 goals in 1926-27 and improved to 11 in 1927-28, but playing for a team owned by notorious bootlegger Bill Dwyer resulted in his becoming a heavy drinker. Conacher served as player-coach in 1929-30, but his play and health had deteriorated. Two events in that off-season saved Conacher: he swore off alcohol completely upon the birth of his first child, and his playing rights were sold to the Montreal Maroons. Conacher periodically struggled with Montreal, and at one point was placed on waivers with no other team willing to take over his contract. Nonetheless, his overall play and point totals increased for three consecutive seasons with the Maroons, peaking at 28 points in 1932-33. He was named to the Second All-Star Team that season, but was traded to the Chicago Black Hawks in exchange for Teddy Graham. Conacher was a key figure in the club's first-ever Stanley Cup victory that season. He finished second to the Canadiens' Aurel Joliat in the voting for the Hart Trophy and earned a spot on the NHL's First All-Star Team. On Wednesday October 3, 1934, Conacher was involved in one of the largest transactions in league history. He was dealt to the Montreal Canadiens, along with Leroy Goldsworthy and Roger Jenkins in exchange for Montreal superstar Howie Morenz, Lorne Chabot and Marty Burke. The deal was only part of a series of trades involving four teams that represented one of the biggest deals in NHL history. Immediately following the Chicago trade, Conacher was sent back to the Maroons, along with Herb Cain, in exchange for the rights to Nelson Crutchfield. Conacher spent his last three NHL seasons with the Maroons and won his second Stanley Cup in 1935. He ended his hockey career after the team was eliminated from the playoffs by the New York Rangers on April 23, 1937. That final year he was runner-up to Babe Siebert in the 1937 Hart Trophy voting and was placed on the NHL Second All-Star Team. CANNOTANSWER | CANNOTANSWER | Lionel Pretoria Conacher, MP (; May 24, 1900 – May 26, 1954), nicknamed "The Big Train", was a Canadian athlete and politician. Voted the country's top athlete of the first half of the 20th century, he won championships in numerous sports. His first passion was football; he was a member of the 1921 Grey Cup champion Toronto Argonauts. He was a member of the Toronto Maple Leafs baseball team that won the International League championship in 1926. In hockey, he won a Memorial Cup in 1920, and the Stanley Cup twice: with the Chicago Black Hawks in 1934 and the Montreal Maroons in 1935. Additionally, he won wrestling, boxing and lacrosse championships during his playing career. He is one of three players, including Joe Miller and Carl Voss, to have their names engraved on both the Grey Cup and Stanley Cup.
Conacher retired as an athlete in 1937 to enter politics. He won election to the Legislative Assembly of Ontario in 1937, and in 1949 won a seat in the House of Commons. Many of his political positions revolved around sports. He worked to eliminate corruption in boxing while serving as a Member of Provincial Parliament (MPP) in Ontario, also serving as the chairman of the Ontario Athletic Commission. Additionally, he served a term as director of recreation and entertainment for the Royal Canadian Air Force. It was also on the sports field that Conacher died: He suffered a heart attack twenty minutes after hitting a triple in a softball game played on the lawn of Parliament Hill.
Numerous organizations have honoured Conacher's career. In addition to being named Canada's athlete of the half-century, he was named the country's top football player over the same period. He was inducted into Canada's Sports Hall of Fame in 1955, the Canadian Football Hall of Fame in 1964, the Canadian Lacrosse Hall of Fame in 1965, the Hockey Hall of Fame in 1994, and the Ontario Sports Hall of Fame in 1996. Additionally, the Canadian Press gives the Lionel Conacher Award to its male athlete of the year.
Early life
Conacher was born in Toronto, Ontario on May 24, 1901. His middle name was given after the South African city of Pretoria, where British troops were fighting the Boer War at the time of his birth. He was the eldest son of Benjamin and Elizabeth Conacher, and the third of ten children overall. He had four brothers and five sisters. The family grew up in the neighbourhood of Davenport, which his brother Charlie described as "one of Toronto's higher class slums".
His father was a teamster, and struggled to earn enough money to support the family. In the winter, he ploughed the snow off outdoor skating rinks to earn additional money. Conacher left school after the eighth grade to go to work and help support his siblings. For ten hours a day, he hauled sod, earning an extra dollar a week for his family.
All ten children were encouraged to participate in sports by the principal of Jesse Ketchum School, who felt that such pursuits would keep his students from getting into trouble. Conacher discovered that he was among the better players in any sport he tried, and quickly became a star at Canadian football, ice hockey and lacrosse. He realized his athletic ability could offer an escape from poverty.
Amateur career
Conacher was a prolific athlete, excelling in numerous sports at the same time. He played with 14 different teams during his teenage years, winning 11 championships. He was 16 years old when he won the Ontario lightweight wrestling championship, and at 20 won the Canadian amateur light-heavyweight boxing championship. In 1921, he fought, and was knocked out by heavyweight champion Jack Dempsey in an exhibition match. One year he famously hit a triple to win the Toronto city baseball championship, then rushed to the other side of the city to find his lacrosse team trailing 3–0 in the Ontario provincial final. He scored four goals and an assist to lead them to a comeback victory.
Football
Rugby football was the first sport Conacher played, and it was his favourite. He first played organized football at the age of 12 as a middle wing with the Capitals in the Toronto Rugby Football League. He played four seasons with the team between 1912 and 1915, during which the Capitals won the city championship each year. He won the Ontario championship as a junior with the Toronto Central YMCA in 1918, and in 1919 moved up to the intermediate level. With the intermediate Capitals, he was moved into an offensive role as a halfback. He excelled in the role, and his team reached Ontario Rugby Football Union (ORFU) final. In that final, the Capitals' opponents from Sarnia made stopping Conacher their priority, a strategy that proved the difference as Sarnia won the championship.
Conacher moved to the senior level in 1920 with the Toronto Rugby Club where his team again won the ORFU championship, but lost the eastern semifinal to the Toronto Argonauts of the Interprovincial Rugby Football Union (IRFU). His play impressed the Argonauts, who signed him for the 1921 season. In his first game with the Argonauts, he scored 23 of the team's 27 points, and led the IRFU in scoring, accounting for 14 touchdowns and 90 of his team's 167 points as they went undefeated in six games. The Argonauts won the eastern championship, and faced the Edmonton Eskimos (renamed Edmonton 'Elks' in 1922) in the first east–west Grey Cup championship in Canadian history. Conacher rushed for 211 yards and scored 15 points in Toronto's 23–0 victory to claim the national title.
Named captain in 1922, Conacher led the Argonauts to another undefeated season in IRFU play, finishing with five wins and one tie, as he rushed for about 950 yards. The Argonauts reached the Eastern final, but lost to Queen's University, 12–11. In that game, Conacher was the entire Argonaut offense rushing 35 times for 227 yards but Pep Leadley's 21 yard field goal towards the end of the game gave Queens' its victory.
Ice hockey
The expense of playing hockey initially kept Conacher off the ice. He did not learn to skate until he was 16. Consequently, hockey was among his weakest sports. He played with the Toronto Century Rovers, and then the Aura Lee Athletic Club, but saw limited ice time. Determined to improve his game, he closely watched the top players from the bench and sought to emulate what made them successful. His efforts paid off, and by 1918–19, was considered a star defenceman for Aura Lee. He joined the Toronto Canoe Club Paddlers, a team of all-star calibre players in 1919–20, and with them won the Memorial Cup, Canada's national junior championship. Conacher then returned to the Aura Lees to play for their senior team for two years.
National Hockey League (NHL) teams took notice of Conacher's ability. The Toronto St. Pats offered him $3,000 a season – three times the average salary – to play for them in 1920–21, while in 1921, the Montreal Canadiens offered $5,000 and support setting up a business. He turned both down as he was not yet willing to surrender his status as an amateur athlete. His decisions to refuse the offers led to speculation that he was being paid under the table. He and Billy Burch were accused of deliberately throwing a game in 1922, but were absolved of guilt by the Amateur Athletic Union of Canada.
Move to Pittsburgh
Conacher remained in senior hockey and while playing for the North Toronto Seniors in 1923, was a part of the first hockey game ever broadcast on radio. That summer, he received an offer from Roy Schooley, the manager of the Duquesne Gardens and owner of the Pittsburgh Yellow Jackets of the United States Amateur Hockey Association (USAHA), to play for his team. While he would retain his amateur status, Schooley set Conacher up with a job in the insurance business and paid his university tuition so that he could improve his education. He brought many of his teammates with him to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, all of whom received jobs in the community, and he attended school at Bellefonte Academy for a year before enrolling at Duquesne University.
He played football for both schools in the fall, and served as the Yellow Jackets' captain in the winter where he led the team to consecutive USAHA titles in 1924 and 1925. In the summers, Conacher returned to Toronto and played lacrosse and baseball. The Yellow Jackets turned professional in 1925 when they were renamed the Pittsburgh Pirates and joined the National Hockey League (NHL). Conacher finally chose to turn professional with the team, a decision that surprised fans and teammates in Toronto, who knew of his favourtism for the game of football.
Professional career
Conacher scored the first goal in Pirates history on American Thanksgiving Day Thursday November 26, 1925, against the Boston Bruins. He scored nine goals in 33 games in , then returned to Toronto to play professional baseball with the Toronto Maple Leafs. An outfielder on the team, Conacher and the Maple Leafs won the International League championship then defeated the Louisville Colonels to win the Little World Series.
He returned to Pittsburgh for the NHL season, but was dealt early in the year to the New York Americans in exchange for Charlie Langlois and $2,000. The trade nearly proved disastrous for Conacher. He scored 8 goals in and improved to 11 in , but playing for a team owned by notorious bootlegger Bill Dwyer resulted in his becoming a heavy drinker. Conacher served as player-coach in , but his play and health had deteriorated. Two events in that off-season saved Conacher: he swore off alcohol completely upon the birth of his first child, and his playing rights were sold to the Montreal Maroons.
Conacher periodically struggled with Montreal, and at one point was placed on waivers with no other team willing to take over his contract. Nonetheless, his overall play and point totals increased for three consecutive seasons with the Maroons, peaking at 28 points in . He was named to the Second All-Star Team that season, but was traded to the Chicago Black Hawks in exchange for Teddy Graham. Conacher was a key figure in the club's first-ever Stanley Cup victory that season. He finished second to the Canadiens' Aurel Joliat in the voting for the Hart Trophy and earned a spot on the NHL's First All-Star Team.
On Wednesday October 3, 1934, Conacher was involved in one of the largest transactions in league history. He was dealt to the Montreal Canadiens, along with Leroy Goldsworthy and Roger Jenkins in exchange for Montreal superstar Howie Morenz, Lorne Chabot and Marty Burke. The deal was only part of a series of trades involving four teams that represented one of the biggest deals in NHL history. Immediately following the Chicago trade, Conacher was sent back to the Maroons, along with Herb Cain, in exchange for the rights to Nelson Crutchfield. Conacher spent his last three NHL seasons with the Maroons and won his second Stanley Cup in 1935. He ended his hockey career after the team was eliminated from the playoffs by the New York Rangers on April 23, 1937. That final year he was runner-up to Babe Siebert in the 1937 Hart Trophy voting and was placed on the NHL Second All-Star Team.
Canadian professional football
Conacher had not played competitive football since turning professional. At one point he was offered a position as coach of the Montreal AAA Winged Wheelers, but disappointed the Interprovincial Rugby Football Union club when he turned down the job due to his other commitments. He was not absent the game long, however, as Conacher returned to football in 1933. He was part of an effort to launch a new professional league that would feature both Canadian and American teams. The league never came to fruition, but Conacher organized what became the first professional football team in Canada. He captained the team, based out of Toronto, which was known as the Crosse and Blackwell Chefs following a sponsorship with a local food products company. Conacher recruited former amateur players who had likewise left the sport in favour of paying jobs in other pro sports, including his brother Charlie.
The first game was held Thanksgiving Day in 1933, an exhibition contest against the Rochester Arpeakos. A crowd of 10,000 attended the game to watch Conacher play his first competitive football game in Canada in ten years. He did not disappoint, scoring two touchdowns and setting up a third for the Chefs, and was hailed as the game's star despite an 18–15 loss. Toronto lost a return match in Rochester, but in the third and final game of their season, the Chefs defeated a team from Buffalo at Toronto by a score of 18–0. Conacher was again the star, rushing for two touchdowns and scoring 13 of his team's points. He organized the team for a second year in 1934, known as the Wrigley Aromints due to new sponsorship, and again played an exhibition schedule as the team remained unaffiliated with any league. The team again played three games, winning all three. However, at the age of 34 years, Conacher found that the game was too hard on his body physically, and neither he nor his team returned for a third season.
Lacrosse
Led by the owners of the Montreal Canadiens, the arena operators of Canada's NHL teams invented the sport of box lacrosse in 1931 in a bid to fill arena dates in the summer. The field variant of the sport had been in decline in Canada as the popularity of baseball and football grew, and it was hoped that lacrosse played in the confines of a hockey rink would create a faster, more exciting game. A summer professional circuit, the International Professional Lacrosse League was created with representative teams of the Montreal Maroons, Montreal Canadiens, Toronto Maple Leafs and an entry from Cornwall, Ontario. Several NHL players who had played the field game before abandoning it to turn professional in hockey signed with the teams, including Conacher, who joined the Maroons. The Maroons' inaugural game came against the Maple Leafs, and though Toronto won 9–7, Conacher stole the spotlight from the victors. He scored six of Montreal's goals, assisted on the seventh, and earned the praise of his fellow players. When the Maroons went to Toronto, the Maple Leafs hosted a "Lionel Conacher Night" to celebrate the city's native son. The Maroons did not figure into the playoff for the championship, but Conacher led the league in scoring with 107 points. His dominance in the league was such that his total nearly doubled his nearest rival, who finished with 56 points. In one game, against Toronto, he scored ten goals in a 17–12 victory. He chose not to return to lacrosse for the 1932 season, choosing instead to sign a contract to wrestle professionally during the hockey off-seasons.
Political career
Bracondale
When Conacher retired from professional hockey, he ran as a Liberal in the 1937 Ontario general election. He was elected as a Member of Provincial Parliament (MPP) representing the Toronto Bracondale electoral district in the Ontario Legislative Assembly, defeating the district's incumbent, Conservative Arthur Russell Nesbitt. Bracondale had a colourful electoral past, and this election night was no different. The October 6 election was a very close race between Nesbitt and Conacher.
Conacher represented Bracondale from October 6, 1937, until June 30, 1943, when the Legislature was dissolved for the 1943 Ontario general election. He was challenged for the Liberal nomination in Bracondale by Toronto city alderman E. C. Bogart. Bogart won and then lost the seat to the Co-operative Commwealth's Rae Luckock a few weeks later.
Conacher also served as the sports director for the Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF) during World War II. He and Canadian Amateur Hockey Association past-president George Dudley, announced plans for military teams based at all RCAF commands across Canada to play in senior ice hockey leagues.
Trinity
In the 1945 Canadian general election, Conacher represented the Liberal Party of Canada for a seat in the House of Commons of Canada, where he came second in Toronto's Trinity electoral district, losing to the Progressive Conservative incumbent. He ran again in Trinity for the Liberals in the 1949 Canadian general election, and this time he was elected. He was re-elected for a final time in the 1953 election.
In the spring of 1954 Conacher was in Ottawa attending to his parliamentary duties when he was asked to play in the annual softball game between MPs and members of the parliamentary press gallery. On May 26, in the sixth inning, in his last at-bat-ever, he hit a long drive into left field, stretching a single into a triple, when he sprinted to third base. He stood, breathing heavily and then collapsed face-first from having been hit in the head with a pitch in an earlier inning. One of the other MPs was a doctor who tried to assist him, but there was little that could be done for Conacher and within twenty minutes he was pronounced dead. The next day Conacher was supposed to attend his daughter's graduation from the University of Toronto. A big funeral was held, and his brother Charlie flew in from England to be there. He was buried at St. Johns York Mills Anglican Church Cemetery in Toronto.
Awards
He was named Canada's Greatest Male Athlete of the Half-Century (1950). In 1981 the Pro Football Researchers Association called Conacher "Canada's Answer to Jim Thorpe". He is a member of the Canadian Sports Hall of Fame (1955), the Canadian Football Hall of Fame (1963), the Canadian Lacrosse Hall of Fame (1966), and Hockey Hall of Fame (1994). The award for the Canadian Press Canadian male athlete of the year is called the Lionel Conacher Award.
Family
Conacher's younger brothers, Charlie Conacher, and Roy Conacher, were also Hall of Fame hockey players. His namesake, Lionel Jr., was a first round draft pick in 1960 and played a season with the Montreal Alouettes of the Canadian Football League. His son Brian Conacher represented Canada at the 1964 Winter Olympics and played for the Toronto Maple Leafs of the National Hockey League, winning a Stanley Cup with them in 1966–67 NHL season. Pete Conacher, Lionel's nephew and the son of Charlie, also played in the NHL, as did another nephew of Lionel's, Murray Henderson, who was the son of Lionel's sister Catherine. Current NHL player Cory Conacher is also a distant relative of Lionel's.
Career statistics
Ice hockey
* Stanley Cup Champion.
NHL coaching record
See also
List of Canadian sports personalities
References
Citations
Bibliography
External links
History by the Minute Video
Lionel Conacher, Greatest Sporting Moments, Virtual Museum of Canada Exhibit
1900 births
1954 deaths
Baseball people from Ontario
Canadian baseball players
Canadian Football Hall of Fame inductees
Canadian football punters
Canadian football running backs
Canadian ice hockey coaches
Canadian ice hockey defencemen
Canadian lacrosse players
Canadian people of Scottish descent
Canadian male boxers
Canadian male sport wrestlers
Canadian sportsperson-politicians
Chicago Blackhawks players
Duquesne Dukes football players
Hockey Hall of Fame inductees
Ice hockey people from Ontario
Ice hockey player-coaches
Liberal Party of Canada MPs
Members of the House of Commons of Canada from Ontario
Memorial Cup winners
Montreal Maroons players
New York Americans coaches
New York Americans players
Ontario Liberal Party MPPs
Persons of National Historic Significance (Canada)
Pittsburgh Pirates (NHL) players
Pittsburgh Yellow Jackets (USAHA) players
Players of Canadian football from Ontario
Politicians from Toronto
Royal Canadian Air Force officers
Royal Canadian Air Force personnel of World War II
Sportspeople from Toronto
Stanley Cup champions
Toronto Argonauts players
Toronto Maple Leafs (International League) players | false | [
"Donna Cruz Sings Her Greatest Hits is the second compilation album by the Filipino singer Donna Cruz, released in the Philippines in 2001 by Viva Records. The album was Cruz's first album not to receive a PARI certification; all of her studio albums and a previous compilation album, The Best of Donna, were certified either gold or platinum. Though it was labeled as a greatest hits compilation, several songs on the track listing had not been released as singles, and some of Cruz's singles did not appear on the album.\n\nBackground\nReleased during Cruz's break from the entertainment industry, Donna Cruz Sings Her Greatest Hits did not include any newly recorded material. Cruz's version of \"Jubilee Song\", which was not found on any of Cruz's albums (as she never recorded studio albums after Hulog Ng Langit in 1999) was included. It was seen as an updated version of Cruz's greatest hits as it included her latest singles \"Hulog ng Langit\" and \"Ikaw Pala 'Yon\".\n\nTrack listing\n\nReferences\n\n2001 compilation albums\nViva Records (Philippines) compilation albums\nDonna Cruz albums",
"Present Company is the fifth studio album by singer-songwriter Janis Ian, and her solitary album for Capitol Records.\n\nAfter her break-up with original producer Shadow Morton, and the failure of her final two Verve albums The Secret Life of J. Eddy Fink and Who Really Cares to dent the Billboard albums chart, Ian moved to California in 1970 and continued writing songs. In the autumn of 1970, Ian began working without a recording contract with producer and musician Jerry Corbitt (of The Youngbloods) in California before signing with Capitol Records in January. The sixteen songs, including three songwriting collaborations with Peter Cunningham, were released as Present Company early in 1971.\n\nDespite a lengthy period of touring extending into early 1972, Present Company did not sell much better than its two predecessors, although it did \"bubble under\" the top 200. Janis' contract with Capitol was not renewed, and apart from the single \"He's a Rainbow\" being performed during the tour in support of her comeback album Stars, nothing from Present Company is known to have been played live since 1972, nor has the album ever been represented on any of Janis Ian's compilations.\n\nTrack listing\n\nReferences\n\nJanis Ian albums\n1971 albums\nCapitol Records albums"
]
|
[
"Lionel Conacher",
"Professional career",
"Where did he play?",
"Conacher scored the first goal in Pirates history",
"Where did he play?",
"then returned to Toronto to play professional baseball with the Toronto Maple Leafs.",
"How long did he play for the team?",
"He returned to Pittsburgh for the 1926-27 NHL season,",
"Did he leave to play somewhere else?",
"his playing rights were sold to the Montreal Maroons.",
"did he win any championships?",
"Conacher and the Maple Leafs won the International League championship then defeated the Louisville Colonels to win the Little World Series.",
"What other championships did he win?",
"Conacher spent his last three NHL seasons with the Maroons and won his second Stanley Cup in 1935.",
"Did he retire?",
"He ended his hockey career after the team was eliminated from the playoffs by the New York Rangers on April 23, 1937.",
"what positions did he play?",
"I don't know.",
"was he traded?",
"Immediately following the Chicago trade, Conacher was sent back to the Maroons, along with Herb Cain,",
"did he break any records?",
"I don't know."
]
| C_036f3202ece346f199d988e1cd657070_0 | was he ever a coach? | 11 | was Lionel Conacher ever a coach? | Lionel Conacher | Conacher scored the first goal in Pirates history on American Thanksgiving Day Thursday November 26, 1925, against the Boston Bruins. He scored nine goals in 33 games in 1925-26, then returned to Toronto to play professional baseball with the Toronto Maple Leafs. An outfielder on the team, Conacher and the Maple Leafs won the International League championship then defeated the Louisville Colonels to win the Little World Series. He returned to Pittsburgh for the 1926-27 NHL season, but was dealt early in the year to the New York Americans in exchange for Charlie Langlois and $2,000. The trade nearly proved disastrous for Conacher. He scored 8 goals in 1926-27 and improved to 11 in 1927-28, but playing for a team owned by notorious bootlegger Bill Dwyer resulted in his becoming a heavy drinker. Conacher served as player-coach in 1929-30, but his play and health had deteriorated. Two events in that off-season saved Conacher: he swore off alcohol completely upon the birth of his first child, and his playing rights were sold to the Montreal Maroons. Conacher periodically struggled with Montreal, and at one point was placed on waivers with no other team willing to take over his contract. Nonetheless, his overall play and point totals increased for three consecutive seasons with the Maroons, peaking at 28 points in 1932-33. He was named to the Second All-Star Team that season, but was traded to the Chicago Black Hawks in exchange for Teddy Graham. Conacher was a key figure in the club's first-ever Stanley Cup victory that season. He finished second to the Canadiens' Aurel Joliat in the voting for the Hart Trophy and earned a spot on the NHL's First All-Star Team. On Wednesday October 3, 1934, Conacher was involved in one of the largest transactions in league history. He was dealt to the Montreal Canadiens, along with Leroy Goldsworthy and Roger Jenkins in exchange for Montreal superstar Howie Morenz, Lorne Chabot and Marty Burke. The deal was only part of a series of trades involving four teams that represented one of the biggest deals in NHL history. Immediately following the Chicago trade, Conacher was sent back to the Maroons, along with Herb Cain, in exchange for the rights to Nelson Crutchfield. Conacher spent his last three NHL seasons with the Maroons and won his second Stanley Cup in 1935. He ended his hockey career after the team was eliminated from the playoffs by the New York Rangers on April 23, 1937. That final year he was runner-up to Babe Siebert in the 1937 Hart Trophy voting and was placed on the NHL Second All-Star Team. CANNOTANSWER | CANNOTANSWER | Lionel Pretoria Conacher, MP (; May 24, 1900 – May 26, 1954), nicknamed "The Big Train", was a Canadian athlete and politician. Voted the country's top athlete of the first half of the 20th century, he won championships in numerous sports. His first passion was football; he was a member of the 1921 Grey Cup champion Toronto Argonauts. He was a member of the Toronto Maple Leafs baseball team that won the International League championship in 1926. In hockey, he won a Memorial Cup in 1920, and the Stanley Cup twice: with the Chicago Black Hawks in 1934 and the Montreal Maroons in 1935. Additionally, he won wrestling, boxing and lacrosse championships during his playing career. He is one of three players, including Joe Miller and Carl Voss, to have their names engraved on both the Grey Cup and Stanley Cup.
Conacher retired as an athlete in 1937 to enter politics. He won election to the Legislative Assembly of Ontario in 1937, and in 1949 won a seat in the House of Commons. Many of his political positions revolved around sports. He worked to eliminate corruption in boxing while serving as a Member of Provincial Parliament (MPP) in Ontario, also serving as the chairman of the Ontario Athletic Commission. Additionally, he served a term as director of recreation and entertainment for the Royal Canadian Air Force. It was also on the sports field that Conacher died: He suffered a heart attack twenty minutes after hitting a triple in a softball game played on the lawn of Parliament Hill.
Numerous organizations have honoured Conacher's career. In addition to being named Canada's athlete of the half-century, he was named the country's top football player over the same period. He was inducted into Canada's Sports Hall of Fame in 1955, the Canadian Football Hall of Fame in 1964, the Canadian Lacrosse Hall of Fame in 1965, the Hockey Hall of Fame in 1994, and the Ontario Sports Hall of Fame in 1996. Additionally, the Canadian Press gives the Lionel Conacher Award to its male athlete of the year.
Early life
Conacher was born in Toronto, Ontario on May 24, 1901. His middle name was given after the South African city of Pretoria, where British troops were fighting the Boer War at the time of his birth. He was the eldest son of Benjamin and Elizabeth Conacher, and the third of ten children overall. He had four brothers and five sisters. The family grew up in the neighbourhood of Davenport, which his brother Charlie described as "one of Toronto's higher class slums".
His father was a teamster, and struggled to earn enough money to support the family. In the winter, he ploughed the snow off outdoor skating rinks to earn additional money. Conacher left school after the eighth grade to go to work and help support his siblings. For ten hours a day, he hauled sod, earning an extra dollar a week for his family.
All ten children were encouraged to participate in sports by the principal of Jesse Ketchum School, who felt that such pursuits would keep his students from getting into trouble. Conacher discovered that he was among the better players in any sport he tried, and quickly became a star at Canadian football, ice hockey and lacrosse. He realized his athletic ability could offer an escape from poverty.
Amateur career
Conacher was a prolific athlete, excelling in numerous sports at the same time. He played with 14 different teams during his teenage years, winning 11 championships. He was 16 years old when he won the Ontario lightweight wrestling championship, and at 20 won the Canadian amateur light-heavyweight boxing championship. In 1921, he fought, and was knocked out by heavyweight champion Jack Dempsey in an exhibition match. One year he famously hit a triple to win the Toronto city baseball championship, then rushed to the other side of the city to find his lacrosse team trailing 3–0 in the Ontario provincial final. He scored four goals and an assist to lead them to a comeback victory.
Football
Rugby football was the first sport Conacher played, and it was his favourite. He first played organized football at the age of 12 as a middle wing with the Capitals in the Toronto Rugby Football League. He played four seasons with the team between 1912 and 1915, during which the Capitals won the city championship each year. He won the Ontario championship as a junior with the Toronto Central YMCA in 1918, and in 1919 moved up to the intermediate level. With the intermediate Capitals, he was moved into an offensive role as a halfback. He excelled in the role, and his team reached Ontario Rugby Football Union (ORFU) final. In that final, the Capitals' opponents from Sarnia made stopping Conacher their priority, a strategy that proved the difference as Sarnia won the championship.
Conacher moved to the senior level in 1920 with the Toronto Rugby Club where his team again won the ORFU championship, but lost the eastern semifinal to the Toronto Argonauts of the Interprovincial Rugby Football Union (IRFU). His play impressed the Argonauts, who signed him for the 1921 season. In his first game with the Argonauts, he scored 23 of the team's 27 points, and led the IRFU in scoring, accounting for 14 touchdowns and 90 of his team's 167 points as they went undefeated in six games. The Argonauts won the eastern championship, and faced the Edmonton Eskimos (renamed Edmonton 'Elks' in 1922) in the first east–west Grey Cup championship in Canadian history. Conacher rushed for 211 yards and scored 15 points in Toronto's 23–0 victory to claim the national title.
Named captain in 1922, Conacher led the Argonauts to another undefeated season in IRFU play, finishing with five wins and one tie, as he rushed for about 950 yards. The Argonauts reached the Eastern final, but lost to Queen's University, 12–11. In that game, Conacher was the entire Argonaut offense rushing 35 times for 227 yards but Pep Leadley's 21 yard field goal towards the end of the game gave Queens' its victory.
Ice hockey
The expense of playing hockey initially kept Conacher off the ice. He did not learn to skate until he was 16. Consequently, hockey was among his weakest sports. He played with the Toronto Century Rovers, and then the Aura Lee Athletic Club, but saw limited ice time. Determined to improve his game, he closely watched the top players from the bench and sought to emulate what made them successful. His efforts paid off, and by 1918–19, was considered a star defenceman for Aura Lee. He joined the Toronto Canoe Club Paddlers, a team of all-star calibre players in 1919–20, and with them won the Memorial Cup, Canada's national junior championship. Conacher then returned to the Aura Lees to play for their senior team for two years.
National Hockey League (NHL) teams took notice of Conacher's ability. The Toronto St. Pats offered him $3,000 a season – three times the average salary – to play for them in 1920–21, while in 1921, the Montreal Canadiens offered $5,000 and support setting up a business. He turned both down as he was not yet willing to surrender his status as an amateur athlete. His decisions to refuse the offers led to speculation that he was being paid under the table. He and Billy Burch were accused of deliberately throwing a game in 1922, but were absolved of guilt by the Amateur Athletic Union of Canada.
Move to Pittsburgh
Conacher remained in senior hockey and while playing for the North Toronto Seniors in 1923, was a part of the first hockey game ever broadcast on radio. That summer, he received an offer from Roy Schooley, the manager of the Duquesne Gardens and owner of the Pittsburgh Yellow Jackets of the United States Amateur Hockey Association (USAHA), to play for his team. While he would retain his amateur status, Schooley set Conacher up with a job in the insurance business and paid his university tuition so that he could improve his education. He brought many of his teammates with him to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, all of whom received jobs in the community, and he attended school at Bellefonte Academy for a year before enrolling at Duquesne University.
He played football for both schools in the fall, and served as the Yellow Jackets' captain in the winter where he led the team to consecutive USAHA titles in 1924 and 1925. In the summers, Conacher returned to Toronto and played lacrosse and baseball. The Yellow Jackets turned professional in 1925 when they were renamed the Pittsburgh Pirates and joined the National Hockey League (NHL). Conacher finally chose to turn professional with the team, a decision that surprised fans and teammates in Toronto, who knew of his favourtism for the game of football.
Professional career
Conacher scored the first goal in Pirates history on American Thanksgiving Day Thursday November 26, 1925, against the Boston Bruins. He scored nine goals in 33 games in , then returned to Toronto to play professional baseball with the Toronto Maple Leafs. An outfielder on the team, Conacher and the Maple Leafs won the International League championship then defeated the Louisville Colonels to win the Little World Series.
He returned to Pittsburgh for the NHL season, but was dealt early in the year to the New York Americans in exchange for Charlie Langlois and $2,000. The trade nearly proved disastrous for Conacher. He scored 8 goals in and improved to 11 in , but playing for a team owned by notorious bootlegger Bill Dwyer resulted in his becoming a heavy drinker. Conacher served as player-coach in , but his play and health had deteriorated. Two events in that off-season saved Conacher: he swore off alcohol completely upon the birth of his first child, and his playing rights were sold to the Montreal Maroons.
Conacher periodically struggled with Montreal, and at one point was placed on waivers with no other team willing to take over his contract. Nonetheless, his overall play and point totals increased for three consecutive seasons with the Maroons, peaking at 28 points in . He was named to the Second All-Star Team that season, but was traded to the Chicago Black Hawks in exchange for Teddy Graham. Conacher was a key figure in the club's first-ever Stanley Cup victory that season. He finished second to the Canadiens' Aurel Joliat in the voting for the Hart Trophy and earned a spot on the NHL's First All-Star Team.
On Wednesday October 3, 1934, Conacher was involved in one of the largest transactions in league history. He was dealt to the Montreal Canadiens, along with Leroy Goldsworthy and Roger Jenkins in exchange for Montreal superstar Howie Morenz, Lorne Chabot and Marty Burke. The deal was only part of a series of trades involving four teams that represented one of the biggest deals in NHL history. Immediately following the Chicago trade, Conacher was sent back to the Maroons, along with Herb Cain, in exchange for the rights to Nelson Crutchfield. Conacher spent his last three NHL seasons with the Maroons and won his second Stanley Cup in 1935. He ended his hockey career after the team was eliminated from the playoffs by the New York Rangers on April 23, 1937. That final year he was runner-up to Babe Siebert in the 1937 Hart Trophy voting and was placed on the NHL Second All-Star Team.
Canadian professional football
Conacher had not played competitive football since turning professional. At one point he was offered a position as coach of the Montreal AAA Winged Wheelers, but disappointed the Interprovincial Rugby Football Union club when he turned down the job due to his other commitments. He was not absent the game long, however, as Conacher returned to football in 1933. He was part of an effort to launch a new professional league that would feature both Canadian and American teams. The league never came to fruition, but Conacher organized what became the first professional football team in Canada. He captained the team, based out of Toronto, which was known as the Crosse and Blackwell Chefs following a sponsorship with a local food products company. Conacher recruited former amateur players who had likewise left the sport in favour of paying jobs in other pro sports, including his brother Charlie.
The first game was held Thanksgiving Day in 1933, an exhibition contest against the Rochester Arpeakos. A crowd of 10,000 attended the game to watch Conacher play his first competitive football game in Canada in ten years. He did not disappoint, scoring two touchdowns and setting up a third for the Chefs, and was hailed as the game's star despite an 18–15 loss. Toronto lost a return match in Rochester, but in the third and final game of their season, the Chefs defeated a team from Buffalo at Toronto by a score of 18–0. Conacher was again the star, rushing for two touchdowns and scoring 13 of his team's points. He organized the team for a second year in 1934, known as the Wrigley Aromints due to new sponsorship, and again played an exhibition schedule as the team remained unaffiliated with any league. The team again played three games, winning all three. However, at the age of 34 years, Conacher found that the game was too hard on his body physically, and neither he nor his team returned for a third season.
Lacrosse
Led by the owners of the Montreal Canadiens, the arena operators of Canada's NHL teams invented the sport of box lacrosse in 1931 in a bid to fill arena dates in the summer. The field variant of the sport had been in decline in Canada as the popularity of baseball and football grew, and it was hoped that lacrosse played in the confines of a hockey rink would create a faster, more exciting game. A summer professional circuit, the International Professional Lacrosse League was created with representative teams of the Montreal Maroons, Montreal Canadiens, Toronto Maple Leafs and an entry from Cornwall, Ontario. Several NHL players who had played the field game before abandoning it to turn professional in hockey signed with the teams, including Conacher, who joined the Maroons. The Maroons' inaugural game came against the Maple Leafs, and though Toronto won 9–7, Conacher stole the spotlight from the victors. He scored six of Montreal's goals, assisted on the seventh, and earned the praise of his fellow players. When the Maroons went to Toronto, the Maple Leafs hosted a "Lionel Conacher Night" to celebrate the city's native son. The Maroons did not figure into the playoff for the championship, but Conacher led the league in scoring with 107 points. His dominance in the league was such that his total nearly doubled his nearest rival, who finished with 56 points. In one game, against Toronto, he scored ten goals in a 17–12 victory. He chose not to return to lacrosse for the 1932 season, choosing instead to sign a contract to wrestle professionally during the hockey off-seasons.
Political career
Bracondale
When Conacher retired from professional hockey, he ran as a Liberal in the 1937 Ontario general election. He was elected as a Member of Provincial Parliament (MPP) representing the Toronto Bracondale electoral district in the Ontario Legislative Assembly, defeating the district's incumbent, Conservative Arthur Russell Nesbitt. Bracondale had a colourful electoral past, and this election night was no different. The October 6 election was a very close race between Nesbitt and Conacher.
Conacher represented Bracondale from October 6, 1937, until June 30, 1943, when the Legislature was dissolved for the 1943 Ontario general election. He was challenged for the Liberal nomination in Bracondale by Toronto city alderman E. C. Bogart. Bogart won and then lost the seat to the Co-operative Commwealth's Rae Luckock a few weeks later.
Conacher also served as the sports director for the Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF) during World War II. He and Canadian Amateur Hockey Association past-president George Dudley, announced plans for military teams based at all RCAF commands across Canada to play in senior ice hockey leagues.
Trinity
In the 1945 Canadian general election, Conacher represented the Liberal Party of Canada for a seat in the House of Commons of Canada, where he came second in Toronto's Trinity electoral district, losing to the Progressive Conservative incumbent. He ran again in Trinity for the Liberals in the 1949 Canadian general election, and this time he was elected. He was re-elected for a final time in the 1953 election.
In the spring of 1954 Conacher was in Ottawa attending to his parliamentary duties when he was asked to play in the annual softball game between MPs and members of the parliamentary press gallery. On May 26, in the sixth inning, in his last at-bat-ever, he hit a long drive into left field, stretching a single into a triple, when he sprinted to third base. He stood, breathing heavily and then collapsed face-first from having been hit in the head with a pitch in an earlier inning. One of the other MPs was a doctor who tried to assist him, but there was little that could be done for Conacher and within twenty minutes he was pronounced dead. The next day Conacher was supposed to attend his daughter's graduation from the University of Toronto. A big funeral was held, and his brother Charlie flew in from England to be there. He was buried at St. Johns York Mills Anglican Church Cemetery in Toronto.
Awards
He was named Canada's Greatest Male Athlete of the Half-Century (1950). In 1981 the Pro Football Researchers Association called Conacher "Canada's Answer to Jim Thorpe". He is a member of the Canadian Sports Hall of Fame (1955), the Canadian Football Hall of Fame (1963), the Canadian Lacrosse Hall of Fame (1966), and Hockey Hall of Fame (1994). The award for the Canadian Press Canadian male athlete of the year is called the Lionel Conacher Award.
Family
Conacher's younger brothers, Charlie Conacher, and Roy Conacher, were also Hall of Fame hockey players. His namesake, Lionel Jr., was a first round draft pick in 1960 and played a season with the Montreal Alouettes of the Canadian Football League. His son Brian Conacher represented Canada at the 1964 Winter Olympics and played for the Toronto Maple Leafs of the National Hockey League, winning a Stanley Cup with them in 1966–67 NHL season. Pete Conacher, Lionel's nephew and the son of Charlie, also played in the NHL, as did another nephew of Lionel's, Murray Henderson, who was the son of Lionel's sister Catherine. Current NHL player Cory Conacher is also a distant relative of Lionel's.
Career statistics
Ice hockey
* Stanley Cup Champion.
NHL coaching record
See also
List of Canadian sports personalities
References
Citations
Bibliography
External links
History by the Minute Video
Lionel Conacher, Greatest Sporting Moments, Virtual Museum of Canada Exhibit
1900 births
1954 deaths
Baseball people from Ontario
Canadian baseball players
Canadian Football Hall of Fame inductees
Canadian football punters
Canadian football running backs
Canadian ice hockey coaches
Canadian ice hockey defencemen
Canadian lacrosse players
Canadian people of Scottish descent
Canadian male boxers
Canadian male sport wrestlers
Canadian sportsperson-politicians
Chicago Blackhawks players
Duquesne Dukes football players
Hockey Hall of Fame inductees
Ice hockey people from Ontario
Ice hockey player-coaches
Liberal Party of Canada MPs
Members of the House of Commons of Canada from Ontario
Memorial Cup winners
Montreal Maroons players
New York Americans coaches
New York Americans players
Ontario Liberal Party MPPs
Persons of National Historic Significance (Canada)
Pittsburgh Pirates (NHL) players
Pittsburgh Yellow Jackets (USAHA) players
Players of Canadian football from Ontario
Politicians from Toronto
Royal Canadian Air Force officers
Royal Canadian Air Force personnel of World War II
Sportspeople from Toronto
Stanley Cup champions
Toronto Argonauts players
Toronto Maple Leafs (International League) players | false | [
"Jonathan Damian Hernandez (born July 18, 1985) is an American baseball coach, who is the current head baseball coach of the Bethune–Cookman Wildcats. He was the head coach for the ASA College Silver Storm (2014–2018).\n\nEarly life\nHernandez attended Hialeah High School, where he was a member of the baseball team. He helped guide the team to back-to-back state championships in 2001 and 2002.\n\nCoaching career\nHernandez spent seasons as an assistant baseball coach at Miami Springs High School and Coral Gables Senior High School before landing his first ever head coaching job with the Hialeah High School. In 2014, Hernandez was named the first ever head coach at ASA College's Miami branch.\nOn August 14, 2018, Hernandez was named the head coach of the Bethune–Cookman Wildcats baseball program. Following a 17–38 season in 2019, Hernandez was able to land the 59th ranked recruiting class.\n\nHead coaching record\n\nSee also\n List of current NCAA Division I baseball coaches\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\nASA Silver Storm bio\nBethune–Cookman Wildcats bio\n\n1985 births\nLiving people\nHigh school baseball coaches in the United States\nASA College Silver Storm baseball coaches\nBethune–Cookman Wildcats baseball coaches",
"Robert Victor \"Bull\" \"Cyclone\" Sullivan (December 10, 1919 - September 8, 1970) was an American college football coach. He was the head coach at East Mississippi Community College for 16 seasons, from 1950-52 and again from 1956-69. He was inducted into the Mississippi Sports Hall of Fame, and profiled in the 1984 Sports Illustrated article \"The Toughest Coach There Ever Was\". He was also the subject of the book Bull Cyclone Sullivan and the Lions of Scooba, Mississippi.\n\nReferences\n\n1919 births\n1970 deaths\nEast Mississippi Lions football coaches\nPlayers of American football from Alabama\nCoaches of American football from Alabama\nJunior college football coaches in the United States"
]
|
[
"Niki Lauda",
"Brabham and first retirement (1978-1979)"
]
| C_8dd79d4ac5674ad3ba1e016103b23fca_0 | When did he first retire? | 1 | When did Niki Lauda first retire? | Niki Lauda | Having joined Parmalat-sponsored Brabham-Alfa Romeo in 1978 for a $1 million salary, Lauda endured two unsuccessful seasons, notable mainly for his one race in the Brabham BT46B, a radical design known as the Fan Car: it won its first and only race at the Swedish GP, but Brabham did not use the car in F1 again; other teams vigorously protested the fan car's legality and Brabham team owner Bernie Ecclestone, who at the time was maneuvering for acquisition of Formula One's commercial rights, did not want to fight a protracted battle over the car, but the victory in Sweden remained official. The Brabham BT46 Alfa Romeo flat-12 began the 1978 season at the third race in South Africa. It suffered from a variety of troubles that forced Lauda to retire the car 9 out of 14 races. Lauda's best results, apart from the wins in Sweden and Italy after the penalization of Mario Andretti and Gilles Villeneuve, were 2nd in Montreal and Great Britain, and a 3rd in the Netherlands. As the Alfa flat-12 engine was too wide for effective wing cars designs, Alfa provided a V12 for 1979. It was the fourth 12cyl engine design that propelled the Austrian in F1 since 1973. Lauda's 1979 F1 season was again marred by retirements and poor pace, even though he won the non-championship 1979 Dino Ferrari Grand Prix with the Brabham-Alfa. In the single make BMW M1 Procar Championship, driving for the British Formula Two team Project Four Racing (led by Ron Dennis) when not in a factory entry, Lauda won three races for P4 plus the series. Decades later, Lauda won a BMW Procar exhibition race event before the 2008 German Grand Prix. In September, Lauda finished 4th in Monza, and won the non-WC Imola event, still with the Alfa V12 engine. After that, Brabham returned to the familiar Cosworth V8. In late September, during practice for the 1979 Canadian Grand Prix, Lauda informed Brabham that he wished to retire immediately, as he had no more desire to "drive around in circles". Lauda, who in the meantime had founded Lauda Air, a charter airline, returned to Austria to run the company full-time. CANNOTANSWER | It suffered from a variety of troubles that forced Lauda to retire the car 9 out of 14 races. | Andreas Nikolaus Lauda (22 February 1949 – 20 May 2019) was an Austrian Formula One driver and aviation entrepreneur. He was a three-time F1 World Drivers' Champion, winning in , and , and is the only driver in F1 history to have been champion for both Ferrari and McLaren, the sport's two most successful constructors.
As an aviation entrepreneur, he founded and ran three airlines: Lauda Air, Niki, and Lauda. He was also a consultant for Scuderia Ferrari and team manager of the Jaguar Formula One racing team for two years. Afterwards, he worked as a pundit for German TV during Grand Prix weekends and acted as non-executive chairman of Mercedes-AMG Petronas Motorsport, of which Lauda owned 10%.
Having emerged as Formula One's star driver amid a title win and leading the championship battle, Lauda was seriously injured in a crash at the 1976 German Grand Prix at the Nürburgring during which his Ferrari 312T2 burst into flames, and he came close to death after inhaling hot toxic fumes and suffering severe burns. He survived and recovered sufficiently to race again just six weeks later at the Italian Grand Prix. Although he lost that year's titleby just one pointto James Hunt, he won his second championship the year after, during his final season at Ferrari. After a couple of years at Brabham and two years' hiatus, Lauda returned and raced four seasons for McLaren between 1982 and 1985 – during which he won the title by half a point over his teammate Alain Prost.
Early years in racing
Niki Lauda was born on 22 February 1949 in Vienna, Austria, to a wealthy paper manufacturing family. His paternal grandfather was the Viennese-born industrialist Hans Lauda.
Lauda became a racing driver despite his family's disapproval. After starting out with a Mini, Lauda moved on into Formula Vee, as was normal in Central Europe, but rapidly moved up to drive in private Porsche and Chevron sports cars. With his career stalled, he took out a £30,000 bank loan, secured by a life insurance policy, to buy his way into the fledgling March team as a Formula Two (F2) driver in 1971. Because of his family's disapproval, he had an ongoing feud with them over his racing ambitions and abandoned further contact.
Lauda was quickly promoted to the F1 team, but drove for March in F1 and F2 in 1972. Although the F2 cars were good (and Lauda's driving skills impressed March principal Robin Herd), March's 1972 F1 season was catastrophic. Perhaps the lowest point of the team's season came at the Canadian Grand Prix at Mosport Park, where both March cars were disqualified within three laps of each other, just past 3/4 of the race distance. Lauda took out another bank loan to buy his way into the BRM team in 1973. Lauda was instantly quick, but the team was in decline; although the BRM P160E was quick and easy to drive it was not reliable and its engine lacked power. Lauda's star was on the rise after he ran 3rd at the Monaco Grand Prix that year, and Enzo Ferrari became interested. When his BRM teammate Clay Regazzoni left to rejoin Ferrari in 1974, team owner Enzo Ferrari asked him what he thought of Lauda. Regazzoni spoke so favourably of Lauda that Ferrari promptly signed him, paying him enough to clear his debts.
Ferrari (1974–1977)
After an unsuccessful start to the 1970s, culminating in a disastrous start to the 1973 season, Ferrari regrouped completely under Luca di Montezemolo and were resurgent in 1974. The team's faith in the little-known Lauda was quickly rewarded by a second-place finish in his debut race for the team, the season-opening Argentine Grand Prix. His first Grand Prix (GP) victory – and the first for Ferrari since 1972 – followed only three races later in the Spanish Grand Prix. Although Lauda became the season's pacesetter, achieving six consecutive pole positions, a mixture of inexperience and mechanical unreliability meant Lauda won only one more race that year, the Dutch GP. He finished fourth in the Drivers' Championship and demonstrated immense commitment to testing and improving the car.
The 1975 F1 season started slowly for Lauda; after no better than a fifth-place finish in the first four races, he won four of the next five driving the new Ferrari 312T. His first World Championship was confirmed with a third-place finish at the Italian Grand Prix at Monza; Lauda's teammate Regazzoni won the race and Ferrari clinched their first Constructors' Championship in 11 years. Lauda then picked up a fifth win at the last race of the year, the United States GP at Watkins Glen. He also became the first driver to lap the Nürburgring Nordschleife in under seven minutes, which was considered a huge feat as the Nordschleife section of the Nürburgring was two miles longer than it is today. Lauda did not win the German Grand Prix from pole position there that year; after battling hard with Patrick Depailler for the lead for the first half of the race, Lauda led for the first 9 laps but suffered a puncture at the Wippermann, 9 miles into the 10th lap and was passed by Carlos Reutemann, James Hunt, Tom Pryce and Jacques Laffite; Lauda made it back to the pits with a damaged front wing and a destroyed left front tyre. The Ferrari pit changed the destroyed tyre and Lauda managed to make it to the podium in 3rd behind Reutemann and Laffite after Hunt retired and Pryce had to slow down because of a fuel leak. Lauda was known for giving away any trophies he won to his local garage in exchange for his car to be washed and serviced.
Unlike 1975 and despite tensions between Lauda and Montezemolo's successor, Daniele Audetto, Lauda dominated the start of the 1976 F1 season, winning four of the first six races and finishing second in the other two. By the time of his fifth win of the year at the British GP, he had more than double the points of his closest challengers Jody Scheckter and James Hunt, and a second consecutive World Championship appeared a formality. It was a feat not achieved since Jack Brabham's victories in 1959 and 1960. He also looked set to win the most races in a season, a record held by the late Jim Clark since 1963.
1976 Nürburgring crash
A week before the 1976 German Grand Prix at the Nürburgring, even though he was the fastest driver on that circuit at the time, Lauda urged his fellow drivers to boycott the race, largely because of the circuit's safety arrangements, citing the organisers' lack of resources to properly manage such a huge circuit, including lack of fire marshals, fire and safety equipment and safety vehicles. Formula One was quite dangerous at the time (three of the drivers that day later died in Formula One incidents: Tom Pryce in 1977; Ronnie Peterson in 1978; and Patrick Depailler in 1980), but a majority of the drivers voted against the boycott and the race went ahead.
On 1 August 1976, during the second lap at the very fast left kink before Bergwerk, Lauda was involved in an accident where his Ferrari swerved off the track, hit an embankment, burst into flames, and made contact with Brett Lunger's Surtees-Ford car. Unlike Lunger, Lauda was trapped in the wreckage. Drivers Arturo Merzario, Lunger, Guy Edwards, and Harald Ertl arrived at the scene a few moments later, but before Merzario was able to pull Lauda from his car, he suffered severe burns to his head and inhaled hot toxic gases that damaged his lungs and blood. In an interview with BBC Radio 5 Live ("I Was There -- May 21, 2019"; "Niki Lauda speaks in 2015"), Lauda said, "...there were basically two or three drivers trying to get me out of the car, but one was Arturo Merzario, the Italian guy, who also had to stop there at the scene, because I blocked the road; and he really came into the car himself, and uh, triggered my, my seatbelt loose, and then pulled me out. It was unbelievable, how he could do that, and I met him afterwards, and I said, 'How could you do it?!'. He said, 'Honestly, I do not know, but to open your seatbelt was so difficult, because you were pushing so hard against it, and when it was open, I got you out of the car like a feather...'." As Lauda was wearing a modified helmet, it didn't fit him properly; the foam had compressed and it slid off his head after the accident, leaving his face exposed to the fire. Although Lauda was conscious and able to stand immediately after the accident, he later lapsed into a coma. While in hospital he was given the last rites, but he survived.
Lauda suffered extensive scarring from the burns to his head, losing most of his right ear as well as the hair on the right side of his head, his eyebrows, and his eyelids. He chose to limit reconstructive surgery to replacing the eyelids and getting them to work properly. After the accident he always wore a cap to cover the scars on his head. He arranged for sponsors to use the cap for advertising.
With Lauda out of the contest, Carlos Reutemann was taken on as his replacement. Ferrari boycotted the Austrian Grand Prix in protest at what they saw as preferential treatment shown towards McLaren driver James Hunt at the Spanish and British Grands Prix.
Return to racing
Lauda missed only two races, appearing at the Monza press conference six weeks after the accident with his fresh burns still bandaged. He finished fourth in the Italian GP, despite being, by his own admission, absolutely petrified. F1 journalist Nigel Roebuck recalls seeing Lauda in the pits, peeling the blood-soaked bandages off his scarred scalp. He also had to wear a specially adapted crash helmet so as not to be in too much discomfort. In Lauda's absence, Hunt had mounted a late charge to reduce Lauda's lead in the World Championship standings. Hunt and Lauda were friends away from the circuit, and their personal on-track rivalry, while intense, was cleanly contested and fair. Following wins in the Canadian and United States Grands Prix, Hunt stood only three points behind Lauda before the final race of the season, the Japanese Grand Prix.
Lauda qualified third, one place behind Hunt, but on race day there was torrential rain and Lauda retired after two laps. He later said that he felt it was unsafe to continue under these conditions, especially since his eyes were watering excessively because of his fire-damaged tear ducts and inability to blink. Hunt led much of the race before his tires blistered and a pit stop dropped him down the order. He recovered to third, thus winning the title by a single point.
Lauda's previously good relationship with Ferrari was severely affected by his decision to withdraw from the Japanese Grand Prix, and he endured a difficult 1977 season, despite easily winning the championship through consistency rather than outright pace. Lauda disliked his new teammate, Reutemann, who had served as his replacement driver. Lauda was not comfortable with this move and felt he had been let down by Ferrari. "We never could stand each other, and instead of taking pressure off me, they put on even more by bringing Carlos Reutemann into the team." Having announced his decision to quit Ferrari at season's end, Lauda left earlier after he won the Drivers' Championship at the United States Grand Prix because of the team's decision to run the unknown Gilles Villeneuve in a third car at the Canadian Grand Prix.
Brabham and first retirement (1978–1979)
Joining Parmalat-sponsored Brabham-Alfa Romeo in 1978 for a $1 million salary, Lauda endured two unsuccessful seasons, remembered mainly for his one race in the Brabham BT46B, a radical design known as the Fan Car: it won its first and only race at the Swedish GP, but Brabham did not use the car in F1 again; other teams vigorously protested the fan car's legality and Brabham team owner Bernie Ecclestone, who at the time was maneuvering for acquisition of Formula One's commercial rights, did not want to fight a protracted battle over the car, but the victory in Sweden remained official. The Brabham BT46 Alfa Romeo flat-12 began the 1978 season at the third race in South Africa. It suffered from a variety of troubles that forced Lauda to retire the car 9 out of 14 races. Lauda's best results, apart from the wins in Sweden and Italy after the penalization of Mario Andretti and Gilles Villeneuve, were 2nd in Monaco and Great Britain, and a 3rd in the Netherlands.
The Alfa flat-12 engine was too wide for ground effect designs in that the opposed cylinder banks impeded with the venturi tunnels, so Alfa designed a V12 for 1979. It was the fourth 12-cylinder engine design that propelled the Austrian in F1 since 1973. Lauda's 1979 F1 season was again marred by retirements and poor pace, even though he won the non-championship 1979 Dino Ferrari Grand Prix with the Brabham-Alfa. In the single-make BMW M1 Procar Championship, driving for the British Formula Two team Project Four Racing (led by Ron Dennis) when not in a factory entry, Lauda won three races for P4 plus the series. Decades later, Lauda won a BMW Procar exhibition race event before the 2008 German Grand Prix.
In September, Lauda finished 4th in Monza, and won the non-WC Imola event, still with the Alfa V12 engine. After that, Brabham returned to the familiar Cosworth V8. In late September, during practice for the 1979 Canadian Grand Prix, Lauda cut short a practice session and promptly informed team principal Ecclestone, that he wished to retire immediately, as he had no more desire to "continue the silliness of driving around in circles". Lauda, who in the meantime had founded Lauda Air, a charter airline, returned to Austria to run the company full-time.
McLaren comeback, third world title, and second retirement (1982–1985)
In 1982, Lauda returned to racing, for an unprecedented $3 million salary. After a successful test with McLaren, the only problem was to convince then team sponsor Marlboro that he was still capable of winning. Lauda proved he was when, in his third race back, he won the Long Beach Grand Prix. Before the opening race of the season at Kyalami race track in South Africa, Lauda was the organiser of the so-called "drivers' strike"; Lauda had seen that the new Super Licence required the drivers to commit themselves to their present teams and realised that this could hinder a driver's negotiating position. The drivers, with the exception of Teo Fabi, barricaded themselves in a banqueting suite at Sunnyside Park Hotel until they had won the day.
The 1983 season proved to be transitional for the McLaren team as they were making a change from Ford-Cosworth engines, to TAG-badged Porsche turbo engines, and Lauda did not win a race that year, with his best finish being second at Long Beach behind his teammate John Watson. Some political maneuvering by Lauda forced a furious chief designer John Barnard to design an interim car earlier than expected to get the TAG-Porsche engine some much-needed race testing; Lauda nearly won the last race of the season in South Africa.
Lauda won a third world championship in 1984 by half a point over teammate Alain Prost, due only to half points being awarded for the shortened 1984 Monaco Grand Prix. His Austrian Grand Prix victory that year is so far the only time an Austrian has won his home Grand Prix. Initially, Lauda did not want Prost to become his teammate, as he presented a much faster rival. However, during the two seasons together, they had a good relationship and Lauda later said that beating the talented Frenchman was a big motivator for him. The whole season continued to be dominated by Lauda and Prost, who won 12 of 16 races. Lauda won five races, while Prost won seven. However, Lauda, who set a record for the most pole positions in a season during the 1975 season, rarely matched his teammate in qualifying. Despite this, Lauda's championship win came in Portugal, when he had to start in eleventh place on the grid, while Prost qualified on the front row. Prost did everything he could, starting from second and winning his seventh race of the season, but Lauda's calculating drive (which included setting the fastest race lap), passing car after car, saw him finish second behind his teammate which gave him enough points to win his third title. His second place was a lucky one though as Nigel Mansell was in second for much of the race. However, as it was his last race with Lotus before joining Williams in 1985, Lotus boss Peter Warr refused to give Mansell the brakes he wanted for his car and the Englishman retired with brake failure on lap 52. As Lauda had passed the Toleman of F1 rookie Ayrton Senna for third place only a few laps earlier, Mansell's retirement elevated him to second behind Prost.
The 1985 season was a disappointment for Lauda, with eleven retirements from the fourteen races he started. He did not start the Belgian Grand Prix at Spa-Francorchamps after crashing and breaking his wrist during practice, and he later missed the European Grand Prix at Brands Hatch; John Watson replaced him for that race. He did manage fourth at the San Marino Grand Prix, 5th at the German Grand Prix, and a single race win at the Dutch Grand Prix where he held off a fast-finishing Prost late in the race. This proved to be his last Grand Prix victory, as after announcing his impending retirement at the 1985 Austrian Grand Prix, he retired for good at the end of that season.
Lauda's final Formula One Grand Prix drive was the inaugural Australian Grand Prix in Adelaide, South Australia. After qualifying 16th, a steady drive saw him leading by lap 53. However, the McLaren's ceramic brakes suffered on the street circuit and he crashed out of the lead at the end of the long Brabham Straight on lap 57 when his brakes finally failed. He was one of only two drivers in the race who had driven in the non-championship 1984 Australian Grand Prix, the other being World Champion Keke Rosberg, who won in Adelaide in 1985 and took Lauda's place at McLaren in 1986.
Helmet
Lauda's helmet was originally a plain red with his full name written on both sides and the Raiffeisen Bank logo in the chin area. He wore a modified AGV helmet in the weeks following his Nürburgring accident so as the lining would not aggravate his burned scalp too badly. In 1982, upon his return to McLaren, his helmet was white and featured the red "L" logo of Lauda Air instead of his name on both sides, complete with branding from his personal sponsor Parmalat on the top. From 1983 to 1985, the red and white were reversed to evoke memories of his earlier helmet design.
Later management roles
In 1993, Lauda returned to Formula One in a managerial position when Luca di Montezemolo offered him a consulting role at Ferrari. Halfway through the 2001 season, Lauda assumed the role of team principal of the Jaguar Formula One team. The team, however, failed to improve and Lauda was made redundant, together with 70 other key figures, at the end of 2002.
In September 2012 he was appointed non-executive chairman of the Mercedes AMG Petronas F1 Team. He took part in negotiations to sign Lewis Hamilton to a three-year deal with Mercedes in 2013.
Roles beyond Formula One
Lauda returned to running his airline, Lauda Air, on his second Formula One retirement in 1985. During his time as airline manager, he was appointed consultant at Ferrari as part of an effort by Montezemolo to rejuvenate the team. After selling his Lauda Air shares to majority partner Austrian Airlines in 1999, he managed the Jaguar Formula One racing team from 2001 to 2002. In late 2003, he started a new airline, Niki. Similar to Lauda Air, Niki was merged with its major partner Air Berlin in 2011. In early 2016, Lauda took over chartered airline Amira Air and renamed the company LaudaMotion. As a result of Air Berlin's insolvency in 2017, LaudaMotion took over the Niki brand and asset after an unsuccessful bid by Lufthansa and IAG. Lauda held a commercial pilot's licence and from time to time acted as a captain on the flights of his airline.
He was inducted into the International Motorsports Hall of Fame in 1993 and from 1996 provided commentary on Grands Prix for Austrian and German television on RTL. He was, however, criticized for calling Robert Kubica a "polack" (an ethnic slur for Polish people) on air in May 2010 at the Monaco Grand Prix.
Lauda is sometimes known by the nickname "the Rat", "SuperRat" or "King Rat" because of his prominent buck teeth. He was associated with both Parmalat and Viessmann, sponsoring the ever-present cap he wore from 1976 to hide the severe burns he sustained in his Nürburgring accident. Lauda said in a 2009 interview with the German newspaper Die Zeit that an advertiser was paying €1.2 million for the space on his red cap.
In 2005, the Austrian post office issued a stamp honouring him. In 2008, American sports television network ESPN ranked him 22nd on their "top drivers of all-time" list.
Niki Lauda wrote five books: The Art and Science of Grand Prix Driving (titled Formula 1: The Art and Technicalities of Grand Prix Driving in some markets) (1975); My Years With Ferrari (1978); The New Formula One: A Turbo Age (1984); Meine Story (titled To Hell and Back in some markets) (1986); Das dritte Leben (en. The third life) (1996). Lauda credited Austrian journalist Herbert Volker with editing the books.
Film and television
The 1976 F1 battle between Niki Lauda and James Hunt was dramatized in the film Rush (2013), where Lauda was played by Daniel Brühl—a portrayal that was nominated for a BAFTA Film Award for Best Supporting Actor. Lauda made a cameo appearance at the end of the film. Lauda said of Hunt's death, "When I heard he'd died age 45 of a heart attack I wasn't surprised, I was just sad." He also said that Hunt was one of the very few he liked, one of a smaller number of people he respected and the only person he had envied.
Lauda appeared in an episode of Mayday titled "Niki Lauda: Testing the Limits" regarding the events of Lauda Air Flight 004, and described running an airline as more difficult than winning three Formula 1 championships.
Personal life
The name of his mother is Elisabeth. Lauda had two sons with first wife the Chilean-Austrian Marlene Knaus (married 1976, divorced 1991): Mathias, a race driver himself, and Lukas, who acted as Mathias's manager. In 2008, he married Birgit Wetzinger, a flight attendant for his airline. In 2005, she donated a kidney to Lauda when the kidney he received from his brother in 1997 failed. In September 2009, Birgit gave birth to twins.
On 2 August 2018 it was announced that Lauda had successfully undergone a lung transplant operation in his native Austria.
Lauda spoke fluent Austrian German, English, and Italian.
Lauda came from a Roman Catholic family. In an interview with Zeit he stated that he left the church for a time to avoid paying church taxes, but went back when he had his two children baptised.
Death and legacy
On 20 May 2019, Lauda died in his sleep, aged 70, at the University Hospital of Zürich, where he had been undergoing dialysis treatment for kidney problems, following a period of ill health. A statement issued on behalf of his family reported that he had died peacefully, surrounded by family members.
Various current and former drivers and teams paid tributes on social media and during the Wednesday press conference session before the 2019 Monaco Grand Prix. A moment of silence was held before the race. Throughout the weekend, fans and drivers were encouraged to wear red caps in his honour, with the Mercedes team painting their halo device red with a sticker stating "Niki we miss you" instead of their usual silver scheme. His funeral, at St. Stephen's Cathedral in Vienna, was attended by many prominent Formula One figures (including Gerhard Berger, Jackie Stewart, Alain Prost, Nelson Piquet, Jean Alesi, Sebastian Vettel, Lewis Hamilton, David Coulthard, Nico Rosberg, and Valtteri Bottas), Arnold Schwarzenegger, and many Austrian politicians, including Alexander Van der Bellen among others.
The Haas VF-19's mini shark fin section of the engine cover (the top) was painted red with Lauda's name and his years of birth and death. Both Lewis Hamilton and Sebastian Vettel wore special helmets in remembrance.
Lauda is widely considered to be one of the greatest F1 drivers of all time.
Racing record
Career summary
Complete European Formula Two Championship results
(key) (Races in bold indicate pole position; races in italics indicate fastest lap)
Complete Formula One World Championship results
(key) (Races in bold indicate pole position, races in italics indicate fastest lap)
Complete Formula One non-championship results
(key) (Races in bold indicate pole position; races in italics indicate fastest lap)
Complete BMW M1 Procar Championship results
(key) (Races in bold indicate pole position; races in italics indicate fastest lap)
Other race results
24 Hours Nürburgring: 1st,1973
1000 km of Spa Francorchamps: 1st,1973
4 hours of Monza: 1st,1973
4 hours of Zandvoort: 1st,1974, 3rd,1972
Diepholz SRP/GT: 1st,1970
6 hours of Nurbugring: 2nd,1971
9 hours of Kyalami: 3rd,1972
Taurenpokal Salzburgring: 1st,1971
Books
AKA For the Record: My Years with Ferrari (British edition).
See also
History of Formula One
Hunt–Lauda rivalry
Lauda Air Italy
Sport in Austria
References
External links
1949 births
2019 deaths
A1 Grand Prix team owners
Austrian aviators
Austrian expatriates in Spain
Austrian Formula One drivers
Austrian racing drivers
Austrian Roman Catholics
Austrian motorsport people
BBC Sports Personality World Sport Star of the Year winners
Brabham Formula One drivers
BRDC Gold Star winners
BRM Formula One drivers
Chief executives in the airline industry
Commercial aviators
European Formula Two Championship drivers
Ferrari Formula One drivers
Ferrari people
Formula One World Drivers' Champions
Formula One race winners
International Motorsports Hall of Fame inductees
International Race of Champions drivers
Kidney transplant recipients
March Formula One drivers
McLaren Formula One drivers
Sportspeople from Vienna
World Sportscar Championship drivers
Lauda family
Airline founders
Jaguar in Formula One
Mercedes-Benz in Formula One
Niki Lauda | 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",
"Leslie Hodgson (29 August 1914 – 17 January 1979) was a British trade unionist.\n\nBorn in Driffield, Hodgson came into contact with the trade union movement by playing cricket alongside coal miners. He trained as a carding machine operator in the woollen industry, and joined the Card Setting Machine Tenters' Society (CSMTS) in 1933. In 1951, he was elected as the union's General President.\n\nThe CSMTS was one of the smallest unions affiliated to the General Federation of Trade Unions (GFTU), and in 1952, Hodgson was elected as the GFTU's assistant general secretary, standing down from his post in the CSMTS. The GFTU's general secretary, George Bell, was in poor health, and the association had been struggling to recruit a suitable replacement. The union's management committee agreed with Hodgson that, if his work was satisfactory, he would be promoted within two years. However, when he arrived, Bell announced that he did not wish to retire and did not want an assistant.\n\nHodgson devoted his time as assistant general secretary to external training and learning the culture of the organisation. Early in 1953, the management committee convinced Bell to take a six-month leave of absence. At the end of this period, Bell finally decided to retire, and Hodgson was appointed as his replacement.\n\nAlice Prochaska, who wrote the official history of the GFTU, describes the modern organisation as \"substantially Leslie Hodgson's creation\", although noting that he ensured all his innovations were proposed as the idea of a member union or one of its representatives, and had a low profile in the national union movement. Under Hodgson's leadership, the GFTU gained a significant number of new members, including some larger unions, and for the first time set up a research service.\n\nHodgson announced in 1976 that he wished to retire, but the Management Committee decided that none of the first set of candidates to replace him were suitable, so he served until December 1977, spending the last three months alongside his successor, Peter Potts. A few days after retiring, Hodgson was diagnosed with cancer, and he died in the middle of January 1979.\n\nReferences\n\n1914 births\n1979 deaths\nGeneral Secretaries of the General Federation of Trade Unions (UK)\nTrade unionists from Yorkshire\nPeople from Driffield"
]
|
[
"Niki Lauda",
"Brabham and first retirement (1978-1979)",
"When did he first retire?",
"It suffered from a variety of troubles that forced Lauda to retire the car 9 out of 14 races."
]
| C_8dd79d4ac5674ad3ba1e016103b23fca_0 | Which series of races or tournament was he competing when this happened? | 2 | Which series of races or tournament was Niki Lauda competing when the car had a variety of troubles? | Niki Lauda | Having joined Parmalat-sponsored Brabham-Alfa Romeo in 1978 for a $1 million salary, Lauda endured two unsuccessful seasons, notable mainly for his one race in the Brabham BT46B, a radical design known as the Fan Car: it won its first and only race at the Swedish GP, but Brabham did not use the car in F1 again; other teams vigorously protested the fan car's legality and Brabham team owner Bernie Ecclestone, who at the time was maneuvering for acquisition of Formula One's commercial rights, did not want to fight a protracted battle over the car, but the victory in Sweden remained official. The Brabham BT46 Alfa Romeo flat-12 began the 1978 season at the third race in South Africa. It suffered from a variety of troubles that forced Lauda to retire the car 9 out of 14 races. Lauda's best results, apart from the wins in Sweden and Italy after the penalization of Mario Andretti and Gilles Villeneuve, were 2nd in Montreal and Great Britain, and a 3rd in the Netherlands. As the Alfa flat-12 engine was too wide for effective wing cars designs, Alfa provided a V12 for 1979. It was the fourth 12cyl engine design that propelled the Austrian in F1 since 1973. Lauda's 1979 F1 season was again marred by retirements and poor pace, even though he won the non-championship 1979 Dino Ferrari Grand Prix with the Brabham-Alfa. In the single make BMW M1 Procar Championship, driving for the British Formula Two team Project Four Racing (led by Ron Dennis) when not in a factory entry, Lauda won three races for P4 plus the series. Decades later, Lauda won a BMW Procar exhibition race event before the 2008 German Grand Prix. In September, Lauda finished 4th in Monza, and won the non-WC Imola event, still with the Alfa V12 engine. After that, Brabham returned to the familiar Cosworth V8. In late September, during practice for the 1979 Canadian Grand Prix, Lauda informed Brabham that he wished to retire immediately, as he had no more desire to "drive around in circles". Lauda, who in the meantime had founded Lauda Air, a charter airline, returned to Austria to run the company full-time. CANNOTANSWER | Brabham-Alfa Romeo in 1978 for a $1 million salary, Lauda endured two unsuccessful seasons, notable mainly for his one race in the Brabham BT46B, | Andreas Nikolaus Lauda (22 February 1949 – 20 May 2019) was an Austrian Formula One driver and aviation entrepreneur. He was a three-time F1 World Drivers' Champion, winning in , and , and is the only driver in F1 history to have been champion for both Ferrari and McLaren, the sport's two most successful constructors.
As an aviation entrepreneur, he founded and ran three airlines: Lauda Air, Niki, and Lauda. He was also a consultant for Scuderia Ferrari and team manager of the Jaguar Formula One racing team for two years. Afterwards, he worked as a pundit for German TV during Grand Prix weekends and acted as non-executive chairman of Mercedes-AMG Petronas Motorsport, of which Lauda owned 10%.
Having emerged as Formula One's star driver amid a title win and leading the championship battle, Lauda was seriously injured in a crash at the 1976 German Grand Prix at the Nürburgring during which his Ferrari 312T2 burst into flames, and he came close to death after inhaling hot toxic fumes and suffering severe burns. He survived and recovered sufficiently to race again just six weeks later at the Italian Grand Prix. Although he lost that year's titleby just one pointto James Hunt, he won his second championship the year after, during his final season at Ferrari. After a couple of years at Brabham and two years' hiatus, Lauda returned and raced four seasons for McLaren between 1982 and 1985 – during which he won the title by half a point over his teammate Alain Prost.
Early years in racing
Niki Lauda was born on 22 February 1949 in Vienna, Austria, to a wealthy paper manufacturing family. His paternal grandfather was the Viennese-born industrialist Hans Lauda.
Lauda became a racing driver despite his family's disapproval. After starting out with a Mini, Lauda moved on into Formula Vee, as was normal in Central Europe, but rapidly moved up to drive in private Porsche and Chevron sports cars. With his career stalled, he took out a £30,000 bank loan, secured by a life insurance policy, to buy his way into the fledgling March team as a Formula Two (F2) driver in 1971. Because of his family's disapproval, he had an ongoing feud with them over his racing ambitions and abandoned further contact.
Lauda was quickly promoted to the F1 team, but drove for March in F1 and F2 in 1972. Although the F2 cars were good (and Lauda's driving skills impressed March principal Robin Herd), March's 1972 F1 season was catastrophic. Perhaps the lowest point of the team's season came at the Canadian Grand Prix at Mosport Park, where both March cars were disqualified within three laps of each other, just past 3/4 of the race distance. Lauda took out another bank loan to buy his way into the BRM team in 1973. Lauda was instantly quick, but the team was in decline; although the BRM P160E was quick and easy to drive it was not reliable and its engine lacked power. Lauda's star was on the rise after he ran 3rd at the Monaco Grand Prix that year, and Enzo Ferrari became interested. When his BRM teammate Clay Regazzoni left to rejoin Ferrari in 1974, team owner Enzo Ferrari asked him what he thought of Lauda. Regazzoni spoke so favourably of Lauda that Ferrari promptly signed him, paying him enough to clear his debts.
Ferrari (1974–1977)
After an unsuccessful start to the 1970s, culminating in a disastrous start to the 1973 season, Ferrari regrouped completely under Luca di Montezemolo and were resurgent in 1974. The team's faith in the little-known Lauda was quickly rewarded by a second-place finish in his debut race for the team, the season-opening Argentine Grand Prix. His first Grand Prix (GP) victory – and the first for Ferrari since 1972 – followed only three races later in the Spanish Grand Prix. Although Lauda became the season's pacesetter, achieving six consecutive pole positions, a mixture of inexperience and mechanical unreliability meant Lauda won only one more race that year, the Dutch GP. He finished fourth in the Drivers' Championship and demonstrated immense commitment to testing and improving the car.
The 1975 F1 season started slowly for Lauda; after no better than a fifth-place finish in the first four races, he won four of the next five driving the new Ferrari 312T. His first World Championship was confirmed with a third-place finish at the Italian Grand Prix at Monza; Lauda's teammate Regazzoni won the race and Ferrari clinched their first Constructors' Championship in 11 years. Lauda then picked up a fifth win at the last race of the year, the United States GP at Watkins Glen. He also became the first driver to lap the Nürburgring Nordschleife in under seven minutes, which was considered a huge feat as the Nordschleife section of the Nürburgring was two miles longer than it is today. Lauda did not win the German Grand Prix from pole position there that year; after battling hard with Patrick Depailler for the lead for the first half of the race, Lauda led for the first 9 laps but suffered a puncture at the Wippermann, 9 miles into the 10th lap and was passed by Carlos Reutemann, James Hunt, Tom Pryce and Jacques Laffite; Lauda made it back to the pits with a damaged front wing and a destroyed left front tyre. The Ferrari pit changed the destroyed tyre and Lauda managed to make it to the podium in 3rd behind Reutemann and Laffite after Hunt retired and Pryce had to slow down because of a fuel leak. Lauda was known for giving away any trophies he won to his local garage in exchange for his car to be washed and serviced.
Unlike 1975 and despite tensions between Lauda and Montezemolo's successor, Daniele Audetto, Lauda dominated the start of the 1976 F1 season, winning four of the first six races and finishing second in the other two. By the time of his fifth win of the year at the British GP, he had more than double the points of his closest challengers Jody Scheckter and James Hunt, and a second consecutive World Championship appeared a formality. It was a feat not achieved since Jack Brabham's victories in 1959 and 1960. He also looked set to win the most races in a season, a record held by the late Jim Clark since 1963.
1976 Nürburgring crash
A week before the 1976 German Grand Prix at the Nürburgring, even though he was the fastest driver on that circuit at the time, Lauda urged his fellow drivers to boycott the race, largely because of the circuit's safety arrangements, citing the organisers' lack of resources to properly manage such a huge circuit, including lack of fire marshals, fire and safety equipment and safety vehicles. Formula One was quite dangerous at the time (three of the drivers that day later died in Formula One incidents: Tom Pryce in 1977; Ronnie Peterson in 1978; and Patrick Depailler in 1980), but a majority of the drivers voted against the boycott and the race went ahead.
On 1 August 1976, during the second lap at the very fast left kink before Bergwerk, Lauda was involved in an accident where his Ferrari swerved off the track, hit an embankment, burst into flames, and made contact with Brett Lunger's Surtees-Ford car. Unlike Lunger, Lauda was trapped in the wreckage. Drivers Arturo Merzario, Lunger, Guy Edwards, and Harald Ertl arrived at the scene a few moments later, but before Merzario was able to pull Lauda from his car, he suffered severe burns to his head and inhaled hot toxic gases that damaged his lungs and blood. In an interview with BBC Radio 5 Live ("I Was There -- May 21, 2019"; "Niki Lauda speaks in 2015"), Lauda said, "...there were basically two or three drivers trying to get me out of the car, but one was Arturo Merzario, the Italian guy, who also had to stop there at the scene, because I blocked the road; and he really came into the car himself, and uh, triggered my, my seatbelt loose, and then pulled me out. It was unbelievable, how he could do that, and I met him afterwards, and I said, 'How could you do it?!'. He said, 'Honestly, I do not know, but to open your seatbelt was so difficult, because you were pushing so hard against it, and when it was open, I got you out of the car like a feather...'." As Lauda was wearing a modified helmet, it didn't fit him properly; the foam had compressed and it slid off his head after the accident, leaving his face exposed to the fire. Although Lauda was conscious and able to stand immediately after the accident, he later lapsed into a coma. While in hospital he was given the last rites, but he survived.
Lauda suffered extensive scarring from the burns to his head, losing most of his right ear as well as the hair on the right side of his head, his eyebrows, and his eyelids. He chose to limit reconstructive surgery to replacing the eyelids and getting them to work properly. After the accident he always wore a cap to cover the scars on his head. He arranged for sponsors to use the cap for advertising.
With Lauda out of the contest, Carlos Reutemann was taken on as his replacement. Ferrari boycotted the Austrian Grand Prix in protest at what they saw as preferential treatment shown towards McLaren driver James Hunt at the Spanish and British Grands Prix.
Return to racing
Lauda missed only two races, appearing at the Monza press conference six weeks after the accident with his fresh burns still bandaged. He finished fourth in the Italian GP, despite being, by his own admission, absolutely petrified. F1 journalist Nigel Roebuck recalls seeing Lauda in the pits, peeling the blood-soaked bandages off his scarred scalp. He also had to wear a specially adapted crash helmet so as not to be in too much discomfort. In Lauda's absence, Hunt had mounted a late charge to reduce Lauda's lead in the World Championship standings. Hunt and Lauda were friends away from the circuit, and their personal on-track rivalry, while intense, was cleanly contested and fair. Following wins in the Canadian and United States Grands Prix, Hunt stood only three points behind Lauda before the final race of the season, the Japanese Grand Prix.
Lauda qualified third, one place behind Hunt, but on race day there was torrential rain and Lauda retired after two laps. He later said that he felt it was unsafe to continue under these conditions, especially since his eyes were watering excessively because of his fire-damaged tear ducts and inability to blink. Hunt led much of the race before his tires blistered and a pit stop dropped him down the order. He recovered to third, thus winning the title by a single point.
Lauda's previously good relationship with Ferrari was severely affected by his decision to withdraw from the Japanese Grand Prix, and he endured a difficult 1977 season, despite easily winning the championship through consistency rather than outright pace. Lauda disliked his new teammate, Reutemann, who had served as his replacement driver. Lauda was not comfortable with this move and felt he had been let down by Ferrari. "We never could stand each other, and instead of taking pressure off me, they put on even more by bringing Carlos Reutemann into the team." Having announced his decision to quit Ferrari at season's end, Lauda left earlier after he won the Drivers' Championship at the United States Grand Prix because of the team's decision to run the unknown Gilles Villeneuve in a third car at the Canadian Grand Prix.
Brabham and first retirement (1978–1979)
Joining Parmalat-sponsored Brabham-Alfa Romeo in 1978 for a $1 million salary, Lauda endured two unsuccessful seasons, remembered mainly for his one race in the Brabham BT46B, a radical design known as the Fan Car: it won its first and only race at the Swedish GP, but Brabham did not use the car in F1 again; other teams vigorously protested the fan car's legality and Brabham team owner Bernie Ecclestone, who at the time was maneuvering for acquisition of Formula One's commercial rights, did not want to fight a protracted battle over the car, but the victory in Sweden remained official. The Brabham BT46 Alfa Romeo flat-12 began the 1978 season at the third race in South Africa. It suffered from a variety of troubles that forced Lauda to retire the car 9 out of 14 races. Lauda's best results, apart from the wins in Sweden and Italy after the penalization of Mario Andretti and Gilles Villeneuve, were 2nd in Monaco and Great Britain, and a 3rd in the Netherlands.
The Alfa flat-12 engine was too wide for ground effect designs in that the opposed cylinder banks impeded with the venturi tunnels, so Alfa designed a V12 for 1979. It was the fourth 12-cylinder engine design that propelled the Austrian in F1 since 1973. Lauda's 1979 F1 season was again marred by retirements and poor pace, even though he won the non-championship 1979 Dino Ferrari Grand Prix with the Brabham-Alfa. In the single-make BMW M1 Procar Championship, driving for the British Formula Two team Project Four Racing (led by Ron Dennis) when not in a factory entry, Lauda won three races for P4 plus the series. Decades later, Lauda won a BMW Procar exhibition race event before the 2008 German Grand Prix.
In September, Lauda finished 4th in Monza, and won the non-WC Imola event, still with the Alfa V12 engine. After that, Brabham returned to the familiar Cosworth V8. In late September, during practice for the 1979 Canadian Grand Prix, Lauda cut short a practice session and promptly informed team principal Ecclestone, that he wished to retire immediately, as he had no more desire to "continue the silliness of driving around in circles". Lauda, who in the meantime had founded Lauda Air, a charter airline, returned to Austria to run the company full-time.
McLaren comeback, third world title, and second retirement (1982–1985)
In 1982, Lauda returned to racing, for an unprecedented $3 million salary. After a successful test with McLaren, the only problem was to convince then team sponsor Marlboro that he was still capable of winning. Lauda proved he was when, in his third race back, he won the Long Beach Grand Prix. Before the opening race of the season at Kyalami race track in South Africa, Lauda was the organiser of the so-called "drivers' strike"; Lauda had seen that the new Super Licence required the drivers to commit themselves to their present teams and realised that this could hinder a driver's negotiating position. The drivers, with the exception of Teo Fabi, barricaded themselves in a banqueting suite at Sunnyside Park Hotel until they had won the day.
The 1983 season proved to be transitional for the McLaren team as they were making a change from Ford-Cosworth engines, to TAG-badged Porsche turbo engines, and Lauda did not win a race that year, with his best finish being second at Long Beach behind his teammate John Watson. Some political maneuvering by Lauda forced a furious chief designer John Barnard to design an interim car earlier than expected to get the TAG-Porsche engine some much-needed race testing; Lauda nearly won the last race of the season in South Africa.
Lauda won a third world championship in 1984 by half a point over teammate Alain Prost, due only to half points being awarded for the shortened 1984 Monaco Grand Prix. His Austrian Grand Prix victory that year is so far the only time an Austrian has won his home Grand Prix. Initially, Lauda did not want Prost to become his teammate, as he presented a much faster rival. However, during the two seasons together, they had a good relationship and Lauda later said that beating the talented Frenchman was a big motivator for him. The whole season continued to be dominated by Lauda and Prost, who won 12 of 16 races. Lauda won five races, while Prost won seven. However, Lauda, who set a record for the most pole positions in a season during the 1975 season, rarely matched his teammate in qualifying. Despite this, Lauda's championship win came in Portugal, when he had to start in eleventh place on the grid, while Prost qualified on the front row. Prost did everything he could, starting from second and winning his seventh race of the season, but Lauda's calculating drive (which included setting the fastest race lap), passing car after car, saw him finish second behind his teammate which gave him enough points to win his third title. His second place was a lucky one though as Nigel Mansell was in second for much of the race. However, as it was his last race with Lotus before joining Williams in 1985, Lotus boss Peter Warr refused to give Mansell the brakes he wanted for his car and the Englishman retired with brake failure on lap 52. As Lauda had passed the Toleman of F1 rookie Ayrton Senna for third place only a few laps earlier, Mansell's retirement elevated him to second behind Prost.
The 1985 season was a disappointment for Lauda, with eleven retirements from the fourteen races he started. He did not start the Belgian Grand Prix at Spa-Francorchamps after crashing and breaking his wrist during practice, and he later missed the European Grand Prix at Brands Hatch; John Watson replaced him for that race. He did manage fourth at the San Marino Grand Prix, 5th at the German Grand Prix, and a single race win at the Dutch Grand Prix where he held off a fast-finishing Prost late in the race. This proved to be his last Grand Prix victory, as after announcing his impending retirement at the 1985 Austrian Grand Prix, he retired for good at the end of that season.
Lauda's final Formula One Grand Prix drive was the inaugural Australian Grand Prix in Adelaide, South Australia. After qualifying 16th, a steady drive saw him leading by lap 53. However, the McLaren's ceramic brakes suffered on the street circuit and he crashed out of the lead at the end of the long Brabham Straight on lap 57 when his brakes finally failed. He was one of only two drivers in the race who had driven in the non-championship 1984 Australian Grand Prix, the other being World Champion Keke Rosberg, who won in Adelaide in 1985 and took Lauda's place at McLaren in 1986.
Helmet
Lauda's helmet was originally a plain red with his full name written on both sides and the Raiffeisen Bank logo in the chin area. He wore a modified AGV helmet in the weeks following his Nürburgring accident so as the lining would not aggravate his burned scalp too badly. In 1982, upon his return to McLaren, his helmet was white and featured the red "L" logo of Lauda Air instead of his name on both sides, complete with branding from his personal sponsor Parmalat on the top. From 1983 to 1985, the red and white were reversed to evoke memories of his earlier helmet design.
Later management roles
In 1993, Lauda returned to Formula One in a managerial position when Luca di Montezemolo offered him a consulting role at Ferrari. Halfway through the 2001 season, Lauda assumed the role of team principal of the Jaguar Formula One team. The team, however, failed to improve and Lauda was made redundant, together with 70 other key figures, at the end of 2002.
In September 2012 he was appointed non-executive chairman of the Mercedes AMG Petronas F1 Team. He took part in negotiations to sign Lewis Hamilton to a three-year deal with Mercedes in 2013.
Roles beyond Formula One
Lauda returned to running his airline, Lauda Air, on his second Formula One retirement in 1985. During his time as airline manager, he was appointed consultant at Ferrari as part of an effort by Montezemolo to rejuvenate the team. After selling his Lauda Air shares to majority partner Austrian Airlines in 1999, he managed the Jaguar Formula One racing team from 2001 to 2002. In late 2003, he started a new airline, Niki. Similar to Lauda Air, Niki was merged with its major partner Air Berlin in 2011. In early 2016, Lauda took over chartered airline Amira Air and renamed the company LaudaMotion. As a result of Air Berlin's insolvency in 2017, LaudaMotion took over the Niki brand and asset after an unsuccessful bid by Lufthansa and IAG. Lauda held a commercial pilot's licence and from time to time acted as a captain on the flights of his airline.
He was inducted into the International Motorsports Hall of Fame in 1993 and from 1996 provided commentary on Grands Prix for Austrian and German television on RTL. He was, however, criticized for calling Robert Kubica a "polack" (an ethnic slur for Polish people) on air in May 2010 at the Monaco Grand Prix.
Lauda is sometimes known by the nickname "the Rat", "SuperRat" or "King Rat" because of his prominent buck teeth. He was associated with both Parmalat and Viessmann, sponsoring the ever-present cap he wore from 1976 to hide the severe burns he sustained in his Nürburgring accident. Lauda said in a 2009 interview with the German newspaper Die Zeit that an advertiser was paying €1.2 million for the space on his red cap.
In 2005, the Austrian post office issued a stamp honouring him. In 2008, American sports television network ESPN ranked him 22nd on their "top drivers of all-time" list.
Niki Lauda wrote five books: The Art and Science of Grand Prix Driving (titled Formula 1: The Art and Technicalities of Grand Prix Driving in some markets) (1975); My Years With Ferrari (1978); The New Formula One: A Turbo Age (1984); Meine Story (titled To Hell and Back in some markets) (1986); Das dritte Leben (en. The third life) (1996). Lauda credited Austrian journalist Herbert Volker with editing the books.
Film and television
The 1976 F1 battle between Niki Lauda and James Hunt was dramatized in the film Rush (2013), where Lauda was played by Daniel Brühl—a portrayal that was nominated for a BAFTA Film Award for Best Supporting Actor. Lauda made a cameo appearance at the end of the film. Lauda said of Hunt's death, "When I heard he'd died age 45 of a heart attack I wasn't surprised, I was just sad." He also said that Hunt was one of the very few he liked, one of a smaller number of people he respected and the only person he had envied.
Lauda appeared in an episode of Mayday titled "Niki Lauda: Testing the Limits" regarding the events of Lauda Air Flight 004, and described running an airline as more difficult than winning three Formula 1 championships.
Personal life
The name of his mother is Elisabeth. Lauda had two sons with first wife the Chilean-Austrian Marlene Knaus (married 1976, divorced 1991): Mathias, a race driver himself, and Lukas, who acted as Mathias's manager. In 2008, he married Birgit Wetzinger, a flight attendant for his airline. In 2005, she donated a kidney to Lauda when the kidney he received from his brother in 1997 failed. In September 2009, Birgit gave birth to twins.
On 2 August 2018 it was announced that Lauda had successfully undergone a lung transplant operation in his native Austria.
Lauda spoke fluent Austrian German, English, and Italian.
Lauda came from a Roman Catholic family. In an interview with Zeit he stated that he left the church for a time to avoid paying church taxes, but went back when he had his two children baptised.
Death and legacy
On 20 May 2019, Lauda died in his sleep, aged 70, at the University Hospital of Zürich, where he had been undergoing dialysis treatment for kidney problems, following a period of ill health. A statement issued on behalf of his family reported that he had died peacefully, surrounded by family members.
Various current and former drivers and teams paid tributes on social media and during the Wednesday press conference session before the 2019 Monaco Grand Prix. A moment of silence was held before the race. Throughout the weekend, fans and drivers were encouraged to wear red caps in his honour, with the Mercedes team painting their halo device red with a sticker stating "Niki we miss you" instead of their usual silver scheme. His funeral, at St. Stephen's Cathedral in Vienna, was attended by many prominent Formula One figures (including Gerhard Berger, Jackie Stewart, Alain Prost, Nelson Piquet, Jean Alesi, Sebastian Vettel, Lewis Hamilton, David Coulthard, Nico Rosberg, and Valtteri Bottas), Arnold Schwarzenegger, and many Austrian politicians, including Alexander Van der Bellen among others.
The Haas VF-19's mini shark fin section of the engine cover (the top) was painted red with Lauda's name and his years of birth and death. Both Lewis Hamilton and Sebastian Vettel wore special helmets in remembrance.
Lauda is widely considered to be one of the greatest F1 drivers of all time.
Racing record
Career summary
Complete European Formula Two Championship results
(key) (Races in bold indicate pole position; races in italics indicate fastest lap)
Complete Formula One World Championship results
(key) (Races in bold indicate pole position, races in italics indicate fastest lap)
Complete Formula One non-championship results
(key) (Races in bold indicate pole position; races in italics indicate fastest lap)
Complete BMW M1 Procar Championship results
(key) (Races in bold indicate pole position; races in italics indicate fastest lap)
Other race results
24 Hours Nürburgring: 1st,1973
1000 km of Spa Francorchamps: 1st,1973
4 hours of Monza: 1st,1973
4 hours of Zandvoort: 1st,1974, 3rd,1972
Diepholz SRP/GT: 1st,1970
6 hours of Nurbugring: 2nd,1971
9 hours of Kyalami: 3rd,1972
Taurenpokal Salzburgring: 1st,1971
Books
AKA For the Record: My Years with Ferrari (British edition).
See also
History of Formula One
Hunt–Lauda rivalry
Lauda Air Italy
Sport in Austria
References
External links
1949 births
2019 deaths
A1 Grand Prix team owners
Austrian aviators
Austrian expatriates in Spain
Austrian Formula One drivers
Austrian racing drivers
Austrian Roman Catholics
Austrian motorsport people
BBC Sports Personality World Sport Star of the Year winners
Brabham Formula One drivers
BRDC Gold Star winners
BRM Formula One drivers
Chief executives in the airline industry
Commercial aviators
European Formula Two Championship drivers
Ferrari Formula One drivers
Ferrari people
Formula One World Drivers' Champions
Formula One race winners
International Motorsports Hall of Fame inductees
International Race of Champions drivers
Kidney transplant recipients
March Formula One drivers
McLaren Formula One drivers
Sportspeople from Vienna
World Sportscar Championship drivers
Lauda family
Airline founders
Jaguar in Formula One
Mercedes-Benz in Formula One
Niki Lauda | false | [
"Michael Ammermüller (born 14 February 1986) is a racing driver from Germany. After competing in various junior formulae, he became a test and reserve driver for the Red Bull Racing Formula One team in the 2007 season. Following this, he represented Germany in the final two seasons of the A1 Grand Prix series in 2007-08 and 2008-09, before competing for two seasons in ADAC GT Masters. In 2012, he began competing in the Porsche Supercup series for Walter Lechner Racing. He won three consecutive seasons, having won in 2017, 2018 and 2019.\n\nCareer\nIn 2004 he drove the number three car in German Formula Renault, as well as competing in Formula Renault 2000 Eurocup. In 2006, he competed in the GP2 Series for Arden International.\n\nAs a member of the Red Bull Junior Team, after Christian Klien was dropped by the Red Bull Racing Formula One team for the final three races of the season, the team's third driver, Robert Doornbos, was promoted to the second race seat. This left a vacancy in the team, and Ammermüller was promoted to the position of third driver for the last three races of the season. He tested the car for the first time on 14 September, driving the distance necessary for an FIA Super Licence.\n\nAfter acting as Third Driver for the last three Grands Prix of 2006, Ammermüller was signed by Red Bull as a full-time tester for .\n\nAmmermüller's 2007 GP2 Series season was disrupted by injury, and he was rested in favour of Sébastien Buemi. However, Sebastian Vettel's move to the Scuderia Toro Rosso F1 team left his Formula Renault 3.5 Series seat vacant, which Ammermüller took. In 2008, he raced in the International Formula Master series.\n\nA1 Grand Prix\nIn 2007-08, Ammermüller drove in A1 Grand Prix for Germany. In the 2007-08 season's third race at Sepang, he collided with three cars at turn two in three separate incidents, the first of which took 3rd position from Canada's Robert Wickens in the sprint race. It was deemed avoidable contact, and as such, Ammermüller was demoted to 16th, with Wickens reclaiming 3rd. In the feature race, he collided again, this time with Britain's Oliver Jarvis. He was given a drive-through penalty. Despite this, he made contact at turn two once again, with Czech Republic's Erik Janis, and as a result was disqualified from the race. On the back of these incidents, he was given the nickname \"Hammermüller\".\n\nDespite the disqualification, Ammermüller scored his maiden victory three weeks later at Zhuhai.\n\nRacing record\n\nCareer summary\n\n† As Ammermüller was a guest driver, he was ineligible to score points.\n\nComplete Formula One participations\n(key)\n\nComplete GP2 Series results\n(key) (Races in bold indicate pole position) (Races in italics indicate fastest lap)\n\nComplete Formula Renault 3.5 Series results\n(key) (Races in bold indicate pole position) (Races in italics indicate fastest lap)\n\nComplete A1 Grand Prix results\n(key) (Races in bold indicate pole position) (Races in italics indicate fastest lap)\n\nComplete Porsche Supercup results\n(key) (Races in bold indicate pole position) (Races in italics indicate fastest lap)\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n\n1986 births\nLiving people\nPeople from Passau (district)\nRacing drivers from Bavaria\nGerman racing drivers\nGP2 Series drivers\nA1 Team Germany drivers\nGerman Formula Renault 2.0 drivers\nFormula Renault Eurocup drivers\nItalian Formula Renault 2.0 drivers\nInternational Formula Master drivers\nKarting World Championship drivers\nWorld Series Formula V8 3.5 drivers\nPorsche Supercup drivers\nBlancpain Endurance Series drivers\nADAC GT Masters drivers\nDeutsche Tourenwagen Masters drivers\nCarlin racing drivers\nArden International drivers\nART Grand Prix drivers",
"The 1983 NASCAR Winston Cup Series is the 35th season of professional stock car racing in the United States and the 12th modern-era Cup series season. The season began on Sunday, February 20 and ended on Sunday, November 20. Bobby Allison was Winston Cup champion at the end of the season finishing 47 points ahead of Darrell Waltrip.\n\nTeams and drivers\n\nSchedule\n\nThe Busch Clash was scheduled for Sunday, February 13 but rain forced the race to be postponed until Monday, February 14.\n\nSeason Results and Standings\n\nRaces\n\nBold indicates a NASCAR Crown Jewel race.\nThe Busch 500 was shortened to 419 of 500 laps due to rain.\n\nWinston Cup Final Standings\n\n(key) Bold – Pole position awarded by time. Italics – Pole position set by final practice results or 1982 Owner's points. * – Most laps led.\n\nRookie of the year\nSterling Marlin was named NASCAR Rookie of the Year. He beat Trevor Boys, Bobby Hillin Jr., Ronnie Hopkins, and Ken Ragan for the award. Of the drivers that competed for the award, only Marlin ran all 30 races. The closest a driver got to competing in all 30 races was Trevor Boys competing in 23 races (skipped rounds 1-6, and 8).\n\nSee also\n1983 NASCAR Budweiser Late Model Sportsman Series\n\nReferences\n\n Racing-Reference.info (links to race results)\n\n \n\nNASCAR Cup Series seasons"
]
|
[
"Niki Lauda",
"Brabham and first retirement (1978-1979)",
"When did he first retire?",
"It suffered from a variety of troubles that forced Lauda to retire the car 9 out of 14 races.",
"Which series of races or tournament was he competing when this happened?",
"Brabham-Alfa Romeo in 1978 for a $1 million salary, Lauda endured two unsuccessful seasons, notable mainly for his one race in the Brabham BT46B,"
]
| C_8dd79d4ac5674ad3ba1e016103b23fca_0 | What type of vehicle did he drive during that race? | 3 | What type of vehicle did Niki Lauda drive during the race in 1978? | Niki Lauda | Having joined Parmalat-sponsored Brabham-Alfa Romeo in 1978 for a $1 million salary, Lauda endured two unsuccessful seasons, notable mainly for his one race in the Brabham BT46B, a radical design known as the Fan Car: it won its first and only race at the Swedish GP, but Brabham did not use the car in F1 again; other teams vigorously protested the fan car's legality and Brabham team owner Bernie Ecclestone, who at the time was maneuvering for acquisition of Formula One's commercial rights, did not want to fight a protracted battle over the car, but the victory in Sweden remained official. The Brabham BT46 Alfa Romeo flat-12 began the 1978 season at the third race in South Africa. It suffered from a variety of troubles that forced Lauda to retire the car 9 out of 14 races. Lauda's best results, apart from the wins in Sweden and Italy after the penalization of Mario Andretti and Gilles Villeneuve, were 2nd in Montreal and Great Britain, and a 3rd in the Netherlands. As the Alfa flat-12 engine was too wide for effective wing cars designs, Alfa provided a V12 for 1979. It was the fourth 12cyl engine design that propelled the Austrian in F1 since 1973. Lauda's 1979 F1 season was again marred by retirements and poor pace, even though he won the non-championship 1979 Dino Ferrari Grand Prix with the Brabham-Alfa. In the single make BMW M1 Procar Championship, driving for the British Formula Two team Project Four Racing (led by Ron Dennis) when not in a factory entry, Lauda won three races for P4 plus the series. Decades later, Lauda won a BMW Procar exhibition race event before the 2008 German Grand Prix. In September, Lauda finished 4th in Monza, and won the non-WC Imola event, still with the Alfa V12 engine. After that, Brabham returned to the familiar Cosworth V8. In late September, during practice for the 1979 Canadian Grand Prix, Lauda informed Brabham that he wished to retire immediately, as he had no more desire to "drive around in circles". Lauda, who in the meantime had founded Lauda Air, a charter airline, returned to Austria to run the company full-time. CANNOTANSWER | Brabham BT46B, a radical design known as the Fan Car: | Andreas Nikolaus Lauda (22 February 1949 – 20 May 2019) was an Austrian Formula One driver and aviation entrepreneur. He was a three-time F1 World Drivers' Champion, winning in , and , and is the only driver in F1 history to have been champion for both Ferrari and McLaren, the sport's two most successful constructors.
As an aviation entrepreneur, he founded and ran three airlines: Lauda Air, Niki, and Lauda. He was also a consultant for Scuderia Ferrari and team manager of the Jaguar Formula One racing team for two years. Afterwards, he worked as a pundit for German TV during Grand Prix weekends and acted as non-executive chairman of Mercedes-AMG Petronas Motorsport, of which Lauda owned 10%.
Having emerged as Formula One's star driver amid a title win and leading the championship battle, Lauda was seriously injured in a crash at the 1976 German Grand Prix at the Nürburgring during which his Ferrari 312T2 burst into flames, and he came close to death after inhaling hot toxic fumes and suffering severe burns. He survived and recovered sufficiently to race again just six weeks later at the Italian Grand Prix. Although he lost that year's titleby just one pointto James Hunt, he won his second championship the year after, during his final season at Ferrari. After a couple of years at Brabham and two years' hiatus, Lauda returned and raced four seasons for McLaren between 1982 and 1985 – during which he won the title by half a point over his teammate Alain Prost.
Early years in racing
Niki Lauda was born on 22 February 1949 in Vienna, Austria, to a wealthy paper manufacturing family. His paternal grandfather was the Viennese-born industrialist Hans Lauda.
Lauda became a racing driver despite his family's disapproval. After starting out with a Mini, Lauda moved on into Formula Vee, as was normal in Central Europe, but rapidly moved up to drive in private Porsche and Chevron sports cars. With his career stalled, he took out a £30,000 bank loan, secured by a life insurance policy, to buy his way into the fledgling March team as a Formula Two (F2) driver in 1971. Because of his family's disapproval, he had an ongoing feud with them over his racing ambitions and abandoned further contact.
Lauda was quickly promoted to the F1 team, but drove for March in F1 and F2 in 1972. Although the F2 cars were good (and Lauda's driving skills impressed March principal Robin Herd), March's 1972 F1 season was catastrophic. Perhaps the lowest point of the team's season came at the Canadian Grand Prix at Mosport Park, where both March cars were disqualified within three laps of each other, just past 3/4 of the race distance. Lauda took out another bank loan to buy his way into the BRM team in 1973. Lauda was instantly quick, but the team was in decline; although the BRM P160E was quick and easy to drive it was not reliable and its engine lacked power. Lauda's star was on the rise after he ran 3rd at the Monaco Grand Prix that year, and Enzo Ferrari became interested. When his BRM teammate Clay Regazzoni left to rejoin Ferrari in 1974, team owner Enzo Ferrari asked him what he thought of Lauda. Regazzoni spoke so favourably of Lauda that Ferrari promptly signed him, paying him enough to clear his debts.
Ferrari (1974–1977)
After an unsuccessful start to the 1970s, culminating in a disastrous start to the 1973 season, Ferrari regrouped completely under Luca di Montezemolo and were resurgent in 1974. The team's faith in the little-known Lauda was quickly rewarded by a second-place finish in his debut race for the team, the season-opening Argentine Grand Prix. His first Grand Prix (GP) victory – and the first for Ferrari since 1972 – followed only three races later in the Spanish Grand Prix. Although Lauda became the season's pacesetter, achieving six consecutive pole positions, a mixture of inexperience and mechanical unreliability meant Lauda won only one more race that year, the Dutch GP. He finished fourth in the Drivers' Championship and demonstrated immense commitment to testing and improving the car.
The 1975 F1 season started slowly for Lauda; after no better than a fifth-place finish in the first four races, he won four of the next five driving the new Ferrari 312T. His first World Championship was confirmed with a third-place finish at the Italian Grand Prix at Monza; Lauda's teammate Regazzoni won the race and Ferrari clinched their first Constructors' Championship in 11 years. Lauda then picked up a fifth win at the last race of the year, the United States GP at Watkins Glen. He also became the first driver to lap the Nürburgring Nordschleife in under seven minutes, which was considered a huge feat as the Nordschleife section of the Nürburgring was two miles longer than it is today. Lauda did not win the German Grand Prix from pole position there that year; after battling hard with Patrick Depailler for the lead for the first half of the race, Lauda led for the first 9 laps but suffered a puncture at the Wippermann, 9 miles into the 10th lap and was passed by Carlos Reutemann, James Hunt, Tom Pryce and Jacques Laffite; Lauda made it back to the pits with a damaged front wing and a destroyed left front tyre. The Ferrari pit changed the destroyed tyre and Lauda managed to make it to the podium in 3rd behind Reutemann and Laffite after Hunt retired and Pryce had to slow down because of a fuel leak. Lauda was known for giving away any trophies he won to his local garage in exchange for his car to be washed and serviced.
Unlike 1975 and despite tensions between Lauda and Montezemolo's successor, Daniele Audetto, Lauda dominated the start of the 1976 F1 season, winning four of the first six races and finishing second in the other two. By the time of his fifth win of the year at the British GP, he had more than double the points of his closest challengers Jody Scheckter and James Hunt, and a second consecutive World Championship appeared a formality. It was a feat not achieved since Jack Brabham's victories in 1959 and 1960. He also looked set to win the most races in a season, a record held by the late Jim Clark since 1963.
1976 Nürburgring crash
A week before the 1976 German Grand Prix at the Nürburgring, even though he was the fastest driver on that circuit at the time, Lauda urged his fellow drivers to boycott the race, largely because of the circuit's safety arrangements, citing the organisers' lack of resources to properly manage such a huge circuit, including lack of fire marshals, fire and safety equipment and safety vehicles. Formula One was quite dangerous at the time (three of the drivers that day later died in Formula One incidents: Tom Pryce in 1977; Ronnie Peterson in 1978; and Patrick Depailler in 1980), but a majority of the drivers voted against the boycott and the race went ahead.
On 1 August 1976, during the second lap at the very fast left kink before Bergwerk, Lauda was involved in an accident where his Ferrari swerved off the track, hit an embankment, burst into flames, and made contact with Brett Lunger's Surtees-Ford car. Unlike Lunger, Lauda was trapped in the wreckage. Drivers Arturo Merzario, Lunger, Guy Edwards, and Harald Ertl arrived at the scene a few moments later, but before Merzario was able to pull Lauda from his car, he suffered severe burns to his head and inhaled hot toxic gases that damaged his lungs and blood. In an interview with BBC Radio 5 Live ("I Was There -- May 21, 2019"; "Niki Lauda speaks in 2015"), Lauda said, "...there were basically two or three drivers trying to get me out of the car, but one was Arturo Merzario, the Italian guy, who also had to stop there at the scene, because I blocked the road; and he really came into the car himself, and uh, triggered my, my seatbelt loose, and then pulled me out. It was unbelievable, how he could do that, and I met him afterwards, and I said, 'How could you do it?!'. He said, 'Honestly, I do not know, but to open your seatbelt was so difficult, because you were pushing so hard against it, and when it was open, I got you out of the car like a feather...'." As Lauda was wearing a modified helmet, it didn't fit him properly; the foam had compressed and it slid off his head after the accident, leaving his face exposed to the fire. Although Lauda was conscious and able to stand immediately after the accident, he later lapsed into a coma. While in hospital he was given the last rites, but he survived.
Lauda suffered extensive scarring from the burns to his head, losing most of his right ear as well as the hair on the right side of his head, his eyebrows, and his eyelids. He chose to limit reconstructive surgery to replacing the eyelids and getting them to work properly. After the accident he always wore a cap to cover the scars on his head. He arranged for sponsors to use the cap for advertising.
With Lauda out of the contest, Carlos Reutemann was taken on as his replacement. Ferrari boycotted the Austrian Grand Prix in protest at what they saw as preferential treatment shown towards McLaren driver James Hunt at the Spanish and British Grands Prix.
Return to racing
Lauda missed only two races, appearing at the Monza press conference six weeks after the accident with his fresh burns still bandaged. He finished fourth in the Italian GP, despite being, by his own admission, absolutely petrified. F1 journalist Nigel Roebuck recalls seeing Lauda in the pits, peeling the blood-soaked bandages off his scarred scalp. He also had to wear a specially adapted crash helmet so as not to be in too much discomfort. In Lauda's absence, Hunt had mounted a late charge to reduce Lauda's lead in the World Championship standings. Hunt and Lauda were friends away from the circuit, and their personal on-track rivalry, while intense, was cleanly contested and fair. Following wins in the Canadian and United States Grands Prix, Hunt stood only three points behind Lauda before the final race of the season, the Japanese Grand Prix.
Lauda qualified third, one place behind Hunt, but on race day there was torrential rain and Lauda retired after two laps. He later said that he felt it was unsafe to continue under these conditions, especially since his eyes were watering excessively because of his fire-damaged tear ducts and inability to blink. Hunt led much of the race before his tires blistered and a pit stop dropped him down the order. He recovered to third, thus winning the title by a single point.
Lauda's previously good relationship with Ferrari was severely affected by his decision to withdraw from the Japanese Grand Prix, and he endured a difficult 1977 season, despite easily winning the championship through consistency rather than outright pace. Lauda disliked his new teammate, Reutemann, who had served as his replacement driver. Lauda was not comfortable with this move and felt he had been let down by Ferrari. "We never could stand each other, and instead of taking pressure off me, they put on even more by bringing Carlos Reutemann into the team." Having announced his decision to quit Ferrari at season's end, Lauda left earlier after he won the Drivers' Championship at the United States Grand Prix because of the team's decision to run the unknown Gilles Villeneuve in a third car at the Canadian Grand Prix.
Brabham and first retirement (1978–1979)
Joining Parmalat-sponsored Brabham-Alfa Romeo in 1978 for a $1 million salary, Lauda endured two unsuccessful seasons, remembered mainly for his one race in the Brabham BT46B, a radical design known as the Fan Car: it won its first and only race at the Swedish GP, but Brabham did not use the car in F1 again; other teams vigorously protested the fan car's legality and Brabham team owner Bernie Ecclestone, who at the time was maneuvering for acquisition of Formula One's commercial rights, did not want to fight a protracted battle over the car, but the victory in Sweden remained official. The Brabham BT46 Alfa Romeo flat-12 began the 1978 season at the third race in South Africa. It suffered from a variety of troubles that forced Lauda to retire the car 9 out of 14 races. Lauda's best results, apart from the wins in Sweden and Italy after the penalization of Mario Andretti and Gilles Villeneuve, were 2nd in Monaco and Great Britain, and a 3rd in the Netherlands.
The Alfa flat-12 engine was too wide for ground effect designs in that the opposed cylinder banks impeded with the venturi tunnels, so Alfa designed a V12 for 1979. It was the fourth 12-cylinder engine design that propelled the Austrian in F1 since 1973. Lauda's 1979 F1 season was again marred by retirements and poor pace, even though he won the non-championship 1979 Dino Ferrari Grand Prix with the Brabham-Alfa. In the single-make BMW M1 Procar Championship, driving for the British Formula Two team Project Four Racing (led by Ron Dennis) when not in a factory entry, Lauda won three races for P4 plus the series. Decades later, Lauda won a BMW Procar exhibition race event before the 2008 German Grand Prix.
In September, Lauda finished 4th in Monza, and won the non-WC Imola event, still with the Alfa V12 engine. After that, Brabham returned to the familiar Cosworth V8. In late September, during practice for the 1979 Canadian Grand Prix, Lauda cut short a practice session and promptly informed team principal Ecclestone, that he wished to retire immediately, as he had no more desire to "continue the silliness of driving around in circles". Lauda, who in the meantime had founded Lauda Air, a charter airline, returned to Austria to run the company full-time.
McLaren comeback, third world title, and second retirement (1982–1985)
In 1982, Lauda returned to racing, for an unprecedented $3 million salary. After a successful test with McLaren, the only problem was to convince then team sponsor Marlboro that he was still capable of winning. Lauda proved he was when, in his third race back, he won the Long Beach Grand Prix. Before the opening race of the season at Kyalami race track in South Africa, Lauda was the organiser of the so-called "drivers' strike"; Lauda had seen that the new Super Licence required the drivers to commit themselves to their present teams and realised that this could hinder a driver's negotiating position. The drivers, with the exception of Teo Fabi, barricaded themselves in a banqueting suite at Sunnyside Park Hotel until they had won the day.
The 1983 season proved to be transitional for the McLaren team as they were making a change from Ford-Cosworth engines, to TAG-badged Porsche turbo engines, and Lauda did not win a race that year, with his best finish being second at Long Beach behind his teammate John Watson. Some political maneuvering by Lauda forced a furious chief designer John Barnard to design an interim car earlier than expected to get the TAG-Porsche engine some much-needed race testing; Lauda nearly won the last race of the season in South Africa.
Lauda won a third world championship in 1984 by half a point over teammate Alain Prost, due only to half points being awarded for the shortened 1984 Monaco Grand Prix. His Austrian Grand Prix victory that year is so far the only time an Austrian has won his home Grand Prix. Initially, Lauda did not want Prost to become his teammate, as he presented a much faster rival. However, during the two seasons together, they had a good relationship and Lauda later said that beating the talented Frenchman was a big motivator for him. The whole season continued to be dominated by Lauda and Prost, who won 12 of 16 races. Lauda won five races, while Prost won seven. However, Lauda, who set a record for the most pole positions in a season during the 1975 season, rarely matched his teammate in qualifying. Despite this, Lauda's championship win came in Portugal, when he had to start in eleventh place on the grid, while Prost qualified on the front row. Prost did everything he could, starting from second and winning his seventh race of the season, but Lauda's calculating drive (which included setting the fastest race lap), passing car after car, saw him finish second behind his teammate which gave him enough points to win his third title. His second place was a lucky one though as Nigel Mansell was in second for much of the race. However, as it was his last race with Lotus before joining Williams in 1985, Lotus boss Peter Warr refused to give Mansell the brakes he wanted for his car and the Englishman retired with brake failure on lap 52. As Lauda had passed the Toleman of F1 rookie Ayrton Senna for third place only a few laps earlier, Mansell's retirement elevated him to second behind Prost.
The 1985 season was a disappointment for Lauda, with eleven retirements from the fourteen races he started. He did not start the Belgian Grand Prix at Spa-Francorchamps after crashing and breaking his wrist during practice, and he later missed the European Grand Prix at Brands Hatch; John Watson replaced him for that race. He did manage fourth at the San Marino Grand Prix, 5th at the German Grand Prix, and a single race win at the Dutch Grand Prix where he held off a fast-finishing Prost late in the race. This proved to be his last Grand Prix victory, as after announcing his impending retirement at the 1985 Austrian Grand Prix, he retired for good at the end of that season.
Lauda's final Formula One Grand Prix drive was the inaugural Australian Grand Prix in Adelaide, South Australia. After qualifying 16th, a steady drive saw him leading by lap 53. However, the McLaren's ceramic brakes suffered on the street circuit and he crashed out of the lead at the end of the long Brabham Straight on lap 57 when his brakes finally failed. He was one of only two drivers in the race who had driven in the non-championship 1984 Australian Grand Prix, the other being World Champion Keke Rosberg, who won in Adelaide in 1985 and took Lauda's place at McLaren in 1986.
Helmet
Lauda's helmet was originally a plain red with his full name written on both sides and the Raiffeisen Bank logo in the chin area. He wore a modified AGV helmet in the weeks following his Nürburgring accident so as the lining would not aggravate his burned scalp too badly. In 1982, upon his return to McLaren, his helmet was white and featured the red "L" logo of Lauda Air instead of his name on both sides, complete with branding from his personal sponsor Parmalat on the top. From 1983 to 1985, the red and white were reversed to evoke memories of his earlier helmet design.
Later management roles
In 1993, Lauda returned to Formula One in a managerial position when Luca di Montezemolo offered him a consulting role at Ferrari. Halfway through the 2001 season, Lauda assumed the role of team principal of the Jaguar Formula One team. The team, however, failed to improve and Lauda was made redundant, together with 70 other key figures, at the end of 2002.
In September 2012 he was appointed non-executive chairman of the Mercedes AMG Petronas F1 Team. He took part in negotiations to sign Lewis Hamilton to a three-year deal with Mercedes in 2013.
Roles beyond Formula One
Lauda returned to running his airline, Lauda Air, on his second Formula One retirement in 1985. During his time as airline manager, he was appointed consultant at Ferrari as part of an effort by Montezemolo to rejuvenate the team. After selling his Lauda Air shares to majority partner Austrian Airlines in 1999, he managed the Jaguar Formula One racing team from 2001 to 2002. In late 2003, he started a new airline, Niki. Similar to Lauda Air, Niki was merged with its major partner Air Berlin in 2011. In early 2016, Lauda took over chartered airline Amira Air and renamed the company LaudaMotion. As a result of Air Berlin's insolvency in 2017, LaudaMotion took over the Niki brand and asset after an unsuccessful bid by Lufthansa and IAG. Lauda held a commercial pilot's licence and from time to time acted as a captain on the flights of his airline.
He was inducted into the International Motorsports Hall of Fame in 1993 and from 1996 provided commentary on Grands Prix for Austrian and German television on RTL. He was, however, criticized for calling Robert Kubica a "polack" (an ethnic slur for Polish people) on air in May 2010 at the Monaco Grand Prix.
Lauda is sometimes known by the nickname "the Rat", "SuperRat" or "King Rat" because of his prominent buck teeth. He was associated with both Parmalat and Viessmann, sponsoring the ever-present cap he wore from 1976 to hide the severe burns he sustained in his Nürburgring accident. Lauda said in a 2009 interview with the German newspaper Die Zeit that an advertiser was paying €1.2 million for the space on his red cap.
In 2005, the Austrian post office issued a stamp honouring him. In 2008, American sports television network ESPN ranked him 22nd on their "top drivers of all-time" list.
Niki Lauda wrote five books: The Art and Science of Grand Prix Driving (titled Formula 1: The Art and Technicalities of Grand Prix Driving in some markets) (1975); My Years With Ferrari (1978); The New Formula One: A Turbo Age (1984); Meine Story (titled To Hell and Back in some markets) (1986); Das dritte Leben (en. The third life) (1996). Lauda credited Austrian journalist Herbert Volker with editing the books.
Film and television
The 1976 F1 battle between Niki Lauda and James Hunt was dramatized in the film Rush (2013), where Lauda was played by Daniel Brühl—a portrayal that was nominated for a BAFTA Film Award for Best Supporting Actor. Lauda made a cameo appearance at the end of the film. Lauda said of Hunt's death, "When I heard he'd died age 45 of a heart attack I wasn't surprised, I was just sad." He also said that Hunt was one of the very few he liked, one of a smaller number of people he respected and the only person he had envied.
Lauda appeared in an episode of Mayday titled "Niki Lauda: Testing the Limits" regarding the events of Lauda Air Flight 004, and described running an airline as more difficult than winning three Formula 1 championships.
Personal life
The name of his mother is Elisabeth. Lauda had two sons with first wife the Chilean-Austrian Marlene Knaus (married 1976, divorced 1991): Mathias, a race driver himself, and Lukas, who acted as Mathias's manager. In 2008, he married Birgit Wetzinger, a flight attendant for his airline. In 2005, she donated a kidney to Lauda when the kidney he received from his brother in 1997 failed. In September 2009, Birgit gave birth to twins.
On 2 August 2018 it was announced that Lauda had successfully undergone a lung transplant operation in his native Austria.
Lauda spoke fluent Austrian German, English, and Italian.
Lauda came from a Roman Catholic family. In an interview with Zeit he stated that he left the church for a time to avoid paying church taxes, but went back when he had his two children baptised.
Death and legacy
On 20 May 2019, Lauda died in his sleep, aged 70, at the University Hospital of Zürich, where he had been undergoing dialysis treatment for kidney problems, following a period of ill health. A statement issued on behalf of his family reported that he had died peacefully, surrounded by family members.
Various current and former drivers and teams paid tributes on social media and during the Wednesday press conference session before the 2019 Monaco Grand Prix. A moment of silence was held before the race. Throughout the weekend, fans and drivers were encouraged to wear red caps in his honour, with the Mercedes team painting their halo device red with a sticker stating "Niki we miss you" instead of their usual silver scheme. His funeral, at St. Stephen's Cathedral in Vienna, was attended by many prominent Formula One figures (including Gerhard Berger, Jackie Stewart, Alain Prost, Nelson Piquet, Jean Alesi, Sebastian Vettel, Lewis Hamilton, David Coulthard, Nico Rosberg, and Valtteri Bottas), Arnold Schwarzenegger, and many Austrian politicians, including Alexander Van der Bellen among others.
The Haas VF-19's mini shark fin section of the engine cover (the top) was painted red with Lauda's name and his years of birth and death. Both Lewis Hamilton and Sebastian Vettel wore special helmets in remembrance.
Lauda is widely considered to be one of the greatest F1 drivers of all time.
Racing record
Career summary
Complete European Formula Two Championship results
(key) (Races in bold indicate pole position; races in italics indicate fastest lap)
Complete Formula One World Championship results
(key) (Races in bold indicate pole position, races in italics indicate fastest lap)
Complete Formula One non-championship results
(key) (Races in bold indicate pole position; races in italics indicate fastest lap)
Complete BMW M1 Procar Championship results
(key) (Races in bold indicate pole position; races in italics indicate fastest lap)
Other race results
24 Hours Nürburgring: 1st,1973
1000 km of Spa Francorchamps: 1st,1973
4 hours of Monza: 1st,1973
4 hours of Zandvoort: 1st,1974, 3rd,1972
Diepholz SRP/GT: 1st,1970
6 hours of Nurbugring: 2nd,1971
9 hours of Kyalami: 3rd,1972
Taurenpokal Salzburgring: 1st,1971
Books
AKA For the Record: My Years with Ferrari (British edition).
See also
History of Formula One
Hunt–Lauda rivalry
Lauda Air Italy
Sport in Austria
References
External links
1949 births
2019 deaths
A1 Grand Prix team owners
Austrian aviators
Austrian expatriates in Spain
Austrian Formula One drivers
Austrian racing drivers
Austrian Roman Catholics
Austrian motorsport people
BBC Sports Personality World Sport Star of the Year winners
Brabham Formula One drivers
BRDC Gold Star winners
BRM Formula One drivers
Chief executives in the airline industry
Commercial aviators
European Formula Two Championship drivers
Ferrari Formula One drivers
Ferrari people
Formula One World Drivers' Champions
Formula One race winners
International Motorsports Hall of Fame inductees
International Race of Champions drivers
Kidney transplant recipients
March Formula One drivers
McLaren Formula One drivers
Sportspeople from Vienna
World Sportscar Championship drivers
Lauda family
Airline founders
Jaguar in Formula One
Mercedes-Benz in Formula One
Niki Lauda | true | [
"The Peugeot Type 57 is an early motor vehicle produced in 1904 by the French auto-maker Peugeot at their Audincourt plant. 149 were produced.\n\nThe vehicle was powered by a single cylinder four stroke engine. The Type 57, like the Type54 produced a year earlier, was a derivative of the 1902 Type 37, and all three cars did away with the Chain-drive mechanism that had been a feature of the small Peugeots at the start of the century. The engine was now mounted ahead of the driver, and power was delivered to the rear wheels via a drive-shaft. The 652 cc engine, located ahead of the driver, produced .\n\nThe Type 57 had a wheel base which was very slightly longer than that of the earlier Type 37 on which its design was based. The car itself was longer by at .\n\nThe “Voiturette” format body offered space for two.\n\nSources and further reading \n Wolfgang Schmarbeck: Alle Peugeot Automobile 1890-1990. Motorbuch-Verlag. Stuttgart 1990. \n\nType 57\nCars introduced in 1904\n1900s cars\nVeteran vehicles",
"The Peugeot Type 21 is an early motor vehicle produced between 1898 and 1901 by the French auto-maker Peugeot at their Audincourt plant. Nine were produced.\n\nThe vehicle was powered by a rear-mounted two-cylinder four-stroke engine, manufactured by Peugeot themselves. The two cylinders were configured in parallel rather than in the V-format used in the first Petrol driven Peugeot, and above the rear axle to which it was linked by a chain-drive. A maximum output of between 5 and of power was delivered to the rear wheels via a chain-drive mechanism.\n\nThe vehicle closely followed the format of the Peugeot Type 24 which appeared in the same year, but the wheelbase was extended from to , which supported a vehicle length of . The Type 21 featured a carriage format coupé body designed to accommodate up to four people. At that time a \"coupé\" automobile was broadly similar to a closed two-door carriage but without the horses.\n\nIn 1900 Peugeot added the little Type 31 and Type 30 to their range. The Type 30 could be seen as an open-topped version of the Type 21. However, whereas only 9 Peugeot Type 21s were produced, the Type 30 reached a production level of 84 during a model life of approximately two years which coincided with a period of rapid expansion for the French auto industry taken as a whole.\n\nSources and further reading \n Wolfgang Schmarbeck: Alle Peugeot Automobile 1890–1990. Motorbuch-Verlag. Stuttgart 1990. \n\nType 21\n1890s cars\n1900s cars\nRear-engined vehicles\nVeteran vehicles\nBrass Era vehicles\nCars introduced in 1898"
]
|
[
"Niki Lauda",
"Brabham and first retirement (1978-1979)",
"When did he first retire?",
"It suffered from a variety of troubles that forced Lauda to retire the car 9 out of 14 races.",
"Which series of races or tournament was he competing when this happened?",
"Brabham-Alfa Romeo in 1978 for a $1 million salary, Lauda endured two unsuccessful seasons, notable mainly for his one race in the Brabham BT46B,",
"What type of vehicle did he drive during that race?",
"Brabham BT46B, a radical design known as the Fan Car:"
]
| C_8dd79d4ac5674ad3ba1e016103b23fca_0 | What was his racing record like during this time? | 4 | What was Niki Lauda's racing record like during 1978? | Niki Lauda | Having joined Parmalat-sponsored Brabham-Alfa Romeo in 1978 for a $1 million salary, Lauda endured two unsuccessful seasons, notable mainly for his one race in the Brabham BT46B, a radical design known as the Fan Car: it won its first and only race at the Swedish GP, but Brabham did not use the car in F1 again; other teams vigorously protested the fan car's legality and Brabham team owner Bernie Ecclestone, who at the time was maneuvering for acquisition of Formula One's commercial rights, did not want to fight a protracted battle over the car, but the victory in Sweden remained official. The Brabham BT46 Alfa Romeo flat-12 began the 1978 season at the third race in South Africa. It suffered from a variety of troubles that forced Lauda to retire the car 9 out of 14 races. Lauda's best results, apart from the wins in Sweden and Italy after the penalization of Mario Andretti and Gilles Villeneuve, were 2nd in Montreal and Great Britain, and a 3rd in the Netherlands. As the Alfa flat-12 engine was too wide for effective wing cars designs, Alfa provided a V12 for 1979. It was the fourth 12cyl engine design that propelled the Austrian in F1 since 1973. Lauda's 1979 F1 season was again marred by retirements and poor pace, even though he won the non-championship 1979 Dino Ferrari Grand Prix with the Brabham-Alfa. In the single make BMW M1 Procar Championship, driving for the British Formula Two team Project Four Racing (led by Ron Dennis) when not in a factory entry, Lauda won three races for P4 plus the series. Decades later, Lauda won a BMW Procar exhibition race event before the 2008 German Grand Prix. In September, Lauda finished 4th in Monza, and won the non-WC Imola event, still with the Alfa V12 engine. After that, Brabham returned to the familiar Cosworth V8. In late September, during practice for the 1979 Canadian Grand Prix, Lauda informed Brabham that he wished to retire immediately, as he had no more desire to "drive around in circles". Lauda, who in the meantime had founded Lauda Air, a charter airline, returned to Austria to run the company full-time. CANNOTANSWER | Lauda's best results, apart from the wins in Sweden and Italy after the penalization of Mario Andretti and Gilles Villeneuve, were 2nd in Montreal and Great Britain, | Andreas Nikolaus Lauda (22 February 1949 – 20 May 2019) was an Austrian Formula One driver and aviation entrepreneur. He was a three-time F1 World Drivers' Champion, winning in , and , and is the only driver in F1 history to have been champion for both Ferrari and McLaren, the sport's two most successful constructors.
As an aviation entrepreneur, he founded and ran three airlines: Lauda Air, Niki, and Lauda. He was also a consultant for Scuderia Ferrari and team manager of the Jaguar Formula One racing team for two years. Afterwards, he worked as a pundit for German TV during Grand Prix weekends and acted as non-executive chairman of Mercedes-AMG Petronas Motorsport, of which Lauda owned 10%.
Having emerged as Formula One's star driver amid a title win and leading the championship battle, Lauda was seriously injured in a crash at the 1976 German Grand Prix at the Nürburgring during which his Ferrari 312T2 burst into flames, and he came close to death after inhaling hot toxic fumes and suffering severe burns. He survived and recovered sufficiently to race again just six weeks later at the Italian Grand Prix. Although he lost that year's titleby just one pointto James Hunt, he won his second championship the year after, during his final season at Ferrari. After a couple of years at Brabham and two years' hiatus, Lauda returned and raced four seasons for McLaren between 1982 and 1985 – during which he won the title by half a point over his teammate Alain Prost.
Early years in racing
Niki Lauda was born on 22 February 1949 in Vienna, Austria, to a wealthy paper manufacturing family. His paternal grandfather was the Viennese-born industrialist Hans Lauda.
Lauda became a racing driver despite his family's disapproval. After starting out with a Mini, Lauda moved on into Formula Vee, as was normal in Central Europe, but rapidly moved up to drive in private Porsche and Chevron sports cars. With his career stalled, he took out a £30,000 bank loan, secured by a life insurance policy, to buy his way into the fledgling March team as a Formula Two (F2) driver in 1971. Because of his family's disapproval, he had an ongoing feud with them over his racing ambitions and abandoned further contact.
Lauda was quickly promoted to the F1 team, but drove for March in F1 and F2 in 1972. Although the F2 cars were good (and Lauda's driving skills impressed March principal Robin Herd), March's 1972 F1 season was catastrophic. Perhaps the lowest point of the team's season came at the Canadian Grand Prix at Mosport Park, where both March cars were disqualified within three laps of each other, just past 3/4 of the race distance. Lauda took out another bank loan to buy his way into the BRM team in 1973. Lauda was instantly quick, but the team was in decline; although the BRM P160E was quick and easy to drive it was not reliable and its engine lacked power. Lauda's star was on the rise after he ran 3rd at the Monaco Grand Prix that year, and Enzo Ferrari became interested. When his BRM teammate Clay Regazzoni left to rejoin Ferrari in 1974, team owner Enzo Ferrari asked him what he thought of Lauda. Regazzoni spoke so favourably of Lauda that Ferrari promptly signed him, paying him enough to clear his debts.
Ferrari (1974–1977)
After an unsuccessful start to the 1970s, culminating in a disastrous start to the 1973 season, Ferrari regrouped completely under Luca di Montezemolo and were resurgent in 1974. The team's faith in the little-known Lauda was quickly rewarded by a second-place finish in his debut race for the team, the season-opening Argentine Grand Prix. His first Grand Prix (GP) victory – and the first for Ferrari since 1972 – followed only three races later in the Spanish Grand Prix. Although Lauda became the season's pacesetter, achieving six consecutive pole positions, a mixture of inexperience and mechanical unreliability meant Lauda won only one more race that year, the Dutch GP. He finished fourth in the Drivers' Championship and demonstrated immense commitment to testing and improving the car.
The 1975 F1 season started slowly for Lauda; after no better than a fifth-place finish in the first four races, he won four of the next five driving the new Ferrari 312T. His first World Championship was confirmed with a third-place finish at the Italian Grand Prix at Monza; Lauda's teammate Regazzoni won the race and Ferrari clinched their first Constructors' Championship in 11 years. Lauda then picked up a fifth win at the last race of the year, the United States GP at Watkins Glen. He also became the first driver to lap the Nürburgring Nordschleife in under seven minutes, which was considered a huge feat as the Nordschleife section of the Nürburgring was two miles longer than it is today. Lauda did not win the German Grand Prix from pole position there that year; after battling hard with Patrick Depailler for the lead for the first half of the race, Lauda led for the first 9 laps but suffered a puncture at the Wippermann, 9 miles into the 10th lap and was passed by Carlos Reutemann, James Hunt, Tom Pryce and Jacques Laffite; Lauda made it back to the pits with a damaged front wing and a destroyed left front tyre. The Ferrari pit changed the destroyed tyre and Lauda managed to make it to the podium in 3rd behind Reutemann and Laffite after Hunt retired and Pryce had to slow down because of a fuel leak. Lauda was known for giving away any trophies he won to his local garage in exchange for his car to be washed and serviced.
Unlike 1975 and despite tensions between Lauda and Montezemolo's successor, Daniele Audetto, Lauda dominated the start of the 1976 F1 season, winning four of the first six races and finishing second in the other two. By the time of his fifth win of the year at the British GP, he had more than double the points of his closest challengers Jody Scheckter and James Hunt, and a second consecutive World Championship appeared a formality. It was a feat not achieved since Jack Brabham's victories in 1959 and 1960. He also looked set to win the most races in a season, a record held by the late Jim Clark since 1963.
1976 Nürburgring crash
A week before the 1976 German Grand Prix at the Nürburgring, even though he was the fastest driver on that circuit at the time, Lauda urged his fellow drivers to boycott the race, largely because of the circuit's safety arrangements, citing the organisers' lack of resources to properly manage such a huge circuit, including lack of fire marshals, fire and safety equipment and safety vehicles. Formula One was quite dangerous at the time (three of the drivers that day later died in Formula One incidents: Tom Pryce in 1977; Ronnie Peterson in 1978; and Patrick Depailler in 1980), but a majority of the drivers voted against the boycott and the race went ahead.
On 1 August 1976, during the second lap at the very fast left kink before Bergwerk, Lauda was involved in an accident where his Ferrari swerved off the track, hit an embankment, burst into flames, and made contact with Brett Lunger's Surtees-Ford car. Unlike Lunger, Lauda was trapped in the wreckage. Drivers Arturo Merzario, Lunger, Guy Edwards, and Harald Ertl arrived at the scene a few moments later, but before Merzario was able to pull Lauda from his car, he suffered severe burns to his head and inhaled hot toxic gases that damaged his lungs and blood. In an interview with BBC Radio 5 Live ("I Was There -- May 21, 2019"; "Niki Lauda speaks in 2015"), Lauda said, "...there were basically two or three drivers trying to get me out of the car, but one was Arturo Merzario, the Italian guy, who also had to stop there at the scene, because I blocked the road; and he really came into the car himself, and uh, triggered my, my seatbelt loose, and then pulled me out. It was unbelievable, how he could do that, and I met him afterwards, and I said, 'How could you do it?!'. He said, 'Honestly, I do not know, but to open your seatbelt was so difficult, because you were pushing so hard against it, and when it was open, I got you out of the car like a feather...'." As Lauda was wearing a modified helmet, it didn't fit him properly; the foam had compressed and it slid off his head after the accident, leaving his face exposed to the fire. Although Lauda was conscious and able to stand immediately after the accident, he later lapsed into a coma. While in hospital he was given the last rites, but he survived.
Lauda suffered extensive scarring from the burns to his head, losing most of his right ear as well as the hair on the right side of his head, his eyebrows, and his eyelids. He chose to limit reconstructive surgery to replacing the eyelids and getting them to work properly. After the accident he always wore a cap to cover the scars on his head. He arranged for sponsors to use the cap for advertising.
With Lauda out of the contest, Carlos Reutemann was taken on as his replacement. Ferrari boycotted the Austrian Grand Prix in protest at what they saw as preferential treatment shown towards McLaren driver James Hunt at the Spanish and British Grands Prix.
Return to racing
Lauda missed only two races, appearing at the Monza press conference six weeks after the accident with his fresh burns still bandaged. He finished fourth in the Italian GP, despite being, by his own admission, absolutely petrified. F1 journalist Nigel Roebuck recalls seeing Lauda in the pits, peeling the blood-soaked bandages off his scarred scalp. He also had to wear a specially adapted crash helmet so as not to be in too much discomfort. In Lauda's absence, Hunt had mounted a late charge to reduce Lauda's lead in the World Championship standings. Hunt and Lauda were friends away from the circuit, and their personal on-track rivalry, while intense, was cleanly contested and fair. Following wins in the Canadian and United States Grands Prix, Hunt stood only three points behind Lauda before the final race of the season, the Japanese Grand Prix.
Lauda qualified third, one place behind Hunt, but on race day there was torrential rain and Lauda retired after two laps. He later said that he felt it was unsafe to continue under these conditions, especially since his eyes were watering excessively because of his fire-damaged tear ducts and inability to blink. Hunt led much of the race before his tires blistered and a pit stop dropped him down the order. He recovered to third, thus winning the title by a single point.
Lauda's previously good relationship with Ferrari was severely affected by his decision to withdraw from the Japanese Grand Prix, and he endured a difficult 1977 season, despite easily winning the championship through consistency rather than outright pace. Lauda disliked his new teammate, Reutemann, who had served as his replacement driver. Lauda was not comfortable with this move and felt he had been let down by Ferrari. "We never could stand each other, and instead of taking pressure off me, they put on even more by bringing Carlos Reutemann into the team." Having announced his decision to quit Ferrari at season's end, Lauda left earlier after he won the Drivers' Championship at the United States Grand Prix because of the team's decision to run the unknown Gilles Villeneuve in a third car at the Canadian Grand Prix.
Brabham and first retirement (1978–1979)
Joining Parmalat-sponsored Brabham-Alfa Romeo in 1978 for a $1 million salary, Lauda endured two unsuccessful seasons, remembered mainly for his one race in the Brabham BT46B, a radical design known as the Fan Car: it won its first and only race at the Swedish GP, but Brabham did not use the car in F1 again; other teams vigorously protested the fan car's legality and Brabham team owner Bernie Ecclestone, who at the time was maneuvering for acquisition of Formula One's commercial rights, did not want to fight a protracted battle over the car, but the victory in Sweden remained official. The Brabham BT46 Alfa Romeo flat-12 began the 1978 season at the third race in South Africa. It suffered from a variety of troubles that forced Lauda to retire the car 9 out of 14 races. Lauda's best results, apart from the wins in Sweden and Italy after the penalization of Mario Andretti and Gilles Villeneuve, were 2nd in Monaco and Great Britain, and a 3rd in the Netherlands.
The Alfa flat-12 engine was too wide for ground effect designs in that the opposed cylinder banks impeded with the venturi tunnels, so Alfa designed a V12 for 1979. It was the fourth 12-cylinder engine design that propelled the Austrian in F1 since 1973. Lauda's 1979 F1 season was again marred by retirements and poor pace, even though he won the non-championship 1979 Dino Ferrari Grand Prix with the Brabham-Alfa. In the single-make BMW M1 Procar Championship, driving for the British Formula Two team Project Four Racing (led by Ron Dennis) when not in a factory entry, Lauda won three races for P4 plus the series. Decades later, Lauda won a BMW Procar exhibition race event before the 2008 German Grand Prix.
In September, Lauda finished 4th in Monza, and won the non-WC Imola event, still with the Alfa V12 engine. After that, Brabham returned to the familiar Cosworth V8. In late September, during practice for the 1979 Canadian Grand Prix, Lauda cut short a practice session and promptly informed team principal Ecclestone, that he wished to retire immediately, as he had no more desire to "continue the silliness of driving around in circles". Lauda, who in the meantime had founded Lauda Air, a charter airline, returned to Austria to run the company full-time.
McLaren comeback, third world title, and second retirement (1982–1985)
In 1982, Lauda returned to racing, for an unprecedented $3 million salary. After a successful test with McLaren, the only problem was to convince then team sponsor Marlboro that he was still capable of winning. Lauda proved he was when, in his third race back, he won the Long Beach Grand Prix. Before the opening race of the season at Kyalami race track in South Africa, Lauda was the organiser of the so-called "drivers' strike"; Lauda had seen that the new Super Licence required the drivers to commit themselves to their present teams and realised that this could hinder a driver's negotiating position. The drivers, with the exception of Teo Fabi, barricaded themselves in a banqueting suite at Sunnyside Park Hotel until they had won the day.
The 1983 season proved to be transitional for the McLaren team as they were making a change from Ford-Cosworth engines, to TAG-badged Porsche turbo engines, and Lauda did not win a race that year, with his best finish being second at Long Beach behind his teammate John Watson. Some political maneuvering by Lauda forced a furious chief designer John Barnard to design an interim car earlier than expected to get the TAG-Porsche engine some much-needed race testing; Lauda nearly won the last race of the season in South Africa.
Lauda won a third world championship in 1984 by half a point over teammate Alain Prost, due only to half points being awarded for the shortened 1984 Monaco Grand Prix. His Austrian Grand Prix victory that year is so far the only time an Austrian has won his home Grand Prix. Initially, Lauda did not want Prost to become his teammate, as he presented a much faster rival. However, during the two seasons together, they had a good relationship and Lauda later said that beating the talented Frenchman was a big motivator for him. The whole season continued to be dominated by Lauda and Prost, who won 12 of 16 races. Lauda won five races, while Prost won seven. However, Lauda, who set a record for the most pole positions in a season during the 1975 season, rarely matched his teammate in qualifying. Despite this, Lauda's championship win came in Portugal, when he had to start in eleventh place on the grid, while Prost qualified on the front row. Prost did everything he could, starting from second and winning his seventh race of the season, but Lauda's calculating drive (which included setting the fastest race lap), passing car after car, saw him finish second behind his teammate which gave him enough points to win his third title. His second place was a lucky one though as Nigel Mansell was in second for much of the race. However, as it was his last race with Lotus before joining Williams in 1985, Lotus boss Peter Warr refused to give Mansell the brakes he wanted for his car and the Englishman retired with brake failure on lap 52. As Lauda had passed the Toleman of F1 rookie Ayrton Senna for third place only a few laps earlier, Mansell's retirement elevated him to second behind Prost.
The 1985 season was a disappointment for Lauda, with eleven retirements from the fourteen races he started. He did not start the Belgian Grand Prix at Spa-Francorchamps after crashing and breaking his wrist during practice, and he later missed the European Grand Prix at Brands Hatch; John Watson replaced him for that race. He did manage fourth at the San Marino Grand Prix, 5th at the German Grand Prix, and a single race win at the Dutch Grand Prix where he held off a fast-finishing Prost late in the race. This proved to be his last Grand Prix victory, as after announcing his impending retirement at the 1985 Austrian Grand Prix, he retired for good at the end of that season.
Lauda's final Formula One Grand Prix drive was the inaugural Australian Grand Prix in Adelaide, South Australia. After qualifying 16th, a steady drive saw him leading by lap 53. However, the McLaren's ceramic brakes suffered on the street circuit and he crashed out of the lead at the end of the long Brabham Straight on lap 57 when his brakes finally failed. He was one of only two drivers in the race who had driven in the non-championship 1984 Australian Grand Prix, the other being World Champion Keke Rosberg, who won in Adelaide in 1985 and took Lauda's place at McLaren in 1986.
Helmet
Lauda's helmet was originally a plain red with his full name written on both sides and the Raiffeisen Bank logo in the chin area. He wore a modified AGV helmet in the weeks following his Nürburgring accident so as the lining would not aggravate his burned scalp too badly. In 1982, upon his return to McLaren, his helmet was white and featured the red "L" logo of Lauda Air instead of his name on both sides, complete with branding from his personal sponsor Parmalat on the top. From 1983 to 1985, the red and white were reversed to evoke memories of his earlier helmet design.
Later management roles
In 1993, Lauda returned to Formula One in a managerial position when Luca di Montezemolo offered him a consulting role at Ferrari. Halfway through the 2001 season, Lauda assumed the role of team principal of the Jaguar Formula One team. The team, however, failed to improve and Lauda was made redundant, together with 70 other key figures, at the end of 2002.
In September 2012 he was appointed non-executive chairman of the Mercedes AMG Petronas F1 Team. He took part in negotiations to sign Lewis Hamilton to a three-year deal with Mercedes in 2013.
Roles beyond Formula One
Lauda returned to running his airline, Lauda Air, on his second Formula One retirement in 1985. During his time as airline manager, he was appointed consultant at Ferrari as part of an effort by Montezemolo to rejuvenate the team. After selling his Lauda Air shares to majority partner Austrian Airlines in 1999, he managed the Jaguar Formula One racing team from 2001 to 2002. In late 2003, he started a new airline, Niki. Similar to Lauda Air, Niki was merged with its major partner Air Berlin in 2011. In early 2016, Lauda took over chartered airline Amira Air and renamed the company LaudaMotion. As a result of Air Berlin's insolvency in 2017, LaudaMotion took over the Niki brand and asset after an unsuccessful bid by Lufthansa and IAG. Lauda held a commercial pilot's licence and from time to time acted as a captain on the flights of his airline.
He was inducted into the International Motorsports Hall of Fame in 1993 and from 1996 provided commentary on Grands Prix for Austrian and German television on RTL. He was, however, criticized for calling Robert Kubica a "polack" (an ethnic slur for Polish people) on air in May 2010 at the Monaco Grand Prix.
Lauda is sometimes known by the nickname "the Rat", "SuperRat" or "King Rat" because of his prominent buck teeth. He was associated with both Parmalat and Viessmann, sponsoring the ever-present cap he wore from 1976 to hide the severe burns he sustained in his Nürburgring accident. Lauda said in a 2009 interview with the German newspaper Die Zeit that an advertiser was paying €1.2 million for the space on his red cap.
In 2005, the Austrian post office issued a stamp honouring him. In 2008, American sports television network ESPN ranked him 22nd on their "top drivers of all-time" list.
Niki Lauda wrote five books: The Art and Science of Grand Prix Driving (titled Formula 1: The Art and Technicalities of Grand Prix Driving in some markets) (1975); My Years With Ferrari (1978); The New Formula One: A Turbo Age (1984); Meine Story (titled To Hell and Back in some markets) (1986); Das dritte Leben (en. The third life) (1996). Lauda credited Austrian journalist Herbert Volker with editing the books.
Film and television
The 1976 F1 battle between Niki Lauda and James Hunt was dramatized in the film Rush (2013), where Lauda was played by Daniel Brühl—a portrayal that was nominated for a BAFTA Film Award for Best Supporting Actor. Lauda made a cameo appearance at the end of the film. Lauda said of Hunt's death, "When I heard he'd died age 45 of a heart attack I wasn't surprised, I was just sad." He also said that Hunt was one of the very few he liked, one of a smaller number of people he respected and the only person he had envied.
Lauda appeared in an episode of Mayday titled "Niki Lauda: Testing the Limits" regarding the events of Lauda Air Flight 004, and described running an airline as more difficult than winning three Formula 1 championships.
Personal life
The name of his mother is Elisabeth. Lauda had two sons with first wife the Chilean-Austrian Marlene Knaus (married 1976, divorced 1991): Mathias, a race driver himself, and Lukas, who acted as Mathias's manager. In 2008, he married Birgit Wetzinger, a flight attendant for his airline. In 2005, she donated a kidney to Lauda when the kidney he received from his brother in 1997 failed. In September 2009, Birgit gave birth to twins.
On 2 August 2018 it was announced that Lauda had successfully undergone a lung transplant operation in his native Austria.
Lauda spoke fluent Austrian German, English, and Italian.
Lauda came from a Roman Catholic family. In an interview with Zeit he stated that he left the church for a time to avoid paying church taxes, but went back when he had his two children baptised.
Death and legacy
On 20 May 2019, Lauda died in his sleep, aged 70, at the University Hospital of Zürich, where he had been undergoing dialysis treatment for kidney problems, following a period of ill health. A statement issued on behalf of his family reported that he had died peacefully, surrounded by family members.
Various current and former drivers and teams paid tributes on social media and during the Wednesday press conference session before the 2019 Monaco Grand Prix. A moment of silence was held before the race. Throughout the weekend, fans and drivers were encouraged to wear red caps in his honour, with the Mercedes team painting their halo device red with a sticker stating "Niki we miss you" instead of their usual silver scheme. His funeral, at St. Stephen's Cathedral in Vienna, was attended by many prominent Formula One figures (including Gerhard Berger, Jackie Stewart, Alain Prost, Nelson Piquet, Jean Alesi, Sebastian Vettel, Lewis Hamilton, David Coulthard, Nico Rosberg, and Valtteri Bottas), Arnold Schwarzenegger, and many Austrian politicians, including Alexander Van der Bellen among others.
The Haas VF-19's mini shark fin section of the engine cover (the top) was painted red with Lauda's name and his years of birth and death. Both Lewis Hamilton and Sebastian Vettel wore special helmets in remembrance.
Lauda is widely considered to be one of the greatest F1 drivers of all time.
Racing record
Career summary
Complete European Formula Two Championship results
(key) (Races in bold indicate pole position; races in italics indicate fastest lap)
Complete Formula One World Championship results
(key) (Races in bold indicate pole position, races in italics indicate fastest lap)
Complete Formula One non-championship results
(key) (Races in bold indicate pole position; races in italics indicate fastest lap)
Complete BMW M1 Procar Championship results
(key) (Races in bold indicate pole position; races in italics indicate fastest lap)
Other race results
24 Hours Nürburgring: 1st,1973
1000 km of Spa Francorchamps: 1st,1973
4 hours of Monza: 1st,1973
4 hours of Zandvoort: 1st,1974, 3rd,1972
Diepholz SRP/GT: 1st,1970
6 hours of Nurbugring: 2nd,1971
9 hours of Kyalami: 3rd,1972
Taurenpokal Salzburgring: 1st,1971
Books
AKA For the Record: My Years with Ferrari (British edition).
See also
History of Formula One
Hunt–Lauda rivalry
Lauda Air Italy
Sport in Austria
References
External links
1949 births
2019 deaths
A1 Grand Prix team owners
Austrian aviators
Austrian expatriates in Spain
Austrian Formula One drivers
Austrian racing drivers
Austrian Roman Catholics
Austrian motorsport people
BBC Sports Personality World Sport Star of the Year winners
Brabham Formula One drivers
BRDC Gold Star winners
BRM Formula One drivers
Chief executives in the airline industry
Commercial aviators
European Formula Two Championship drivers
Ferrari Formula One drivers
Ferrari people
Formula One World Drivers' Champions
Formula One race winners
International Motorsports Hall of Fame inductees
International Race of Champions drivers
Kidney transplant recipients
March Formula One drivers
McLaren Formula One drivers
Sportspeople from Vienna
World Sportscar Championship drivers
Lauda family
Airline founders
Jaguar in Formula One
Mercedes-Benz in Formula One
Niki Lauda | false | [
"Oceanic yacht racing is one of the most dangerous sports in the world. It was particularly dangerous in the early days when oceanic racing was more like early mountain climbing in terms of sense of adventure and achievement. Modern safety and communication equipment has improved safety however like any sport in natural environment risk is always present. In many races, participants have changed from explorer to professional athlete.\n\nDeaths during crewed round the world races and record attempts\n\nDeaths during solo round the worlds races and record attempts\n\nDeaths during offshore racing\n\nDeaths during yacht races\n\nReferences\n\nsailboat racing\nSailboat racing\nSailing (sport)\nSail",
"Lee Bible (May 27, 1887 March 13, 1929) was an American garage operator and a racing-car driver.\n\nHe was killed attempting to break the land-speed record on March 13, 1929, at Ormond Beach, Florida.\n\nEarly life\nHe was born Conway Lee Bible on a farm near Midway, Tennessee.\n\nPre-record attempt \nOn March 11, British driver Major Henry O. D. Segrave had set the land-speed record of in his Golden Arrow, beating the old record held by Ray Keech, who had set the record in the Triplex Special.\n\nJim White, owner of the Special, wanted the title to come back to the United States. Keech was asked to come back and drive the Triplex Special, but he declined, considering the car too dangerous.\n\nWhite then offered the ride to their team mechanic and garage operator, Lee Bible, who saw this as the opportunity of a lifetime. He was declared eligible by officials after a few practice runs, despite his lack of experience.\n\nThe record attempt \n\nOn his first run, Bible was clocked at – well below the record. On his return run he was clocked at . However, shortly after the time trap, the car suddenly swerved, presumably because Bible released the accelerator too fast. The Triplex Special crashed into the dunes and rolled, finally coming to a stop further. During this crash, Bible was thrown from the car, killing him instantly. The Triplex Special rolled into a newsreel cameraman, Charles R. Traub, who was killed instantly.\n\nSee also\n\n List of people from Tennessee\n List of racing drivers who died in racing crashes\n\nReferences \n\n \n\n1887 births\n1929 deaths\n19th-century American people\n19th-century sportsmen\nLand speed record people\nRacing drivers from Tennessee\nRacing drivers killed while racing\nSports deaths in Florida\nVolusia County, Florida\n1920s in Florida\nMotorsport in Florida\n1929 in American motorsport\nAmerican sportsmen"
]
|
[
"Niki Lauda",
"Brabham and first retirement (1978-1979)",
"When did he first retire?",
"It suffered from a variety of troubles that forced Lauda to retire the car 9 out of 14 races.",
"Which series of races or tournament was he competing when this happened?",
"Brabham-Alfa Romeo in 1978 for a $1 million salary, Lauda endured two unsuccessful seasons, notable mainly for his one race in the Brabham BT46B,",
"What type of vehicle did he drive during that race?",
"Brabham BT46B, a radical design known as the Fan Car:",
"What was his racing record like during this time?",
"Lauda's best results, apart from the wins in Sweden and Italy after the penalization of Mario Andretti and Gilles Villeneuve, were 2nd in Montreal and Great Britain,"
]
| C_8dd79d4ac5674ad3ba1e016103b23fca_0 | How long did he stay in retirement? | 5 | How long did Niki Lauda stay in retirement? | Niki Lauda | Having joined Parmalat-sponsored Brabham-Alfa Romeo in 1978 for a $1 million salary, Lauda endured two unsuccessful seasons, notable mainly for his one race in the Brabham BT46B, a radical design known as the Fan Car: it won its first and only race at the Swedish GP, but Brabham did not use the car in F1 again; other teams vigorously protested the fan car's legality and Brabham team owner Bernie Ecclestone, who at the time was maneuvering for acquisition of Formula One's commercial rights, did not want to fight a protracted battle over the car, but the victory in Sweden remained official. The Brabham BT46 Alfa Romeo flat-12 began the 1978 season at the third race in South Africa. It suffered from a variety of troubles that forced Lauda to retire the car 9 out of 14 races. Lauda's best results, apart from the wins in Sweden and Italy after the penalization of Mario Andretti and Gilles Villeneuve, were 2nd in Montreal and Great Britain, and a 3rd in the Netherlands. As the Alfa flat-12 engine was too wide for effective wing cars designs, Alfa provided a V12 for 1979. It was the fourth 12cyl engine design that propelled the Austrian in F1 since 1973. Lauda's 1979 F1 season was again marred by retirements and poor pace, even though he won the non-championship 1979 Dino Ferrari Grand Prix with the Brabham-Alfa. In the single make BMW M1 Procar Championship, driving for the British Formula Two team Project Four Racing (led by Ron Dennis) when not in a factory entry, Lauda won three races for P4 plus the series. Decades later, Lauda won a BMW Procar exhibition race event before the 2008 German Grand Prix. In September, Lauda finished 4th in Monza, and won the non-WC Imola event, still with the Alfa V12 engine. After that, Brabham returned to the familiar Cosworth V8. In late September, during practice for the 1979 Canadian Grand Prix, Lauda informed Brabham that he wished to retire immediately, as he had no more desire to "drive around in circles". Lauda, who in the meantime had founded Lauda Air, a charter airline, returned to Austria to run the company full-time. CANNOTANSWER | CANNOTANSWER | Andreas Nikolaus Lauda (22 February 1949 – 20 May 2019) was an Austrian Formula One driver and aviation entrepreneur. He was a three-time F1 World Drivers' Champion, winning in , and , and is the only driver in F1 history to have been champion for both Ferrari and McLaren, the sport's two most successful constructors.
As an aviation entrepreneur, he founded and ran three airlines: Lauda Air, Niki, and Lauda. He was also a consultant for Scuderia Ferrari and team manager of the Jaguar Formula One racing team for two years. Afterwards, he worked as a pundit for German TV during Grand Prix weekends and acted as non-executive chairman of Mercedes-AMG Petronas Motorsport, of which Lauda owned 10%.
Having emerged as Formula One's star driver amid a title win and leading the championship battle, Lauda was seriously injured in a crash at the 1976 German Grand Prix at the Nürburgring during which his Ferrari 312T2 burst into flames, and he came close to death after inhaling hot toxic fumes and suffering severe burns. He survived and recovered sufficiently to race again just six weeks later at the Italian Grand Prix. Although he lost that year's titleby just one pointto James Hunt, he won his second championship the year after, during his final season at Ferrari. After a couple of years at Brabham and two years' hiatus, Lauda returned and raced four seasons for McLaren between 1982 and 1985 – during which he won the title by half a point over his teammate Alain Prost.
Early years in racing
Niki Lauda was born on 22 February 1949 in Vienna, Austria, to a wealthy paper manufacturing family. His paternal grandfather was the Viennese-born industrialist Hans Lauda.
Lauda became a racing driver despite his family's disapproval. After starting out with a Mini, Lauda moved on into Formula Vee, as was normal in Central Europe, but rapidly moved up to drive in private Porsche and Chevron sports cars. With his career stalled, he took out a £30,000 bank loan, secured by a life insurance policy, to buy his way into the fledgling March team as a Formula Two (F2) driver in 1971. Because of his family's disapproval, he had an ongoing feud with them over his racing ambitions and abandoned further contact.
Lauda was quickly promoted to the F1 team, but drove for March in F1 and F2 in 1972. Although the F2 cars were good (and Lauda's driving skills impressed March principal Robin Herd), March's 1972 F1 season was catastrophic. Perhaps the lowest point of the team's season came at the Canadian Grand Prix at Mosport Park, where both March cars were disqualified within three laps of each other, just past 3/4 of the race distance. Lauda took out another bank loan to buy his way into the BRM team in 1973. Lauda was instantly quick, but the team was in decline; although the BRM P160E was quick and easy to drive it was not reliable and its engine lacked power. Lauda's star was on the rise after he ran 3rd at the Monaco Grand Prix that year, and Enzo Ferrari became interested. When his BRM teammate Clay Regazzoni left to rejoin Ferrari in 1974, team owner Enzo Ferrari asked him what he thought of Lauda. Regazzoni spoke so favourably of Lauda that Ferrari promptly signed him, paying him enough to clear his debts.
Ferrari (1974–1977)
After an unsuccessful start to the 1970s, culminating in a disastrous start to the 1973 season, Ferrari regrouped completely under Luca di Montezemolo and were resurgent in 1974. The team's faith in the little-known Lauda was quickly rewarded by a second-place finish in his debut race for the team, the season-opening Argentine Grand Prix. His first Grand Prix (GP) victory – and the first for Ferrari since 1972 – followed only three races later in the Spanish Grand Prix. Although Lauda became the season's pacesetter, achieving six consecutive pole positions, a mixture of inexperience and mechanical unreliability meant Lauda won only one more race that year, the Dutch GP. He finished fourth in the Drivers' Championship and demonstrated immense commitment to testing and improving the car.
The 1975 F1 season started slowly for Lauda; after no better than a fifth-place finish in the first four races, he won four of the next five driving the new Ferrari 312T. His first World Championship was confirmed with a third-place finish at the Italian Grand Prix at Monza; Lauda's teammate Regazzoni won the race and Ferrari clinched their first Constructors' Championship in 11 years. Lauda then picked up a fifth win at the last race of the year, the United States GP at Watkins Glen. He also became the first driver to lap the Nürburgring Nordschleife in under seven minutes, which was considered a huge feat as the Nordschleife section of the Nürburgring was two miles longer than it is today. Lauda did not win the German Grand Prix from pole position there that year; after battling hard with Patrick Depailler for the lead for the first half of the race, Lauda led for the first 9 laps but suffered a puncture at the Wippermann, 9 miles into the 10th lap and was passed by Carlos Reutemann, James Hunt, Tom Pryce and Jacques Laffite; Lauda made it back to the pits with a damaged front wing and a destroyed left front tyre. The Ferrari pit changed the destroyed tyre and Lauda managed to make it to the podium in 3rd behind Reutemann and Laffite after Hunt retired and Pryce had to slow down because of a fuel leak. Lauda was known for giving away any trophies he won to his local garage in exchange for his car to be washed and serviced.
Unlike 1975 and despite tensions between Lauda and Montezemolo's successor, Daniele Audetto, Lauda dominated the start of the 1976 F1 season, winning four of the first six races and finishing second in the other two. By the time of his fifth win of the year at the British GP, he had more than double the points of his closest challengers Jody Scheckter and James Hunt, and a second consecutive World Championship appeared a formality. It was a feat not achieved since Jack Brabham's victories in 1959 and 1960. He also looked set to win the most races in a season, a record held by the late Jim Clark since 1963.
1976 Nürburgring crash
A week before the 1976 German Grand Prix at the Nürburgring, even though he was the fastest driver on that circuit at the time, Lauda urged his fellow drivers to boycott the race, largely because of the circuit's safety arrangements, citing the organisers' lack of resources to properly manage such a huge circuit, including lack of fire marshals, fire and safety equipment and safety vehicles. Formula One was quite dangerous at the time (three of the drivers that day later died in Formula One incidents: Tom Pryce in 1977; Ronnie Peterson in 1978; and Patrick Depailler in 1980), but a majority of the drivers voted against the boycott and the race went ahead.
On 1 August 1976, during the second lap at the very fast left kink before Bergwerk, Lauda was involved in an accident where his Ferrari swerved off the track, hit an embankment, burst into flames, and made contact with Brett Lunger's Surtees-Ford car. Unlike Lunger, Lauda was trapped in the wreckage. Drivers Arturo Merzario, Lunger, Guy Edwards, and Harald Ertl arrived at the scene a few moments later, but before Merzario was able to pull Lauda from his car, he suffered severe burns to his head and inhaled hot toxic gases that damaged his lungs and blood. In an interview with BBC Radio 5 Live ("I Was There -- May 21, 2019"; "Niki Lauda speaks in 2015"), Lauda said, "...there were basically two or three drivers trying to get me out of the car, but one was Arturo Merzario, the Italian guy, who also had to stop there at the scene, because I blocked the road; and he really came into the car himself, and uh, triggered my, my seatbelt loose, and then pulled me out. It was unbelievable, how he could do that, and I met him afterwards, and I said, 'How could you do it?!'. He said, 'Honestly, I do not know, but to open your seatbelt was so difficult, because you were pushing so hard against it, and when it was open, I got you out of the car like a feather...'." As Lauda was wearing a modified helmet, it didn't fit him properly; the foam had compressed and it slid off his head after the accident, leaving his face exposed to the fire. Although Lauda was conscious and able to stand immediately after the accident, he later lapsed into a coma. While in hospital he was given the last rites, but he survived.
Lauda suffered extensive scarring from the burns to his head, losing most of his right ear as well as the hair on the right side of his head, his eyebrows, and his eyelids. He chose to limit reconstructive surgery to replacing the eyelids and getting them to work properly. After the accident he always wore a cap to cover the scars on his head. He arranged for sponsors to use the cap for advertising.
With Lauda out of the contest, Carlos Reutemann was taken on as his replacement. Ferrari boycotted the Austrian Grand Prix in protest at what they saw as preferential treatment shown towards McLaren driver James Hunt at the Spanish and British Grands Prix.
Return to racing
Lauda missed only two races, appearing at the Monza press conference six weeks after the accident with his fresh burns still bandaged. He finished fourth in the Italian GP, despite being, by his own admission, absolutely petrified. F1 journalist Nigel Roebuck recalls seeing Lauda in the pits, peeling the blood-soaked bandages off his scarred scalp. He also had to wear a specially adapted crash helmet so as not to be in too much discomfort. In Lauda's absence, Hunt had mounted a late charge to reduce Lauda's lead in the World Championship standings. Hunt and Lauda were friends away from the circuit, and their personal on-track rivalry, while intense, was cleanly contested and fair. Following wins in the Canadian and United States Grands Prix, Hunt stood only three points behind Lauda before the final race of the season, the Japanese Grand Prix.
Lauda qualified third, one place behind Hunt, but on race day there was torrential rain and Lauda retired after two laps. He later said that he felt it was unsafe to continue under these conditions, especially since his eyes were watering excessively because of his fire-damaged tear ducts and inability to blink. Hunt led much of the race before his tires blistered and a pit stop dropped him down the order. He recovered to third, thus winning the title by a single point.
Lauda's previously good relationship with Ferrari was severely affected by his decision to withdraw from the Japanese Grand Prix, and he endured a difficult 1977 season, despite easily winning the championship through consistency rather than outright pace. Lauda disliked his new teammate, Reutemann, who had served as his replacement driver. Lauda was not comfortable with this move and felt he had been let down by Ferrari. "We never could stand each other, and instead of taking pressure off me, they put on even more by bringing Carlos Reutemann into the team." Having announced his decision to quit Ferrari at season's end, Lauda left earlier after he won the Drivers' Championship at the United States Grand Prix because of the team's decision to run the unknown Gilles Villeneuve in a third car at the Canadian Grand Prix.
Brabham and first retirement (1978–1979)
Joining Parmalat-sponsored Brabham-Alfa Romeo in 1978 for a $1 million salary, Lauda endured two unsuccessful seasons, remembered mainly for his one race in the Brabham BT46B, a radical design known as the Fan Car: it won its first and only race at the Swedish GP, but Brabham did not use the car in F1 again; other teams vigorously protested the fan car's legality and Brabham team owner Bernie Ecclestone, who at the time was maneuvering for acquisition of Formula One's commercial rights, did not want to fight a protracted battle over the car, but the victory in Sweden remained official. The Brabham BT46 Alfa Romeo flat-12 began the 1978 season at the third race in South Africa. It suffered from a variety of troubles that forced Lauda to retire the car 9 out of 14 races. Lauda's best results, apart from the wins in Sweden and Italy after the penalization of Mario Andretti and Gilles Villeneuve, were 2nd in Monaco and Great Britain, and a 3rd in the Netherlands.
The Alfa flat-12 engine was too wide for ground effect designs in that the opposed cylinder banks impeded with the venturi tunnels, so Alfa designed a V12 for 1979. It was the fourth 12-cylinder engine design that propelled the Austrian in F1 since 1973. Lauda's 1979 F1 season was again marred by retirements and poor pace, even though he won the non-championship 1979 Dino Ferrari Grand Prix with the Brabham-Alfa. In the single-make BMW M1 Procar Championship, driving for the British Formula Two team Project Four Racing (led by Ron Dennis) when not in a factory entry, Lauda won three races for P4 plus the series. Decades later, Lauda won a BMW Procar exhibition race event before the 2008 German Grand Prix.
In September, Lauda finished 4th in Monza, and won the non-WC Imola event, still with the Alfa V12 engine. After that, Brabham returned to the familiar Cosworth V8. In late September, during practice for the 1979 Canadian Grand Prix, Lauda cut short a practice session and promptly informed team principal Ecclestone, that he wished to retire immediately, as he had no more desire to "continue the silliness of driving around in circles". Lauda, who in the meantime had founded Lauda Air, a charter airline, returned to Austria to run the company full-time.
McLaren comeback, third world title, and second retirement (1982–1985)
In 1982, Lauda returned to racing, for an unprecedented $3 million salary. After a successful test with McLaren, the only problem was to convince then team sponsor Marlboro that he was still capable of winning. Lauda proved he was when, in his third race back, he won the Long Beach Grand Prix. Before the opening race of the season at Kyalami race track in South Africa, Lauda was the organiser of the so-called "drivers' strike"; Lauda had seen that the new Super Licence required the drivers to commit themselves to their present teams and realised that this could hinder a driver's negotiating position. The drivers, with the exception of Teo Fabi, barricaded themselves in a banqueting suite at Sunnyside Park Hotel until they had won the day.
The 1983 season proved to be transitional for the McLaren team as they were making a change from Ford-Cosworth engines, to TAG-badged Porsche turbo engines, and Lauda did not win a race that year, with his best finish being second at Long Beach behind his teammate John Watson. Some political maneuvering by Lauda forced a furious chief designer John Barnard to design an interim car earlier than expected to get the TAG-Porsche engine some much-needed race testing; Lauda nearly won the last race of the season in South Africa.
Lauda won a third world championship in 1984 by half a point over teammate Alain Prost, due only to half points being awarded for the shortened 1984 Monaco Grand Prix. His Austrian Grand Prix victory that year is so far the only time an Austrian has won his home Grand Prix. Initially, Lauda did not want Prost to become his teammate, as he presented a much faster rival. However, during the two seasons together, they had a good relationship and Lauda later said that beating the talented Frenchman was a big motivator for him. The whole season continued to be dominated by Lauda and Prost, who won 12 of 16 races. Lauda won five races, while Prost won seven. However, Lauda, who set a record for the most pole positions in a season during the 1975 season, rarely matched his teammate in qualifying. Despite this, Lauda's championship win came in Portugal, when he had to start in eleventh place on the grid, while Prost qualified on the front row. Prost did everything he could, starting from second and winning his seventh race of the season, but Lauda's calculating drive (which included setting the fastest race lap), passing car after car, saw him finish second behind his teammate which gave him enough points to win his third title. His second place was a lucky one though as Nigel Mansell was in second for much of the race. However, as it was his last race with Lotus before joining Williams in 1985, Lotus boss Peter Warr refused to give Mansell the brakes he wanted for his car and the Englishman retired with brake failure on lap 52. As Lauda had passed the Toleman of F1 rookie Ayrton Senna for third place only a few laps earlier, Mansell's retirement elevated him to second behind Prost.
The 1985 season was a disappointment for Lauda, with eleven retirements from the fourteen races he started. He did not start the Belgian Grand Prix at Spa-Francorchamps after crashing and breaking his wrist during practice, and he later missed the European Grand Prix at Brands Hatch; John Watson replaced him for that race. He did manage fourth at the San Marino Grand Prix, 5th at the German Grand Prix, and a single race win at the Dutch Grand Prix where he held off a fast-finishing Prost late in the race. This proved to be his last Grand Prix victory, as after announcing his impending retirement at the 1985 Austrian Grand Prix, he retired for good at the end of that season.
Lauda's final Formula One Grand Prix drive was the inaugural Australian Grand Prix in Adelaide, South Australia. After qualifying 16th, a steady drive saw him leading by lap 53. However, the McLaren's ceramic brakes suffered on the street circuit and he crashed out of the lead at the end of the long Brabham Straight on lap 57 when his brakes finally failed. He was one of only two drivers in the race who had driven in the non-championship 1984 Australian Grand Prix, the other being World Champion Keke Rosberg, who won in Adelaide in 1985 and took Lauda's place at McLaren in 1986.
Helmet
Lauda's helmet was originally a plain red with his full name written on both sides and the Raiffeisen Bank logo in the chin area. He wore a modified AGV helmet in the weeks following his Nürburgring accident so as the lining would not aggravate his burned scalp too badly. In 1982, upon his return to McLaren, his helmet was white and featured the red "L" logo of Lauda Air instead of his name on both sides, complete with branding from his personal sponsor Parmalat on the top. From 1983 to 1985, the red and white were reversed to evoke memories of his earlier helmet design.
Later management roles
In 1993, Lauda returned to Formula One in a managerial position when Luca di Montezemolo offered him a consulting role at Ferrari. Halfway through the 2001 season, Lauda assumed the role of team principal of the Jaguar Formula One team. The team, however, failed to improve and Lauda was made redundant, together with 70 other key figures, at the end of 2002.
In September 2012 he was appointed non-executive chairman of the Mercedes AMG Petronas F1 Team. He took part in negotiations to sign Lewis Hamilton to a three-year deal with Mercedes in 2013.
Roles beyond Formula One
Lauda returned to running his airline, Lauda Air, on his second Formula One retirement in 1985. During his time as airline manager, he was appointed consultant at Ferrari as part of an effort by Montezemolo to rejuvenate the team. After selling his Lauda Air shares to majority partner Austrian Airlines in 1999, he managed the Jaguar Formula One racing team from 2001 to 2002. In late 2003, he started a new airline, Niki. Similar to Lauda Air, Niki was merged with its major partner Air Berlin in 2011. In early 2016, Lauda took over chartered airline Amira Air and renamed the company LaudaMotion. As a result of Air Berlin's insolvency in 2017, LaudaMotion took over the Niki brand and asset after an unsuccessful bid by Lufthansa and IAG. Lauda held a commercial pilot's licence and from time to time acted as a captain on the flights of his airline.
He was inducted into the International Motorsports Hall of Fame in 1993 and from 1996 provided commentary on Grands Prix for Austrian and German television on RTL. He was, however, criticized for calling Robert Kubica a "polack" (an ethnic slur for Polish people) on air in May 2010 at the Monaco Grand Prix.
Lauda is sometimes known by the nickname "the Rat", "SuperRat" or "King Rat" because of his prominent buck teeth. He was associated with both Parmalat and Viessmann, sponsoring the ever-present cap he wore from 1976 to hide the severe burns he sustained in his Nürburgring accident. Lauda said in a 2009 interview with the German newspaper Die Zeit that an advertiser was paying €1.2 million for the space on his red cap.
In 2005, the Austrian post office issued a stamp honouring him. In 2008, American sports television network ESPN ranked him 22nd on their "top drivers of all-time" list.
Niki Lauda wrote five books: The Art and Science of Grand Prix Driving (titled Formula 1: The Art and Technicalities of Grand Prix Driving in some markets) (1975); My Years With Ferrari (1978); The New Formula One: A Turbo Age (1984); Meine Story (titled To Hell and Back in some markets) (1986); Das dritte Leben (en. The third life) (1996). Lauda credited Austrian journalist Herbert Volker with editing the books.
Film and television
The 1976 F1 battle between Niki Lauda and James Hunt was dramatized in the film Rush (2013), where Lauda was played by Daniel Brühl—a portrayal that was nominated for a BAFTA Film Award for Best Supporting Actor. Lauda made a cameo appearance at the end of the film. Lauda said of Hunt's death, "When I heard he'd died age 45 of a heart attack I wasn't surprised, I was just sad." He also said that Hunt was one of the very few he liked, one of a smaller number of people he respected and the only person he had envied.
Lauda appeared in an episode of Mayday titled "Niki Lauda: Testing the Limits" regarding the events of Lauda Air Flight 004, and described running an airline as more difficult than winning three Formula 1 championships.
Personal life
The name of his mother is Elisabeth. Lauda had two sons with first wife the Chilean-Austrian Marlene Knaus (married 1976, divorced 1991): Mathias, a race driver himself, and Lukas, who acted as Mathias's manager. In 2008, he married Birgit Wetzinger, a flight attendant for his airline. In 2005, she donated a kidney to Lauda when the kidney he received from his brother in 1997 failed. In September 2009, Birgit gave birth to twins.
On 2 August 2018 it was announced that Lauda had successfully undergone a lung transplant operation in his native Austria.
Lauda spoke fluent Austrian German, English, and Italian.
Lauda came from a Roman Catholic family. In an interview with Zeit he stated that he left the church for a time to avoid paying church taxes, but went back when he had his two children baptised.
Death and legacy
On 20 May 2019, Lauda died in his sleep, aged 70, at the University Hospital of Zürich, where he had been undergoing dialysis treatment for kidney problems, following a period of ill health. A statement issued on behalf of his family reported that he had died peacefully, surrounded by family members.
Various current and former drivers and teams paid tributes on social media and during the Wednesday press conference session before the 2019 Monaco Grand Prix. A moment of silence was held before the race. Throughout the weekend, fans and drivers were encouraged to wear red caps in his honour, with the Mercedes team painting their halo device red with a sticker stating "Niki we miss you" instead of their usual silver scheme. His funeral, at St. Stephen's Cathedral in Vienna, was attended by many prominent Formula One figures (including Gerhard Berger, Jackie Stewart, Alain Prost, Nelson Piquet, Jean Alesi, Sebastian Vettel, Lewis Hamilton, David Coulthard, Nico Rosberg, and Valtteri Bottas), Arnold Schwarzenegger, and many Austrian politicians, including Alexander Van der Bellen among others.
The Haas VF-19's mini shark fin section of the engine cover (the top) was painted red with Lauda's name and his years of birth and death. Both Lewis Hamilton and Sebastian Vettel wore special helmets in remembrance.
Lauda is widely considered to be one of the greatest F1 drivers of all time.
Racing record
Career summary
Complete European Formula Two Championship results
(key) (Races in bold indicate pole position; races in italics indicate fastest lap)
Complete Formula One World Championship results
(key) (Races in bold indicate pole position, races in italics indicate fastest lap)
Complete Formula One non-championship results
(key) (Races in bold indicate pole position; races in italics indicate fastest lap)
Complete BMW M1 Procar Championship results
(key) (Races in bold indicate pole position; races in italics indicate fastest lap)
Other race results
24 Hours Nürburgring: 1st,1973
1000 km of Spa Francorchamps: 1st,1973
4 hours of Monza: 1st,1973
4 hours of Zandvoort: 1st,1974, 3rd,1972
Diepholz SRP/GT: 1st,1970
6 hours of Nurbugring: 2nd,1971
9 hours of Kyalami: 3rd,1972
Taurenpokal Salzburgring: 1st,1971
Books
AKA For the Record: My Years with Ferrari (British edition).
See also
History of Formula One
Hunt–Lauda rivalry
Lauda Air Italy
Sport in Austria
References
External links
1949 births
2019 deaths
A1 Grand Prix team owners
Austrian aviators
Austrian expatriates in Spain
Austrian Formula One drivers
Austrian racing drivers
Austrian Roman Catholics
Austrian motorsport people
BBC Sports Personality World Sport Star of the Year winners
Brabham Formula One drivers
BRDC Gold Star winners
BRM Formula One drivers
Chief executives in the airline industry
Commercial aviators
European Formula Two Championship drivers
Ferrari Formula One drivers
Ferrari people
Formula One World Drivers' Champions
Formula One race winners
International Motorsports Hall of Fame inductees
International Race of Champions drivers
Kidney transplant recipients
March Formula One drivers
McLaren Formula One drivers
Sportspeople from Vienna
World Sportscar Championship drivers
Lauda family
Airline founders
Jaguar in Formula One
Mercedes-Benz in Formula One
Niki Lauda | false | [
"Ed Slott (born August 5, 1954) is a financial expert in the United States. He is an author and public speaker providing training in IRAs (Individual Retirement Accounts) and retirement distribution planning. He has been a collaborative creator of three nationally aired Public Television Specials and is a practicing CPA (Certified Public Accountant) based in Rockville Centre, New York.\n\nPublic training\nSlott was named \"The Best\" source for IRA advice by The Wall Street Journal and called \"America's IRA Expert\" by Mutual Funds Magazine. He is known to financial advisors for his public speaking and IRA training programs, including a 2-Day workshop titled Instant IRA Success and a year-long advanced IRA training membership group. Ed Slott's Elite IRA Advisor group and Master Elite IRA Advisor group are among the most respected and technically enhancing groups for financial advisors.\n\nPublic television\nSlott is a consumer advocate through his three Public Television (PBS) Specials, which stress to consumers the importance of working with competent financial advisors and educating them on the steps necessary to lower their tax burden now and forever and avoid needless penalties. His first Public Television Special, Stay Rich Forever & Ever with Ed Slott was the #1 fundraising special across America in 2008.\n\nOther media\nSlott is a resource to contemporary newspapers and media sources for reference and insight as an expert on taxation and individual retirement accounts in the United States. Examples include The Wall Street Journal and the Chicago Tribune.\n\nBooks\nSlott has written five books on retirement distribution planning and also writes and produces a monthly IRA newsletter for financial advisors and financial media professionals.\n\nEd Slott's Retirement Decisions Guide: 2010 Edition (2009)\nTaxing Away Your Wealth (a special report with Harry Dent) (2009)\nEd Slott's Stay Rich for Life!: Growing & Protecting Your Money in Turbulent Times (2009)\nParlay Your IRA Into a Family Fortune (2008)\nThe Retirement Savings Time Bomb and How To Defuse It (2008) (revised 2021)\nYour Complete Retirement Planning Road Map (2007)\n\nAwards and distinctions\nSlott is a past chairman of the New York State Society of CPAs Estate Planning Committee and editor of the IRA Planning section of The CPA Journal. Slott is a past recipient of the Excellence in Estate Planning and Outstanding Service awards presented by The Foundation for Accounting Education. He is a former board member of The Estate Planning Council of New York City.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n Ed Slott and Company, LLC Official Website\n\n1954 births\nLiving people\nAmerican businesspeople\nAmerican finance and investment writers\nPeople from Rockville Centre, New York",
"George Tompkins (March 20, 1780 – April 7, 1846) was a Justice of the Missouri Supreme Court from 1824 to 1845.\n\nEarly life \nBorn in Caroline County, Virginia, the second youngest of thirteen children, Tompkins was of English descent, his ancestors having been among the early settlers of Virginia. His family \"owned large tracts of land and many slaves, and were largely engaged in the cultivation of tobacco\". His parents were Benjamin Tompkins and Elizabeth Goodloe.\n\nSometime around the age of seventeen or eighteen, he left Virginia and lived in Ohio and in Jefferson County, Kentucky for several years. He taught school and also studied law in his free time. He did not stay in Kentucky long before moving to Missouri. In Missouri, Tompkins taught at the first English school in St. Louis, where most inhabitants spoke French.\n\nLaw and judicial career \nHe settled in Franklin, Howard County, Missouri in 1816, and opened a law practice. He was twice elected to the Territorial Legislature in St. Charles. In 1824, Tompkins was appointed to the Missouri Supreme Court, where he remained until he reached the mandatory retirement age of 65. Tompkins' retirement came just a few years before the Dred Scott case was brought before the Missouri Supreme Court. During his time as a judge, Tompkins expressed abolitionists views and through about a dozen cases, established a precedent that since Missouri was a free state, if slaves were brought into the state, they should be freed. Despite this, the Supreme Court ruled against Dred Scott in his case for freedom.\n\nLater life and death \nUpon retirement, Tompkins returned to his farm near Jefferson City, Missouri, where he died on April 7, 1846 at the age of 67.\n\nReferences\n\n1770 births\n1846 deaths\nJudges of the Supreme Court of Missouri\nPeople from Caroline County, Virginia\nPeople from Howard County, Missouri"
]
|
[
"Niki Lauda",
"Brabham and first retirement (1978-1979)",
"When did he first retire?",
"It suffered from a variety of troubles that forced Lauda to retire the car 9 out of 14 races.",
"Which series of races or tournament was he competing when this happened?",
"Brabham-Alfa Romeo in 1978 for a $1 million salary, Lauda endured two unsuccessful seasons, notable mainly for his one race in the Brabham BT46B,",
"What type of vehicle did he drive during that race?",
"Brabham BT46B, a radical design known as the Fan Car:",
"What was his racing record like during this time?",
"Lauda's best results, apart from the wins in Sweden and Italy after the penalization of Mario Andretti and Gilles Villeneuve, were 2nd in Montreal and Great Britain,",
"How long did he stay in retirement?",
"I don't know."
]
| C_8dd79d4ac5674ad3ba1e016103b23fca_0 | Are there any other interesting aspects about this article? | 6 | Besides Niki Lauda's wins in Sweden and Italy, are there any other interesting aspects about this article? | Niki Lauda | Having joined Parmalat-sponsored Brabham-Alfa Romeo in 1978 for a $1 million salary, Lauda endured two unsuccessful seasons, notable mainly for his one race in the Brabham BT46B, a radical design known as the Fan Car: it won its first and only race at the Swedish GP, but Brabham did not use the car in F1 again; other teams vigorously protested the fan car's legality and Brabham team owner Bernie Ecclestone, who at the time was maneuvering for acquisition of Formula One's commercial rights, did not want to fight a protracted battle over the car, but the victory in Sweden remained official. The Brabham BT46 Alfa Romeo flat-12 began the 1978 season at the third race in South Africa. It suffered from a variety of troubles that forced Lauda to retire the car 9 out of 14 races. Lauda's best results, apart from the wins in Sweden and Italy after the penalization of Mario Andretti and Gilles Villeneuve, were 2nd in Montreal and Great Britain, and a 3rd in the Netherlands. As the Alfa flat-12 engine was too wide for effective wing cars designs, Alfa provided a V12 for 1979. It was the fourth 12cyl engine design that propelled the Austrian in F1 since 1973. Lauda's 1979 F1 season was again marred by retirements and poor pace, even though he won the non-championship 1979 Dino Ferrari Grand Prix with the Brabham-Alfa. In the single make BMW M1 Procar Championship, driving for the British Formula Two team Project Four Racing (led by Ron Dennis) when not in a factory entry, Lauda won three races for P4 plus the series. Decades later, Lauda won a BMW Procar exhibition race event before the 2008 German Grand Prix. In September, Lauda finished 4th in Monza, and won the non-WC Imola event, still with the Alfa V12 engine. After that, Brabham returned to the familiar Cosworth V8. In late September, during practice for the 1979 Canadian Grand Prix, Lauda informed Brabham that he wished to retire immediately, as he had no more desire to "drive around in circles". Lauda, who in the meantime had founded Lauda Air, a charter airline, returned to Austria to run the company full-time. CANNOTANSWER | In September, Lauda finished 4th in Monza, and won the non-WC Imola event, still with the Alfa V12 engine. | Andreas Nikolaus Lauda (22 February 1949 – 20 May 2019) was an Austrian Formula One driver and aviation entrepreneur. He was a three-time F1 World Drivers' Champion, winning in , and , and is the only driver in F1 history to have been champion for both Ferrari and McLaren, the sport's two most successful constructors.
As an aviation entrepreneur, he founded and ran three airlines: Lauda Air, Niki, and Lauda. He was also a consultant for Scuderia Ferrari and team manager of the Jaguar Formula One racing team for two years. Afterwards, he worked as a pundit for German TV during Grand Prix weekends and acted as non-executive chairman of Mercedes-AMG Petronas Motorsport, of which Lauda owned 10%.
Having emerged as Formula One's star driver amid a title win and leading the championship battle, Lauda was seriously injured in a crash at the 1976 German Grand Prix at the Nürburgring during which his Ferrari 312T2 burst into flames, and he came close to death after inhaling hot toxic fumes and suffering severe burns. He survived and recovered sufficiently to race again just six weeks later at the Italian Grand Prix. Although he lost that year's titleby just one pointto James Hunt, he won his second championship the year after, during his final season at Ferrari. After a couple of years at Brabham and two years' hiatus, Lauda returned and raced four seasons for McLaren between 1982 and 1985 – during which he won the title by half a point over his teammate Alain Prost.
Early years in racing
Niki Lauda was born on 22 February 1949 in Vienna, Austria, to a wealthy paper manufacturing family. His paternal grandfather was the Viennese-born industrialist Hans Lauda.
Lauda became a racing driver despite his family's disapproval. After starting out with a Mini, Lauda moved on into Formula Vee, as was normal in Central Europe, but rapidly moved up to drive in private Porsche and Chevron sports cars. With his career stalled, he took out a £30,000 bank loan, secured by a life insurance policy, to buy his way into the fledgling March team as a Formula Two (F2) driver in 1971. Because of his family's disapproval, he had an ongoing feud with them over his racing ambitions and abandoned further contact.
Lauda was quickly promoted to the F1 team, but drove for March in F1 and F2 in 1972. Although the F2 cars were good (and Lauda's driving skills impressed March principal Robin Herd), March's 1972 F1 season was catastrophic. Perhaps the lowest point of the team's season came at the Canadian Grand Prix at Mosport Park, where both March cars were disqualified within three laps of each other, just past 3/4 of the race distance. Lauda took out another bank loan to buy his way into the BRM team in 1973. Lauda was instantly quick, but the team was in decline; although the BRM P160E was quick and easy to drive it was not reliable and its engine lacked power. Lauda's star was on the rise after he ran 3rd at the Monaco Grand Prix that year, and Enzo Ferrari became interested. When his BRM teammate Clay Regazzoni left to rejoin Ferrari in 1974, team owner Enzo Ferrari asked him what he thought of Lauda. Regazzoni spoke so favourably of Lauda that Ferrari promptly signed him, paying him enough to clear his debts.
Ferrari (1974–1977)
After an unsuccessful start to the 1970s, culminating in a disastrous start to the 1973 season, Ferrari regrouped completely under Luca di Montezemolo and were resurgent in 1974. The team's faith in the little-known Lauda was quickly rewarded by a second-place finish in his debut race for the team, the season-opening Argentine Grand Prix. His first Grand Prix (GP) victory – and the first for Ferrari since 1972 – followed only three races later in the Spanish Grand Prix. Although Lauda became the season's pacesetter, achieving six consecutive pole positions, a mixture of inexperience and mechanical unreliability meant Lauda won only one more race that year, the Dutch GP. He finished fourth in the Drivers' Championship and demonstrated immense commitment to testing and improving the car.
The 1975 F1 season started slowly for Lauda; after no better than a fifth-place finish in the first four races, he won four of the next five driving the new Ferrari 312T. His first World Championship was confirmed with a third-place finish at the Italian Grand Prix at Monza; Lauda's teammate Regazzoni won the race and Ferrari clinched their first Constructors' Championship in 11 years. Lauda then picked up a fifth win at the last race of the year, the United States GP at Watkins Glen. He also became the first driver to lap the Nürburgring Nordschleife in under seven minutes, which was considered a huge feat as the Nordschleife section of the Nürburgring was two miles longer than it is today. Lauda did not win the German Grand Prix from pole position there that year; after battling hard with Patrick Depailler for the lead for the first half of the race, Lauda led for the first 9 laps but suffered a puncture at the Wippermann, 9 miles into the 10th lap and was passed by Carlos Reutemann, James Hunt, Tom Pryce and Jacques Laffite; Lauda made it back to the pits with a damaged front wing and a destroyed left front tyre. The Ferrari pit changed the destroyed tyre and Lauda managed to make it to the podium in 3rd behind Reutemann and Laffite after Hunt retired and Pryce had to slow down because of a fuel leak. Lauda was known for giving away any trophies he won to his local garage in exchange for his car to be washed and serviced.
Unlike 1975 and despite tensions between Lauda and Montezemolo's successor, Daniele Audetto, Lauda dominated the start of the 1976 F1 season, winning four of the first six races and finishing second in the other two. By the time of his fifth win of the year at the British GP, he had more than double the points of his closest challengers Jody Scheckter and James Hunt, and a second consecutive World Championship appeared a formality. It was a feat not achieved since Jack Brabham's victories in 1959 and 1960. He also looked set to win the most races in a season, a record held by the late Jim Clark since 1963.
1976 Nürburgring crash
A week before the 1976 German Grand Prix at the Nürburgring, even though he was the fastest driver on that circuit at the time, Lauda urged his fellow drivers to boycott the race, largely because of the circuit's safety arrangements, citing the organisers' lack of resources to properly manage such a huge circuit, including lack of fire marshals, fire and safety equipment and safety vehicles. Formula One was quite dangerous at the time (three of the drivers that day later died in Formula One incidents: Tom Pryce in 1977; Ronnie Peterson in 1978; and Patrick Depailler in 1980), but a majority of the drivers voted against the boycott and the race went ahead.
On 1 August 1976, during the second lap at the very fast left kink before Bergwerk, Lauda was involved in an accident where his Ferrari swerved off the track, hit an embankment, burst into flames, and made contact with Brett Lunger's Surtees-Ford car. Unlike Lunger, Lauda was trapped in the wreckage. Drivers Arturo Merzario, Lunger, Guy Edwards, and Harald Ertl arrived at the scene a few moments later, but before Merzario was able to pull Lauda from his car, he suffered severe burns to his head and inhaled hot toxic gases that damaged his lungs and blood. In an interview with BBC Radio 5 Live ("I Was There -- May 21, 2019"; "Niki Lauda speaks in 2015"), Lauda said, "...there were basically two or three drivers trying to get me out of the car, but one was Arturo Merzario, the Italian guy, who also had to stop there at the scene, because I blocked the road; and he really came into the car himself, and uh, triggered my, my seatbelt loose, and then pulled me out. It was unbelievable, how he could do that, and I met him afterwards, and I said, 'How could you do it?!'. He said, 'Honestly, I do not know, but to open your seatbelt was so difficult, because you were pushing so hard against it, and when it was open, I got you out of the car like a feather...'." As Lauda was wearing a modified helmet, it didn't fit him properly; the foam had compressed and it slid off his head after the accident, leaving his face exposed to the fire. Although Lauda was conscious and able to stand immediately after the accident, he later lapsed into a coma. While in hospital he was given the last rites, but he survived.
Lauda suffered extensive scarring from the burns to his head, losing most of his right ear as well as the hair on the right side of his head, his eyebrows, and his eyelids. He chose to limit reconstructive surgery to replacing the eyelids and getting them to work properly. After the accident he always wore a cap to cover the scars on his head. He arranged for sponsors to use the cap for advertising.
With Lauda out of the contest, Carlos Reutemann was taken on as his replacement. Ferrari boycotted the Austrian Grand Prix in protest at what they saw as preferential treatment shown towards McLaren driver James Hunt at the Spanish and British Grands Prix.
Return to racing
Lauda missed only two races, appearing at the Monza press conference six weeks after the accident with his fresh burns still bandaged. He finished fourth in the Italian GP, despite being, by his own admission, absolutely petrified. F1 journalist Nigel Roebuck recalls seeing Lauda in the pits, peeling the blood-soaked bandages off his scarred scalp. He also had to wear a specially adapted crash helmet so as not to be in too much discomfort. In Lauda's absence, Hunt had mounted a late charge to reduce Lauda's lead in the World Championship standings. Hunt and Lauda were friends away from the circuit, and their personal on-track rivalry, while intense, was cleanly contested and fair. Following wins in the Canadian and United States Grands Prix, Hunt stood only three points behind Lauda before the final race of the season, the Japanese Grand Prix.
Lauda qualified third, one place behind Hunt, but on race day there was torrential rain and Lauda retired after two laps. He later said that he felt it was unsafe to continue under these conditions, especially since his eyes were watering excessively because of his fire-damaged tear ducts and inability to blink. Hunt led much of the race before his tires blistered and a pit stop dropped him down the order. He recovered to third, thus winning the title by a single point.
Lauda's previously good relationship with Ferrari was severely affected by his decision to withdraw from the Japanese Grand Prix, and he endured a difficult 1977 season, despite easily winning the championship through consistency rather than outright pace. Lauda disliked his new teammate, Reutemann, who had served as his replacement driver. Lauda was not comfortable with this move and felt he had been let down by Ferrari. "We never could stand each other, and instead of taking pressure off me, they put on even more by bringing Carlos Reutemann into the team." Having announced his decision to quit Ferrari at season's end, Lauda left earlier after he won the Drivers' Championship at the United States Grand Prix because of the team's decision to run the unknown Gilles Villeneuve in a third car at the Canadian Grand Prix.
Brabham and first retirement (1978–1979)
Joining Parmalat-sponsored Brabham-Alfa Romeo in 1978 for a $1 million salary, Lauda endured two unsuccessful seasons, remembered mainly for his one race in the Brabham BT46B, a radical design known as the Fan Car: it won its first and only race at the Swedish GP, but Brabham did not use the car in F1 again; other teams vigorously protested the fan car's legality and Brabham team owner Bernie Ecclestone, who at the time was maneuvering for acquisition of Formula One's commercial rights, did not want to fight a protracted battle over the car, but the victory in Sweden remained official. The Brabham BT46 Alfa Romeo flat-12 began the 1978 season at the third race in South Africa. It suffered from a variety of troubles that forced Lauda to retire the car 9 out of 14 races. Lauda's best results, apart from the wins in Sweden and Italy after the penalization of Mario Andretti and Gilles Villeneuve, were 2nd in Monaco and Great Britain, and a 3rd in the Netherlands.
The Alfa flat-12 engine was too wide for ground effect designs in that the opposed cylinder banks impeded with the venturi tunnels, so Alfa designed a V12 for 1979. It was the fourth 12-cylinder engine design that propelled the Austrian in F1 since 1973. Lauda's 1979 F1 season was again marred by retirements and poor pace, even though he won the non-championship 1979 Dino Ferrari Grand Prix with the Brabham-Alfa. In the single-make BMW M1 Procar Championship, driving for the British Formula Two team Project Four Racing (led by Ron Dennis) when not in a factory entry, Lauda won three races for P4 plus the series. Decades later, Lauda won a BMW Procar exhibition race event before the 2008 German Grand Prix.
In September, Lauda finished 4th in Monza, and won the non-WC Imola event, still with the Alfa V12 engine. After that, Brabham returned to the familiar Cosworth V8. In late September, during practice for the 1979 Canadian Grand Prix, Lauda cut short a practice session and promptly informed team principal Ecclestone, that he wished to retire immediately, as he had no more desire to "continue the silliness of driving around in circles". Lauda, who in the meantime had founded Lauda Air, a charter airline, returned to Austria to run the company full-time.
McLaren comeback, third world title, and second retirement (1982–1985)
In 1982, Lauda returned to racing, for an unprecedented $3 million salary. After a successful test with McLaren, the only problem was to convince then team sponsor Marlboro that he was still capable of winning. Lauda proved he was when, in his third race back, he won the Long Beach Grand Prix. Before the opening race of the season at Kyalami race track in South Africa, Lauda was the organiser of the so-called "drivers' strike"; Lauda had seen that the new Super Licence required the drivers to commit themselves to their present teams and realised that this could hinder a driver's negotiating position. The drivers, with the exception of Teo Fabi, barricaded themselves in a banqueting suite at Sunnyside Park Hotel until they had won the day.
The 1983 season proved to be transitional for the McLaren team as they were making a change from Ford-Cosworth engines, to TAG-badged Porsche turbo engines, and Lauda did not win a race that year, with his best finish being second at Long Beach behind his teammate John Watson. Some political maneuvering by Lauda forced a furious chief designer John Barnard to design an interim car earlier than expected to get the TAG-Porsche engine some much-needed race testing; Lauda nearly won the last race of the season in South Africa.
Lauda won a third world championship in 1984 by half a point over teammate Alain Prost, due only to half points being awarded for the shortened 1984 Monaco Grand Prix. His Austrian Grand Prix victory that year is so far the only time an Austrian has won his home Grand Prix. Initially, Lauda did not want Prost to become his teammate, as he presented a much faster rival. However, during the two seasons together, they had a good relationship and Lauda later said that beating the talented Frenchman was a big motivator for him. The whole season continued to be dominated by Lauda and Prost, who won 12 of 16 races. Lauda won five races, while Prost won seven. However, Lauda, who set a record for the most pole positions in a season during the 1975 season, rarely matched his teammate in qualifying. Despite this, Lauda's championship win came in Portugal, when he had to start in eleventh place on the grid, while Prost qualified on the front row. Prost did everything he could, starting from second and winning his seventh race of the season, but Lauda's calculating drive (which included setting the fastest race lap), passing car after car, saw him finish second behind his teammate which gave him enough points to win his third title. His second place was a lucky one though as Nigel Mansell was in second for much of the race. However, as it was his last race with Lotus before joining Williams in 1985, Lotus boss Peter Warr refused to give Mansell the brakes he wanted for his car and the Englishman retired with brake failure on lap 52. As Lauda had passed the Toleman of F1 rookie Ayrton Senna for third place only a few laps earlier, Mansell's retirement elevated him to second behind Prost.
The 1985 season was a disappointment for Lauda, with eleven retirements from the fourteen races he started. He did not start the Belgian Grand Prix at Spa-Francorchamps after crashing and breaking his wrist during practice, and he later missed the European Grand Prix at Brands Hatch; John Watson replaced him for that race. He did manage fourth at the San Marino Grand Prix, 5th at the German Grand Prix, and a single race win at the Dutch Grand Prix where he held off a fast-finishing Prost late in the race. This proved to be his last Grand Prix victory, as after announcing his impending retirement at the 1985 Austrian Grand Prix, he retired for good at the end of that season.
Lauda's final Formula One Grand Prix drive was the inaugural Australian Grand Prix in Adelaide, South Australia. After qualifying 16th, a steady drive saw him leading by lap 53. However, the McLaren's ceramic brakes suffered on the street circuit and he crashed out of the lead at the end of the long Brabham Straight on lap 57 when his brakes finally failed. He was one of only two drivers in the race who had driven in the non-championship 1984 Australian Grand Prix, the other being World Champion Keke Rosberg, who won in Adelaide in 1985 and took Lauda's place at McLaren in 1986.
Helmet
Lauda's helmet was originally a plain red with his full name written on both sides and the Raiffeisen Bank logo in the chin area. He wore a modified AGV helmet in the weeks following his Nürburgring accident so as the lining would not aggravate his burned scalp too badly. In 1982, upon his return to McLaren, his helmet was white and featured the red "L" logo of Lauda Air instead of his name on both sides, complete with branding from his personal sponsor Parmalat on the top. From 1983 to 1985, the red and white were reversed to evoke memories of his earlier helmet design.
Later management roles
In 1993, Lauda returned to Formula One in a managerial position when Luca di Montezemolo offered him a consulting role at Ferrari. Halfway through the 2001 season, Lauda assumed the role of team principal of the Jaguar Formula One team. The team, however, failed to improve and Lauda was made redundant, together with 70 other key figures, at the end of 2002.
In September 2012 he was appointed non-executive chairman of the Mercedes AMG Petronas F1 Team. He took part in negotiations to sign Lewis Hamilton to a three-year deal with Mercedes in 2013.
Roles beyond Formula One
Lauda returned to running his airline, Lauda Air, on his second Formula One retirement in 1985. During his time as airline manager, he was appointed consultant at Ferrari as part of an effort by Montezemolo to rejuvenate the team. After selling his Lauda Air shares to majority partner Austrian Airlines in 1999, he managed the Jaguar Formula One racing team from 2001 to 2002. In late 2003, he started a new airline, Niki. Similar to Lauda Air, Niki was merged with its major partner Air Berlin in 2011. In early 2016, Lauda took over chartered airline Amira Air and renamed the company LaudaMotion. As a result of Air Berlin's insolvency in 2017, LaudaMotion took over the Niki brand and asset after an unsuccessful bid by Lufthansa and IAG. Lauda held a commercial pilot's licence and from time to time acted as a captain on the flights of his airline.
He was inducted into the International Motorsports Hall of Fame in 1993 and from 1996 provided commentary on Grands Prix for Austrian and German television on RTL. He was, however, criticized for calling Robert Kubica a "polack" (an ethnic slur for Polish people) on air in May 2010 at the Monaco Grand Prix.
Lauda is sometimes known by the nickname "the Rat", "SuperRat" or "King Rat" because of his prominent buck teeth. He was associated with both Parmalat and Viessmann, sponsoring the ever-present cap he wore from 1976 to hide the severe burns he sustained in his Nürburgring accident. Lauda said in a 2009 interview with the German newspaper Die Zeit that an advertiser was paying €1.2 million for the space on his red cap.
In 2005, the Austrian post office issued a stamp honouring him. In 2008, American sports television network ESPN ranked him 22nd on their "top drivers of all-time" list.
Niki Lauda wrote five books: The Art and Science of Grand Prix Driving (titled Formula 1: The Art and Technicalities of Grand Prix Driving in some markets) (1975); My Years With Ferrari (1978); The New Formula One: A Turbo Age (1984); Meine Story (titled To Hell and Back in some markets) (1986); Das dritte Leben (en. The third life) (1996). Lauda credited Austrian journalist Herbert Volker with editing the books.
Film and television
The 1976 F1 battle between Niki Lauda and James Hunt was dramatized in the film Rush (2013), where Lauda was played by Daniel Brühl—a portrayal that was nominated for a BAFTA Film Award for Best Supporting Actor. Lauda made a cameo appearance at the end of the film. Lauda said of Hunt's death, "When I heard he'd died age 45 of a heart attack I wasn't surprised, I was just sad." He also said that Hunt was one of the very few he liked, one of a smaller number of people he respected and the only person he had envied.
Lauda appeared in an episode of Mayday titled "Niki Lauda: Testing the Limits" regarding the events of Lauda Air Flight 004, and described running an airline as more difficult than winning three Formula 1 championships.
Personal life
The name of his mother is Elisabeth. Lauda had two sons with first wife the Chilean-Austrian Marlene Knaus (married 1976, divorced 1991): Mathias, a race driver himself, and Lukas, who acted as Mathias's manager. In 2008, he married Birgit Wetzinger, a flight attendant for his airline. In 2005, she donated a kidney to Lauda when the kidney he received from his brother in 1997 failed. In September 2009, Birgit gave birth to twins.
On 2 August 2018 it was announced that Lauda had successfully undergone a lung transplant operation in his native Austria.
Lauda spoke fluent Austrian German, English, and Italian.
Lauda came from a Roman Catholic family. In an interview with Zeit he stated that he left the church for a time to avoid paying church taxes, but went back when he had his two children baptised.
Death and legacy
On 20 May 2019, Lauda died in his sleep, aged 70, at the University Hospital of Zürich, where he had been undergoing dialysis treatment for kidney problems, following a period of ill health. A statement issued on behalf of his family reported that he had died peacefully, surrounded by family members.
Various current and former drivers and teams paid tributes on social media and during the Wednesday press conference session before the 2019 Monaco Grand Prix. A moment of silence was held before the race. Throughout the weekend, fans and drivers were encouraged to wear red caps in his honour, with the Mercedes team painting their halo device red with a sticker stating "Niki we miss you" instead of their usual silver scheme. His funeral, at St. Stephen's Cathedral in Vienna, was attended by many prominent Formula One figures (including Gerhard Berger, Jackie Stewart, Alain Prost, Nelson Piquet, Jean Alesi, Sebastian Vettel, Lewis Hamilton, David Coulthard, Nico Rosberg, and Valtteri Bottas), Arnold Schwarzenegger, and many Austrian politicians, including Alexander Van der Bellen among others.
The Haas VF-19's mini shark fin section of the engine cover (the top) was painted red with Lauda's name and his years of birth and death. Both Lewis Hamilton and Sebastian Vettel wore special helmets in remembrance.
Lauda is widely considered to be one of the greatest F1 drivers of all time.
Racing record
Career summary
Complete European Formula Two Championship results
(key) (Races in bold indicate pole position; races in italics indicate fastest lap)
Complete Formula One World Championship results
(key) (Races in bold indicate pole position, races in italics indicate fastest lap)
Complete Formula One non-championship results
(key) (Races in bold indicate pole position; races in italics indicate fastest lap)
Complete BMW M1 Procar Championship results
(key) (Races in bold indicate pole position; races in italics indicate fastest lap)
Other race results
24 Hours Nürburgring: 1st,1973
1000 km of Spa Francorchamps: 1st,1973
4 hours of Monza: 1st,1973
4 hours of Zandvoort: 1st,1974, 3rd,1972
Diepholz SRP/GT: 1st,1970
6 hours of Nurbugring: 2nd,1971
9 hours of Kyalami: 3rd,1972
Taurenpokal Salzburgring: 1st,1971
Books
AKA For the Record: My Years with Ferrari (British edition).
See also
History of Formula One
Hunt–Lauda rivalry
Lauda Air Italy
Sport in Austria
References
External links
1949 births
2019 deaths
A1 Grand Prix team owners
Austrian aviators
Austrian expatriates in Spain
Austrian Formula One drivers
Austrian racing drivers
Austrian Roman Catholics
Austrian motorsport people
BBC Sports Personality World Sport Star of the Year winners
Brabham Formula One drivers
BRDC Gold Star winners
BRM Formula One drivers
Chief executives in the airline industry
Commercial aviators
European Formula Two Championship drivers
Ferrari Formula One drivers
Ferrari people
Formula One World Drivers' Champions
Formula One race winners
International Motorsports Hall of Fame inductees
International Race of Champions drivers
Kidney transplant recipients
March Formula One drivers
McLaren Formula One drivers
Sportspeople from Vienna
World Sportscar Championship drivers
Lauda family
Airline founders
Jaguar in Formula One
Mercedes-Benz in Formula One
Niki Lauda | 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"
]
|
[
"Niki Lauda",
"Brabham and first retirement (1978-1979)",
"When did he first retire?",
"It suffered from a variety of troubles that forced Lauda to retire the car 9 out of 14 races.",
"Which series of races or tournament was he competing when this happened?",
"Brabham-Alfa Romeo in 1978 for a $1 million salary, Lauda endured two unsuccessful seasons, notable mainly for his one race in the Brabham BT46B,",
"What type of vehicle did he drive during that race?",
"Brabham BT46B, a radical design known as the Fan Car:",
"What was his racing record like during this time?",
"Lauda's best results, apart from the wins in Sweden and Italy after the penalization of Mario Andretti and Gilles Villeneuve, were 2nd in Montreal and Great Britain,",
"How long did he stay in retirement?",
"I don't know.",
"Are there any other interesting aspects about this article?",
"In September, Lauda finished 4th in Monza, and won the non-WC Imola event, still with the Alfa V12 engine."
]
| C_8dd79d4ac5674ad3ba1e016103b23fca_0 | Which year was this particular event, 78 or 79? | 7 | Which year was Imola event, 78 or 79? | Niki Lauda | Having joined Parmalat-sponsored Brabham-Alfa Romeo in 1978 for a $1 million salary, Lauda endured two unsuccessful seasons, notable mainly for his one race in the Brabham BT46B, a radical design known as the Fan Car: it won its first and only race at the Swedish GP, but Brabham did not use the car in F1 again; other teams vigorously protested the fan car's legality and Brabham team owner Bernie Ecclestone, who at the time was maneuvering for acquisition of Formula One's commercial rights, did not want to fight a protracted battle over the car, but the victory in Sweden remained official. The Brabham BT46 Alfa Romeo flat-12 began the 1978 season at the third race in South Africa. It suffered from a variety of troubles that forced Lauda to retire the car 9 out of 14 races. Lauda's best results, apart from the wins in Sweden and Italy after the penalization of Mario Andretti and Gilles Villeneuve, were 2nd in Montreal and Great Britain, and a 3rd in the Netherlands. As the Alfa flat-12 engine was too wide for effective wing cars designs, Alfa provided a V12 for 1979. It was the fourth 12cyl engine design that propelled the Austrian in F1 since 1973. Lauda's 1979 F1 season was again marred by retirements and poor pace, even though he won the non-championship 1979 Dino Ferrari Grand Prix with the Brabham-Alfa. In the single make BMW M1 Procar Championship, driving for the British Formula Two team Project Four Racing (led by Ron Dennis) when not in a factory entry, Lauda won three races for P4 plus the series. Decades later, Lauda won a BMW Procar exhibition race event before the 2008 German Grand Prix. In September, Lauda finished 4th in Monza, and won the non-WC Imola event, still with the Alfa V12 engine. After that, Brabham returned to the familiar Cosworth V8. In late September, during practice for the 1979 Canadian Grand Prix, Lauda informed Brabham that he wished to retire immediately, as he had no more desire to "drive around in circles". Lauda, who in the meantime had founded Lauda Air, a charter airline, returned to Austria to run the company full-time. CANNOTANSWER | 1979 | Andreas Nikolaus Lauda (22 February 1949 – 20 May 2019) was an Austrian Formula One driver and aviation entrepreneur. He was a three-time F1 World Drivers' Champion, winning in , and , and is the only driver in F1 history to have been champion for both Ferrari and McLaren, the sport's two most successful constructors.
As an aviation entrepreneur, he founded and ran three airlines: Lauda Air, Niki, and Lauda. He was also a consultant for Scuderia Ferrari and team manager of the Jaguar Formula One racing team for two years. Afterwards, he worked as a pundit for German TV during Grand Prix weekends and acted as non-executive chairman of Mercedes-AMG Petronas Motorsport, of which Lauda owned 10%.
Having emerged as Formula One's star driver amid a title win and leading the championship battle, Lauda was seriously injured in a crash at the 1976 German Grand Prix at the Nürburgring during which his Ferrari 312T2 burst into flames, and he came close to death after inhaling hot toxic fumes and suffering severe burns. He survived and recovered sufficiently to race again just six weeks later at the Italian Grand Prix. Although he lost that year's titleby just one pointto James Hunt, he won his second championship the year after, during his final season at Ferrari. After a couple of years at Brabham and two years' hiatus, Lauda returned and raced four seasons for McLaren between 1982 and 1985 – during which he won the title by half a point over his teammate Alain Prost.
Early years in racing
Niki Lauda was born on 22 February 1949 in Vienna, Austria, to a wealthy paper manufacturing family. His paternal grandfather was the Viennese-born industrialist Hans Lauda.
Lauda became a racing driver despite his family's disapproval. After starting out with a Mini, Lauda moved on into Formula Vee, as was normal in Central Europe, but rapidly moved up to drive in private Porsche and Chevron sports cars. With his career stalled, he took out a £30,000 bank loan, secured by a life insurance policy, to buy his way into the fledgling March team as a Formula Two (F2) driver in 1971. Because of his family's disapproval, he had an ongoing feud with them over his racing ambitions and abandoned further contact.
Lauda was quickly promoted to the F1 team, but drove for March in F1 and F2 in 1972. Although the F2 cars were good (and Lauda's driving skills impressed March principal Robin Herd), March's 1972 F1 season was catastrophic. Perhaps the lowest point of the team's season came at the Canadian Grand Prix at Mosport Park, where both March cars were disqualified within three laps of each other, just past 3/4 of the race distance. Lauda took out another bank loan to buy his way into the BRM team in 1973. Lauda was instantly quick, but the team was in decline; although the BRM P160E was quick and easy to drive it was not reliable and its engine lacked power. Lauda's star was on the rise after he ran 3rd at the Monaco Grand Prix that year, and Enzo Ferrari became interested. When his BRM teammate Clay Regazzoni left to rejoin Ferrari in 1974, team owner Enzo Ferrari asked him what he thought of Lauda. Regazzoni spoke so favourably of Lauda that Ferrari promptly signed him, paying him enough to clear his debts.
Ferrari (1974–1977)
After an unsuccessful start to the 1970s, culminating in a disastrous start to the 1973 season, Ferrari regrouped completely under Luca di Montezemolo and were resurgent in 1974. The team's faith in the little-known Lauda was quickly rewarded by a second-place finish in his debut race for the team, the season-opening Argentine Grand Prix. His first Grand Prix (GP) victory – and the first for Ferrari since 1972 – followed only three races later in the Spanish Grand Prix. Although Lauda became the season's pacesetter, achieving six consecutive pole positions, a mixture of inexperience and mechanical unreliability meant Lauda won only one more race that year, the Dutch GP. He finished fourth in the Drivers' Championship and demonstrated immense commitment to testing and improving the car.
The 1975 F1 season started slowly for Lauda; after no better than a fifth-place finish in the first four races, he won four of the next five driving the new Ferrari 312T. His first World Championship was confirmed with a third-place finish at the Italian Grand Prix at Monza; Lauda's teammate Regazzoni won the race and Ferrari clinched their first Constructors' Championship in 11 years. Lauda then picked up a fifth win at the last race of the year, the United States GP at Watkins Glen. He also became the first driver to lap the Nürburgring Nordschleife in under seven minutes, which was considered a huge feat as the Nordschleife section of the Nürburgring was two miles longer than it is today. Lauda did not win the German Grand Prix from pole position there that year; after battling hard with Patrick Depailler for the lead for the first half of the race, Lauda led for the first 9 laps but suffered a puncture at the Wippermann, 9 miles into the 10th lap and was passed by Carlos Reutemann, James Hunt, Tom Pryce and Jacques Laffite; Lauda made it back to the pits with a damaged front wing and a destroyed left front tyre. The Ferrari pit changed the destroyed tyre and Lauda managed to make it to the podium in 3rd behind Reutemann and Laffite after Hunt retired and Pryce had to slow down because of a fuel leak. Lauda was known for giving away any trophies he won to his local garage in exchange for his car to be washed and serviced.
Unlike 1975 and despite tensions between Lauda and Montezemolo's successor, Daniele Audetto, Lauda dominated the start of the 1976 F1 season, winning four of the first six races and finishing second in the other two. By the time of his fifth win of the year at the British GP, he had more than double the points of his closest challengers Jody Scheckter and James Hunt, and a second consecutive World Championship appeared a formality. It was a feat not achieved since Jack Brabham's victories in 1959 and 1960. He also looked set to win the most races in a season, a record held by the late Jim Clark since 1963.
1976 Nürburgring crash
A week before the 1976 German Grand Prix at the Nürburgring, even though he was the fastest driver on that circuit at the time, Lauda urged his fellow drivers to boycott the race, largely because of the circuit's safety arrangements, citing the organisers' lack of resources to properly manage such a huge circuit, including lack of fire marshals, fire and safety equipment and safety vehicles. Formula One was quite dangerous at the time (three of the drivers that day later died in Formula One incidents: Tom Pryce in 1977; Ronnie Peterson in 1978; and Patrick Depailler in 1980), but a majority of the drivers voted against the boycott and the race went ahead.
On 1 August 1976, during the second lap at the very fast left kink before Bergwerk, Lauda was involved in an accident where his Ferrari swerved off the track, hit an embankment, burst into flames, and made contact with Brett Lunger's Surtees-Ford car. Unlike Lunger, Lauda was trapped in the wreckage. Drivers Arturo Merzario, Lunger, Guy Edwards, and Harald Ertl arrived at the scene a few moments later, but before Merzario was able to pull Lauda from his car, he suffered severe burns to his head and inhaled hot toxic gases that damaged his lungs and blood. In an interview with BBC Radio 5 Live ("I Was There -- May 21, 2019"; "Niki Lauda speaks in 2015"), Lauda said, "...there were basically two or three drivers trying to get me out of the car, but one was Arturo Merzario, the Italian guy, who also had to stop there at the scene, because I blocked the road; and he really came into the car himself, and uh, triggered my, my seatbelt loose, and then pulled me out. It was unbelievable, how he could do that, and I met him afterwards, and I said, 'How could you do it?!'. He said, 'Honestly, I do not know, but to open your seatbelt was so difficult, because you were pushing so hard against it, and when it was open, I got you out of the car like a feather...'." As Lauda was wearing a modified helmet, it didn't fit him properly; the foam had compressed and it slid off his head after the accident, leaving his face exposed to the fire. Although Lauda was conscious and able to stand immediately after the accident, he later lapsed into a coma. While in hospital he was given the last rites, but he survived.
Lauda suffered extensive scarring from the burns to his head, losing most of his right ear as well as the hair on the right side of his head, his eyebrows, and his eyelids. He chose to limit reconstructive surgery to replacing the eyelids and getting them to work properly. After the accident he always wore a cap to cover the scars on his head. He arranged for sponsors to use the cap for advertising.
With Lauda out of the contest, Carlos Reutemann was taken on as his replacement. Ferrari boycotted the Austrian Grand Prix in protest at what they saw as preferential treatment shown towards McLaren driver James Hunt at the Spanish and British Grands Prix.
Return to racing
Lauda missed only two races, appearing at the Monza press conference six weeks after the accident with his fresh burns still bandaged. He finished fourth in the Italian GP, despite being, by his own admission, absolutely petrified. F1 journalist Nigel Roebuck recalls seeing Lauda in the pits, peeling the blood-soaked bandages off his scarred scalp. He also had to wear a specially adapted crash helmet so as not to be in too much discomfort. In Lauda's absence, Hunt had mounted a late charge to reduce Lauda's lead in the World Championship standings. Hunt and Lauda were friends away from the circuit, and their personal on-track rivalry, while intense, was cleanly contested and fair. Following wins in the Canadian and United States Grands Prix, Hunt stood only three points behind Lauda before the final race of the season, the Japanese Grand Prix.
Lauda qualified third, one place behind Hunt, but on race day there was torrential rain and Lauda retired after two laps. He later said that he felt it was unsafe to continue under these conditions, especially since his eyes were watering excessively because of his fire-damaged tear ducts and inability to blink. Hunt led much of the race before his tires blistered and a pit stop dropped him down the order. He recovered to third, thus winning the title by a single point.
Lauda's previously good relationship with Ferrari was severely affected by his decision to withdraw from the Japanese Grand Prix, and he endured a difficult 1977 season, despite easily winning the championship through consistency rather than outright pace. Lauda disliked his new teammate, Reutemann, who had served as his replacement driver. Lauda was not comfortable with this move and felt he had been let down by Ferrari. "We never could stand each other, and instead of taking pressure off me, they put on even more by bringing Carlos Reutemann into the team." Having announced his decision to quit Ferrari at season's end, Lauda left earlier after he won the Drivers' Championship at the United States Grand Prix because of the team's decision to run the unknown Gilles Villeneuve in a third car at the Canadian Grand Prix.
Brabham and first retirement (1978–1979)
Joining Parmalat-sponsored Brabham-Alfa Romeo in 1978 for a $1 million salary, Lauda endured two unsuccessful seasons, remembered mainly for his one race in the Brabham BT46B, a radical design known as the Fan Car: it won its first and only race at the Swedish GP, but Brabham did not use the car in F1 again; other teams vigorously protested the fan car's legality and Brabham team owner Bernie Ecclestone, who at the time was maneuvering for acquisition of Formula One's commercial rights, did not want to fight a protracted battle over the car, but the victory in Sweden remained official. The Brabham BT46 Alfa Romeo flat-12 began the 1978 season at the third race in South Africa. It suffered from a variety of troubles that forced Lauda to retire the car 9 out of 14 races. Lauda's best results, apart from the wins in Sweden and Italy after the penalization of Mario Andretti and Gilles Villeneuve, were 2nd in Monaco and Great Britain, and a 3rd in the Netherlands.
The Alfa flat-12 engine was too wide for ground effect designs in that the opposed cylinder banks impeded with the venturi tunnels, so Alfa designed a V12 for 1979. It was the fourth 12-cylinder engine design that propelled the Austrian in F1 since 1973. Lauda's 1979 F1 season was again marred by retirements and poor pace, even though he won the non-championship 1979 Dino Ferrari Grand Prix with the Brabham-Alfa. In the single-make BMW M1 Procar Championship, driving for the British Formula Two team Project Four Racing (led by Ron Dennis) when not in a factory entry, Lauda won three races for P4 plus the series. Decades later, Lauda won a BMW Procar exhibition race event before the 2008 German Grand Prix.
In September, Lauda finished 4th in Monza, and won the non-WC Imola event, still with the Alfa V12 engine. After that, Brabham returned to the familiar Cosworth V8. In late September, during practice for the 1979 Canadian Grand Prix, Lauda cut short a practice session and promptly informed team principal Ecclestone, that he wished to retire immediately, as he had no more desire to "continue the silliness of driving around in circles". Lauda, who in the meantime had founded Lauda Air, a charter airline, returned to Austria to run the company full-time.
McLaren comeback, third world title, and second retirement (1982–1985)
In 1982, Lauda returned to racing, for an unprecedented $3 million salary. After a successful test with McLaren, the only problem was to convince then team sponsor Marlboro that he was still capable of winning. Lauda proved he was when, in his third race back, he won the Long Beach Grand Prix. Before the opening race of the season at Kyalami race track in South Africa, Lauda was the organiser of the so-called "drivers' strike"; Lauda had seen that the new Super Licence required the drivers to commit themselves to their present teams and realised that this could hinder a driver's negotiating position. The drivers, with the exception of Teo Fabi, barricaded themselves in a banqueting suite at Sunnyside Park Hotel until they had won the day.
The 1983 season proved to be transitional for the McLaren team as they were making a change from Ford-Cosworth engines, to TAG-badged Porsche turbo engines, and Lauda did not win a race that year, with his best finish being second at Long Beach behind his teammate John Watson. Some political maneuvering by Lauda forced a furious chief designer John Barnard to design an interim car earlier than expected to get the TAG-Porsche engine some much-needed race testing; Lauda nearly won the last race of the season in South Africa.
Lauda won a third world championship in 1984 by half a point over teammate Alain Prost, due only to half points being awarded for the shortened 1984 Monaco Grand Prix. His Austrian Grand Prix victory that year is so far the only time an Austrian has won his home Grand Prix. Initially, Lauda did not want Prost to become his teammate, as he presented a much faster rival. However, during the two seasons together, they had a good relationship and Lauda later said that beating the talented Frenchman was a big motivator for him. The whole season continued to be dominated by Lauda and Prost, who won 12 of 16 races. Lauda won five races, while Prost won seven. However, Lauda, who set a record for the most pole positions in a season during the 1975 season, rarely matched his teammate in qualifying. Despite this, Lauda's championship win came in Portugal, when he had to start in eleventh place on the grid, while Prost qualified on the front row. Prost did everything he could, starting from second and winning his seventh race of the season, but Lauda's calculating drive (which included setting the fastest race lap), passing car after car, saw him finish second behind his teammate which gave him enough points to win his third title. His second place was a lucky one though as Nigel Mansell was in second for much of the race. However, as it was his last race with Lotus before joining Williams in 1985, Lotus boss Peter Warr refused to give Mansell the brakes he wanted for his car and the Englishman retired with brake failure on lap 52. As Lauda had passed the Toleman of F1 rookie Ayrton Senna for third place only a few laps earlier, Mansell's retirement elevated him to second behind Prost.
The 1985 season was a disappointment for Lauda, with eleven retirements from the fourteen races he started. He did not start the Belgian Grand Prix at Spa-Francorchamps after crashing and breaking his wrist during practice, and he later missed the European Grand Prix at Brands Hatch; John Watson replaced him for that race. He did manage fourth at the San Marino Grand Prix, 5th at the German Grand Prix, and a single race win at the Dutch Grand Prix where he held off a fast-finishing Prost late in the race. This proved to be his last Grand Prix victory, as after announcing his impending retirement at the 1985 Austrian Grand Prix, he retired for good at the end of that season.
Lauda's final Formula One Grand Prix drive was the inaugural Australian Grand Prix in Adelaide, South Australia. After qualifying 16th, a steady drive saw him leading by lap 53. However, the McLaren's ceramic brakes suffered on the street circuit and he crashed out of the lead at the end of the long Brabham Straight on lap 57 when his brakes finally failed. He was one of only two drivers in the race who had driven in the non-championship 1984 Australian Grand Prix, the other being World Champion Keke Rosberg, who won in Adelaide in 1985 and took Lauda's place at McLaren in 1986.
Helmet
Lauda's helmet was originally a plain red with his full name written on both sides and the Raiffeisen Bank logo in the chin area. He wore a modified AGV helmet in the weeks following his Nürburgring accident so as the lining would not aggravate his burned scalp too badly. In 1982, upon his return to McLaren, his helmet was white and featured the red "L" logo of Lauda Air instead of his name on both sides, complete with branding from his personal sponsor Parmalat on the top. From 1983 to 1985, the red and white were reversed to evoke memories of his earlier helmet design.
Later management roles
In 1993, Lauda returned to Formula One in a managerial position when Luca di Montezemolo offered him a consulting role at Ferrari. Halfway through the 2001 season, Lauda assumed the role of team principal of the Jaguar Formula One team. The team, however, failed to improve and Lauda was made redundant, together with 70 other key figures, at the end of 2002.
In September 2012 he was appointed non-executive chairman of the Mercedes AMG Petronas F1 Team. He took part in negotiations to sign Lewis Hamilton to a three-year deal with Mercedes in 2013.
Roles beyond Formula One
Lauda returned to running his airline, Lauda Air, on his second Formula One retirement in 1985. During his time as airline manager, he was appointed consultant at Ferrari as part of an effort by Montezemolo to rejuvenate the team. After selling his Lauda Air shares to majority partner Austrian Airlines in 1999, he managed the Jaguar Formula One racing team from 2001 to 2002. In late 2003, he started a new airline, Niki. Similar to Lauda Air, Niki was merged with its major partner Air Berlin in 2011. In early 2016, Lauda took over chartered airline Amira Air and renamed the company LaudaMotion. As a result of Air Berlin's insolvency in 2017, LaudaMotion took over the Niki brand and asset after an unsuccessful bid by Lufthansa and IAG. Lauda held a commercial pilot's licence and from time to time acted as a captain on the flights of his airline.
He was inducted into the International Motorsports Hall of Fame in 1993 and from 1996 provided commentary on Grands Prix for Austrian and German television on RTL. He was, however, criticized for calling Robert Kubica a "polack" (an ethnic slur for Polish people) on air in May 2010 at the Monaco Grand Prix.
Lauda is sometimes known by the nickname "the Rat", "SuperRat" or "King Rat" because of his prominent buck teeth. He was associated with both Parmalat and Viessmann, sponsoring the ever-present cap he wore from 1976 to hide the severe burns he sustained in his Nürburgring accident. Lauda said in a 2009 interview with the German newspaper Die Zeit that an advertiser was paying €1.2 million for the space on his red cap.
In 2005, the Austrian post office issued a stamp honouring him. In 2008, American sports television network ESPN ranked him 22nd on their "top drivers of all-time" list.
Niki Lauda wrote five books: The Art and Science of Grand Prix Driving (titled Formula 1: The Art and Technicalities of Grand Prix Driving in some markets) (1975); My Years With Ferrari (1978); The New Formula One: A Turbo Age (1984); Meine Story (titled To Hell and Back in some markets) (1986); Das dritte Leben (en. The third life) (1996). Lauda credited Austrian journalist Herbert Volker with editing the books.
Film and television
The 1976 F1 battle between Niki Lauda and James Hunt was dramatized in the film Rush (2013), where Lauda was played by Daniel Brühl—a portrayal that was nominated for a BAFTA Film Award for Best Supporting Actor. Lauda made a cameo appearance at the end of the film. Lauda said of Hunt's death, "When I heard he'd died age 45 of a heart attack I wasn't surprised, I was just sad." He also said that Hunt was one of the very few he liked, one of a smaller number of people he respected and the only person he had envied.
Lauda appeared in an episode of Mayday titled "Niki Lauda: Testing the Limits" regarding the events of Lauda Air Flight 004, and described running an airline as more difficult than winning three Formula 1 championships.
Personal life
The name of his mother is Elisabeth. Lauda had two sons with first wife the Chilean-Austrian Marlene Knaus (married 1976, divorced 1991): Mathias, a race driver himself, and Lukas, who acted as Mathias's manager. In 2008, he married Birgit Wetzinger, a flight attendant for his airline. In 2005, she donated a kidney to Lauda when the kidney he received from his brother in 1997 failed. In September 2009, Birgit gave birth to twins.
On 2 August 2018 it was announced that Lauda had successfully undergone a lung transplant operation in his native Austria.
Lauda spoke fluent Austrian German, English, and Italian.
Lauda came from a Roman Catholic family. In an interview with Zeit he stated that he left the church for a time to avoid paying church taxes, but went back when he had his two children baptised.
Death and legacy
On 20 May 2019, Lauda died in his sleep, aged 70, at the University Hospital of Zürich, where he had been undergoing dialysis treatment for kidney problems, following a period of ill health. A statement issued on behalf of his family reported that he had died peacefully, surrounded by family members.
Various current and former drivers and teams paid tributes on social media and during the Wednesday press conference session before the 2019 Monaco Grand Prix. A moment of silence was held before the race. Throughout the weekend, fans and drivers were encouraged to wear red caps in his honour, with the Mercedes team painting their halo device red with a sticker stating "Niki we miss you" instead of their usual silver scheme. His funeral, at St. Stephen's Cathedral in Vienna, was attended by many prominent Formula One figures (including Gerhard Berger, Jackie Stewart, Alain Prost, Nelson Piquet, Jean Alesi, Sebastian Vettel, Lewis Hamilton, David Coulthard, Nico Rosberg, and Valtteri Bottas), Arnold Schwarzenegger, and many Austrian politicians, including Alexander Van der Bellen among others.
The Haas VF-19's mini shark fin section of the engine cover (the top) was painted red with Lauda's name and his years of birth and death. Both Lewis Hamilton and Sebastian Vettel wore special helmets in remembrance.
Lauda is widely considered to be one of the greatest F1 drivers of all time.
Racing record
Career summary
Complete European Formula Two Championship results
(key) (Races in bold indicate pole position; races in italics indicate fastest lap)
Complete Formula One World Championship results
(key) (Races in bold indicate pole position, races in italics indicate fastest lap)
Complete Formula One non-championship results
(key) (Races in bold indicate pole position; races in italics indicate fastest lap)
Complete BMW M1 Procar Championship results
(key) (Races in bold indicate pole position; races in italics indicate fastest lap)
Other race results
24 Hours Nürburgring: 1st,1973
1000 km of Spa Francorchamps: 1st,1973
4 hours of Monza: 1st,1973
4 hours of Zandvoort: 1st,1974, 3rd,1972
Diepholz SRP/GT: 1st,1970
6 hours of Nurbugring: 2nd,1971
9 hours of Kyalami: 3rd,1972
Taurenpokal Salzburgring: 1st,1971
Books
AKA For the Record: My Years with Ferrari (British edition).
See also
History of Formula One
Hunt–Lauda rivalry
Lauda Air Italy
Sport in Austria
References
External links
1949 births
2019 deaths
A1 Grand Prix team owners
Austrian aviators
Austrian expatriates in Spain
Austrian Formula One drivers
Austrian racing drivers
Austrian Roman Catholics
Austrian motorsport people
BBC Sports Personality World Sport Star of the Year winners
Brabham Formula One drivers
BRDC Gold Star winners
BRM Formula One drivers
Chief executives in the airline industry
Commercial aviators
European Formula Two Championship drivers
Ferrari Formula One drivers
Ferrari people
Formula One World Drivers' Champions
Formula One race winners
International Motorsports Hall of Fame inductees
International Race of Champions drivers
Kidney transplant recipients
March Formula One drivers
McLaren Formula One drivers
Sportspeople from Vienna
World Sportscar Championship drivers
Lauda family
Airline founders
Jaguar in Formula One
Mercedes-Benz in Formula One
Niki Lauda | true | [
"The 2003 Insurrextion was the fourth annual and final Insurrextion professional wrestling pay-per-view (PPV) event produced by the American promotion, World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE). It was held exclusively for wrestlers from the promotion's Raw brand division. The event took place on June 7, 2003, at the Telewest Arena in Newcastle, England and was broadcast exclusively in the United Kingdom. It was the first Insurrextion produced under the WWE name, as the promotion was renamed from World Wrestling Federation (WWF) to WWE just two days after the previous year's event. Insurrextion was discontinued after this 2003 event due to the promotion's discontinuation of UK-exclusive PPVs after this event. Following this event, WWE did not produce another pay-per-view outside of North America until 2018 with that year's Greatest Royal Rumble, which was held in Saudi Arabia.\n\nProduction\n\nBackground\nInsurrextion was an annual United Kingdom-exclusive pay-per-view (PPV) produced by the American professional wrestling promotion, World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE), since 2000. The 2003 event was the fourth event in the Insurrextion chronology and was held on June 7 at the Telewest Arena in Newcastle, England. Like the previous year, it featured wrestlers exclusively from the Raw brand. It was also the first Insurrextion produced under the WWE name, as the company was renamed from World Wrestling Federation (WWF) to WWE just two days after the previous year's event.\n\nStorylines\nThe event featured nine professional wrestling matches and two pre-show matches that involved different wrestlers from pre-existing scripted feuds and storylines. Wrestlers portrayed villains, heroes, or less distinguishable characters in the scripted events that built tension and culminated in a wrestling match or series of matches.\n\nAftermath\nThe 2003 Insurrextion would be the final Insurrextion event, as WWE discontinued UK-exclusive PPVs after this event as the company began to broadcast Raw and SmackDown! from the UK in 2004. WWE would not hold another PPV outside of North America until the Greatest Royal Rumble in April 2018, which was held in Saudi Arabia, which was the first of a series of PPVs held in that country.\n\nResults\n\nOther on-screen talent\n\nSee also\n\nProfessional wrestling in the United Kingdom\n\nReferences\n\n2003 WWE pay-per-view events\n2003 in England\nEvents in England\nProfessional wrestling in England\nWWE Insurrextion\nJune 2003 events in the United Kingdom\nWWE Raw",
"Fata Morgana was a Flemish television show which ran for five series between 2004 and 2008. It could be classified as a game show, though there were no prizes to be won.\n\nEach episode, a local celebrity would issue a series of five themed challenges to a particular town or city, usually tasks which required a great deal of manpower and creativity. The inhabitants of the competing town or city had roughly six days to complete these task, ending in an event on Saturday afternoon where their efforts were judged, and symbolic \"gold stars\" were awarded for each task successfully completed. Both this event and the preparations during the week were taped and broadcast the following Sunday evening, with the next challenge presented at the end of the programme.\n\nChallenges included breaking world records, assembling masses in a particular style of fancy dress, building scale replicas of monuments, and retrieving items from foreign countries or outer space.\n\nThe first series was presented by Geena Lisa and Sergio. The latter left the program in 2007 and was replaced by Steph Goossens for the final two series.\n\nExternal links \n \n\nFlemish television shows\n2000s Belgian game shows\n2004 Belgian television series debuts\n2008 Belgian television series endings\n2000s Belgian television series"
]
|
[
"Niki Lauda",
"Brabham and first retirement (1978-1979)",
"When did he first retire?",
"It suffered from a variety of troubles that forced Lauda to retire the car 9 out of 14 races.",
"Which series of races or tournament was he competing when this happened?",
"Brabham-Alfa Romeo in 1978 for a $1 million salary, Lauda endured two unsuccessful seasons, notable mainly for his one race in the Brabham BT46B,",
"What type of vehicle did he drive during that race?",
"Brabham BT46B, a radical design known as the Fan Car:",
"What was his racing record like during this time?",
"Lauda's best results, apart from the wins in Sweden and Italy after the penalization of Mario Andretti and Gilles Villeneuve, were 2nd in Montreal and Great Britain,",
"How long did he stay in retirement?",
"I don't know.",
"Are there any other interesting aspects about this article?",
"In September, Lauda finished 4th in Monza, and won the non-WC Imola event, still with the Alfa V12 engine.",
"Which year was this particular event, 78 or 79?",
"1979"
]
| C_8dd79d4ac5674ad3ba1e016103b23fca_0 | Did he compete in any other races this season not mentioned? | 8 | Besides the Imola event, did Niki Lauda compete in any other races in 1979 not mentioned? | Niki Lauda | Having joined Parmalat-sponsored Brabham-Alfa Romeo in 1978 for a $1 million salary, Lauda endured two unsuccessful seasons, notable mainly for his one race in the Brabham BT46B, a radical design known as the Fan Car: it won its first and only race at the Swedish GP, but Brabham did not use the car in F1 again; other teams vigorously protested the fan car's legality and Brabham team owner Bernie Ecclestone, who at the time was maneuvering for acquisition of Formula One's commercial rights, did not want to fight a protracted battle over the car, but the victory in Sweden remained official. The Brabham BT46 Alfa Romeo flat-12 began the 1978 season at the third race in South Africa. It suffered from a variety of troubles that forced Lauda to retire the car 9 out of 14 races. Lauda's best results, apart from the wins in Sweden and Italy after the penalization of Mario Andretti and Gilles Villeneuve, were 2nd in Montreal and Great Britain, and a 3rd in the Netherlands. As the Alfa flat-12 engine was too wide for effective wing cars designs, Alfa provided a V12 for 1979. It was the fourth 12cyl engine design that propelled the Austrian in F1 since 1973. Lauda's 1979 F1 season was again marred by retirements and poor pace, even though he won the non-championship 1979 Dino Ferrari Grand Prix with the Brabham-Alfa. In the single make BMW M1 Procar Championship, driving for the British Formula Two team Project Four Racing (led by Ron Dennis) when not in a factory entry, Lauda won three races for P4 plus the series. Decades later, Lauda won a BMW Procar exhibition race event before the 2008 German Grand Prix. In September, Lauda finished 4th in Monza, and won the non-WC Imola event, still with the Alfa V12 engine. After that, Brabham returned to the familiar Cosworth V8. In late September, during practice for the 1979 Canadian Grand Prix, Lauda informed Brabham that he wished to retire immediately, as he had no more desire to "drive around in circles". Lauda, who in the meantime had founded Lauda Air, a charter airline, returned to Austria to run the company full-time. CANNOTANSWER | Lauda informed Brabham that he wished to retire immediately, as he had no more desire to "drive around in circles | Andreas Nikolaus Lauda (22 February 1949 – 20 May 2019) was an Austrian Formula One driver and aviation entrepreneur. He was a three-time F1 World Drivers' Champion, winning in , and , and is the only driver in F1 history to have been champion for both Ferrari and McLaren, the sport's two most successful constructors.
As an aviation entrepreneur, he founded and ran three airlines: Lauda Air, Niki, and Lauda. He was also a consultant for Scuderia Ferrari and team manager of the Jaguar Formula One racing team for two years. Afterwards, he worked as a pundit for German TV during Grand Prix weekends and acted as non-executive chairman of Mercedes-AMG Petronas Motorsport, of which Lauda owned 10%.
Having emerged as Formula One's star driver amid a title win and leading the championship battle, Lauda was seriously injured in a crash at the 1976 German Grand Prix at the Nürburgring during which his Ferrari 312T2 burst into flames, and he came close to death after inhaling hot toxic fumes and suffering severe burns. He survived and recovered sufficiently to race again just six weeks later at the Italian Grand Prix. Although he lost that year's titleby just one pointto James Hunt, he won his second championship the year after, during his final season at Ferrari. After a couple of years at Brabham and two years' hiatus, Lauda returned and raced four seasons for McLaren between 1982 and 1985 – during which he won the title by half a point over his teammate Alain Prost.
Early years in racing
Niki Lauda was born on 22 February 1949 in Vienna, Austria, to a wealthy paper manufacturing family. His paternal grandfather was the Viennese-born industrialist Hans Lauda.
Lauda became a racing driver despite his family's disapproval. After starting out with a Mini, Lauda moved on into Formula Vee, as was normal in Central Europe, but rapidly moved up to drive in private Porsche and Chevron sports cars. With his career stalled, he took out a £30,000 bank loan, secured by a life insurance policy, to buy his way into the fledgling March team as a Formula Two (F2) driver in 1971. Because of his family's disapproval, he had an ongoing feud with them over his racing ambitions and abandoned further contact.
Lauda was quickly promoted to the F1 team, but drove for March in F1 and F2 in 1972. Although the F2 cars were good (and Lauda's driving skills impressed March principal Robin Herd), March's 1972 F1 season was catastrophic. Perhaps the lowest point of the team's season came at the Canadian Grand Prix at Mosport Park, where both March cars were disqualified within three laps of each other, just past 3/4 of the race distance. Lauda took out another bank loan to buy his way into the BRM team in 1973. Lauda was instantly quick, but the team was in decline; although the BRM P160E was quick and easy to drive it was not reliable and its engine lacked power. Lauda's star was on the rise after he ran 3rd at the Monaco Grand Prix that year, and Enzo Ferrari became interested. When his BRM teammate Clay Regazzoni left to rejoin Ferrari in 1974, team owner Enzo Ferrari asked him what he thought of Lauda. Regazzoni spoke so favourably of Lauda that Ferrari promptly signed him, paying him enough to clear his debts.
Ferrari (1974–1977)
After an unsuccessful start to the 1970s, culminating in a disastrous start to the 1973 season, Ferrari regrouped completely under Luca di Montezemolo and were resurgent in 1974. The team's faith in the little-known Lauda was quickly rewarded by a second-place finish in his debut race for the team, the season-opening Argentine Grand Prix. His first Grand Prix (GP) victory – and the first for Ferrari since 1972 – followed only three races later in the Spanish Grand Prix. Although Lauda became the season's pacesetter, achieving six consecutive pole positions, a mixture of inexperience and mechanical unreliability meant Lauda won only one more race that year, the Dutch GP. He finished fourth in the Drivers' Championship and demonstrated immense commitment to testing and improving the car.
The 1975 F1 season started slowly for Lauda; after no better than a fifth-place finish in the first four races, he won four of the next five driving the new Ferrari 312T. His first World Championship was confirmed with a third-place finish at the Italian Grand Prix at Monza; Lauda's teammate Regazzoni won the race and Ferrari clinched their first Constructors' Championship in 11 years. Lauda then picked up a fifth win at the last race of the year, the United States GP at Watkins Glen. He also became the first driver to lap the Nürburgring Nordschleife in under seven minutes, which was considered a huge feat as the Nordschleife section of the Nürburgring was two miles longer than it is today. Lauda did not win the German Grand Prix from pole position there that year; after battling hard with Patrick Depailler for the lead for the first half of the race, Lauda led for the first 9 laps but suffered a puncture at the Wippermann, 9 miles into the 10th lap and was passed by Carlos Reutemann, James Hunt, Tom Pryce and Jacques Laffite; Lauda made it back to the pits with a damaged front wing and a destroyed left front tyre. The Ferrari pit changed the destroyed tyre and Lauda managed to make it to the podium in 3rd behind Reutemann and Laffite after Hunt retired and Pryce had to slow down because of a fuel leak. Lauda was known for giving away any trophies he won to his local garage in exchange for his car to be washed and serviced.
Unlike 1975 and despite tensions between Lauda and Montezemolo's successor, Daniele Audetto, Lauda dominated the start of the 1976 F1 season, winning four of the first six races and finishing second in the other two. By the time of his fifth win of the year at the British GP, he had more than double the points of his closest challengers Jody Scheckter and James Hunt, and a second consecutive World Championship appeared a formality. It was a feat not achieved since Jack Brabham's victories in 1959 and 1960. He also looked set to win the most races in a season, a record held by the late Jim Clark since 1963.
1976 Nürburgring crash
A week before the 1976 German Grand Prix at the Nürburgring, even though he was the fastest driver on that circuit at the time, Lauda urged his fellow drivers to boycott the race, largely because of the circuit's safety arrangements, citing the organisers' lack of resources to properly manage such a huge circuit, including lack of fire marshals, fire and safety equipment and safety vehicles. Formula One was quite dangerous at the time (three of the drivers that day later died in Formula One incidents: Tom Pryce in 1977; Ronnie Peterson in 1978; and Patrick Depailler in 1980), but a majority of the drivers voted against the boycott and the race went ahead.
On 1 August 1976, during the second lap at the very fast left kink before Bergwerk, Lauda was involved in an accident where his Ferrari swerved off the track, hit an embankment, burst into flames, and made contact with Brett Lunger's Surtees-Ford car. Unlike Lunger, Lauda was trapped in the wreckage. Drivers Arturo Merzario, Lunger, Guy Edwards, and Harald Ertl arrived at the scene a few moments later, but before Merzario was able to pull Lauda from his car, he suffered severe burns to his head and inhaled hot toxic gases that damaged his lungs and blood. In an interview with BBC Radio 5 Live ("I Was There -- May 21, 2019"; "Niki Lauda speaks in 2015"), Lauda said, "...there were basically two or three drivers trying to get me out of the car, but one was Arturo Merzario, the Italian guy, who also had to stop there at the scene, because I blocked the road; and he really came into the car himself, and uh, triggered my, my seatbelt loose, and then pulled me out. It was unbelievable, how he could do that, and I met him afterwards, and I said, 'How could you do it?!'. He said, 'Honestly, I do not know, but to open your seatbelt was so difficult, because you were pushing so hard against it, and when it was open, I got you out of the car like a feather...'." As Lauda was wearing a modified helmet, it didn't fit him properly; the foam had compressed and it slid off his head after the accident, leaving his face exposed to the fire. Although Lauda was conscious and able to stand immediately after the accident, he later lapsed into a coma. While in hospital he was given the last rites, but he survived.
Lauda suffered extensive scarring from the burns to his head, losing most of his right ear as well as the hair on the right side of his head, his eyebrows, and his eyelids. He chose to limit reconstructive surgery to replacing the eyelids and getting them to work properly. After the accident he always wore a cap to cover the scars on his head. He arranged for sponsors to use the cap for advertising.
With Lauda out of the contest, Carlos Reutemann was taken on as his replacement. Ferrari boycotted the Austrian Grand Prix in protest at what they saw as preferential treatment shown towards McLaren driver James Hunt at the Spanish and British Grands Prix.
Return to racing
Lauda missed only two races, appearing at the Monza press conference six weeks after the accident with his fresh burns still bandaged. He finished fourth in the Italian GP, despite being, by his own admission, absolutely petrified. F1 journalist Nigel Roebuck recalls seeing Lauda in the pits, peeling the blood-soaked bandages off his scarred scalp. He also had to wear a specially adapted crash helmet so as not to be in too much discomfort. In Lauda's absence, Hunt had mounted a late charge to reduce Lauda's lead in the World Championship standings. Hunt and Lauda were friends away from the circuit, and their personal on-track rivalry, while intense, was cleanly contested and fair. Following wins in the Canadian and United States Grands Prix, Hunt stood only three points behind Lauda before the final race of the season, the Japanese Grand Prix.
Lauda qualified third, one place behind Hunt, but on race day there was torrential rain and Lauda retired after two laps. He later said that he felt it was unsafe to continue under these conditions, especially since his eyes were watering excessively because of his fire-damaged tear ducts and inability to blink. Hunt led much of the race before his tires blistered and a pit stop dropped him down the order. He recovered to third, thus winning the title by a single point.
Lauda's previously good relationship with Ferrari was severely affected by his decision to withdraw from the Japanese Grand Prix, and he endured a difficult 1977 season, despite easily winning the championship through consistency rather than outright pace. Lauda disliked his new teammate, Reutemann, who had served as his replacement driver. Lauda was not comfortable with this move and felt he had been let down by Ferrari. "We never could stand each other, and instead of taking pressure off me, they put on even more by bringing Carlos Reutemann into the team." Having announced his decision to quit Ferrari at season's end, Lauda left earlier after he won the Drivers' Championship at the United States Grand Prix because of the team's decision to run the unknown Gilles Villeneuve in a third car at the Canadian Grand Prix.
Brabham and first retirement (1978–1979)
Joining Parmalat-sponsored Brabham-Alfa Romeo in 1978 for a $1 million salary, Lauda endured two unsuccessful seasons, remembered mainly for his one race in the Brabham BT46B, a radical design known as the Fan Car: it won its first and only race at the Swedish GP, but Brabham did not use the car in F1 again; other teams vigorously protested the fan car's legality and Brabham team owner Bernie Ecclestone, who at the time was maneuvering for acquisition of Formula One's commercial rights, did not want to fight a protracted battle over the car, but the victory in Sweden remained official. The Brabham BT46 Alfa Romeo flat-12 began the 1978 season at the third race in South Africa. It suffered from a variety of troubles that forced Lauda to retire the car 9 out of 14 races. Lauda's best results, apart from the wins in Sweden and Italy after the penalization of Mario Andretti and Gilles Villeneuve, were 2nd in Monaco and Great Britain, and a 3rd in the Netherlands.
The Alfa flat-12 engine was too wide for ground effect designs in that the opposed cylinder banks impeded with the venturi tunnels, so Alfa designed a V12 for 1979. It was the fourth 12-cylinder engine design that propelled the Austrian in F1 since 1973. Lauda's 1979 F1 season was again marred by retirements and poor pace, even though he won the non-championship 1979 Dino Ferrari Grand Prix with the Brabham-Alfa. In the single-make BMW M1 Procar Championship, driving for the British Formula Two team Project Four Racing (led by Ron Dennis) when not in a factory entry, Lauda won three races for P4 plus the series. Decades later, Lauda won a BMW Procar exhibition race event before the 2008 German Grand Prix.
In September, Lauda finished 4th in Monza, and won the non-WC Imola event, still with the Alfa V12 engine. After that, Brabham returned to the familiar Cosworth V8. In late September, during practice for the 1979 Canadian Grand Prix, Lauda cut short a practice session and promptly informed team principal Ecclestone, that he wished to retire immediately, as he had no more desire to "continue the silliness of driving around in circles". Lauda, who in the meantime had founded Lauda Air, a charter airline, returned to Austria to run the company full-time.
McLaren comeback, third world title, and second retirement (1982–1985)
In 1982, Lauda returned to racing, for an unprecedented $3 million salary. After a successful test with McLaren, the only problem was to convince then team sponsor Marlboro that he was still capable of winning. Lauda proved he was when, in his third race back, he won the Long Beach Grand Prix. Before the opening race of the season at Kyalami race track in South Africa, Lauda was the organiser of the so-called "drivers' strike"; Lauda had seen that the new Super Licence required the drivers to commit themselves to their present teams and realised that this could hinder a driver's negotiating position. The drivers, with the exception of Teo Fabi, barricaded themselves in a banqueting suite at Sunnyside Park Hotel until they had won the day.
The 1983 season proved to be transitional for the McLaren team as they were making a change from Ford-Cosworth engines, to TAG-badged Porsche turbo engines, and Lauda did not win a race that year, with his best finish being second at Long Beach behind his teammate John Watson. Some political maneuvering by Lauda forced a furious chief designer John Barnard to design an interim car earlier than expected to get the TAG-Porsche engine some much-needed race testing; Lauda nearly won the last race of the season in South Africa.
Lauda won a third world championship in 1984 by half a point over teammate Alain Prost, due only to half points being awarded for the shortened 1984 Monaco Grand Prix. His Austrian Grand Prix victory that year is so far the only time an Austrian has won his home Grand Prix. Initially, Lauda did not want Prost to become his teammate, as he presented a much faster rival. However, during the two seasons together, they had a good relationship and Lauda later said that beating the talented Frenchman was a big motivator for him. The whole season continued to be dominated by Lauda and Prost, who won 12 of 16 races. Lauda won five races, while Prost won seven. However, Lauda, who set a record for the most pole positions in a season during the 1975 season, rarely matched his teammate in qualifying. Despite this, Lauda's championship win came in Portugal, when he had to start in eleventh place on the grid, while Prost qualified on the front row. Prost did everything he could, starting from second and winning his seventh race of the season, but Lauda's calculating drive (which included setting the fastest race lap), passing car after car, saw him finish second behind his teammate which gave him enough points to win his third title. His second place was a lucky one though as Nigel Mansell was in second for much of the race. However, as it was his last race with Lotus before joining Williams in 1985, Lotus boss Peter Warr refused to give Mansell the brakes he wanted for his car and the Englishman retired with brake failure on lap 52. As Lauda had passed the Toleman of F1 rookie Ayrton Senna for third place only a few laps earlier, Mansell's retirement elevated him to second behind Prost.
The 1985 season was a disappointment for Lauda, with eleven retirements from the fourteen races he started. He did not start the Belgian Grand Prix at Spa-Francorchamps after crashing and breaking his wrist during practice, and he later missed the European Grand Prix at Brands Hatch; John Watson replaced him for that race. He did manage fourth at the San Marino Grand Prix, 5th at the German Grand Prix, and a single race win at the Dutch Grand Prix where he held off a fast-finishing Prost late in the race. This proved to be his last Grand Prix victory, as after announcing his impending retirement at the 1985 Austrian Grand Prix, he retired for good at the end of that season.
Lauda's final Formula One Grand Prix drive was the inaugural Australian Grand Prix in Adelaide, South Australia. After qualifying 16th, a steady drive saw him leading by lap 53. However, the McLaren's ceramic brakes suffered on the street circuit and he crashed out of the lead at the end of the long Brabham Straight on lap 57 when his brakes finally failed. He was one of only two drivers in the race who had driven in the non-championship 1984 Australian Grand Prix, the other being World Champion Keke Rosberg, who won in Adelaide in 1985 and took Lauda's place at McLaren in 1986.
Helmet
Lauda's helmet was originally a plain red with his full name written on both sides and the Raiffeisen Bank logo in the chin area. He wore a modified AGV helmet in the weeks following his Nürburgring accident so as the lining would not aggravate his burned scalp too badly. In 1982, upon his return to McLaren, his helmet was white and featured the red "L" logo of Lauda Air instead of his name on both sides, complete with branding from his personal sponsor Parmalat on the top. From 1983 to 1985, the red and white were reversed to evoke memories of his earlier helmet design.
Later management roles
In 1993, Lauda returned to Formula One in a managerial position when Luca di Montezemolo offered him a consulting role at Ferrari. Halfway through the 2001 season, Lauda assumed the role of team principal of the Jaguar Formula One team. The team, however, failed to improve and Lauda was made redundant, together with 70 other key figures, at the end of 2002.
In September 2012 he was appointed non-executive chairman of the Mercedes AMG Petronas F1 Team. He took part in negotiations to sign Lewis Hamilton to a three-year deal with Mercedes in 2013.
Roles beyond Formula One
Lauda returned to running his airline, Lauda Air, on his second Formula One retirement in 1985. During his time as airline manager, he was appointed consultant at Ferrari as part of an effort by Montezemolo to rejuvenate the team. After selling his Lauda Air shares to majority partner Austrian Airlines in 1999, he managed the Jaguar Formula One racing team from 2001 to 2002. In late 2003, he started a new airline, Niki. Similar to Lauda Air, Niki was merged with its major partner Air Berlin in 2011. In early 2016, Lauda took over chartered airline Amira Air and renamed the company LaudaMotion. As a result of Air Berlin's insolvency in 2017, LaudaMotion took over the Niki brand and asset after an unsuccessful bid by Lufthansa and IAG. Lauda held a commercial pilot's licence and from time to time acted as a captain on the flights of his airline.
He was inducted into the International Motorsports Hall of Fame in 1993 and from 1996 provided commentary on Grands Prix for Austrian and German television on RTL. He was, however, criticized for calling Robert Kubica a "polack" (an ethnic slur for Polish people) on air in May 2010 at the Monaco Grand Prix.
Lauda is sometimes known by the nickname "the Rat", "SuperRat" or "King Rat" because of his prominent buck teeth. He was associated with both Parmalat and Viessmann, sponsoring the ever-present cap he wore from 1976 to hide the severe burns he sustained in his Nürburgring accident. Lauda said in a 2009 interview with the German newspaper Die Zeit that an advertiser was paying €1.2 million for the space on his red cap.
In 2005, the Austrian post office issued a stamp honouring him. In 2008, American sports television network ESPN ranked him 22nd on their "top drivers of all-time" list.
Niki Lauda wrote five books: The Art and Science of Grand Prix Driving (titled Formula 1: The Art and Technicalities of Grand Prix Driving in some markets) (1975); My Years With Ferrari (1978); The New Formula One: A Turbo Age (1984); Meine Story (titled To Hell and Back in some markets) (1986); Das dritte Leben (en. The third life) (1996). Lauda credited Austrian journalist Herbert Volker with editing the books.
Film and television
The 1976 F1 battle between Niki Lauda and James Hunt was dramatized in the film Rush (2013), where Lauda was played by Daniel Brühl—a portrayal that was nominated for a BAFTA Film Award for Best Supporting Actor. Lauda made a cameo appearance at the end of the film. Lauda said of Hunt's death, "When I heard he'd died age 45 of a heart attack I wasn't surprised, I was just sad." He also said that Hunt was one of the very few he liked, one of a smaller number of people he respected and the only person he had envied.
Lauda appeared in an episode of Mayday titled "Niki Lauda: Testing the Limits" regarding the events of Lauda Air Flight 004, and described running an airline as more difficult than winning three Formula 1 championships.
Personal life
The name of his mother is Elisabeth. Lauda had two sons with first wife the Chilean-Austrian Marlene Knaus (married 1976, divorced 1991): Mathias, a race driver himself, and Lukas, who acted as Mathias's manager. In 2008, he married Birgit Wetzinger, a flight attendant for his airline. In 2005, she donated a kidney to Lauda when the kidney he received from his brother in 1997 failed. In September 2009, Birgit gave birth to twins.
On 2 August 2018 it was announced that Lauda had successfully undergone a lung transplant operation in his native Austria.
Lauda spoke fluent Austrian German, English, and Italian.
Lauda came from a Roman Catholic family. In an interview with Zeit he stated that he left the church for a time to avoid paying church taxes, but went back when he had his two children baptised.
Death and legacy
On 20 May 2019, Lauda died in his sleep, aged 70, at the University Hospital of Zürich, where he had been undergoing dialysis treatment for kidney problems, following a period of ill health. A statement issued on behalf of his family reported that he had died peacefully, surrounded by family members.
Various current and former drivers and teams paid tributes on social media and during the Wednesday press conference session before the 2019 Monaco Grand Prix. A moment of silence was held before the race. Throughout the weekend, fans and drivers were encouraged to wear red caps in his honour, with the Mercedes team painting their halo device red with a sticker stating "Niki we miss you" instead of their usual silver scheme. His funeral, at St. Stephen's Cathedral in Vienna, was attended by many prominent Formula One figures (including Gerhard Berger, Jackie Stewart, Alain Prost, Nelson Piquet, Jean Alesi, Sebastian Vettel, Lewis Hamilton, David Coulthard, Nico Rosberg, and Valtteri Bottas), Arnold Schwarzenegger, and many Austrian politicians, including Alexander Van der Bellen among others.
The Haas VF-19's mini shark fin section of the engine cover (the top) was painted red with Lauda's name and his years of birth and death. Both Lewis Hamilton and Sebastian Vettel wore special helmets in remembrance.
Lauda is widely considered to be one of the greatest F1 drivers of all time.
Racing record
Career summary
Complete European Formula Two Championship results
(key) (Races in bold indicate pole position; races in italics indicate fastest lap)
Complete Formula One World Championship results
(key) (Races in bold indicate pole position, races in italics indicate fastest lap)
Complete Formula One non-championship results
(key) (Races in bold indicate pole position; races in italics indicate fastest lap)
Complete BMW M1 Procar Championship results
(key) (Races in bold indicate pole position; races in italics indicate fastest lap)
Other race results
24 Hours Nürburgring: 1st,1973
1000 km of Spa Francorchamps: 1st,1973
4 hours of Monza: 1st,1973
4 hours of Zandvoort: 1st,1974, 3rd,1972
Diepholz SRP/GT: 1st,1970
6 hours of Nurbugring: 2nd,1971
9 hours of Kyalami: 3rd,1972
Taurenpokal Salzburgring: 1st,1971
Books
AKA For the Record: My Years with Ferrari (British edition).
See also
History of Formula One
Hunt–Lauda rivalry
Lauda Air Italy
Sport in Austria
References
External links
1949 births
2019 deaths
A1 Grand Prix team owners
Austrian aviators
Austrian expatriates in Spain
Austrian Formula One drivers
Austrian racing drivers
Austrian Roman Catholics
Austrian motorsport people
BBC Sports Personality World Sport Star of the Year winners
Brabham Formula One drivers
BRDC Gold Star winners
BRM Formula One drivers
Chief executives in the airline industry
Commercial aviators
European Formula Two Championship drivers
Ferrari Formula One drivers
Ferrari people
Formula One World Drivers' Champions
Formula One race winners
International Motorsports Hall of Fame inductees
International Race of Champions drivers
Kidney transplant recipients
March Formula One drivers
McLaren Formula One drivers
Sportspeople from Vienna
World Sportscar Championship drivers
Lauda family
Airline founders
Jaguar in Formula One
Mercedes-Benz in Formula One
Niki Lauda | false | [
"The 2010 FIA European Touring Car Cup was the sixth running of the FIA European Touring Car Cup. The cup was expanded to three events for 2010, unlike in previous years where it was a one-off event. The season began at Braga on 28 March, and finished at Franciacorta on 17 October. Each event included two races of in length, making a total of six rounds awarding points. Three FIA cups were awarded at the end of the season, one per each of the eligible categories: Super 2000, Super 1600 and Super Production. 100,000 euro prize money was awarded at each of the four race meetings: 65,000 euros to Super 2000, 25,000 to Super 1600 and 10,000 to Super Production.\n\nIn the top Super 2000 class, despite pressure from Michel Nykjær – who won each of the four races he contested at the Salzburgring and Franciacorta – in a SEAT León TDI, Hartmann Honda Racing's James Thompson finished as the class winner, with six top-three finishes in the season's six races, taking a victory in Braga en route to a four-point title win. César Campaniço was the other race winner at Braga, in a one-off outing in the Cup. Super Production was poorly supported with only Vojislav Lekić, Fabio Fabiani and Marcis Birkens competing in any of the races. Lekić won the four races he contested, ahead of Fabiani while Birkens suffered a retirement and a DNS in Braga. Carsten Seifert won the Super 1600 title, with six top-two finishes including three wins, and won the class by ten points from Jens Löhnig, who took the other three wins during the season.\n\nTeams and drivers\n\n1 Despite being on the Salzburgring entry list, Čolak did not compete at the meeting.\n\n2 Despite being listed on the FIA ETCC website, Carvalho did not attend any of the meetings.\n\n3 Although he was present at the Salzburgring meeting, Mayer did not take part. Instead he chose to focus on the ADAC Procar championship round which was held at the same event.\n\nRace calendar and results\n\nChampionship standings\n\nSuper 2000\n\nSuper Production\n\nSuper 1600\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\nOfficial website of the FIA European Touring Car Cup\n\nEuropean Touring Car Cup\nEuropean Touring Car Cup\n2010 in European sport",
"Dominick Casola (born August 17, 1987) is an American professional stock car racing driver who most recently competed in what is now the ARCA Menards Series in 2013. He drove in ARCA for a total of four seasons full or part-time. He also ran two races in the NASCAR Truck Series, and made one attempt in the Nationwide Series (now Xfinity) in 2008.\n\nRacing career\nCasola started out racing in local Saturday night short track races, winning races and championships along the way. He eventually reached the Hooters X-1R Pro Cup Series, which he competed in part-time for a single season in 2006 (in his family's No. 02 car). He could not get behind the wheel of a stock car until age seventeen because of New Jersey state regulations. Despite this, he worked at sending resumes to many ARCA and NASCAR teams.\n\nHe got a chance to compete in ARCA full-time and for rookie of the year in 2007, driving the No. 1 Ford for Andy Belmont's team and sponsored by his family's business A. Casola Farms. He only missed one race that season, the season-opener at Daytona, with his car owner Belmont in the car for that race (which he failed to qualify for), presumably because Casola had never competed on a plate track before meaning he would not be approved to race. Finishing the season thirteenth in points, Casola got three top-10 finishes as well as two top-5's, which were a fifth at Gateway and a third at Talladega.\n\nFor the 2008 season, he joined Win-Tron Racing to drive their No. 32 Dodge part-time, sharing this car with Andy Hanson, Chris Wimmer, James Buescher, Matt Merrell, and Bradley Riethmeyer. He ran the first six races of the season, before then only competing in both races at his home track of Pocono as well as Berlin. He earned his first top-10 of the season at the first of the two Pocono races.\n\nIn 2010, Casola made his debut in the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series, driving the No. 00 Chevrolet Silverado for Daisy Ramirez Motorsports at Talladega. Since he was a late entry for the race, he received zero points. This was his only start in any NASCAR series that year. He started 35th and finished 28th in the race.\n\nCasola did not race in any series in 2011, and believed that his career was over at that point. However, in August 2012, driver Roger Carter, owner of the Carter 2 Motorsports team in the ARCA Series, called Casola to drive for his team when the normal driver of his car (Larry Barford Jr.) parted ways with them and he needed a new driver. His first and only race for C2M that year came at the dirt race at Springfield, where he started and finished 26th in the No. 04 Dodge. He returned to the team in the No. 40 for a part-time schedule in 2013, splitting time in that car with Galen Hassler, Nick Tucker, Mark Meunier, Cody Lane, Korbin Forrister, Justin Lloyd, Joseph Hughs, and David Sear. Casola ran six races, which included both races at Pocono again as well as his other home track of New Jersey Motorsports Park. His best finish was a 16th at Chicago. The other two races he ran were Road America and DuQuoin. On top of that, he returned to the Truck Series that year in their race at Pocono, driving the No. 28 for FDNY Racing.\n\nAlthough he has not made any stock-car starts since the 2013 season, Casola, as recently as 2018, continues to occasionally compete in local late model races, including at Wall Stadium, according to his Facebook page.\n\nMotorsports career results\n\nNASCAR\n(key) (Bold – Pole position awarded by qualifying time. Italics – Pole position earned by points standings or practice time. * – Most laps led.)\n\nNationwide Series\n\n Season still in progress\n Ineligible for series points\n\nCamping World Truck Series\n\nCamping World East Series\n\nARCA Racing Series\n(key) (Bold – Pole position awarded by qualifying time. Italics – Pole position earned by points standings or practice time. * – Most laps led.)\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n \n\n1987 births\nNASCAR drivers\nARCA Menards Series drivers\nLiving people\nRacing drivers from New Jersey\nPeople from Holmdel Township, New Jersey\nCARS Tour drivers"
]
|
[
"Niki Lauda",
"Brabham and first retirement (1978-1979)",
"When did he first retire?",
"It suffered from a variety of troubles that forced Lauda to retire the car 9 out of 14 races.",
"Which series of races or tournament was he competing when this happened?",
"Brabham-Alfa Romeo in 1978 for a $1 million salary, Lauda endured two unsuccessful seasons, notable mainly for his one race in the Brabham BT46B,",
"What type of vehicle did he drive during that race?",
"Brabham BT46B, a radical design known as the Fan Car:",
"What was his racing record like during this time?",
"Lauda's best results, apart from the wins in Sweden and Italy after the penalization of Mario Andretti and Gilles Villeneuve, were 2nd in Montreal and Great Britain,",
"How long did he stay in retirement?",
"I don't know.",
"Are there any other interesting aspects about this article?",
"In September, Lauda finished 4th in Monza, and won the non-WC Imola event, still with the Alfa V12 engine.",
"Which year was this particular event, 78 or 79?",
"1979",
"Did he compete in any other races this season not mentioned?",
"Lauda informed Brabham that he wished to retire immediately, as he had no more desire to \"drive around in circles"
]
| C_8dd79d4ac5674ad3ba1e016103b23fca_0 | Why was he so disastifeed with his career? | 9 | Why was Niki Lauda so disastifeed with his career? | Niki Lauda | Having joined Parmalat-sponsored Brabham-Alfa Romeo in 1978 for a $1 million salary, Lauda endured two unsuccessful seasons, notable mainly for his one race in the Brabham BT46B, a radical design known as the Fan Car: it won its first and only race at the Swedish GP, but Brabham did not use the car in F1 again; other teams vigorously protested the fan car's legality and Brabham team owner Bernie Ecclestone, who at the time was maneuvering for acquisition of Formula One's commercial rights, did not want to fight a protracted battle over the car, but the victory in Sweden remained official. The Brabham BT46 Alfa Romeo flat-12 began the 1978 season at the third race in South Africa. It suffered from a variety of troubles that forced Lauda to retire the car 9 out of 14 races. Lauda's best results, apart from the wins in Sweden and Italy after the penalization of Mario Andretti and Gilles Villeneuve, were 2nd in Montreal and Great Britain, and a 3rd in the Netherlands. As the Alfa flat-12 engine was too wide for effective wing cars designs, Alfa provided a V12 for 1979. It was the fourth 12cyl engine design that propelled the Austrian in F1 since 1973. Lauda's 1979 F1 season was again marred by retirements and poor pace, even though he won the non-championship 1979 Dino Ferrari Grand Prix with the Brabham-Alfa. In the single make BMW M1 Procar Championship, driving for the British Formula Two team Project Four Racing (led by Ron Dennis) when not in a factory entry, Lauda won three races for P4 plus the series. Decades later, Lauda won a BMW Procar exhibition race event before the 2008 German Grand Prix. In September, Lauda finished 4th in Monza, and won the non-WC Imola event, still with the Alfa V12 engine. After that, Brabham returned to the familiar Cosworth V8. In late September, during practice for the 1979 Canadian Grand Prix, Lauda informed Brabham that he wished to retire immediately, as he had no more desire to "drive around in circles". Lauda, who in the meantime had founded Lauda Air, a charter airline, returned to Austria to run the company full-time. CANNOTANSWER | CANNOTANSWER | Andreas Nikolaus Lauda (22 February 1949 – 20 May 2019) was an Austrian Formula One driver and aviation entrepreneur. He was a three-time F1 World Drivers' Champion, winning in , and , and is the only driver in F1 history to have been champion for both Ferrari and McLaren, the sport's two most successful constructors.
As an aviation entrepreneur, he founded and ran three airlines: Lauda Air, Niki, and Lauda. He was also a consultant for Scuderia Ferrari and team manager of the Jaguar Formula One racing team for two years. Afterwards, he worked as a pundit for German TV during Grand Prix weekends and acted as non-executive chairman of Mercedes-AMG Petronas Motorsport, of which Lauda owned 10%.
Having emerged as Formula One's star driver amid a title win and leading the championship battle, Lauda was seriously injured in a crash at the 1976 German Grand Prix at the Nürburgring during which his Ferrari 312T2 burst into flames, and he came close to death after inhaling hot toxic fumes and suffering severe burns. He survived and recovered sufficiently to race again just six weeks later at the Italian Grand Prix. Although he lost that year's titleby just one pointto James Hunt, he won his second championship the year after, during his final season at Ferrari. After a couple of years at Brabham and two years' hiatus, Lauda returned and raced four seasons for McLaren between 1982 and 1985 – during which he won the title by half a point over his teammate Alain Prost.
Early years in racing
Niki Lauda was born on 22 February 1949 in Vienna, Austria, to a wealthy paper manufacturing family. His paternal grandfather was the Viennese-born industrialist Hans Lauda.
Lauda became a racing driver despite his family's disapproval. After starting out with a Mini, Lauda moved on into Formula Vee, as was normal in Central Europe, but rapidly moved up to drive in private Porsche and Chevron sports cars. With his career stalled, he took out a £30,000 bank loan, secured by a life insurance policy, to buy his way into the fledgling March team as a Formula Two (F2) driver in 1971. Because of his family's disapproval, he had an ongoing feud with them over his racing ambitions and abandoned further contact.
Lauda was quickly promoted to the F1 team, but drove for March in F1 and F2 in 1972. Although the F2 cars were good (and Lauda's driving skills impressed March principal Robin Herd), March's 1972 F1 season was catastrophic. Perhaps the lowest point of the team's season came at the Canadian Grand Prix at Mosport Park, where both March cars were disqualified within three laps of each other, just past 3/4 of the race distance. Lauda took out another bank loan to buy his way into the BRM team in 1973. Lauda was instantly quick, but the team was in decline; although the BRM P160E was quick and easy to drive it was not reliable and its engine lacked power. Lauda's star was on the rise after he ran 3rd at the Monaco Grand Prix that year, and Enzo Ferrari became interested. When his BRM teammate Clay Regazzoni left to rejoin Ferrari in 1974, team owner Enzo Ferrari asked him what he thought of Lauda. Regazzoni spoke so favourably of Lauda that Ferrari promptly signed him, paying him enough to clear his debts.
Ferrari (1974–1977)
After an unsuccessful start to the 1970s, culminating in a disastrous start to the 1973 season, Ferrari regrouped completely under Luca di Montezemolo and were resurgent in 1974. The team's faith in the little-known Lauda was quickly rewarded by a second-place finish in his debut race for the team, the season-opening Argentine Grand Prix. His first Grand Prix (GP) victory – and the first for Ferrari since 1972 – followed only three races later in the Spanish Grand Prix. Although Lauda became the season's pacesetter, achieving six consecutive pole positions, a mixture of inexperience and mechanical unreliability meant Lauda won only one more race that year, the Dutch GP. He finished fourth in the Drivers' Championship and demonstrated immense commitment to testing and improving the car.
The 1975 F1 season started slowly for Lauda; after no better than a fifth-place finish in the first four races, he won four of the next five driving the new Ferrari 312T. His first World Championship was confirmed with a third-place finish at the Italian Grand Prix at Monza; Lauda's teammate Regazzoni won the race and Ferrari clinched their first Constructors' Championship in 11 years. Lauda then picked up a fifth win at the last race of the year, the United States GP at Watkins Glen. He also became the first driver to lap the Nürburgring Nordschleife in under seven minutes, which was considered a huge feat as the Nordschleife section of the Nürburgring was two miles longer than it is today. Lauda did not win the German Grand Prix from pole position there that year; after battling hard with Patrick Depailler for the lead for the first half of the race, Lauda led for the first 9 laps but suffered a puncture at the Wippermann, 9 miles into the 10th lap and was passed by Carlos Reutemann, James Hunt, Tom Pryce and Jacques Laffite; Lauda made it back to the pits with a damaged front wing and a destroyed left front tyre. The Ferrari pit changed the destroyed tyre and Lauda managed to make it to the podium in 3rd behind Reutemann and Laffite after Hunt retired and Pryce had to slow down because of a fuel leak. Lauda was known for giving away any trophies he won to his local garage in exchange for his car to be washed and serviced.
Unlike 1975 and despite tensions between Lauda and Montezemolo's successor, Daniele Audetto, Lauda dominated the start of the 1976 F1 season, winning four of the first six races and finishing second in the other two. By the time of his fifth win of the year at the British GP, he had more than double the points of his closest challengers Jody Scheckter and James Hunt, and a second consecutive World Championship appeared a formality. It was a feat not achieved since Jack Brabham's victories in 1959 and 1960. He also looked set to win the most races in a season, a record held by the late Jim Clark since 1963.
1976 Nürburgring crash
A week before the 1976 German Grand Prix at the Nürburgring, even though he was the fastest driver on that circuit at the time, Lauda urged his fellow drivers to boycott the race, largely because of the circuit's safety arrangements, citing the organisers' lack of resources to properly manage such a huge circuit, including lack of fire marshals, fire and safety equipment and safety vehicles. Formula One was quite dangerous at the time (three of the drivers that day later died in Formula One incidents: Tom Pryce in 1977; Ronnie Peterson in 1978; and Patrick Depailler in 1980), but a majority of the drivers voted against the boycott and the race went ahead.
On 1 August 1976, during the second lap at the very fast left kink before Bergwerk, Lauda was involved in an accident where his Ferrari swerved off the track, hit an embankment, burst into flames, and made contact with Brett Lunger's Surtees-Ford car. Unlike Lunger, Lauda was trapped in the wreckage. Drivers Arturo Merzario, Lunger, Guy Edwards, and Harald Ertl arrived at the scene a few moments later, but before Merzario was able to pull Lauda from his car, he suffered severe burns to his head and inhaled hot toxic gases that damaged his lungs and blood. In an interview with BBC Radio 5 Live ("I Was There -- May 21, 2019"; "Niki Lauda speaks in 2015"), Lauda said, "...there were basically two or three drivers trying to get me out of the car, but one was Arturo Merzario, the Italian guy, who also had to stop there at the scene, because I blocked the road; and he really came into the car himself, and uh, triggered my, my seatbelt loose, and then pulled me out. It was unbelievable, how he could do that, and I met him afterwards, and I said, 'How could you do it?!'. He said, 'Honestly, I do not know, but to open your seatbelt was so difficult, because you were pushing so hard against it, and when it was open, I got you out of the car like a feather...'." As Lauda was wearing a modified helmet, it didn't fit him properly; the foam had compressed and it slid off his head after the accident, leaving his face exposed to the fire. Although Lauda was conscious and able to stand immediately after the accident, he later lapsed into a coma. While in hospital he was given the last rites, but he survived.
Lauda suffered extensive scarring from the burns to his head, losing most of his right ear as well as the hair on the right side of his head, his eyebrows, and his eyelids. He chose to limit reconstructive surgery to replacing the eyelids and getting them to work properly. After the accident he always wore a cap to cover the scars on his head. He arranged for sponsors to use the cap for advertising.
With Lauda out of the contest, Carlos Reutemann was taken on as his replacement. Ferrari boycotted the Austrian Grand Prix in protest at what they saw as preferential treatment shown towards McLaren driver James Hunt at the Spanish and British Grands Prix.
Return to racing
Lauda missed only two races, appearing at the Monza press conference six weeks after the accident with his fresh burns still bandaged. He finished fourth in the Italian GP, despite being, by his own admission, absolutely petrified. F1 journalist Nigel Roebuck recalls seeing Lauda in the pits, peeling the blood-soaked bandages off his scarred scalp. He also had to wear a specially adapted crash helmet so as not to be in too much discomfort. In Lauda's absence, Hunt had mounted a late charge to reduce Lauda's lead in the World Championship standings. Hunt and Lauda were friends away from the circuit, and their personal on-track rivalry, while intense, was cleanly contested and fair. Following wins in the Canadian and United States Grands Prix, Hunt stood only three points behind Lauda before the final race of the season, the Japanese Grand Prix.
Lauda qualified third, one place behind Hunt, but on race day there was torrential rain and Lauda retired after two laps. He later said that he felt it was unsafe to continue under these conditions, especially since his eyes were watering excessively because of his fire-damaged tear ducts and inability to blink. Hunt led much of the race before his tires blistered and a pit stop dropped him down the order. He recovered to third, thus winning the title by a single point.
Lauda's previously good relationship with Ferrari was severely affected by his decision to withdraw from the Japanese Grand Prix, and he endured a difficult 1977 season, despite easily winning the championship through consistency rather than outright pace. Lauda disliked his new teammate, Reutemann, who had served as his replacement driver. Lauda was not comfortable with this move and felt he had been let down by Ferrari. "We never could stand each other, and instead of taking pressure off me, they put on even more by bringing Carlos Reutemann into the team." Having announced his decision to quit Ferrari at season's end, Lauda left earlier after he won the Drivers' Championship at the United States Grand Prix because of the team's decision to run the unknown Gilles Villeneuve in a third car at the Canadian Grand Prix.
Brabham and first retirement (1978–1979)
Joining Parmalat-sponsored Brabham-Alfa Romeo in 1978 for a $1 million salary, Lauda endured two unsuccessful seasons, remembered mainly for his one race in the Brabham BT46B, a radical design known as the Fan Car: it won its first and only race at the Swedish GP, but Brabham did not use the car in F1 again; other teams vigorously protested the fan car's legality and Brabham team owner Bernie Ecclestone, who at the time was maneuvering for acquisition of Formula One's commercial rights, did not want to fight a protracted battle over the car, but the victory in Sweden remained official. The Brabham BT46 Alfa Romeo flat-12 began the 1978 season at the third race in South Africa. It suffered from a variety of troubles that forced Lauda to retire the car 9 out of 14 races. Lauda's best results, apart from the wins in Sweden and Italy after the penalization of Mario Andretti and Gilles Villeneuve, were 2nd in Monaco and Great Britain, and a 3rd in the Netherlands.
The Alfa flat-12 engine was too wide for ground effect designs in that the opposed cylinder banks impeded with the venturi tunnels, so Alfa designed a V12 for 1979. It was the fourth 12-cylinder engine design that propelled the Austrian in F1 since 1973. Lauda's 1979 F1 season was again marred by retirements and poor pace, even though he won the non-championship 1979 Dino Ferrari Grand Prix with the Brabham-Alfa. In the single-make BMW M1 Procar Championship, driving for the British Formula Two team Project Four Racing (led by Ron Dennis) when not in a factory entry, Lauda won three races for P4 plus the series. Decades later, Lauda won a BMW Procar exhibition race event before the 2008 German Grand Prix.
In September, Lauda finished 4th in Monza, and won the non-WC Imola event, still with the Alfa V12 engine. After that, Brabham returned to the familiar Cosworth V8. In late September, during practice for the 1979 Canadian Grand Prix, Lauda cut short a practice session and promptly informed team principal Ecclestone, that he wished to retire immediately, as he had no more desire to "continue the silliness of driving around in circles". Lauda, who in the meantime had founded Lauda Air, a charter airline, returned to Austria to run the company full-time.
McLaren comeback, third world title, and second retirement (1982–1985)
In 1982, Lauda returned to racing, for an unprecedented $3 million salary. After a successful test with McLaren, the only problem was to convince then team sponsor Marlboro that he was still capable of winning. Lauda proved he was when, in his third race back, he won the Long Beach Grand Prix. Before the opening race of the season at Kyalami race track in South Africa, Lauda was the organiser of the so-called "drivers' strike"; Lauda had seen that the new Super Licence required the drivers to commit themselves to their present teams and realised that this could hinder a driver's negotiating position. The drivers, with the exception of Teo Fabi, barricaded themselves in a banqueting suite at Sunnyside Park Hotel until they had won the day.
The 1983 season proved to be transitional for the McLaren team as they were making a change from Ford-Cosworth engines, to TAG-badged Porsche turbo engines, and Lauda did not win a race that year, with his best finish being second at Long Beach behind his teammate John Watson. Some political maneuvering by Lauda forced a furious chief designer John Barnard to design an interim car earlier than expected to get the TAG-Porsche engine some much-needed race testing; Lauda nearly won the last race of the season in South Africa.
Lauda won a third world championship in 1984 by half a point over teammate Alain Prost, due only to half points being awarded for the shortened 1984 Monaco Grand Prix. His Austrian Grand Prix victory that year is so far the only time an Austrian has won his home Grand Prix. Initially, Lauda did not want Prost to become his teammate, as he presented a much faster rival. However, during the two seasons together, they had a good relationship and Lauda later said that beating the talented Frenchman was a big motivator for him. The whole season continued to be dominated by Lauda and Prost, who won 12 of 16 races. Lauda won five races, while Prost won seven. However, Lauda, who set a record for the most pole positions in a season during the 1975 season, rarely matched his teammate in qualifying. Despite this, Lauda's championship win came in Portugal, when he had to start in eleventh place on the grid, while Prost qualified on the front row. Prost did everything he could, starting from second and winning his seventh race of the season, but Lauda's calculating drive (which included setting the fastest race lap), passing car after car, saw him finish second behind his teammate which gave him enough points to win his third title. His second place was a lucky one though as Nigel Mansell was in second for much of the race. However, as it was his last race with Lotus before joining Williams in 1985, Lotus boss Peter Warr refused to give Mansell the brakes he wanted for his car and the Englishman retired with brake failure on lap 52. As Lauda had passed the Toleman of F1 rookie Ayrton Senna for third place only a few laps earlier, Mansell's retirement elevated him to second behind Prost.
The 1985 season was a disappointment for Lauda, with eleven retirements from the fourteen races he started. He did not start the Belgian Grand Prix at Spa-Francorchamps after crashing and breaking his wrist during practice, and he later missed the European Grand Prix at Brands Hatch; John Watson replaced him for that race. He did manage fourth at the San Marino Grand Prix, 5th at the German Grand Prix, and a single race win at the Dutch Grand Prix where he held off a fast-finishing Prost late in the race. This proved to be his last Grand Prix victory, as after announcing his impending retirement at the 1985 Austrian Grand Prix, he retired for good at the end of that season.
Lauda's final Formula One Grand Prix drive was the inaugural Australian Grand Prix in Adelaide, South Australia. After qualifying 16th, a steady drive saw him leading by lap 53. However, the McLaren's ceramic brakes suffered on the street circuit and he crashed out of the lead at the end of the long Brabham Straight on lap 57 when his brakes finally failed. He was one of only two drivers in the race who had driven in the non-championship 1984 Australian Grand Prix, the other being World Champion Keke Rosberg, who won in Adelaide in 1985 and took Lauda's place at McLaren in 1986.
Helmet
Lauda's helmet was originally a plain red with his full name written on both sides and the Raiffeisen Bank logo in the chin area. He wore a modified AGV helmet in the weeks following his Nürburgring accident so as the lining would not aggravate his burned scalp too badly. In 1982, upon his return to McLaren, his helmet was white and featured the red "L" logo of Lauda Air instead of his name on both sides, complete with branding from his personal sponsor Parmalat on the top. From 1983 to 1985, the red and white were reversed to evoke memories of his earlier helmet design.
Later management roles
In 1993, Lauda returned to Formula One in a managerial position when Luca di Montezemolo offered him a consulting role at Ferrari. Halfway through the 2001 season, Lauda assumed the role of team principal of the Jaguar Formula One team. The team, however, failed to improve and Lauda was made redundant, together with 70 other key figures, at the end of 2002.
In September 2012 he was appointed non-executive chairman of the Mercedes AMG Petronas F1 Team. He took part in negotiations to sign Lewis Hamilton to a three-year deal with Mercedes in 2013.
Roles beyond Formula One
Lauda returned to running his airline, Lauda Air, on his second Formula One retirement in 1985. During his time as airline manager, he was appointed consultant at Ferrari as part of an effort by Montezemolo to rejuvenate the team. After selling his Lauda Air shares to majority partner Austrian Airlines in 1999, he managed the Jaguar Formula One racing team from 2001 to 2002. In late 2003, he started a new airline, Niki. Similar to Lauda Air, Niki was merged with its major partner Air Berlin in 2011. In early 2016, Lauda took over chartered airline Amira Air and renamed the company LaudaMotion. As a result of Air Berlin's insolvency in 2017, LaudaMotion took over the Niki brand and asset after an unsuccessful bid by Lufthansa and IAG. Lauda held a commercial pilot's licence and from time to time acted as a captain on the flights of his airline.
He was inducted into the International Motorsports Hall of Fame in 1993 and from 1996 provided commentary on Grands Prix for Austrian and German television on RTL. He was, however, criticized for calling Robert Kubica a "polack" (an ethnic slur for Polish people) on air in May 2010 at the Monaco Grand Prix.
Lauda is sometimes known by the nickname "the Rat", "SuperRat" or "King Rat" because of his prominent buck teeth. He was associated with both Parmalat and Viessmann, sponsoring the ever-present cap he wore from 1976 to hide the severe burns he sustained in his Nürburgring accident. Lauda said in a 2009 interview with the German newspaper Die Zeit that an advertiser was paying €1.2 million for the space on his red cap.
In 2005, the Austrian post office issued a stamp honouring him. In 2008, American sports television network ESPN ranked him 22nd on their "top drivers of all-time" list.
Niki Lauda wrote five books: The Art and Science of Grand Prix Driving (titled Formula 1: The Art and Technicalities of Grand Prix Driving in some markets) (1975); My Years With Ferrari (1978); The New Formula One: A Turbo Age (1984); Meine Story (titled To Hell and Back in some markets) (1986); Das dritte Leben (en. The third life) (1996). Lauda credited Austrian journalist Herbert Volker with editing the books.
Film and television
The 1976 F1 battle between Niki Lauda and James Hunt was dramatized in the film Rush (2013), where Lauda was played by Daniel Brühl—a portrayal that was nominated for a BAFTA Film Award for Best Supporting Actor. Lauda made a cameo appearance at the end of the film. Lauda said of Hunt's death, "When I heard he'd died age 45 of a heart attack I wasn't surprised, I was just sad." He also said that Hunt was one of the very few he liked, one of a smaller number of people he respected and the only person he had envied.
Lauda appeared in an episode of Mayday titled "Niki Lauda: Testing the Limits" regarding the events of Lauda Air Flight 004, and described running an airline as more difficult than winning three Formula 1 championships.
Personal life
The name of his mother is Elisabeth. Lauda had two sons with first wife the Chilean-Austrian Marlene Knaus (married 1976, divorced 1991): Mathias, a race driver himself, and Lukas, who acted as Mathias's manager. In 2008, he married Birgit Wetzinger, a flight attendant for his airline. In 2005, she donated a kidney to Lauda when the kidney he received from his brother in 1997 failed. In September 2009, Birgit gave birth to twins.
On 2 August 2018 it was announced that Lauda had successfully undergone a lung transplant operation in his native Austria.
Lauda spoke fluent Austrian German, English, and Italian.
Lauda came from a Roman Catholic family. In an interview with Zeit he stated that he left the church for a time to avoid paying church taxes, but went back when he had his two children baptised.
Death and legacy
On 20 May 2019, Lauda died in his sleep, aged 70, at the University Hospital of Zürich, where he had been undergoing dialysis treatment for kidney problems, following a period of ill health. A statement issued on behalf of his family reported that he had died peacefully, surrounded by family members.
Various current and former drivers and teams paid tributes on social media and during the Wednesday press conference session before the 2019 Monaco Grand Prix. A moment of silence was held before the race. Throughout the weekend, fans and drivers were encouraged to wear red caps in his honour, with the Mercedes team painting their halo device red with a sticker stating "Niki we miss you" instead of their usual silver scheme. His funeral, at St. Stephen's Cathedral in Vienna, was attended by many prominent Formula One figures (including Gerhard Berger, Jackie Stewart, Alain Prost, Nelson Piquet, Jean Alesi, Sebastian Vettel, Lewis Hamilton, David Coulthard, Nico Rosberg, and Valtteri Bottas), Arnold Schwarzenegger, and many Austrian politicians, including Alexander Van der Bellen among others.
The Haas VF-19's mini shark fin section of the engine cover (the top) was painted red with Lauda's name and his years of birth and death. Both Lewis Hamilton and Sebastian Vettel wore special helmets in remembrance.
Lauda is widely considered to be one of the greatest F1 drivers of all time.
Racing record
Career summary
Complete European Formula Two Championship results
(key) (Races in bold indicate pole position; races in italics indicate fastest lap)
Complete Formula One World Championship results
(key) (Races in bold indicate pole position, races in italics indicate fastest lap)
Complete Formula One non-championship results
(key) (Races in bold indicate pole position; races in italics indicate fastest lap)
Complete BMW M1 Procar Championship results
(key) (Races in bold indicate pole position; races in italics indicate fastest lap)
Other race results
24 Hours Nürburgring: 1st,1973
1000 km of Spa Francorchamps: 1st,1973
4 hours of Monza: 1st,1973
4 hours of Zandvoort: 1st,1974, 3rd,1972
Diepholz SRP/GT: 1st,1970
6 hours of Nurbugring: 2nd,1971
9 hours of Kyalami: 3rd,1972
Taurenpokal Salzburgring: 1st,1971
Books
AKA For the Record: My Years with Ferrari (British edition).
See also
History of Formula One
Hunt–Lauda rivalry
Lauda Air Italy
Sport in Austria
References
External links
1949 births
2019 deaths
A1 Grand Prix team owners
Austrian aviators
Austrian expatriates in Spain
Austrian Formula One drivers
Austrian racing drivers
Austrian Roman Catholics
Austrian motorsport people
BBC Sports Personality World Sport Star of the Year winners
Brabham Formula One drivers
BRDC Gold Star winners
BRM Formula One drivers
Chief executives in the airline industry
Commercial aviators
European Formula Two Championship drivers
Ferrari Formula One drivers
Ferrari people
Formula One World Drivers' Champions
Formula One race winners
International Motorsports Hall of Fame inductees
International Race of Champions drivers
Kidney transplant recipients
March Formula One drivers
McLaren Formula One drivers
Sportspeople from Vienna
World Sportscar Championship drivers
Lauda family
Airline founders
Jaguar in Formula One
Mercedes-Benz in Formula One
Niki Lauda | false | [
"Albert George Henry Why, known by the alias Alby Carr, (1899–1969) was an Australian rugby league footballer who played in the 1920s player for South Sydney, who played under his alias for most of his career.\n\nPlaying career\nHe was born at Brewarrina in 1899. His family later moved to Redfern and he played his junior football in Wellington and later at Mascot.\n\nAs Alby Carr, he played four seasons for South Sydney between 1924 and 1927, including winning the 1926 and 1927 Grand Final's. Carr was also a premiership winner with South Sydney in 1925 as the club went the entire season undefeated. He represented New South Wales in 1924 under his alias. He played one last season with South Sydney in 1930, this time under his correct name of Alby Why. He played one season as Alby Why in 1930 before retiring. He was the brother of Australian Kangaroo, Jack Why.\n\nCoaching career\nIn 1950, Alby Why coached the Canterbury-Bankstown team for a season before taking over from Vic Bulgin halfway through 1951. He continued to coach Canterbury-Bankstown in 1952.\n\nAlias, and exposure\nA newspaper report from 1929 exposed Alby Carr as a 'ring-in' , who was actually Alby Why, the brother of Jack Why. The report was tabled at the NSWRFL on 13 May 1929. Alby Carr's true identity was revealed at the meeting regarding the 'ring-in' allegations. Alby Why tells the story: \"I commenced my footballing days at Wellington in 1917. In 1921 he was at Redfern Oval and was asked to play third grade for the Mascot team as 'A.Carr'. Alby Why candidly admitted that he was Alby Carr, in what was known in the turf-world as a 'ring-in'. Then selected as A. Carr, he played one year with Newtown in 1922, then joining the City Houses Competition before being graded with South Sydney Rabbitohs in 1924. During this time and later in England playing with Huddersfield, he retained the name 'Carr', but by 1929 he wished to be recognized by his real name, as his brother Jack Why also played with Souths.\"\n\nDeath\nAlbert George Henry Why died on 29 December 1969, aged 70.\n\nReferences\n\nSources\n \n\n1899 births\n1969 deaths\nAustralian rugby league coaches\nAustralian rugby league players\nCanterbury-Bankstown Bulldogs coaches\n\nNew South Wales rugby league team players\nRugby league centres\nRugby league second-rows\nSouth Sydney Rabbitohs players",
"\"Why I Love You So Much\" is a song by American R&B singer Monica, composed by Daryl Simmons for Monica's debut studio album, Miss Thang (1995). The ballad was released as the album's fourth and final single on a double A-side with \"Ain't Nobody\" during the second quarter of 1996 (see 1996 in music). The double-A-side single became Monica's third consecutive top ten hit on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 with a peak position of number 9.\n\nMusic video\nThe video was shot in San Francisco at the Italian shop Bohemian Cigar Store and Cafe. The video start with other people walking in different places. Monica sings in front of her man saying that he is her whole world and she's been his girl forever: the video was directed by Kevin Bray.\n\nFormats and track listings\nThese are the formats and track listings of major single-releases of \"Why I Love You So Much\"\n \"Why I Love You So Much\" (Album Version)\n \"Why I Love You So Much\" (Soulpower Remix)\n \"Ain't Nobody\"\n\nCharts\n\nWeekly charts\n\nYear-end charts\n\nCertifications\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n Monica.com — official Monica site\n Monica music videos — watch \"Why I Love You So Much\" at LAUNCHcast\n\n1995 songs\n1996 singles\nMonica (singer) songs\nArista Records singles\nSongs written by Daryl Simmons\nSong recordings produced by Daryl Simmons\nMusic videos directed by Kevin Bray (director)\nPop ballads\nSoul ballads\nContemporary R&B ballads\n1990s ballads"
]
|
[
"Niki Lauda",
"Brabham and first retirement (1978-1979)",
"When did he first retire?",
"It suffered from a variety of troubles that forced Lauda to retire the car 9 out of 14 races.",
"Which series of races or tournament was he competing when this happened?",
"Brabham-Alfa Romeo in 1978 for a $1 million salary, Lauda endured two unsuccessful seasons, notable mainly for his one race in the Brabham BT46B,",
"What type of vehicle did he drive during that race?",
"Brabham BT46B, a radical design known as the Fan Car:",
"What was his racing record like during this time?",
"Lauda's best results, apart from the wins in Sweden and Italy after the penalization of Mario Andretti and Gilles Villeneuve, were 2nd in Montreal and Great Britain,",
"How long did he stay in retirement?",
"I don't know.",
"Are there any other interesting aspects about this article?",
"In September, Lauda finished 4th in Monza, and won the non-WC Imola event, still with the Alfa V12 engine.",
"Which year was this particular event, 78 or 79?",
"1979",
"Did he compete in any other races this season not mentioned?",
"Lauda informed Brabham that he wished to retire immediately, as he had no more desire to \"drive around in circles",
"Why was he so disastifeed with his career?",
"I don't know."
]
| C_8dd79d4ac5674ad3ba1e016103b23fca_0 | Who did he win or lose against during this season | 10 | Who did Niki Lauda win or lose against during the 1979 season? | Niki Lauda | Having joined Parmalat-sponsored Brabham-Alfa Romeo in 1978 for a $1 million salary, Lauda endured two unsuccessful seasons, notable mainly for his one race in the Brabham BT46B, a radical design known as the Fan Car: it won its first and only race at the Swedish GP, but Brabham did not use the car in F1 again; other teams vigorously protested the fan car's legality and Brabham team owner Bernie Ecclestone, who at the time was maneuvering for acquisition of Formula One's commercial rights, did not want to fight a protracted battle over the car, but the victory in Sweden remained official. The Brabham BT46 Alfa Romeo flat-12 began the 1978 season at the third race in South Africa. It suffered from a variety of troubles that forced Lauda to retire the car 9 out of 14 races. Lauda's best results, apart from the wins in Sweden and Italy after the penalization of Mario Andretti and Gilles Villeneuve, were 2nd in Montreal and Great Britain, and a 3rd in the Netherlands. As the Alfa flat-12 engine was too wide for effective wing cars designs, Alfa provided a V12 for 1979. It was the fourth 12cyl engine design that propelled the Austrian in F1 since 1973. Lauda's 1979 F1 season was again marred by retirements and poor pace, even though he won the non-championship 1979 Dino Ferrari Grand Prix with the Brabham-Alfa. In the single make BMW M1 Procar Championship, driving for the British Formula Two team Project Four Racing (led by Ron Dennis) when not in a factory entry, Lauda won three races for P4 plus the series. Decades later, Lauda won a BMW Procar exhibition race event before the 2008 German Grand Prix. In September, Lauda finished 4th in Monza, and won the non-WC Imola event, still with the Alfa V12 engine. After that, Brabham returned to the familiar Cosworth V8. In late September, during practice for the 1979 Canadian Grand Prix, Lauda informed Brabham that he wished to retire immediately, as he had no more desire to "drive around in circles". Lauda, who in the meantime had founded Lauda Air, a charter airline, returned to Austria to run the company full-time. CANNOTANSWER | CANNOTANSWER | Andreas Nikolaus Lauda (22 February 1949 – 20 May 2019) was an Austrian Formula One driver and aviation entrepreneur. He was a three-time F1 World Drivers' Champion, winning in , and , and is the only driver in F1 history to have been champion for both Ferrari and McLaren, the sport's two most successful constructors.
As an aviation entrepreneur, he founded and ran three airlines: Lauda Air, Niki, and Lauda. He was also a consultant for Scuderia Ferrari and team manager of the Jaguar Formula One racing team for two years. Afterwards, he worked as a pundit for German TV during Grand Prix weekends and acted as non-executive chairman of Mercedes-AMG Petronas Motorsport, of which Lauda owned 10%.
Having emerged as Formula One's star driver amid a title win and leading the championship battle, Lauda was seriously injured in a crash at the 1976 German Grand Prix at the Nürburgring during which his Ferrari 312T2 burst into flames, and he came close to death after inhaling hot toxic fumes and suffering severe burns. He survived and recovered sufficiently to race again just six weeks later at the Italian Grand Prix. Although he lost that year's titleby just one pointto James Hunt, he won his second championship the year after, during his final season at Ferrari. After a couple of years at Brabham and two years' hiatus, Lauda returned and raced four seasons for McLaren between 1982 and 1985 – during which he won the title by half a point over his teammate Alain Prost.
Early years in racing
Niki Lauda was born on 22 February 1949 in Vienna, Austria, to a wealthy paper manufacturing family. His paternal grandfather was the Viennese-born industrialist Hans Lauda.
Lauda became a racing driver despite his family's disapproval. After starting out with a Mini, Lauda moved on into Formula Vee, as was normal in Central Europe, but rapidly moved up to drive in private Porsche and Chevron sports cars. With his career stalled, he took out a £30,000 bank loan, secured by a life insurance policy, to buy his way into the fledgling March team as a Formula Two (F2) driver in 1971. Because of his family's disapproval, he had an ongoing feud with them over his racing ambitions and abandoned further contact.
Lauda was quickly promoted to the F1 team, but drove for March in F1 and F2 in 1972. Although the F2 cars were good (and Lauda's driving skills impressed March principal Robin Herd), March's 1972 F1 season was catastrophic. Perhaps the lowest point of the team's season came at the Canadian Grand Prix at Mosport Park, where both March cars were disqualified within three laps of each other, just past 3/4 of the race distance. Lauda took out another bank loan to buy his way into the BRM team in 1973. Lauda was instantly quick, but the team was in decline; although the BRM P160E was quick and easy to drive it was not reliable and its engine lacked power. Lauda's star was on the rise after he ran 3rd at the Monaco Grand Prix that year, and Enzo Ferrari became interested. When his BRM teammate Clay Regazzoni left to rejoin Ferrari in 1974, team owner Enzo Ferrari asked him what he thought of Lauda. Regazzoni spoke so favourably of Lauda that Ferrari promptly signed him, paying him enough to clear his debts.
Ferrari (1974–1977)
After an unsuccessful start to the 1970s, culminating in a disastrous start to the 1973 season, Ferrari regrouped completely under Luca di Montezemolo and were resurgent in 1974. The team's faith in the little-known Lauda was quickly rewarded by a second-place finish in his debut race for the team, the season-opening Argentine Grand Prix. His first Grand Prix (GP) victory – and the first for Ferrari since 1972 – followed only three races later in the Spanish Grand Prix. Although Lauda became the season's pacesetter, achieving six consecutive pole positions, a mixture of inexperience and mechanical unreliability meant Lauda won only one more race that year, the Dutch GP. He finished fourth in the Drivers' Championship and demonstrated immense commitment to testing and improving the car.
The 1975 F1 season started slowly for Lauda; after no better than a fifth-place finish in the first four races, he won four of the next five driving the new Ferrari 312T. His first World Championship was confirmed with a third-place finish at the Italian Grand Prix at Monza; Lauda's teammate Regazzoni won the race and Ferrari clinched their first Constructors' Championship in 11 years. Lauda then picked up a fifth win at the last race of the year, the United States GP at Watkins Glen. He also became the first driver to lap the Nürburgring Nordschleife in under seven minutes, which was considered a huge feat as the Nordschleife section of the Nürburgring was two miles longer than it is today. Lauda did not win the German Grand Prix from pole position there that year; after battling hard with Patrick Depailler for the lead for the first half of the race, Lauda led for the first 9 laps but suffered a puncture at the Wippermann, 9 miles into the 10th lap and was passed by Carlos Reutemann, James Hunt, Tom Pryce and Jacques Laffite; Lauda made it back to the pits with a damaged front wing and a destroyed left front tyre. The Ferrari pit changed the destroyed tyre and Lauda managed to make it to the podium in 3rd behind Reutemann and Laffite after Hunt retired and Pryce had to slow down because of a fuel leak. Lauda was known for giving away any trophies he won to his local garage in exchange for his car to be washed and serviced.
Unlike 1975 and despite tensions between Lauda and Montezemolo's successor, Daniele Audetto, Lauda dominated the start of the 1976 F1 season, winning four of the first six races and finishing second in the other two. By the time of his fifth win of the year at the British GP, he had more than double the points of his closest challengers Jody Scheckter and James Hunt, and a second consecutive World Championship appeared a formality. It was a feat not achieved since Jack Brabham's victories in 1959 and 1960. He also looked set to win the most races in a season, a record held by the late Jim Clark since 1963.
1976 Nürburgring crash
A week before the 1976 German Grand Prix at the Nürburgring, even though he was the fastest driver on that circuit at the time, Lauda urged his fellow drivers to boycott the race, largely because of the circuit's safety arrangements, citing the organisers' lack of resources to properly manage such a huge circuit, including lack of fire marshals, fire and safety equipment and safety vehicles. Formula One was quite dangerous at the time (three of the drivers that day later died in Formula One incidents: Tom Pryce in 1977; Ronnie Peterson in 1978; and Patrick Depailler in 1980), but a majority of the drivers voted against the boycott and the race went ahead.
On 1 August 1976, during the second lap at the very fast left kink before Bergwerk, Lauda was involved in an accident where his Ferrari swerved off the track, hit an embankment, burst into flames, and made contact with Brett Lunger's Surtees-Ford car. Unlike Lunger, Lauda was trapped in the wreckage. Drivers Arturo Merzario, Lunger, Guy Edwards, and Harald Ertl arrived at the scene a few moments later, but before Merzario was able to pull Lauda from his car, he suffered severe burns to his head and inhaled hot toxic gases that damaged his lungs and blood. In an interview with BBC Radio 5 Live ("I Was There -- May 21, 2019"; "Niki Lauda speaks in 2015"), Lauda said, "...there were basically two or three drivers trying to get me out of the car, but one was Arturo Merzario, the Italian guy, who also had to stop there at the scene, because I blocked the road; and he really came into the car himself, and uh, triggered my, my seatbelt loose, and then pulled me out. It was unbelievable, how he could do that, and I met him afterwards, and I said, 'How could you do it?!'. He said, 'Honestly, I do not know, but to open your seatbelt was so difficult, because you were pushing so hard against it, and when it was open, I got you out of the car like a feather...'." As Lauda was wearing a modified helmet, it didn't fit him properly; the foam had compressed and it slid off his head after the accident, leaving his face exposed to the fire. Although Lauda was conscious and able to stand immediately after the accident, he later lapsed into a coma. While in hospital he was given the last rites, but he survived.
Lauda suffered extensive scarring from the burns to his head, losing most of his right ear as well as the hair on the right side of his head, his eyebrows, and his eyelids. He chose to limit reconstructive surgery to replacing the eyelids and getting them to work properly. After the accident he always wore a cap to cover the scars on his head. He arranged for sponsors to use the cap for advertising.
With Lauda out of the contest, Carlos Reutemann was taken on as his replacement. Ferrari boycotted the Austrian Grand Prix in protest at what they saw as preferential treatment shown towards McLaren driver James Hunt at the Spanish and British Grands Prix.
Return to racing
Lauda missed only two races, appearing at the Monza press conference six weeks after the accident with his fresh burns still bandaged. He finished fourth in the Italian GP, despite being, by his own admission, absolutely petrified. F1 journalist Nigel Roebuck recalls seeing Lauda in the pits, peeling the blood-soaked bandages off his scarred scalp. He also had to wear a specially adapted crash helmet so as not to be in too much discomfort. In Lauda's absence, Hunt had mounted a late charge to reduce Lauda's lead in the World Championship standings. Hunt and Lauda were friends away from the circuit, and their personal on-track rivalry, while intense, was cleanly contested and fair. Following wins in the Canadian and United States Grands Prix, Hunt stood only three points behind Lauda before the final race of the season, the Japanese Grand Prix.
Lauda qualified third, one place behind Hunt, but on race day there was torrential rain and Lauda retired after two laps. He later said that he felt it was unsafe to continue under these conditions, especially since his eyes were watering excessively because of his fire-damaged tear ducts and inability to blink. Hunt led much of the race before his tires blistered and a pit stop dropped him down the order. He recovered to third, thus winning the title by a single point.
Lauda's previously good relationship with Ferrari was severely affected by his decision to withdraw from the Japanese Grand Prix, and he endured a difficult 1977 season, despite easily winning the championship through consistency rather than outright pace. Lauda disliked his new teammate, Reutemann, who had served as his replacement driver. Lauda was not comfortable with this move and felt he had been let down by Ferrari. "We never could stand each other, and instead of taking pressure off me, they put on even more by bringing Carlos Reutemann into the team." Having announced his decision to quit Ferrari at season's end, Lauda left earlier after he won the Drivers' Championship at the United States Grand Prix because of the team's decision to run the unknown Gilles Villeneuve in a third car at the Canadian Grand Prix.
Brabham and first retirement (1978–1979)
Joining Parmalat-sponsored Brabham-Alfa Romeo in 1978 for a $1 million salary, Lauda endured two unsuccessful seasons, remembered mainly for his one race in the Brabham BT46B, a radical design known as the Fan Car: it won its first and only race at the Swedish GP, but Brabham did not use the car in F1 again; other teams vigorously protested the fan car's legality and Brabham team owner Bernie Ecclestone, who at the time was maneuvering for acquisition of Formula One's commercial rights, did not want to fight a protracted battle over the car, but the victory in Sweden remained official. The Brabham BT46 Alfa Romeo flat-12 began the 1978 season at the third race in South Africa. It suffered from a variety of troubles that forced Lauda to retire the car 9 out of 14 races. Lauda's best results, apart from the wins in Sweden and Italy after the penalization of Mario Andretti and Gilles Villeneuve, were 2nd in Monaco and Great Britain, and a 3rd in the Netherlands.
The Alfa flat-12 engine was too wide for ground effect designs in that the opposed cylinder banks impeded with the venturi tunnels, so Alfa designed a V12 for 1979. It was the fourth 12-cylinder engine design that propelled the Austrian in F1 since 1973. Lauda's 1979 F1 season was again marred by retirements and poor pace, even though he won the non-championship 1979 Dino Ferrari Grand Prix with the Brabham-Alfa. In the single-make BMW M1 Procar Championship, driving for the British Formula Two team Project Four Racing (led by Ron Dennis) when not in a factory entry, Lauda won three races for P4 plus the series. Decades later, Lauda won a BMW Procar exhibition race event before the 2008 German Grand Prix.
In September, Lauda finished 4th in Monza, and won the non-WC Imola event, still with the Alfa V12 engine. After that, Brabham returned to the familiar Cosworth V8. In late September, during practice for the 1979 Canadian Grand Prix, Lauda cut short a practice session and promptly informed team principal Ecclestone, that he wished to retire immediately, as he had no more desire to "continue the silliness of driving around in circles". Lauda, who in the meantime had founded Lauda Air, a charter airline, returned to Austria to run the company full-time.
McLaren comeback, third world title, and second retirement (1982–1985)
In 1982, Lauda returned to racing, for an unprecedented $3 million salary. After a successful test with McLaren, the only problem was to convince then team sponsor Marlboro that he was still capable of winning. Lauda proved he was when, in his third race back, he won the Long Beach Grand Prix. Before the opening race of the season at Kyalami race track in South Africa, Lauda was the organiser of the so-called "drivers' strike"; Lauda had seen that the new Super Licence required the drivers to commit themselves to their present teams and realised that this could hinder a driver's negotiating position. The drivers, with the exception of Teo Fabi, barricaded themselves in a banqueting suite at Sunnyside Park Hotel until they had won the day.
The 1983 season proved to be transitional for the McLaren team as they were making a change from Ford-Cosworth engines, to TAG-badged Porsche turbo engines, and Lauda did not win a race that year, with his best finish being second at Long Beach behind his teammate John Watson. Some political maneuvering by Lauda forced a furious chief designer John Barnard to design an interim car earlier than expected to get the TAG-Porsche engine some much-needed race testing; Lauda nearly won the last race of the season in South Africa.
Lauda won a third world championship in 1984 by half a point over teammate Alain Prost, due only to half points being awarded for the shortened 1984 Monaco Grand Prix. His Austrian Grand Prix victory that year is so far the only time an Austrian has won his home Grand Prix. Initially, Lauda did not want Prost to become his teammate, as he presented a much faster rival. However, during the two seasons together, they had a good relationship and Lauda later said that beating the talented Frenchman was a big motivator for him. The whole season continued to be dominated by Lauda and Prost, who won 12 of 16 races. Lauda won five races, while Prost won seven. However, Lauda, who set a record for the most pole positions in a season during the 1975 season, rarely matched his teammate in qualifying. Despite this, Lauda's championship win came in Portugal, when he had to start in eleventh place on the grid, while Prost qualified on the front row. Prost did everything he could, starting from second and winning his seventh race of the season, but Lauda's calculating drive (which included setting the fastest race lap), passing car after car, saw him finish second behind his teammate which gave him enough points to win his third title. His second place was a lucky one though as Nigel Mansell was in second for much of the race. However, as it was his last race with Lotus before joining Williams in 1985, Lotus boss Peter Warr refused to give Mansell the brakes he wanted for his car and the Englishman retired with brake failure on lap 52. As Lauda had passed the Toleman of F1 rookie Ayrton Senna for third place only a few laps earlier, Mansell's retirement elevated him to second behind Prost.
The 1985 season was a disappointment for Lauda, with eleven retirements from the fourteen races he started. He did not start the Belgian Grand Prix at Spa-Francorchamps after crashing and breaking his wrist during practice, and he later missed the European Grand Prix at Brands Hatch; John Watson replaced him for that race. He did manage fourth at the San Marino Grand Prix, 5th at the German Grand Prix, and a single race win at the Dutch Grand Prix where he held off a fast-finishing Prost late in the race. This proved to be his last Grand Prix victory, as after announcing his impending retirement at the 1985 Austrian Grand Prix, he retired for good at the end of that season.
Lauda's final Formula One Grand Prix drive was the inaugural Australian Grand Prix in Adelaide, South Australia. After qualifying 16th, a steady drive saw him leading by lap 53. However, the McLaren's ceramic brakes suffered on the street circuit and he crashed out of the lead at the end of the long Brabham Straight on lap 57 when his brakes finally failed. He was one of only two drivers in the race who had driven in the non-championship 1984 Australian Grand Prix, the other being World Champion Keke Rosberg, who won in Adelaide in 1985 and took Lauda's place at McLaren in 1986.
Helmet
Lauda's helmet was originally a plain red with his full name written on both sides and the Raiffeisen Bank logo in the chin area. He wore a modified AGV helmet in the weeks following his Nürburgring accident so as the lining would not aggravate his burned scalp too badly. In 1982, upon his return to McLaren, his helmet was white and featured the red "L" logo of Lauda Air instead of his name on both sides, complete with branding from his personal sponsor Parmalat on the top. From 1983 to 1985, the red and white were reversed to evoke memories of his earlier helmet design.
Later management roles
In 1993, Lauda returned to Formula One in a managerial position when Luca di Montezemolo offered him a consulting role at Ferrari. Halfway through the 2001 season, Lauda assumed the role of team principal of the Jaguar Formula One team. The team, however, failed to improve and Lauda was made redundant, together with 70 other key figures, at the end of 2002.
In September 2012 he was appointed non-executive chairman of the Mercedes AMG Petronas F1 Team. He took part in negotiations to sign Lewis Hamilton to a three-year deal with Mercedes in 2013.
Roles beyond Formula One
Lauda returned to running his airline, Lauda Air, on his second Formula One retirement in 1985. During his time as airline manager, he was appointed consultant at Ferrari as part of an effort by Montezemolo to rejuvenate the team. After selling his Lauda Air shares to majority partner Austrian Airlines in 1999, he managed the Jaguar Formula One racing team from 2001 to 2002. In late 2003, he started a new airline, Niki. Similar to Lauda Air, Niki was merged with its major partner Air Berlin in 2011. In early 2016, Lauda took over chartered airline Amira Air and renamed the company LaudaMotion. As a result of Air Berlin's insolvency in 2017, LaudaMotion took over the Niki brand and asset after an unsuccessful bid by Lufthansa and IAG. Lauda held a commercial pilot's licence and from time to time acted as a captain on the flights of his airline.
He was inducted into the International Motorsports Hall of Fame in 1993 and from 1996 provided commentary on Grands Prix for Austrian and German television on RTL. He was, however, criticized for calling Robert Kubica a "polack" (an ethnic slur for Polish people) on air in May 2010 at the Monaco Grand Prix.
Lauda is sometimes known by the nickname "the Rat", "SuperRat" or "King Rat" because of his prominent buck teeth. He was associated with both Parmalat and Viessmann, sponsoring the ever-present cap he wore from 1976 to hide the severe burns he sustained in his Nürburgring accident. Lauda said in a 2009 interview with the German newspaper Die Zeit that an advertiser was paying €1.2 million for the space on his red cap.
In 2005, the Austrian post office issued a stamp honouring him. In 2008, American sports television network ESPN ranked him 22nd on their "top drivers of all-time" list.
Niki Lauda wrote five books: The Art and Science of Grand Prix Driving (titled Formula 1: The Art and Technicalities of Grand Prix Driving in some markets) (1975); My Years With Ferrari (1978); The New Formula One: A Turbo Age (1984); Meine Story (titled To Hell and Back in some markets) (1986); Das dritte Leben (en. The third life) (1996). Lauda credited Austrian journalist Herbert Volker with editing the books.
Film and television
The 1976 F1 battle between Niki Lauda and James Hunt was dramatized in the film Rush (2013), where Lauda was played by Daniel Brühl—a portrayal that was nominated for a BAFTA Film Award for Best Supporting Actor. Lauda made a cameo appearance at the end of the film. Lauda said of Hunt's death, "When I heard he'd died age 45 of a heart attack I wasn't surprised, I was just sad." He also said that Hunt was one of the very few he liked, one of a smaller number of people he respected and the only person he had envied.
Lauda appeared in an episode of Mayday titled "Niki Lauda: Testing the Limits" regarding the events of Lauda Air Flight 004, and described running an airline as more difficult than winning three Formula 1 championships.
Personal life
The name of his mother is Elisabeth. Lauda had two sons with first wife the Chilean-Austrian Marlene Knaus (married 1976, divorced 1991): Mathias, a race driver himself, and Lukas, who acted as Mathias's manager. In 2008, he married Birgit Wetzinger, a flight attendant for his airline. In 2005, she donated a kidney to Lauda when the kidney he received from his brother in 1997 failed. In September 2009, Birgit gave birth to twins.
On 2 August 2018 it was announced that Lauda had successfully undergone a lung transplant operation in his native Austria.
Lauda spoke fluent Austrian German, English, and Italian.
Lauda came from a Roman Catholic family. In an interview with Zeit he stated that he left the church for a time to avoid paying church taxes, but went back when he had his two children baptised.
Death and legacy
On 20 May 2019, Lauda died in his sleep, aged 70, at the University Hospital of Zürich, where he had been undergoing dialysis treatment for kidney problems, following a period of ill health. A statement issued on behalf of his family reported that he had died peacefully, surrounded by family members.
Various current and former drivers and teams paid tributes on social media and during the Wednesday press conference session before the 2019 Monaco Grand Prix. A moment of silence was held before the race. Throughout the weekend, fans and drivers were encouraged to wear red caps in his honour, with the Mercedes team painting their halo device red with a sticker stating "Niki we miss you" instead of their usual silver scheme. His funeral, at St. Stephen's Cathedral in Vienna, was attended by many prominent Formula One figures (including Gerhard Berger, Jackie Stewart, Alain Prost, Nelson Piquet, Jean Alesi, Sebastian Vettel, Lewis Hamilton, David Coulthard, Nico Rosberg, and Valtteri Bottas), Arnold Schwarzenegger, and many Austrian politicians, including Alexander Van der Bellen among others.
The Haas VF-19's mini shark fin section of the engine cover (the top) was painted red with Lauda's name and his years of birth and death. Both Lewis Hamilton and Sebastian Vettel wore special helmets in remembrance.
Lauda is widely considered to be one of the greatest F1 drivers of all time.
Racing record
Career summary
Complete European Formula Two Championship results
(key) (Races in bold indicate pole position; races in italics indicate fastest lap)
Complete Formula One World Championship results
(key) (Races in bold indicate pole position, races in italics indicate fastest lap)
Complete Formula One non-championship results
(key) (Races in bold indicate pole position; races in italics indicate fastest lap)
Complete BMW M1 Procar Championship results
(key) (Races in bold indicate pole position; races in italics indicate fastest lap)
Other race results
24 Hours Nürburgring: 1st,1973
1000 km of Spa Francorchamps: 1st,1973
4 hours of Monza: 1st,1973
4 hours of Zandvoort: 1st,1974, 3rd,1972
Diepholz SRP/GT: 1st,1970
6 hours of Nurbugring: 2nd,1971
9 hours of Kyalami: 3rd,1972
Taurenpokal Salzburgring: 1st,1971
Books
AKA For the Record: My Years with Ferrari (British edition).
See also
History of Formula One
Hunt–Lauda rivalry
Lauda Air Italy
Sport in Austria
References
External links
1949 births
2019 deaths
A1 Grand Prix team owners
Austrian aviators
Austrian expatriates in Spain
Austrian Formula One drivers
Austrian racing drivers
Austrian Roman Catholics
Austrian motorsport people
BBC Sports Personality World Sport Star of the Year winners
Brabham Formula One drivers
BRDC Gold Star winners
BRM Formula One drivers
Chief executives in the airline industry
Commercial aviators
European Formula Two Championship drivers
Ferrari Formula One drivers
Ferrari people
Formula One World Drivers' Champions
Formula One race winners
International Motorsports Hall of Fame inductees
International Race of Champions drivers
Kidney transplant recipients
March Formula One drivers
McLaren Formula One drivers
Sportspeople from Vienna
World Sportscar Championship drivers
Lauda family
Airline founders
Jaguar in Formula One
Mercedes-Benz in Formula One
Niki Lauda | false | [
"AIK Innebandy (often referred to as AIK IBF or simply AIK) is a Swedish floorball club and a department of AIK. The men's team played in Sweden's highest division, SSL, from the year 2000, but was relegated to Herrar Allsvenskan Norra in 2018 after ending the season 2017/2018 as second last. AIK won their first championship in 2006 when they defeated Pixbo Wallenstam IBK in the SSL final. In 2009 they won their second championship, beating Warberg IC in the final.\n\nHistory\n\nPre-Svenska Superligan\nAIK Innebandy was founded in 1996. In their debut season, 1996–97, AIK played in the Swedish 1st division. They were directly relegated to the Swedish 2nd division for the 1997–98 season, and although they won the division, a change in format resulted in them having to play in the same division for the 1998–99 season.\n\nIn the 1999–00 season, AIK won their division once again and were promoted to the 1st division. After winning the 1st division, AIK was finally promoted to the Svenska Superligan for the 2000–01 season.\n\nSvenska Superligan\nThe inaugural season in the Svenska Superligan saw AIK set new attendance records for league matches. In a match against the then reigning Swedish champions, Haninge IBK, a total of 3,000 spectators attended, setting a new record (at the time). AIK won this match, 3:2. In their first season, AIK would make the playoffs, only to lose in the quarterfinals 3:1 in a best-of-5 series against Balrog IK.\n\nThe second season brought AIK more success, as they would win 21 out of 30 matches, and win their first quarterfinal. However, they lost to Balrog IK again, this time in the semi-finals. The 2002–03 season also saw Balrog IK meet AIK in the playoffs, where after taking a 2:0 series lead, AIK would lose 3 straight matches.\n\nThe following season (2003–04) saw AIK Innebandy go all the way to the final, only to lose to rivals Balrog IK 6:5 in the championship match. After another great season, AIK would go to the finals once more, but lose again, this time to Warberg IC. The 2005–06 season saw AIK go to the finals for the third straight year, and finally win against Pixbo Wallenstam IBK by a score of 6:2 in front of 12,987 spectators at the Globen in Stockholm, Sweden. This was AIK's only Svenska Superligan title to date.\n\n2006-07 saw AIK lose to Caperio/Täby FC in the quarterfinals. The 3:1 loss in the best-of-5 series was regarded as one of the biggest upsets in Swedish floorball history. The next season saw AIK visit the finals again, only to lose to reigning champions, Warberg IC 5:4.\n\nIn 2009 they won the league again by beating Warberg.\n\nEuroFloorball Cup\nAIK Innebandy has enjoyed huge success at the EuroFloorball Cup competitions. During the 2006–07 EuroFloorball Cup, AIK defeated Warberg IC 6:5 to win their first European championship. They then repeated the feat in 2007–08, beating Warberg IC once again, 2:1 in overtime, in a rematch of both the 2006–07 EuroFloorball Cup and the 2007–08 Svenska Superligan final.\n\nThe 2008 EuroFloorball Cup saw AIK win once again; this time against Swiss team SV-Wiler Ersigen. AIK became the only team to ever win the EuroFloorball Cup three consecutive times, and became the third team to ever capture the championship three times (Balrog IK, Warberg IC).\n\nRoster\nAs of 5 November 2019\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\nhttp://www.aikinnebandy.se/ AIK IBF's official web site\n\nSwedish floorball teams\n1996 establishments in Sweden\nSports clubs established in 1996",
"Sirvi Arfani (born 11 February 1992) is an Indonesian professional footballer who plays as a forward for Liga 1 club Persita Tangerang.\n\nClub career\n\nPersita Tangerang\nHe was signed for Persita Tangerang to played in Divisi Utama Liga Indonesia on 2011–12 season. Arfani made his first-team debut on 10 January 2011 in a match against PS Bengkulu and scored his first goal for Persita in a 0–1 won over Persip Pekalongan. Until the end of the season, he successfully brought his team promotion to the Indonesia Super League even though in the final match lose over Barito Putera.\n\nOn 19 January 2013, Arfani made his first Indonesia Super League appearance in Persita's starting XI in a 1–1 draw with Persipura Jayapura at the Mashud Wisnusaputra Stadium. He scored his first Super League goal of the 2013 season on 13 February 2013, scored a brace in a 3–1 home win over Persiba Balikpapan. He scored his goal on 27 April 2013, an equaliser in a 3–1 away lose over Persela Lamongan.\n\nOn 5 February 2014, Arfani scored his first goal of the 2014 season, scoring in a 2–1 lose over Persib Bandung at the Jalak Harupat Stadium. On 4 May 2014, Arfani scored a brace in a 4–0 home win to Persijap Jepara.\n\nPersepam Madura United\nIn January 2015, he signed with Persepam Madura United. however, he is not making any appearances for his current club due to this season was officially discontinued by PSSI on 2 May 2015 due to a ban by Imam Nahrawi, Minister of Youth and Sports Affairs, against PSSI to run any football competition.\n\nReturn to Persita Tangerang\nIn early 2017, Arfani decided to re-join former club Persita Tangerang. Arfani scored his first league goal in the 2017 Liga 2 for Persita in a 2–0 win over Persika Karawang.\n\nHe scored his first Liga 2 goal of the 2018 season on 10 August 2018, coming on as a substitute in a 1–2 away win over Cilegon United.\n\nOn 23 June 2019, Arfani made his Liga 2 appearance in a match against PSGC Ciamis and then scored his first goal for the club in the injury time. On 2 July 2019, Arfani scored a hat-trick during a 4–0 win over Persibat Batang. with this result, he is listed as the first hat-trick in 2019 Liga 2. Arfani finished the season as leading Liga 2 goalscorer, with 14 goals, two ahead of Persiraja Banda Aceh striker Assanur Rijal in second and also successfully brought his team back to promotion to the Liga 1.\n\nArfani made his league debut on 6 March 2020 in new season 2020 Liga 1, coming on as a substitute for Samsul Arif in a 1–1 draw against PSM Makassar. And then, This season was suspended on 27 March 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The season was abandoned and was declared void on 20 January 2021. Arfani made his new season league debut on 28 August 2021 in a match against Persipura Jayapura at the Pakansari Stadium where he coming as a substitute for Ahmad Nur Hardianto.\n\nLoan to RANS Cilegon\nOn 22 September 2021, Arfani joined RANS Cilegon on loan from Persita Tangerang for the 2021–22 season. Arfani made his Liga 2 debut for RANS on 28 September 2021, and scoring his first goal for the club against Dewa United.\n\nHonours\n\nClub\nPersita Tangerang\n Liga 2 runner-up: 2019\nRANS Cilegon\n Liga 2 runner-up: 2021\n\nIndividual\n Liga 2 Top Goalscorer: 2019 (14 goals)\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links \n \n Sirvi Arfani at Liga Indonesia\n\n1992 births\nIndonesian footballers\nLiving people\nPersita Tangerang players\nPersiba Balikpapan players\nMadura United F.C. players\nLiga 1 (Indonesia) players\nAssociation football forwards"
]
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[
"Tori Amos",
"The Universal Republic years (2008-11)"
]
| C_f2c7f26de77949ff80c91a7bd337fb42_0 | who/what were Universal Republic? | 1 | Who/what were The Universal Republic years for Tori Amos? | Tori Amos | In May 2008, Amos announced that, due to creative and financial disagreements with Epic Records, she had negotiated an end to her contract with the record label, and would be operating independently of major record labels on future work. In September of the same year, Amos released a live album and DVD, Live at Montreux 1991/1992, through Eagle Rock Entertainment, of two performances she gave at the Montreux Jazz Festival very early on in her career while promoting her debut solo album, Little Earthquakes. By December, after a chance encounter with chairman and CEO of Universal Music Group, Doug Morris, Amos signed a "joint venture" deal with Universal Republic Records. Abnormally Attracted to Sin, Amos's tenth solo studio album and her first album released through Universal Republic, was released in May 2009 to mostly positive reviews. The album debuted in the top 10 of the Billboard 200, making it Amos's seventh album to do so. Abnormally Attracted to Sin, admitted Amos, is a "personal album", not a conceptual one, with the album exploring themes of power, boundaries, and the subjective view of sin. Continuing her distribution deal with Universal Republic, Amos released Midwinter Graces, her first seasonal album, in November of the same year. The album features reworked versions of traditional carols, as well as original songs written by Amos. During her contract with the label, Amos recorded vocals for two songs for David Byrne's collaboration album with Fatboy Slim, titled Here Lies Love, which was released in April 2010. In July of the same year, the DVD Tori Amos- Live from the Artists Den was released exclusively through Barnes & Noble. After a brief tour from June to September 2010, Amos released the highly exclusive live album From Russia With Love in December the same year, recorded live in Moscow on September 3, 2010. The limited edition set included a signature edition Lomography Diana F+ camera, along with 2 lenses, a roll of film and 1 of 5 photographs taken of Tori during her time in Moscow. The set was released exclusively through toriamos.com and only 2000 copies were produced. CANNOTANSWER | Amos signed a "joint venture" deal with Universal Republic Records. | Tori Amos (born Myra Ellen Amos; August 22, 1963) is an American singer-songwriter and pianist. She is a classically trained musician with a mezzo-soprano vocal range. Having already begun composing instrumental pieces on piano, Amos won a full scholarship to the Peabody Institute at Johns Hopkins University at the age of five, the youngest person ever to have been admitted. She had to leave at the age of eleven when her scholarship was discontinued for what Rolling Stone described as "musical insubordination". Amos was the lead singer of the short-lived 1980s synth-pop group Y Kant Tori Read before achieving her breakthrough as a solo artist in the early 1990s. Her songs focus on a broad range of topics, including sexuality, feminism, politics, and religion.
Her charting singles include "Crucify", "Silent All These Years", "God", "Cornflake Girl", "Caught a Lite Sneeze", "Professional Widow", "Spark", "1000 Oceans", "Flavor" and "A Sorta Fairytale", her most commercially successful single in the U.S. to date. Amos has received five MTV VMA nominations and eight Grammy Award nominations, and won an Echo Klassik award for her Night of Hunters classical crossover album. She is listed on VH1's 1999 "100 Greatest Women of Rock and Roll" at number 71.
Early life and education
Amos is the third child of Mary Ellen (Copeland) and Edison McKinley Amos. She was born at the Old Catawba Hospital in Newton, North Carolina, during a trip from their Georgetown home in Washington, D.C. Of particular importance to her as a child was her maternal grandfather, Calvin Clinton Copeland, who was a great source of inspiration and guidance, offering a more pantheistic spiritual alternative to her father and paternal grandmother's traditional Christianity.
When she was two years old, her family moved to Baltimore, Maryland, where her father had transplanted his Methodist ministry from its original base in Washington, D.C. Her older brother and sister took piano lessons, but Tori did not need them. From the time she could reach the piano, she taught herself to play: when she was two, she could reproduce pieces of music she had only heard once, and, by the age of three, she was composing her own songs. She has described seeing music as structures of light since early childhood, an experience consistent with chromesthesia:
At five, she became the youngest student ever admitted to the preparatory division of the Peabody Conservatory of Music. She studied classical piano at Peabody from 1968 to 1974. In 1974, when she was eleven, her scholarship was discontinued, and she was asked to leave. Amos has asserted that she lost the scholarship because of her interest in rock and popular music, coupled with her dislike for reading from sheet music.
In 1972, the Amos family moved to Silver Spring, Maryland, where her father became pastor of the Good Shepherd United Methodist church. At thirteen, Amos began playing at gay bars and piano bars, chaperoned by her father.
Amos won a county teen talent contest in 1977, singing a song called "More Than Just a Friend". As a senior at Richard Montgomery High School, she co-wrote "Baltimore" with her brother, Mike Amos, for a competition involving the Baltimore Orioles. The song did not win the contest but became her first single, released as a 7-inch single pressed locally for family and friends in 1980 with another Amos-penned composition as a B-side, "Walking With You". Before this, she had performed under her middle name, Ellen, but permanently adopted Tori after a friend's boyfriend told her she looked like a Torrey pine, a tree native to the West Coast.
Career
1979–1989: Career beginnings and Y Kant Tori Read
By the time she was 17, Amos had a stock of homemade demo tapes that her father regularly sent out to record companies and producers. Producer Narada Michael Walden responded favorably: he and Amos cut some tracks together, but none were released. Eventually, Atlantic Records responded to one of the tapes, and, when A&R man Jason Flom flew to Baltimore to audition her in person, the label was convinced and signed her.
In 1984, Amos moved to Los Angeles to pursue her music career after several years performing on the piano bar circuit in the D.C. area.
In 1986, Amos formed a musical group called Y Kant Tori Read, named for her difficulty sight-reading. In addition to Amos, the group was composed of Steve Caton (who would later play guitars on all of her albums until 1999), drummer Matt Sorum, bass player Brad Cobb and, for a short time, keyboardist Jim Tauber. The band went through several iterations of songwriting and recording; Amos has said interference from record executives caused the band to lose its musical edge and direction during this time. Finally, in July 1988, the band's self-titled debut album, Y Kant Tori Read, was released. Although its producer, Joe Chiccarelli, stated that Amos was very happy with the album at the time, Amos has since criticized it, once remarking: "The only good thing about that album is my ankle high boots."
Following the album's commercial failure and the group's subsequent disbanding, Amos began working with other artists (including Stan Ridgway, Sandra Bernhard, and Al Stewart) as a backup vocalist. She also recorded a song called "Distant Storm" for the film China O'Brien. In the credits, the song is attributed to a band called Tess Makes Good.
1990–1995: Little Earthquakes and Under the Pink
Despite the disappointing reaction to Y Kant Tori Read, Amos still had to comply with her six-record contract with Atlantic Records, which, in 1989, wanted a new record by March 1990. The initial recordings were declined by the label, which Amos felt was because the album had not been properly presented. The album was reworked and expanded under the guidance of Doug Morris and the musical talents of Steve Caton, Eric Rosse, Will MacGregor, Carlo Nuccio, and Dan Nebenzal, resulting in Little Earthquakes, an album recounting her religious upbringing, sexual awakening, struggle to establish her identity, and sexual assault. This album became her commercial and artistic breakthrough, entering the British charts in January 1992 at Number 15. Little Earthquakes was released in the United States in February 1992 and slowly but steadily began to attract listeners, gaining more attention with the video for the single "Silent All These Years".
Amos traveled to New Mexico with personal and professional partner Eric Rosse in 1993 to write and largely record her second solo record, Under the Pink. The album was received with mostly favorable reviews and sold enough copies to chart at No. 12 on the Billboard 200, a significantly higher position than the preceding album's position at No. 54 on the same chart. However, the album found its biggest success in the UK, debuting at number one upon release in February 1994.
1996–2000: Boys for Pele, From the Choirgirl Hotel, and To Venus and Back
Her third solo album, Boys for Pele, was released in January 1996. Prior to its release, the first single, "Caught a Lite Sneeze" became the first full song released for streaming online prior to an album's release.
The album was recorded in an Irish church, in Delgany, County Wicklow, with Amos taking advantage of the church's acoustics. For this album, Amos used the harpsichord, harmonium, and clavichord as well as the piano. The album garnered mixed reviews upon its release, with some critics praising its intensity and uniqueness while others bemoaned its comparative impenetrability. Despite the album's erratic lyrical content and instrumentation, the latter of which kept it away from mainstream audiences, Boys for Pele is Amos's most successful simultaneous transatlantic release, reaching No. 2 on the UK Top 40 and No. 2 on the Billboard 200 upon its release.
Fueled by the desire to have her own recording studio to distance herself from record company executives, Amos had the barn of her home in Cornwall converted into the state-of-the-art recording studio of Martian Engineering Studios.
From the Choirgirl Hotel and To Venus and Back, released in May 1998 and September 1999, respectively, differ greatly from previous albums. Amos's trademark acoustic, piano-based sound is largely replaced with arrangements that include elements of electronica and dance music with vocal washes. The underlying themes of both albums deal with womanhood and Amos's own miscarriages and marriage. Reviews for From the Choirgirl Hotel were mostly favorable and praised Amos's continued artistic originality. Debut sales for From the Choirgirl Hotel are Amos's best to date, selling 153,000 copies in its first week. To Venus and Back, a two-disc release of original studio material and live material recorded from the previous world tour, received mostly positive reviews and included the first major-label single available for sale as a digital download.
2001–2004: Strange Little Girls and Scarlet's Walk
Shortly after giving birth to her daughter, Amos decided to record a cover album, taking songs written by men about women and reversing the gender roles to reflect a woman's perspective. That became Strange Little Girls, released in September 2001. The album is Amos's first concept album, with artwork featuring Amos photographed in character of the women portrayed in each song. Amos would later reveal that a stimulus for the album was to end her contract with Atlantic without giving them original songs; Amos felt that since 1998, the label had not been properly promoting her and had trapped her in a contract by refusing to sell her to another label.
With her Atlantic contract fulfilled after a 15-year stint, Amos signed to Epic in late 2001. In October 2002, Amos released Scarlet's Walk, another concept album. Described as a "sonic novel", the album explores Amos's alter ego, Scarlet, intertwined with her cross-country concert tour following 9/11. Through the songs, Amos explores such topics as the history of America, American people, Native American history, pornography, masochism, homophobia and misogyny. The album had a strong debut at No. 7 on the Billboard 200. Scarlet's Walk is Amos's last album to date to reach certified gold status from the RIAA.
Not long after Amos was ensconced with her new label, she received unsettling news when Polly Anthony resigned as president of Epic Records in 2003. Anthony had been one of the primary reasons Amos signed with the label and as a result of her resignation, Amos formed the Bridge Entertainment Group. Further trouble for Amos occurred the following year when her label, Epic/Sony Music Entertainment, merged with BMG Entertainment as a result of the industry's decline.
2005–2008: The Beekeeper and American Doll Posse
Amos released two more albums with the label, The Beekeeper (2005) and American Doll Posse (2007). Both albums received generally favorable reviews. The Beekeeper was conceptually influenced by the ancient art of beekeeping, which she considered a source of female inspiration and empowerment. Through extensive study, Amos also wove in the stories of the Gnostic gospels and the removal of women from a position of power within the Christian church to create an album based largely on religion and politics. The album debuted at No. 5 on the Billboard 200, placing her in an elite group of women who have secured five or more US Top 10 album debuts. While the newly merged label was present throughout the production process of The Beekeeper, Amos and her crew nearly completed her next project, American Doll Posse, before inviting the label to listen to it. American Doll Posse, another concept album, is fashioned around a group of girls (the "posse") who are used as a theme of alter-egos of Amos's. Musically and stylistically, the album saw Amos return to a more confrontational nature. Like its predecessor, American Doll Posse debuted at No. 5 on the Billboard 200.
During her tenure with Epic Records, Amos also released a retrospective collection titled Tales of a Librarian (2003) through her former label, Atlantic Records; a two-disc DVD set Fade to Red (2006) containing most of Amos's solo music videos, released through the Warner Bros. reissue imprint Rhino; a five disc box set titled A Piano: The Collection (2006), celebrating Amos's 15-year solo career through remastered album tracks, remixes, alternate mixes, demos, and a string of unreleased songs from album recording sessions, also released through Rhino; and numerous official bootlegs from two world tours, The Original Bootlegs (2005) and Legs & Boots (2007) through Epic Records.
2008–2011: Abnormally Attracted to Sin and Midwinter Graces
In May 2008, Amos announced that, due to creative and financial disagreements with Epic Records, she had negotiated an end to her contract with the record label, and would be operating independently of major record labels on future work. In September of the same year, Amos released a live album and DVD, Live at Montreux 1991/1992, through Eagle Rock Entertainment, of two performances she gave at the Montreux Jazz Festival very early on in her career while promoting her debut solo album, Little Earthquakes. By December, after a chance encounter with chairman and CEO of Universal Music Group, Doug Morris, Amos signed a "joint venture" deal with Universal Republic Records.
Abnormally Attracted to Sin, Amos's tenth solo studio album and her first album released through Universal Republic, was released in May 2009 to mostly positive reviews. The album debuted in the top 10 of the Billboard 200, making it Amos's seventh album to do so. Abnormally Attracted to Sin, admitted Amos, is a "personal album", not a conceptual one, with the album exploring themes of power, boundaries, and the subjective view of sin. Continuing her distribution deal with Universal Republic, Amos released Midwinter Graces, her first seasonal album, in November of the same year. The album features reworked versions of traditional carols, as well as original songs written by Amos.
During her contract with the label, Amos recorded vocals for two songs for David Byrne's collaboration album with Fatboy Slim, titled Here Lies Love, which was released in April 2010. In July of the same year, the DVD Tori Amos- Live from the Artists Den was released exclusively through Barnes & Noble.
After a brief tour from June to September 2010, Amos released a live album From Russia With Love in December the same year, recorded in Moscow on September 3, 2010. The limited edition set included a signature edition Lomography Diana F+ camera, along with two lenses, a roll of film and one of five photographs taken of Amos during her time in Moscow. The set was released exclusively through her website and only 2000 copies were produced.
2011–2015: Night of Hunters, Gold Dust, and Unrepentant Geraldines
In September 2011, Amos released her first classical-style music album, Night of Hunters, featuring variations on a theme to pay tribute to composers such as Bach, Chopin, Debussy, Granados, Satie and Schubert, on the Deutsche Grammophon label, a division of Universal Music Group. Amos recorded the album with several musicians, including the Apollon Musagète string quartet.
To mark the 20th anniversary of her debut album, Little Earthquakes (1992), Amos released an album of songs from her back catalogue re-worked and re-recorded with the Metropole Orchestra. The album, titled Gold Dust, was released in October 2012 through Deutsche Grammophon.
On May 1, 2012, Amos announced the formation of her own record label, Transmission Galactic, which she intends to use to develop new artists.
In 2013, Amos collaborated with the Bullitts on the track "Wait Until Tomorrow" from their debut album, They Die by Dawn & Other Short Stories. She also stated in an interview that a new album and tour would materialize in 2014 and that it would be a "return to contemporary music".
September 2013 saw the launch of Amos's musical project adaptation of George MacDonald's The Light Princess, along with book writer Samuel Adamson and Marianne Elliott. It premiered at London's Royal National Theatre and ended in February 2014. The Light Princess and its lead actress, Rosalie Craig, were nominated for Best Musical and Best Musical Performance respectively at the Evening Standard Award. Craig won the Best Musical Performance category.
Amos's 14th studio album, Unrepentant Geraldines, was released on May 13, 2014, via Mercury Classics/Universal Music Classics in the US. Its first single, "Trouble's Lament", was released on March 28. The album was supported by the Unrepentant Geraldines Tour which began May 5, 2014, in Cork and continued across Europe, Africa, North America, and Australia, ending in Brisbane on November 21, 2014. In Sydney, Amos performed two orchestral concerts, reminiscent of the Gold Dust Orchestral Tour, with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra at the Sydney Opera House.
According to a press release, Unrepentant Geraldines was a "return to her core identity as a creator of contemporary songs of exquisite beauty following a series of more classically-inspired and innovative musical projects of the last four years. [It is] both one further step in the artistic evolution of one of the most successful and influential artists of her generation, and a return to the inspiring and personal music that Amos is known for all around the world."
The 2-CD set The Light Princess (Original Cast Recording) was released on October 9, 2015 via Universal/Mercury Classics. Apart from the original cast performances, the recording also includes two songs from the musical ("Highness in the Sky" and "Darkest Hour') performed by Amos.
2016–present: Native Invader, Christmastide and Ocean to Ocean
On November 18, 2016, Amos released a deluxe version of the album Boys for Pele to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the original release. This follows the deluxe re-releases of her first two albums in 2015.
On September 8, 2017, Amos released Native Invader, accompanied by a world tour. During the summer of 2017, Amos launched three songs from the album: "Cloud Riders", "Up the Creek" and "Reindeer King", the latter featuring string arrangements by John Philip Shenale. Produced by Amos, the album explores topics like American politics and environmental issues, mixed with mythological elements and first-person narrations.
The initial inspiration for the album came from a trip that Amos took to the Great Smoky Mountains (Tennessee-North Carolina), home of her alleged Native American ancestors; however, two events deeply influenced the final record: in November 2016, Donald Trump was elected President of the United States of America; two months later, in January 2017, Amos's mother, Mary Ellen, suffered a stroke that left her unable to speak. Shocked by both events, Amos spent the first half of 2017 writing and recording the songs that would eventually form Native Invader. The album, released on September 8, 2017, has been presented in two formats: standard and deluxe. The standard version includes 13 songs, while the deluxe edition adds two extra songs to the tracklist: "Upside Down 2" and "Russia". Native Invader has been well received by most music critics upon release. The album obtained a score of 76 out of 100 on the review aggregator website Metacritic, based on 17 reviews, indicating "generally favorable reviews".
On November 9, 2020, Amos announced the release of a holiday-themed EP entitled Christmastide on December 4, digitally and on limited-edition vinyl. The EP consists of four original songs and features her first work with bandmates Matt Chamberlain and Jon Evans since 2009. Amos recorded the EP remotely due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.
On September 20, 2021, Amos announced her sixteenth studio album, Ocean to Ocean, which was released on October 29. The album was written and recorded in Cornwall during lockdown as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic and explores "a universal story of going to rock bottom and renewing yourself all over again". Amos will embark on a European tour in support of the album in 2022. Matt Chamberlain and Jon Evans will again feature on drums and bass guitar respectively, their first collaboration with Amos on an album since 2009's Midwinter Graces.
In print
Released in conjunction with The Beekeeper, Amos co-authored an autobiography with rock music journalist Ann Powers titled Piece by Piece (2005). The book's subject is Amos's interest in mythology and religion, exploring her songwriting process, rise to fame, and her relationship with Atlantic Records.
Image Comics released Comic Book Tattoo (2008), a collection of comic stories, each based on or inspired by songs recorded by Amos. Editor Rantz Hoseley worked with Amos to gather 80 different artists for the book, including Pia Guerra, David Mack, and Leah Moore.
Additionally, Amos and her music have been the subject of numerous official and unofficial books, as well as academic critique, including Tori Amos: Lyrics (2001) and an earlier biography, Tori Amos: All These Years (1996).
Tori Amos: In the Studio (2011) by Jake Brown features an in-depth look at Amos's career, discography and recording process.
Amos released her second memoir called Resistance: A Songwriter’s Story of Hope, Change, and Courage on 5 May 2020.
Personal life
Amos married English sound engineer Mark Hawley on February 22, 1998. Their daughter was born in 2000. The family divides their time between Sewall's Point in Florida, US, and Bude, Cornwall in the UK.
Amos' mother, Mary Ellen, died on May 11, 2019.
Early in her professional career, Amos befriended author Neil Gaiman, who became a fan after she referred to him in the song "Tear in Your Hand" and also in print interviews. Although created before the two met, the character Delirium from Gaiman's The Sandman series is inspired by Amos; Gaiman has stated that they "steal shamelessly from each other". She wrote the foreword to his collection Death: The High Cost of Living; he in turn wrote the introduction to Comic Book Tattoo. Gaiman is godfather to her daughter and a poem written for her birth, Blueberry Girl, was published as a children's book of the same name in 2009. In 2019, Amos performed the British standard "A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square" over the closing credits of Gaiman's TV series Good Omens, based on the novel of the same name written by Gaiman and Terry Pratchett.
Activism
In June 1994, the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network (RAINN), a toll-free help line in the US connecting callers with their local rape crisis center, was founded. Amos, who was raped at knifepoint when she was 22, answered the ceremonial first call to launch the hotline. She was the first national spokesperson for the organization and has continued to be closely associated with RAINN. On August 18, 2013, a concert in honor of her 50th birthday was held, an event which raised money for RAINN. On August 22, 2020, Amos appeared on a panel called Artistry & Activism at the diversity and inclusion digital global conference CARLA.
Discography
Studio albums
Little Earthquakes (1992)
Under the Pink (1994)
Boys for Pele (1996)
From the Choirgirl Hotel (1998)
To Venus and Back (1999)
Strange Little Girls (2001)
Scarlet's Walk (2002)
The Beekeeper (2005)
American Doll Posse (2007)
Abnormally Attracted to Sin (2009)
Midwinter Graces (2009)
Night of Hunters (2011)
Gold Dust (2012)
Unrepentant Geraldines (2014)
Native Invader (2017)
Ocean to Ocean (2021)
Tours
Amos, who has been performing in bars and clubs from as early as 1976 and under her professional name as early as 1991 has performed more than 1,000 shows since her first world tour in 1992. In 2003, Amos was voted fifth best touring act by the readers of Rolling Stone magazine. Her concerts are notable for their changing set lists from night to night.
Little Earthquakes Tour
Amos's first world tour began on January 29, 1992 in London and ended on November 30, 1992 in Auckland. She performed solo with a Yamaha CP-70 unless the venue was able to provide a piano. The tour included 142 concerts around the globe.
Under the Pink Tour
Amos's second world tour began on February 24, 1994 in Newcastle upon Tyne and ended on December 13, 1994 in Perth, Western Australia. Amos performed solo each night on her iconic Bösendorfer piano, and on a prepared piano during "Bells for Her". The tour included 181 concerts.
Dew Drop Inn Tour
The third world tour began on February 23, 1996 in Ipswich, England, and ended on November 11, 1996 in Boulder. Amos performed each night on piano, harpsichord, and harmonium, with Steve Caton on guitar on some songs. The tour included 187 concerts.
Plugged '98 Tour
Amos's first band tour. Amos, on piano and Kurzweil keyboard, was joined by Steve Caton on guitar, Matt Chamberlain on drums, and Jon Evans on bass. The tour began on April 18, 1998 in Fort Lauderdale and ended on December 3, 1998 in East Lansing, Michigan, including 137 concerts.
5 ½ Weeks Tour / To Dallas and Back
Amos's fifth tour was North America–only. The first part of the tour was co-headlining with Alanis Morissette and featured the same band and equipment line-up as in 1998. Amos and the band continued for eight shows before Amos embarked on a series of solo shows. The tour began on August 18, 1999 in Fort Lauderdale, Florida and ended on December 9, 1999 in Denver, including 46 concerts.
Strange Little Tour
This tour was Amos's first since becoming a mother in 2000 and her first tour fully solo since 1994 (Steve Caton was present on some songs in 1996). It saw Amos perform on piano, Rhodes piano, and Wurlitzer electric piano, and though the tour was in support of her covers album, the set lists were not strictly covers-oriented. Having brought her one-year-old daughter on the road with her, this tour was also one of Amos's shortest ventures, lasting just three months. It began on August 30, 2001 in London and ended on December 17, 2001 in Milan, including 55 concerts.
On Scarlet's Walk / Lottapianos Tour
Amos's seventh tour saw her reunited with Matt Chamberlain and Jon Evans, but not Steve Caton. The first part of the tour, which featured Amos on piano, Kurzweil, Rhodes, and Wurlitzer, was six months long and Amos went out again in the summer of 2003 for a tour with Ben Folds opening. The tour began on November 7, 2002 in Tampa and ended on September 4, 2003 in West Palm Beach, featuring 124 concerts. The final show of the tour was filmed and released as part of a DVD/CD set titled Welcome to Sunny Florida (the set also included a studio EP titled Scarlet's Hidden Treasures, an extension of the Scarlet's Walk album).
Original Sinsuality Tour / Summer of Sin
This tour began on April 1, 2005 in Clearwater, Florida, with Amos on piano, two Hammond B-3 organs, and Rhodes. The tour also encompassed Australia for the first time since 1994. Amos announced at a concert on this tour that she would never stop touring but would scale down the tours. Amos returned to the road in August and September for the Summer of Sin North America leg, ending on September 17, 2005 in Los Angeles. The tour featured "Tori's Piano Bar", where fans could nominate cover songs on Amos's website which she would then choose from to play in a special section of each show. One of the songs chosen was the Kylie Minogue hit "Can't Get You Out of My Head", which Amos dedicated to her the day after Minogue's breast cancer was announced to the public. Other songs performed by Amos include The Doors' "People are Strange", Depeche Mode's "Personal Jesus", Joni Mitchell's "The Circle Game", Madonna's "Live to Tell" and "Like a Prayer", Björk's "Hyperballad", Led Zeppelin's "When the Levee Breaks" (which she debuted in Austin, Texas, just after the events of Hurricane Katrina), Kate Bush's "And Dream of Sheep" and Crowded House's "Don't Dream It's Over", dedicating it to drummer Paul Hester who had died a week before. The entire concert tour featured 82 concerts, and six full-length concerts were released as The Original Bootlegs.
American Doll Posse World Tour
This was Amos's first tour with a full band since her 1999 Five and a Half Weeks Tour, accompanied by long-time bandmates Jon Evans and Matt Chamberlain, with guitarist Dan Phelps rounding out Amos's new band. Amos's equipment included her piano, a Hammond B-3 organ, and two Yamaha S90 ES keyboards. The tour kicked off with its European leg in Rome, Italy on May 28, 2007, which lasted through July, concluding in Israel; the Australian leg took place during September; the North American leg lasted from October to December 16, 2007, when the tour concluded in Los Angeles. Amos opened each show dressed as one of the four non-Tori personae from the album, then Amos would emerge as herself to perform for the remaining two-thirds of the show. The entire concert tour featured 93 concerts, and 27 full-length concerts of the North American tour were released as official bootlegs in the Legs and Boots series.
Sinful Attraction Tour
For her tenth tour, Amos returned to the trio format of her 2002 and 2003 tours with bassist Jon Evans and drummer Matt Chamberlain while expanding her lineup of keyboards by adding three M-Audio MIDI controllers to her ensemble of her piano, a Hammond B-3 organ, and a Yamaha S90 ES keyboard. The North American and European band tour began on July 10, 2009 in Seattle, Washington and ended in Warsaw on October 10, 2009. A solo leg through Australia began in Melbourne on November 12, 2009 and ended in Brisbane on November 24, 2009. The entire tour featured 63 concerts.
Night of Hunters tour
Amos's eleventh tour was her first with a string quartet, Apollon Musagète, (Amos's equipment includes her piano and a Yamaha S90 ES keyboard) and her first time touring in South Africa. It kicked off on September 28, 2011 in Finland, Helsinki Ice Hall and ended on December 22, 2011 in Dallas, Texas.
Gold Dust Orchestral Tour
Amos began her 2012 tour in Rotterdam on October 1.
Unrepentant Geraldines Tour
Amos began her 2014 world tour on May 5, 2014 in Cork, Ireland, and concluded it in Brisbane, Australia on November 21, after playing 73 concerts.
Native Invader Tour
Amos's 2017 tour in support of the Native Invader album kicked off on September 6, 2017, with a series of European shows in Cork, Ireland, moving on to North America in October.
Ocean to Ocean Tour
Amos is to embark on a European tour in the spring of 2022 in support of her upcoming sixteenth studio album, Ocean to Ocean, beginning in Berlin, Germany and ending in Dublin, Ireland.
Awards and nominations
{| class="wikitable sortable plainrowheaders"
|-
! scope="col" | Award
! scope="col" | Year
! scope="col" | Nominee(s)
! scope="col" | Category
! scope="col" | Result
! scope="col" class="unsortable"|
|-
! scope="row" rowspan=3|Brit Awards
| rowspan=2|1993
| rowspan=3|Herself
| International Breakthrough Act
|
| rowspan=2|
|-
| International Solo Artist
|
|-
| 1995
| International Female Solo Artist
|
|
|-
! scope="row"|Critics' Choice Documentary Awards
| 2016
| "Flicker"
| Best Song in a Documentary
|
|
|-
!scope="row"|ECHO Awards
| 1995
| Herself
| Best International Female
|
|
|-
! scope="row"|ECHO Klassik Awards
| rowspan=1|2012
| Night of Hunters
| The Klassik-ohne-Grenzen Prize
|
|
|-
! scope="row" rowspan=4|GAFFA Awards
| 2000
| rowspan=3|Herself
| rowspan=2|Best Foreign Female Act
|
| rowspan=2|
|-
| 2003
|
|-
| rowspan=2|2022
| Best Foreign Solo Act
|
|
|-
| Ocean to Ocean
| Best Foreign Album
|
|-
! scope="row"|George Peabody Medal
| 2019
| Herself
| Outstanding Contributions to Music
|
|
|-
! scope="row"|Glamour Awards
| 1998
| Herself
| Woman of the Year
|
|
|-
! scope="row" rowspan=8|Grammy Awards
| 1995
| Under the Pink
| rowspan=3|Best Alternative Music Album
|
| rowspan=8|
|-
| 1997
| Boys for Pele
|
|-
| rowspan=2|1999
| From the Choirgirl Hotel
|
|-
| "Raspberry Swirl"
| rowspan=2|Best Female Rock Vocal Performance
|
|-
| rowspan=2|2000
| "Bliss"
|
|-
| To Venus and Back
| rowspan=2|Best Alternative Music Album
|
|-
| rowspan=2|2002
| Strange Little Girls
|
|-
| "Strange Little Girl"
| Best Female Rock Vocal Performance
|
|-
! scope="row"|Hollywood Music in Media Awards
| 2016
| "Flicker"
| Best Original Song in a Documentary
|
|
|-
! scope="row"|Hungarian Music Awards
| 2010
| Abnormally Attracted to Sin
| Best Foreign Alternative Album
|
|
|-
! scope="row"|MTV Europe Music Awards
| 1994
| Herself
| Best Female
|
|
|-
! scope="row" rowspan=4|MTV Video Music Awards
| rowspan=4|1992
| rowspan=4|"Silent All These Years"
| Best Female Video
|
|rowspan=4|
|-
| Best New Artist in a Video
|
|-
| Breakthrough Video
|
|-
| Best Cinematography in a Video
|
|-
! scope="row"|NME Awards
| 2016
| Under the Pink
| Best Reissue
|
|
|-
! scope="row"|North Carolina Music Hall of Fame
| 2012
| Herself
| Inducted
|
|
|-
!scope="row" rowspan=5|Pollstar Concert Industry Awards
| rowspan=2|1993
| rowspan=2|Little Earthquakes Tour
| Best New Rock Artist
|
| rowspan=2|
|-
| Club Tour Of The Year
|
|-
| 1995
| Under the Pink Tour
| rowspan=3|Small Hall Tour Of The Year
|
|
|-
| 1997
| Dew Drop Inn Tour
|
|
|-
| 1999
| 5 ½ Weeks Tour
|
|
|-
! scope="row"|Q Awards
| 1992
| Herself
| Best New Act
|
|
|-
! scope="row" rowspan=2|WhatsOnStage Awards
| rowspan=2|2014
| rowspan=2|The Light Princess
| Best New Musical
|
| rowspan=2|
|-
| Best London Newcomer of the Year
|
|-
!scope="row"|Žebřík Music Awards
| 2001
| Herself
| Best International Female
|
|
1999: Spin Readers' Poll Awards (Won)
On May 21, 2020, Amos was invited to and gave special remarks at her alma mater Johns Hopkins University's 2020 Commencement ceremony. Other notable guest speakers during the virtual ceremony included Reddit co-founder and commencement speaker Alexis Ohanian; philanthropist and former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg; Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and a leading member of the White House Coronavirus Task Force; and senior class president Pavan Patel.
Film appearances
Tori appears as a wedding singer in the film Mona Lisa Smile.
References
Citations
Works cited
External links
1963 births
20th-century American composers
20th-century American keyboardists
20th-century American women pianists
20th-century American pianists
20th-century American women singers
21st-century American keyboardists
21st-century American women pianists
21st-century American pianists
21st-century American women singers
Alternative rock keyboardists
Alternative rock pianists
Alternative rock singers
American alternative rock musicians
American expatriates in the Republic of Ireland
American expatriates in the United Kingdom
American women composers
American women singer-songwriters
American feminist writers
American harpsichordists
American mezzo-sopranos
American organists
American people who self-identify as being of Native American descent
American pop pianists
American rock pianists
American women rock singers
American rock songwriters
Articles containing video clips
Art rock musicians
Atlantic Records artists
Child classical musicians
Clavichordists
Deutsche Grammophon artists
Electronica musicians
Epic Records artists
Feminist musicians
Harmonium players
Island Records artists
Living people
Montgomery College alumni
Musicians from Baltimore
Musicians from County Cork
Musicians from Rockville, Maryland
People from Georgetown (Washington, D.C.)
People from Newton, North Carolina
People from Sewall's Point, Florida
Republic Records artists
Sexual abuse victim advocates
Singer-songwriters from Maryland
Singer-songwriters from North Carolina
Women organists
20th-century women composers
American women in electronic music
20th-century American singers
21st-century American singers
Singer-songwriters from Washington, D.C. | true | [
"Universal Motown Republic Group (UMRG) was an umbrella label founded in 1999 by Universal Music Group to oversee the labels assigned to its unit. UMRG was formed in 1999 by pooling together Universal Records, Motown Records, and Republic Records, (the first of the three is now defunct), but which gave way to the current incarnations of those labels at the time, Universal Motown Records and Universal Republic Records.\n\nUniversal Motown Republic Group was one of the three Universal Music Group umbrella units in North America to deal primarily with mainstream pop, rock, and urban performers; the others being: The Island Def Jam Music Group and Interscope-Geffen-A&M. Barry Weiss served as Chairman & CEO of the Company. In the summer of 2011, changes were made at the Universal Motown Republic Group umbrella: Motown Records was separated from Universal Motown Records (causing it to shut down and transfer its artists to either Motown Records or Universal Republic Records) and the umbrella label and merged into The Island Def Jam Music Group, making Universal Republic Records a stand-alone label and shutting down Universal Motown Republic Group.\n\nCurrent Universal Motown Republic Group Labels\n\nUniversal Motown Records\nCasablanca Records \nCash Money Records\nYoung Money Entertainment\nSRC Records\nLoud Records\nRowdy Records\nCustard Records\nEcstatic Peace!\nDerrty Entertainment\n\nUniversal Republic Records\nCasablanca Records\nRepublic Nashville\nNext Plateau Entertainment\nChamillitary Entertainment\nSerjical Strike Records\nTuff Gong\nBrushfire Records\nLava Records\nANTI-\n\nArtists\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n \n\nDefunct record labels of the United States\nNew York (state) record labels\nUniversal Records\nMotown\nRepublic Records\nRecord labels established in 1999\nRecord labels disestablished in 2011\nLabels distributed by Universal Music Group\n1999 establishments in New York City",
"Universal Motown Records was an American record label that operated as a division of Universal Motown Republic Group. It was the contemporary incarnation of the legendary Motown Records label, and the \"urban\" half of UMG, although there were some rock artists on the label (along with its sub-labels) as well.\n\nBackground\nIn 2005, Motown Records was merged with the urban artists on Universal Records to create Universal Motown Records, headed by former CEO of Elektra Records Sylvia Rhone, and placed under the newly created umbrella division of Universal Motown Republic Group. Motown Records began celebrating its fiftieth anniversary (January 12, 2009) in late 2008, including the release of a The Complete No. 1's boxset containing Motown #1 hits from Billboard's pop, R&B, and disco charts, reissues of classic-era Motown albums on CD, and other planned events, which were released in collaboration with Universal Music Group's catalog division.\n\nChanges were made at Universal Motown Republic Group in 2011, and Motown Records was separated from Universal Motown Records and the umbrella label and merged into The Island Def Jam Music Group, making Universal Republic Records (now shortened back to Republic Records as of late 2012) a stand-alone label and shutting down Universal Motown Republic Group.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n Official site\n\nRecord labels established in 2005\nRecord labels disestablished in 2011\nAmerican record labels\nLabels distributed by Universal Music Group\nMotown"
]
|
[
"Tori Amos",
"The Universal Republic years (2008-11)",
"who/what were Universal Republic?",
"Amos signed a \"joint venture\" deal with Universal Republic Records."
]
| C_f2c7f26de77949ff80c91a7bd337fb42_0 | What was her first album with Universal Republic? | 2 | What was Tori Amos' first album with Universal Republic? | Tori Amos | In May 2008, Amos announced that, due to creative and financial disagreements with Epic Records, she had negotiated an end to her contract with the record label, and would be operating independently of major record labels on future work. In September of the same year, Amos released a live album and DVD, Live at Montreux 1991/1992, through Eagle Rock Entertainment, of two performances she gave at the Montreux Jazz Festival very early on in her career while promoting her debut solo album, Little Earthquakes. By December, after a chance encounter with chairman and CEO of Universal Music Group, Doug Morris, Amos signed a "joint venture" deal with Universal Republic Records. Abnormally Attracted to Sin, Amos's tenth solo studio album and her first album released through Universal Republic, was released in May 2009 to mostly positive reviews. The album debuted in the top 10 of the Billboard 200, making it Amos's seventh album to do so. Abnormally Attracted to Sin, admitted Amos, is a "personal album", not a conceptual one, with the album exploring themes of power, boundaries, and the subjective view of sin. Continuing her distribution deal with Universal Republic, Amos released Midwinter Graces, her first seasonal album, in November of the same year. The album features reworked versions of traditional carols, as well as original songs written by Amos. During her contract with the label, Amos recorded vocals for two songs for David Byrne's collaboration album with Fatboy Slim, titled Here Lies Love, which was released in April 2010. In July of the same year, the DVD Tori Amos- Live from the Artists Den was released exclusively through Barnes & Noble. After a brief tour from June to September 2010, Amos released the highly exclusive live album From Russia With Love in December the same year, recorded live in Moscow on September 3, 2010. The limited edition set included a signature edition Lomography Diana F+ camera, along with 2 lenses, a roll of film and 1 of 5 photographs taken of Tori during her time in Moscow. The set was released exclusively through toriamos.com and only 2000 copies were produced. CANNOTANSWER | Abnormally Attracted to Sin, Amos's tenth solo studio album and her first album released through Universal Republic, was released in May 2009 | Tori Amos (born Myra Ellen Amos; August 22, 1963) is an American singer-songwriter and pianist. She is a classically trained musician with a mezzo-soprano vocal range. Having already begun composing instrumental pieces on piano, Amos won a full scholarship to the Peabody Institute at Johns Hopkins University at the age of five, the youngest person ever to have been admitted. She had to leave at the age of eleven when her scholarship was discontinued for what Rolling Stone described as "musical insubordination". Amos was the lead singer of the short-lived 1980s synth-pop group Y Kant Tori Read before achieving her breakthrough as a solo artist in the early 1990s. Her songs focus on a broad range of topics, including sexuality, feminism, politics, and religion.
Her charting singles include "Crucify", "Silent All These Years", "God", "Cornflake Girl", "Caught a Lite Sneeze", "Professional Widow", "Spark", "1000 Oceans", "Flavor" and "A Sorta Fairytale", her most commercially successful single in the U.S. to date. Amos has received five MTV VMA nominations and eight Grammy Award nominations, and won an Echo Klassik award for her Night of Hunters classical crossover album. She is listed on VH1's 1999 "100 Greatest Women of Rock and Roll" at number 71.
Early life and education
Amos is the third child of Mary Ellen (Copeland) and Edison McKinley Amos. She was born at the Old Catawba Hospital in Newton, North Carolina, during a trip from their Georgetown home in Washington, D.C. Of particular importance to her as a child was her maternal grandfather, Calvin Clinton Copeland, who was a great source of inspiration and guidance, offering a more pantheistic spiritual alternative to her father and paternal grandmother's traditional Christianity.
When she was two years old, her family moved to Baltimore, Maryland, where her father had transplanted his Methodist ministry from its original base in Washington, D.C. Her older brother and sister took piano lessons, but Tori did not need them. From the time she could reach the piano, she taught herself to play: when she was two, she could reproduce pieces of music she had only heard once, and, by the age of three, she was composing her own songs. She has described seeing music as structures of light since early childhood, an experience consistent with chromesthesia:
At five, she became the youngest student ever admitted to the preparatory division of the Peabody Conservatory of Music. She studied classical piano at Peabody from 1968 to 1974. In 1974, when she was eleven, her scholarship was discontinued, and she was asked to leave. Amos has asserted that she lost the scholarship because of her interest in rock and popular music, coupled with her dislike for reading from sheet music.
In 1972, the Amos family moved to Silver Spring, Maryland, where her father became pastor of the Good Shepherd United Methodist church. At thirteen, Amos began playing at gay bars and piano bars, chaperoned by her father.
Amos won a county teen talent contest in 1977, singing a song called "More Than Just a Friend". As a senior at Richard Montgomery High School, she co-wrote "Baltimore" with her brother, Mike Amos, for a competition involving the Baltimore Orioles. The song did not win the contest but became her first single, released as a 7-inch single pressed locally for family and friends in 1980 with another Amos-penned composition as a B-side, "Walking With You". Before this, she had performed under her middle name, Ellen, but permanently adopted Tori after a friend's boyfriend told her she looked like a Torrey pine, a tree native to the West Coast.
Career
1979–1989: Career beginnings and Y Kant Tori Read
By the time she was 17, Amos had a stock of homemade demo tapes that her father regularly sent out to record companies and producers. Producer Narada Michael Walden responded favorably: he and Amos cut some tracks together, but none were released. Eventually, Atlantic Records responded to one of the tapes, and, when A&R man Jason Flom flew to Baltimore to audition her in person, the label was convinced and signed her.
In 1984, Amos moved to Los Angeles to pursue her music career after several years performing on the piano bar circuit in the D.C. area.
In 1986, Amos formed a musical group called Y Kant Tori Read, named for her difficulty sight-reading. In addition to Amos, the group was composed of Steve Caton (who would later play guitars on all of her albums until 1999), drummer Matt Sorum, bass player Brad Cobb and, for a short time, keyboardist Jim Tauber. The band went through several iterations of songwriting and recording; Amos has said interference from record executives caused the band to lose its musical edge and direction during this time. Finally, in July 1988, the band's self-titled debut album, Y Kant Tori Read, was released. Although its producer, Joe Chiccarelli, stated that Amos was very happy with the album at the time, Amos has since criticized it, once remarking: "The only good thing about that album is my ankle high boots."
Following the album's commercial failure and the group's subsequent disbanding, Amos began working with other artists (including Stan Ridgway, Sandra Bernhard, and Al Stewart) as a backup vocalist. She also recorded a song called "Distant Storm" for the film China O'Brien. In the credits, the song is attributed to a band called Tess Makes Good.
1990–1995: Little Earthquakes and Under the Pink
Despite the disappointing reaction to Y Kant Tori Read, Amos still had to comply with her six-record contract with Atlantic Records, which, in 1989, wanted a new record by March 1990. The initial recordings were declined by the label, which Amos felt was because the album had not been properly presented. The album was reworked and expanded under the guidance of Doug Morris and the musical talents of Steve Caton, Eric Rosse, Will MacGregor, Carlo Nuccio, and Dan Nebenzal, resulting in Little Earthquakes, an album recounting her religious upbringing, sexual awakening, struggle to establish her identity, and sexual assault. This album became her commercial and artistic breakthrough, entering the British charts in January 1992 at Number 15. Little Earthquakes was released in the United States in February 1992 and slowly but steadily began to attract listeners, gaining more attention with the video for the single "Silent All These Years".
Amos traveled to New Mexico with personal and professional partner Eric Rosse in 1993 to write and largely record her second solo record, Under the Pink. The album was received with mostly favorable reviews and sold enough copies to chart at No. 12 on the Billboard 200, a significantly higher position than the preceding album's position at No. 54 on the same chart. However, the album found its biggest success in the UK, debuting at number one upon release in February 1994.
1996–2000: Boys for Pele, From the Choirgirl Hotel, and To Venus and Back
Her third solo album, Boys for Pele, was released in January 1996. Prior to its release, the first single, "Caught a Lite Sneeze" became the first full song released for streaming online prior to an album's release.
The album was recorded in an Irish church, in Delgany, County Wicklow, with Amos taking advantage of the church's acoustics. For this album, Amos used the harpsichord, harmonium, and clavichord as well as the piano. The album garnered mixed reviews upon its release, with some critics praising its intensity and uniqueness while others bemoaned its comparative impenetrability. Despite the album's erratic lyrical content and instrumentation, the latter of which kept it away from mainstream audiences, Boys for Pele is Amos's most successful simultaneous transatlantic release, reaching No. 2 on the UK Top 40 and No. 2 on the Billboard 200 upon its release.
Fueled by the desire to have her own recording studio to distance herself from record company executives, Amos had the barn of her home in Cornwall converted into the state-of-the-art recording studio of Martian Engineering Studios.
From the Choirgirl Hotel and To Venus and Back, released in May 1998 and September 1999, respectively, differ greatly from previous albums. Amos's trademark acoustic, piano-based sound is largely replaced with arrangements that include elements of electronica and dance music with vocal washes. The underlying themes of both albums deal with womanhood and Amos's own miscarriages and marriage. Reviews for From the Choirgirl Hotel were mostly favorable and praised Amos's continued artistic originality. Debut sales for From the Choirgirl Hotel are Amos's best to date, selling 153,000 copies in its first week. To Venus and Back, a two-disc release of original studio material and live material recorded from the previous world tour, received mostly positive reviews and included the first major-label single available for sale as a digital download.
2001–2004: Strange Little Girls and Scarlet's Walk
Shortly after giving birth to her daughter, Amos decided to record a cover album, taking songs written by men about women and reversing the gender roles to reflect a woman's perspective. That became Strange Little Girls, released in September 2001. The album is Amos's first concept album, with artwork featuring Amos photographed in character of the women portrayed in each song. Amos would later reveal that a stimulus for the album was to end her contract with Atlantic without giving them original songs; Amos felt that since 1998, the label had not been properly promoting her and had trapped her in a contract by refusing to sell her to another label.
With her Atlantic contract fulfilled after a 15-year stint, Amos signed to Epic in late 2001. In October 2002, Amos released Scarlet's Walk, another concept album. Described as a "sonic novel", the album explores Amos's alter ego, Scarlet, intertwined with her cross-country concert tour following 9/11. Through the songs, Amos explores such topics as the history of America, American people, Native American history, pornography, masochism, homophobia and misogyny. The album had a strong debut at No. 7 on the Billboard 200. Scarlet's Walk is Amos's last album to date to reach certified gold status from the RIAA.
Not long after Amos was ensconced with her new label, she received unsettling news when Polly Anthony resigned as president of Epic Records in 2003. Anthony had been one of the primary reasons Amos signed with the label and as a result of her resignation, Amos formed the Bridge Entertainment Group. Further trouble for Amos occurred the following year when her label, Epic/Sony Music Entertainment, merged with BMG Entertainment as a result of the industry's decline.
2005–2008: The Beekeeper and American Doll Posse
Amos released two more albums with the label, The Beekeeper (2005) and American Doll Posse (2007). Both albums received generally favorable reviews. The Beekeeper was conceptually influenced by the ancient art of beekeeping, which she considered a source of female inspiration and empowerment. Through extensive study, Amos also wove in the stories of the Gnostic gospels and the removal of women from a position of power within the Christian church to create an album based largely on religion and politics. The album debuted at No. 5 on the Billboard 200, placing her in an elite group of women who have secured five or more US Top 10 album debuts. While the newly merged label was present throughout the production process of The Beekeeper, Amos and her crew nearly completed her next project, American Doll Posse, before inviting the label to listen to it. American Doll Posse, another concept album, is fashioned around a group of girls (the "posse") who are used as a theme of alter-egos of Amos's. Musically and stylistically, the album saw Amos return to a more confrontational nature. Like its predecessor, American Doll Posse debuted at No. 5 on the Billboard 200.
During her tenure with Epic Records, Amos also released a retrospective collection titled Tales of a Librarian (2003) through her former label, Atlantic Records; a two-disc DVD set Fade to Red (2006) containing most of Amos's solo music videos, released through the Warner Bros. reissue imprint Rhino; a five disc box set titled A Piano: The Collection (2006), celebrating Amos's 15-year solo career through remastered album tracks, remixes, alternate mixes, demos, and a string of unreleased songs from album recording sessions, also released through Rhino; and numerous official bootlegs from two world tours, The Original Bootlegs (2005) and Legs & Boots (2007) through Epic Records.
2008–2011: Abnormally Attracted to Sin and Midwinter Graces
In May 2008, Amos announced that, due to creative and financial disagreements with Epic Records, she had negotiated an end to her contract with the record label, and would be operating independently of major record labels on future work. In September of the same year, Amos released a live album and DVD, Live at Montreux 1991/1992, through Eagle Rock Entertainment, of two performances she gave at the Montreux Jazz Festival very early on in her career while promoting her debut solo album, Little Earthquakes. By December, after a chance encounter with chairman and CEO of Universal Music Group, Doug Morris, Amos signed a "joint venture" deal with Universal Republic Records.
Abnormally Attracted to Sin, Amos's tenth solo studio album and her first album released through Universal Republic, was released in May 2009 to mostly positive reviews. The album debuted in the top 10 of the Billboard 200, making it Amos's seventh album to do so. Abnormally Attracted to Sin, admitted Amos, is a "personal album", not a conceptual one, with the album exploring themes of power, boundaries, and the subjective view of sin. Continuing her distribution deal with Universal Republic, Amos released Midwinter Graces, her first seasonal album, in November of the same year. The album features reworked versions of traditional carols, as well as original songs written by Amos.
During her contract with the label, Amos recorded vocals for two songs for David Byrne's collaboration album with Fatboy Slim, titled Here Lies Love, which was released in April 2010. In July of the same year, the DVD Tori Amos- Live from the Artists Den was released exclusively through Barnes & Noble.
After a brief tour from June to September 2010, Amos released a live album From Russia With Love in December the same year, recorded in Moscow on September 3, 2010. The limited edition set included a signature edition Lomography Diana F+ camera, along with two lenses, a roll of film and one of five photographs taken of Amos during her time in Moscow. The set was released exclusively through her website and only 2000 copies were produced.
2011–2015: Night of Hunters, Gold Dust, and Unrepentant Geraldines
In September 2011, Amos released her first classical-style music album, Night of Hunters, featuring variations on a theme to pay tribute to composers such as Bach, Chopin, Debussy, Granados, Satie and Schubert, on the Deutsche Grammophon label, a division of Universal Music Group. Amos recorded the album with several musicians, including the Apollon Musagète string quartet.
To mark the 20th anniversary of her debut album, Little Earthquakes (1992), Amos released an album of songs from her back catalogue re-worked and re-recorded with the Metropole Orchestra. The album, titled Gold Dust, was released in October 2012 through Deutsche Grammophon.
On May 1, 2012, Amos announced the formation of her own record label, Transmission Galactic, which she intends to use to develop new artists.
In 2013, Amos collaborated with the Bullitts on the track "Wait Until Tomorrow" from their debut album, They Die by Dawn & Other Short Stories. She also stated in an interview that a new album and tour would materialize in 2014 and that it would be a "return to contemporary music".
September 2013 saw the launch of Amos's musical project adaptation of George MacDonald's The Light Princess, along with book writer Samuel Adamson and Marianne Elliott. It premiered at London's Royal National Theatre and ended in February 2014. The Light Princess and its lead actress, Rosalie Craig, were nominated for Best Musical and Best Musical Performance respectively at the Evening Standard Award. Craig won the Best Musical Performance category.
Amos's 14th studio album, Unrepentant Geraldines, was released on May 13, 2014, via Mercury Classics/Universal Music Classics in the US. Its first single, "Trouble's Lament", was released on March 28. The album was supported by the Unrepentant Geraldines Tour which began May 5, 2014, in Cork and continued across Europe, Africa, North America, and Australia, ending in Brisbane on November 21, 2014. In Sydney, Amos performed two orchestral concerts, reminiscent of the Gold Dust Orchestral Tour, with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra at the Sydney Opera House.
According to a press release, Unrepentant Geraldines was a "return to her core identity as a creator of contemporary songs of exquisite beauty following a series of more classically-inspired and innovative musical projects of the last four years. [It is] both one further step in the artistic evolution of one of the most successful and influential artists of her generation, and a return to the inspiring and personal music that Amos is known for all around the world."
The 2-CD set The Light Princess (Original Cast Recording) was released on October 9, 2015 via Universal/Mercury Classics. Apart from the original cast performances, the recording also includes two songs from the musical ("Highness in the Sky" and "Darkest Hour') performed by Amos.
2016–present: Native Invader, Christmastide and Ocean to Ocean
On November 18, 2016, Amos released a deluxe version of the album Boys for Pele to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the original release. This follows the deluxe re-releases of her first two albums in 2015.
On September 8, 2017, Amos released Native Invader, accompanied by a world tour. During the summer of 2017, Amos launched three songs from the album: "Cloud Riders", "Up the Creek" and "Reindeer King", the latter featuring string arrangements by John Philip Shenale. Produced by Amos, the album explores topics like American politics and environmental issues, mixed with mythological elements and first-person narrations.
The initial inspiration for the album came from a trip that Amos took to the Great Smoky Mountains (Tennessee-North Carolina), home of her alleged Native American ancestors; however, two events deeply influenced the final record: in November 2016, Donald Trump was elected President of the United States of America; two months later, in January 2017, Amos's mother, Mary Ellen, suffered a stroke that left her unable to speak. Shocked by both events, Amos spent the first half of 2017 writing and recording the songs that would eventually form Native Invader. The album, released on September 8, 2017, has been presented in two formats: standard and deluxe. The standard version includes 13 songs, while the deluxe edition adds two extra songs to the tracklist: "Upside Down 2" and "Russia". Native Invader has been well received by most music critics upon release. The album obtained a score of 76 out of 100 on the review aggregator website Metacritic, based on 17 reviews, indicating "generally favorable reviews".
On November 9, 2020, Amos announced the release of a holiday-themed EP entitled Christmastide on December 4, digitally and on limited-edition vinyl. The EP consists of four original songs and features her first work with bandmates Matt Chamberlain and Jon Evans since 2009. Amos recorded the EP remotely due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.
On September 20, 2021, Amos announced her sixteenth studio album, Ocean to Ocean, which was released on October 29. The album was written and recorded in Cornwall during lockdown as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic and explores "a universal story of going to rock bottom and renewing yourself all over again". Amos will embark on a European tour in support of the album in 2022. Matt Chamberlain and Jon Evans will again feature on drums and bass guitar respectively, their first collaboration with Amos on an album since 2009's Midwinter Graces.
In print
Released in conjunction with The Beekeeper, Amos co-authored an autobiography with rock music journalist Ann Powers titled Piece by Piece (2005). The book's subject is Amos's interest in mythology and religion, exploring her songwriting process, rise to fame, and her relationship with Atlantic Records.
Image Comics released Comic Book Tattoo (2008), a collection of comic stories, each based on or inspired by songs recorded by Amos. Editor Rantz Hoseley worked with Amos to gather 80 different artists for the book, including Pia Guerra, David Mack, and Leah Moore.
Additionally, Amos and her music have been the subject of numerous official and unofficial books, as well as academic critique, including Tori Amos: Lyrics (2001) and an earlier biography, Tori Amos: All These Years (1996).
Tori Amos: In the Studio (2011) by Jake Brown features an in-depth look at Amos's career, discography and recording process.
Amos released her second memoir called Resistance: A Songwriter’s Story of Hope, Change, and Courage on 5 May 2020.
Personal life
Amos married English sound engineer Mark Hawley on February 22, 1998. Their daughter was born in 2000. The family divides their time between Sewall's Point in Florida, US, and Bude, Cornwall in the UK.
Amos' mother, Mary Ellen, died on May 11, 2019.
Early in her professional career, Amos befriended author Neil Gaiman, who became a fan after she referred to him in the song "Tear in Your Hand" and also in print interviews. Although created before the two met, the character Delirium from Gaiman's The Sandman series is inspired by Amos; Gaiman has stated that they "steal shamelessly from each other". She wrote the foreword to his collection Death: The High Cost of Living; he in turn wrote the introduction to Comic Book Tattoo. Gaiman is godfather to her daughter and a poem written for her birth, Blueberry Girl, was published as a children's book of the same name in 2009. In 2019, Amos performed the British standard "A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square" over the closing credits of Gaiman's TV series Good Omens, based on the novel of the same name written by Gaiman and Terry Pratchett.
Activism
In June 1994, the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network (RAINN), a toll-free help line in the US connecting callers with their local rape crisis center, was founded. Amos, who was raped at knifepoint when she was 22, answered the ceremonial first call to launch the hotline. She was the first national spokesperson for the organization and has continued to be closely associated with RAINN. On August 18, 2013, a concert in honor of her 50th birthday was held, an event which raised money for RAINN. On August 22, 2020, Amos appeared on a panel called Artistry & Activism at the diversity and inclusion digital global conference CARLA.
Discography
Studio albums
Little Earthquakes (1992)
Under the Pink (1994)
Boys for Pele (1996)
From the Choirgirl Hotel (1998)
To Venus and Back (1999)
Strange Little Girls (2001)
Scarlet's Walk (2002)
The Beekeeper (2005)
American Doll Posse (2007)
Abnormally Attracted to Sin (2009)
Midwinter Graces (2009)
Night of Hunters (2011)
Gold Dust (2012)
Unrepentant Geraldines (2014)
Native Invader (2017)
Ocean to Ocean (2021)
Tours
Amos, who has been performing in bars and clubs from as early as 1976 and under her professional name as early as 1991 has performed more than 1,000 shows since her first world tour in 1992. In 2003, Amos was voted fifth best touring act by the readers of Rolling Stone magazine. Her concerts are notable for their changing set lists from night to night.
Little Earthquakes Tour
Amos's first world tour began on January 29, 1992 in London and ended on November 30, 1992 in Auckland. She performed solo with a Yamaha CP-70 unless the venue was able to provide a piano. The tour included 142 concerts around the globe.
Under the Pink Tour
Amos's second world tour began on February 24, 1994 in Newcastle upon Tyne and ended on December 13, 1994 in Perth, Western Australia. Amos performed solo each night on her iconic Bösendorfer piano, and on a prepared piano during "Bells for Her". The tour included 181 concerts.
Dew Drop Inn Tour
The third world tour began on February 23, 1996 in Ipswich, England, and ended on November 11, 1996 in Boulder. Amos performed each night on piano, harpsichord, and harmonium, with Steve Caton on guitar on some songs. The tour included 187 concerts.
Plugged '98 Tour
Amos's first band tour. Amos, on piano and Kurzweil keyboard, was joined by Steve Caton on guitar, Matt Chamberlain on drums, and Jon Evans on bass. The tour began on April 18, 1998 in Fort Lauderdale and ended on December 3, 1998 in East Lansing, Michigan, including 137 concerts.
5 ½ Weeks Tour / To Dallas and Back
Amos's fifth tour was North America–only. The first part of the tour was co-headlining with Alanis Morissette and featured the same band and equipment line-up as in 1998. Amos and the band continued for eight shows before Amos embarked on a series of solo shows. The tour began on August 18, 1999 in Fort Lauderdale, Florida and ended on December 9, 1999 in Denver, including 46 concerts.
Strange Little Tour
This tour was Amos's first since becoming a mother in 2000 and her first tour fully solo since 1994 (Steve Caton was present on some songs in 1996). It saw Amos perform on piano, Rhodes piano, and Wurlitzer electric piano, and though the tour was in support of her covers album, the set lists were not strictly covers-oriented. Having brought her one-year-old daughter on the road with her, this tour was also one of Amos's shortest ventures, lasting just three months. It began on August 30, 2001 in London and ended on December 17, 2001 in Milan, including 55 concerts.
On Scarlet's Walk / Lottapianos Tour
Amos's seventh tour saw her reunited with Matt Chamberlain and Jon Evans, but not Steve Caton. The first part of the tour, which featured Amos on piano, Kurzweil, Rhodes, and Wurlitzer, was six months long and Amos went out again in the summer of 2003 for a tour with Ben Folds opening. The tour began on November 7, 2002 in Tampa and ended on September 4, 2003 in West Palm Beach, featuring 124 concerts. The final show of the tour was filmed and released as part of a DVD/CD set titled Welcome to Sunny Florida (the set also included a studio EP titled Scarlet's Hidden Treasures, an extension of the Scarlet's Walk album).
Original Sinsuality Tour / Summer of Sin
This tour began on April 1, 2005 in Clearwater, Florida, with Amos on piano, two Hammond B-3 organs, and Rhodes. The tour also encompassed Australia for the first time since 1994. Amos announced at a concert on this tour that she would never stop touring but would scale down the tours. Amos returned to the road in August and September for the Summer of Sin North America leg, ending on September 17, 2005 in Los Angeles. The tour featured "Tori's Piano Bar", where fans could nominate cover songs on Amos's website which she would then choose from to play in a special section of each show. One of the songs chosen was the Kylie Minogue hit "Can't Get You Out of My Head", which Amos dedicated to her the day after Minogue's breast cancer was announced to the public. Other songs performed by Amos include The Doors' "People are Strange", Depeche Mode's "Personal Jesus", Joni Mitchell's "The Circle Game", Madonna's "Live to Tell" and "Like a Prayer", Björk's "Hyperballad", Led Zeppelin's "When the Levee Breaks" (which she debuted in Austin, Texas, just after the events of Hurricane Katrina), Kate Bush's "And Dream of Sheep" and Crowded House's "Don't Dream It's Over", dedicating it to drummer Paul Hester who had died a week before. The entire concert tour featured 82 concerts, and six full-length concerts were released as The Original Bootlegs.
American Doll Posse World Tour
This was Amos's first tour with a full band since her 1999 Five and a Half Weeks Tour, accompanied by long-time bandmates Jon Evans and Matt Chamberlain, with guitarist Dan Phelps rounding out Amos's new band. Amos's equipment included her piano, a Hammond B-3 organ, and two Yamaha S90 ES keyboards. The tour kicked off with its European leg in Rome, Italy on May 28, 2007, which lasted through July, concluding in Israel; the Australian leg took place during September; the North American leg lasted from October to December 16, 2007, when the tour concluded in Los Angeles. Amos opened each show dressed as one of the four non-Tori personae from the album, then Amos would emerge as herself to perform for the remaining two-thirds of the show. The entire concert tour featured 93 concerts, and 27 full-length concerts of the North American tour were released as official bootlegs in the Legs and Boots series.
Sinful Attraction Tour
For her tenth tour, Amos returned to the trio format of her 2002 and 2003 tours with bassist Jon Evans and drummer Matt Chamberlain while expanding her lineup of keyboards by adding three M-Audio MIDI controllers to her ensemble of her piano, a Hammond B-3 organ, and a Yamaha S90 ES keyboard. The North American and European band tour began on July 10, 2009 in Seattle, Washington and ended in Warsaw on October 10, 2009. A solo leg through Australia began in Melbourne on November 12, 2009 and ended in Brisbane on November 24, 2009. The entire tour featured 63 concerts.
Night of Hunters tour
Amos's eleventh tour was her first with a string quartet, Apollon Musagète, (Amos's equipment includes her piano and a Yamaha S90 ES keyboard) and her first time touring in South Africa. It kicked off on September 28, 2011 in Finland, Helsinki Ice Hall and ended on December 22, 2011 in Dallas, Texas.
Gold Dust Orchestral Tour
Amos began her 2012 tour in Rotterdam on October 1.
Unrepentant Geraldines Tour
Amos began her 2014 world tour on May 5, 2014 in Cork, Ireland, and concluded it in Brisbane, Australia on November 21, after playing 73 concerts.
Native Invader Tour
Amos's 2017 tour in support of the Native Invader album kicked off on September 6, 2017, with a series of European shows in Cork, Ireland, moving on to North America in October.
Ocean to Ocean Tour
Amos is to embark on a European tour in the spring of 2022 in support of her upcoming sixteenth studio album, Ocean to Ocean, beginning in Berlin, Germany and ending in Dublin, Ireland.
Awards and nominations
{| class="wikitable sortable plainrowheaders"
|-
! scope="col" | Award
! scope="col" | Year
! scope="col" | Nominee(s)
! scope="col" | Category
! scope="col" | Result
! scope="col" class="unsortable"|
|-
! scope="row" rowspan=3|Brit Awards
| rowspan=2|1993
| rowspan=3|Herself
| International Breakthrough Act
|
| rowspan=2|
|-
| International Solo Artist
|
|-
| 1995
| International Female Solo Artist
|
|
|-
! scope="row"|Critics' Choice Documentary Awards
| 2016
| "Flicker"
| Best Song in a Documentary
|
|
|-
!scope="row"|ECHO Awards
| 1995
| Herself
| Best International Female
|
|
|-
! scope="row"|ECHO Klassik Awards
| rowspan=1|2012
| Night of Hunters
| The Klassik-ohne-Grenzen Prize
|
|
|-
! scope="row" rowspan=4|GAFFA Awards
| 2000
| rowspan=3|Herself
| rowspan=2|Best Foreign Female Act
|
| rowspan=2|
|-
| 2003
|
|-
| rowspan=2|2022
| Best Foreign Solo Act
|
|
|-
| Ocean to Ocean
| Best Foreign Album
|
|-
! scope="row"|George Peabody Medal
| 2019
| Herself
| Outstanding Contributions to Music
|
|
|-
! scope="row"|Glamour Awards
| 1998
| Herself
| Woman of the Year
|
|
|-
! scope="row" rowspan=8|Grammy Awards
| 1995
| Under the Pink
| rowspan=3|Best Alternative Music Album
|
| rowspan=8|
|-
| 1997
| Boys for Pele
|
|-
| rowspan=2|1999
| From the Choirgirl Hotel
|
|-
| "Raspberry Swirl"
| rowspan=2|Best Female Rock Vocal Performance
|
|-
| rowspan=2|2000
| "Bliss"
|
|-
| To Venus and Back
| rowspan=2|Best Alternative Music Album
|
|-
| rowspan=2|2002
| Strange Little Girls
|
|-
| "Strange Little Girl"
| Best Female Rock Vocal Performance
|
|-
! scope="row"|Hollywood Music in Media Awards
| 2016
| "Flicker"
| Best Original Song in a Documentary
|
|
|-
! scope="row"|Hungarian Music Awards
| 2010
| Abnormally Attracted to Sin
| Best Foreign Alternative Album
|
|
|-
! scope="row"|MTV Europe Music Awards
| 1994
| Herself
| Best Female
|
|
|-
! scope="row" rowspan=4|MTV Video Music Awards
| rowspan=4|1992
| rowspan=4|"Silent All These Years"
| Best Female Video
|
|rowspan=4|
|-
| Best New Artist in a Video
|
|-
| Breakthrough Video
|
|-
| Best Cinematography in a Video
|
|-
! scope="row"|NME Awards
| 2016
| Under the Pink
| Best Reissue
|
|
|-
! scope="row"|North Carolina Music Hall of Fame
| 2012
| Herself
| Inducted
|
|
|-
!scope="row" rowspan=5|Pollstar Concert Industry Awards
| rowspan=2|1993
| rowspan=2|Little Earthquakes Tour
| Best New Rock Artist
|
| rowspan=2|
|-
| Club Tour Of The Year
|
|-
| 1995
| Under the Pink Tour
| rowspan=3|Small Hall Tour Of The Year
|
|
|-
| 1997
| Dew Drop Inn Tour
|
|
|-
| 1999
| 5 ½ Weeks Tour
|
|
|-
! scope="row"|Q Awards
| 1992
| Herself
| Best New Act
|
|
|-
! scope="row" rowspan=2|WhatsOnStage Awards
| rowspan=2|2014
| rowspan=2|The Light Princess
| Best New Musical
|
| rowspan=2|
|-
| Best London Newcomer of the Year
|
|-
!scope="row"|Žebřík Music Awards
| 2001
| Herself
| Best International Female
|
|
1999: Spin Readers' Poll Awards (Won)
On May 21, 2020, Amos was invited to and gave special remarks at her alma mater Johns Hopkins University's 2020 Commencement ceremony. Other notable guest speakers during the virtual ceremony included Reddit co-founder and commencement speaker Alexis Ohanian; philanthropist and former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg; Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and a leading member of the White House Coronavirus Task Force; and senior class president Pavan Patel.
Film appearances
Tori appears as a wedding singer in the film Mona Lisa Smile.
References
Citations
Works cited
External links
1963 births
20th-century American composers
20th-century American keyboardists
20th-century American women pianists
20th-century American pianists
20th-century American women singers
21st-century American keyboardists
21st-century American women pianists
21st-century American pianists
21st-century American women singers
Alternative rock keyboardists
Alternative rock pianists
Alternative rock singers
American alternative rock musicians
American expatriates in the Republic of Ireland
American expatriates in the United Kingdom
American women composers
American women singer-songwriters
American feminist writers
American harpsichordists
American mezzo-sopranos
American organists
American people who self-identify as being of Native American descent
American pop pianists
American rock pianists
American women rock singers
American rock songwriters
Articles containing video clips
Art rock musicians
Atlantic Records artists
Child classical musicians
Clavichordists
Deutsche Grammophon artists
Electronica musicians
Epic Records artists
Feminist musicians
Harmonium players
Island Records artists
Living people
Montgomery College alumni
Musicians from Baltimore
Musicians from County Cork
Musicians from Rockville, Maryland
People from Georgetown (Washington, D.C.)
People from Newton, North Carolina
People from Sewall's Point, Florida
Republic Records artists
Sexual abuse victim advocates
Singer-songwriters from Maryland
Singer-songwriters from North Carolina
Women organists
20th-century women composers
American women in electronic music
20th-century American singers
21st-century American singers
Singer-songwriters from Washington, D.C. | true | [
"Elizaveta Igorevna Khripounova (Russian: Елизавета Игоревна Хрипунова), now recording as Elizaveta (Russian: Елизавета), also formerly known as Elly K, is a Russian-American pianist, singer/songwriter and opera singer.\n\nHer debut full-length album Beatrix Runs was produced by Grammy Award-winner Greg Wells and was digitally released on Universal Republic Records 24 January 2012 exclusively via iTunes. The album was physically released through Amazon on 17 July 2012. Also on 17 July 2012, Elizaveta released her iTunes Session EP.\n\nIn 2013 Khripounova performed at the TED Global 2013.\n\nOn 17 March 2014 the first single from the Hero EP was remixed by electronic music duo Pegboard Nerds and featured in the viral video \"Superman with a GoPro\" which has over 20 million views on YouTube. \n \nOn 14 April 2014, Khripounova released the Hero EP which reached #38 on Billboard's Heatseaker's Charts. On the same day, The A.V. Club premiered a video for the song \"Sorry\" which featured Malece Miller and Nico Greetham from the television show, So You Think You Can Dance.\n\nElizaveta's songs have been featured in ABC's Scandal, Pretty Little Liars and The Affair.\n\nElizaveta also sings the Tavern Songs in the award-winning role playing video game Dragon Age Inquisition, as the bard Maryden Halewell.\n\nElizaveta's first single from her 2015 album Messenger is called 'Trap' and is featured in a Russian motion picture \"Призрак\"(2015).\n\nBiography \n\nElizaveta was born in New York City and raised in Moscow, Russia. She is a pianist, singer/songwriter, and opera singer with classical training. In 2007 she released a digital EP \"Like Water\". The title track was featured in the 2008 motion picture The House Bunny.\n\nHer song \"Gravity\" was also featured in the 2010 motion picture Ice Castles.\n\nDiscography \n\n The Piano Girl (EP, 2002, Elly K) - as Elly K\t \n Intangible (2004, RussianChicksRule! Records) - as Elly K\n Breakfast With Chopin (2006)\n \"Like Water\" (2008)\n Elizaveta (EP, 2011, Universal Republic)\n \"Dreamer\" (2011, Universal Republic)\n Beatrix Runs (2012, Universal Republic)\n Elizaveta: iTunes Session EP (2012, Universal Republic)\n \"Hero\" (with Pegboard Nerds) (2014, Monstercat)\n Elizaveta: Hero EP (2014, Flower Army Records)\n \"Messenger\" (2015, Flower Army Records)\n \"Extraordinary\" (with Pegboard Nerds and Spyker) (2017, Monstercat)\n \"SOS\" (2018, Flower Army Records)\n \"Drifters\" (with Feint) (2019, Monstercat)\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links \n the official site\n official SoundCloud page with various tracks & demos on SoundCloud\n \n\nYear of birth missing (living people)\nLiving people\nAmerican women pop singers\nAmerican women singer-songwriters\nAmerican women pianists\nRussian women singers\nRussian pianists\nRussian women pianists\nRussian pop singers\nMonstercat artists\n21st-century American women singers\n21st-century American pianists\n21st-century American singers\nAmerican singer-songwriters",
"8 is the seventh international studio album by Indonesian-French singer Anggun. It was released by Universal Music on 8 December 2017. It became her first English-language album not to have a standalone French-language version. The album's first single, \"What We Remember\" was released digitally on 13 October 2017. The single reached number 8 on the Billboard Dance Club Songs chart in the United States.\n\nBackground\nFollowing the release of her sixth French-language album, Toujours un ailleurs (2015), Anggun was in process to complete the English version of the album by remaking its six songs. In July 2017, it was announced that Anggun signed a pan-Asian recording deal with Universal Music Asia based in Hong Kong, and her album would be released by the end of the year. She restarted the album's recording and rejected all the English songs from the Toujours un ailleurs session, including the ones she recorded with Brian Rawling in Metrophonic Studio, London.\n\nTitled 8, the album became Anggun's eighth album since her international breakthrough, following Snow on the Sahara / Au nom de la lune (1997), Chrysalis / Désirs contraires (2000), Open Hearts soundtrack (2002), Luminescence (2005), Elevation (2008), Echoes / Échos (2011), and Toujours un ailleurs (2015).\n\nPromotion\nThe album was launched in Apple Store, Orchard Road, Singapore, on 8 December 2017, with an acoustic showcase by the singer. Anggun also came to Manila, Philippines to do a promotional tour. \"What We Remember\" was released as the album's first single on 13 October 2017, with a music video directed by Roy Raz. The album's second single, \"The Good Is Back\", was released in two duet version on 20 April 2018, one with Indonesian singer Rossa and another one with Malaysian singer Fazura in 2018.\n\nTrack listing\n\nCharts\n\nRelease history\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n Anggun official website\n\n2017 albums\nAnggun albums"
]
|
[
"Tori Amos",
"The Universal Republic years (2008-11)",
"who/what were Universal Republic?",
"Amos signed a \"joint venture\" deal with Universal Republic Records.",
"What was her first album with Universal Republic?",
"Abnormally Attracted to Sin, Amos's tenth solo studio album and her first album released through Universal Republic, was released in May 2009"
]
| C_f2c7f26de77949ff80c91a7bd337fb42_0 | What was the album about? | 3 | What was Tori Amos' first Universal Republic album about? | Tori Amos | In May 2008, Amos announced that, due to creative and financial disagreements with Epic Records, she had negotiated an end to her contract with the record label, and would be operating independently of major record labels on future work. In September of the same year, Amos released a live album and DVD, Live at Montreux 1991/1992, through Eagle Rock Entertainment, of two performances she gave at the Montreux Jazz Festival very early on in her career while promoting her debut solo album, Little Earthquakes. By December, after a chance encounter with chairman and CEO of Universal Music Group, Doug Morris, Amos signed a "joint venture" deal with Universal Republic Records. Abnormally Attracted to Sin, Amos's tenth solo studio album and her first album released through Universal Republic, was released in May 2009 to mostly positive reviews. The album debuted in the top 10 of the Billboard 200, making it Amos's seventh album to do so. Abnormally Attracted to Sin, admitted Amos, is a "personal album", not a conceptual one, with the album exploring themes of power, boundaries, and the subjective view of sin. Continuing her distribution deal with Universal Republic, Amos released Midwinter Graces, her first seasonal album, in November of the same year. The album features reworked versions of traditional carols, as well as original songs written by Amos. During her contract with the label, Amos recorded vocals for two songs for David Byrne's collaboration album with Fatboy Slim, titled Here Lies Love, which was released in April 2010. In July of the same year, the DVD Tori Amos- Live from the Artists Den was released exclusively through Barnes & Noble. After a brief tour from June to September 2010, Amos released the highly exclusive live album From Russia With Love in December the same year, recorded live in Moscow on September 3, 2010. The limited edition set included a signature edition Lomography Diana F+ camera, along with 2 lenses, a roll of film and 1 of 5 photographs taken of Tori during her time in Moscow. The set was released exclusively through toriamos.com and only 2000 copies were produced. CANNOTANSWER | the album exploring themes of power, boundaries, and the subjective view of sin. | Tori Amos (born Myra Ellen Amos; August 22, 1963) is an American singer-songwriter and pianist. She is a classically trained musician with a mezzo-soprano vocal range. Having already begun composing instrumental pieces on piano, Amos won a full scholarship to the Peabody Institute at Johns Hopkins University at the age of five, the youngest person ever to have been admitted. She had to leave at the age of eleven when her scholarship was discontinued for what Rolling Stone described as "musical insubordination". Amos was the lead singer of the short-lived 1980s synth-pop group Y Kant Tori Read before achieving her breakthrough as a solo artist in the early 1990s. Her songs focus on a broad range of topics, including sexuality, feminism, politics, and religion.
Her charting singles include "Crucify", "Silent All These Years", "God", "Cornflake Girl", "Caught a Lite Sneeze", "Professional Widow", "Spark", "1000 Oceans", "Flavor" and "A Sorta Fairytale", her most commercially successful single in the U.S. to date. Amos has received five MTV VMA nominations and eight Grammy Award nominations, and won an Echo Klassik award for her Night of Hunters classical crossover album. She is listed on VH1's 1999 "100 Greatest Women of Rock and Roll" at number 71.
Early life and education
Amos is the third child of Mary Ellen (Copeland) and Edison McKinley Amos. She was born at the Old Catawba Hospital in Newton, North Carolina, during a trip from their Georgetown home in Washington, D.C. Of particular importance to her as a child was her maternal grandfather, Calvin Clinton Copeland, who was a great source of inspiration and guidance, offering a more pantheistic spiritual alternative to her father and paternal grandmother's traditional Christianity.
When she was two years old, her family moved to Baltimore, Maryland, where her father had transplanted his Methodist ministry from its original base in Washington, D.C. Her older brother and sister took piano lessons, but Tori did not need them. From the time she could reach the piano, she taught herself to play: when she was two, she could reproduce pieces of music she had only heard once, and, by the age of three, she was composing her own songs. She has described seeing music as structures of light since early childhood, an experience consistent with chromesthesia:
At five, she became the youngest student ever admitted to the preparatory division of the Peabody Conservatory of Music. She studied classical piano at Peabody from 1968 to 1974. In 1974, when she was eleven, her scholarship was discontinued, and she was asked to leave. Amos has asserted that she lost the scholarship because of her interest in rock and popular music, coupled with her dislike for reading from sheet music.
In 1972, the Amos family moved to Silver Spring, Maryland, where her father became pastor of the Good Shepherd United Methodist church. At thirteen, Amos began playing at gay bars and piano bars, chaperoned by her father.
Amos won a county teen talent contest in 1977, singing a song called "More Than Just a Friend". As a senior at Richard Montgomery High School, she co-wrote "Baltimore" with her brother, Mike Amos, for a competition involving the Baltimore Orioles. The song did not win the contest but became her first single, released as a 7-inch single pressed locally for family and friends in 1980 with another Amos-penned composition as a B-side, "Walking With You". Before this, she had performed under her middle name, Ellen, but permanently adopted Tori after a friend's boyfriend told her she looked like a Torrey pine, a tree native to the West Coast.
Career
1979–1989: Career beginnings and Y Kant Tori Read
By the time she was 17, Amos had a stock of homemade demo tapes that her father regularly sent out to record companies and producers. Producer Narada Michael Walden responded favorably: he and Amos cut some tracks together, but none were released. Eventually, Atlantic Records responded to one of the tapes, and, when A&R man Jason Flom flew to Baltimore to audition her in person, the label was convinced and signed her.
In 1984, Amos moved to Los Angeles to pursue her music career after several years performing on the piano bar circuit in the D.C. area.
In 1986, Amos formed a musical group called Y Kant Tori Read, named for her difficulty sight-reading. In addition to Amos, the group was composed of Steve Caton (who would later play guitars on all of her albums until 1999), drummer Matt Sorum, bass player Brad Cobb and, for a short time, keyboardist Jim Tauber. The band went through several iterations of songwriting and recording; Amos has said interference from record executives caused the band to lose its musical edge and direction during this time. Finally, in July 1988, the band's self-titled debut album, Y Kant Tori Read, was released. Although its producer, Joe Chiccarelli, stated that Amos was very happy with the album at the time, Amos has since criticized it, once remarking: "The only good thing about that album is my ankle high boots."
Following the album's commercial failure and the group's subsequent disbanding, Amos began working with other artists (including Stan Ridgway, Sandra Bernhard, and Al Stewart) as a backup vocalist. She also recorded a song called "Distant Storm" for the film China O'Brien. In the credits, the song is attributed to a band called Tess Makes Good.
1990–1995: Little Earthquakes and Under the Pink
Despite the disappointing reaction to Y Kant Tori Read, Amos still had to comply with her six-record contract with Atlantic Records, which, in 1989, wanted a new record by March 1990. The initial recordings were declined by the label, which Amos felt was because the album had not been properly presented. The album was reworked and expanded under the guidance of Doug Morris and the musical talents of Steve Caton, Eric Rosse, Will MacGregor, Carlo Nuccio, and Dan Nebenzal, resulting in Little Earthquakes, an album recounting her religious upbringing, sexual awakening, struggle to establish her identity, and sexual assault. This album became her commercial and artistic breakthrough, entering the British charts in January 1992 at Number 15. Little Earthquakes was released in the United States in February 1992 and slowly but steadily began to attract listeners, gaining more attention with the video for the single "Silent All These Years".
Amos traveled to New Mexico with personal and professional partner Eric Rosse in 1993 to write and largely record her second solo record, Under the Pink. The album was received with mostly favorable reviews and sold enough copies to chart at No. 12 on the Billboard 200, a significantly higher position than the preceding album's position at No. 54 on the same chart. However, the album found its biggest success in the UK, debuting at number one upon release in February 1994.
1996–2000: Boys for Pele, From the Choirgirl Hotel, and To Venus and Back
Her third solo album, Boys for Pele, was released in January 1996. Prior to its release, the first single, "Caught a Lite Sneeze" became the first full song released for streaming online prior to an album's release.
The album was recorded in an Irish church, in Delgany, County Wicklow, with Amos taking advantage of the church's acoustics. For this album, Amos used the harpsichord, harmonium, and clavichord as well as the piano. The album garnered mixed reviews upon its release, with some critics praising its intensity and uniqueness while others bemoaned its comparative impenetrability. Despite the album's erratic lyrical content and instrumentation, the latter of which kept it away from mainstream audiences, Boys for Pele is Amos's most successful simultaneous transatlantic release, reaching No. 2 on the UK Top 40 and No. 2 on the Billboard 200 upon its release.
Fueled by the desire to have her own recording studio to distance herself from record company executives, Amos had the barn of her home in Cornwall converted into the state-of-the-art recording studio of Martian Engineering Studios.
From the Choirgirl Hotel and To Venus and Back, released in May 1998 and September 1999, respectively, differ greatly from previous albums. Amos's trademark acoustic, piano-based sound is largely replaced with arrangements that include elements of electronica and dance music with vocal washes. The underlying themes of both albums deal with womanhood and Amos's own miscarriages and marriage. Reviews for From the Choirgirl Hotel were mostly favorable and praised Amos's continued artistic originality. Debut sales for From the Choirgirl Hotel are Amos's best to date, selling 153,000 copies in its first week. To Venus and Back, a two-disc release of original studio material and live material recorded from the previous world tour, received mostly positive reviews and included the first major-label single available for sale as a digital download.
2001–2004: Strange Little Girls and Scarlet's Walk
Shortly after giving birth to her daughter, Amos decided to record a cover album, taking songs written by men about women and reversing the gender roles to reflect a woman's perspective. That became Strange Little Girls, released in September 2001. The album is Amos's first concept album, with artwork featuring Amos photographed in character of the women portrayed in each song. Amos would later reveal that a stimulus for the album was to end her contract with Atlantic without giving them original songs; Amos felt that since 1998, the label had not been properly promoting her and had trapped her in a contract by refusing to sell her to another label.
With her Atlantic contract fulfilled after a 15-year stint, Amos signed to Epic in late 2001. In October 2002, Amos released Scarlet's Walk, another concept album. Described as a "sonic novel", the album explores Amos's alter ego, Scarlet, intertwined with her cross-country concert tour following 9/11. Through the songs, Amos explores such topics as the history of America, American people, Native American history, pornography, masochism, homophobia and misogyny. The album had a strong debut at No. 7 on the Billboard 200. Scarlet's Walk is Amos's last album to date to reach certified gold status from the RIAA.
Not long after Amos was ensconced with her new label, she received unsettling news when Polly Anthony resigned as president of Epic Records in 2003. Anthony had been one of the primary reasons Amos signed with the label and as a result of her resignation, Amos formed the Bridge Entertainment Group. Further trouble for Amos occurred the following year when her label, Epic/Sony Music Entertainment, merged with BMG Entertainment as a result of the industry's decline.
2005–2008: The Beekeeper and American Doll Posse
Amos released two more albums with the label, The Beekeeper (2005) and American Doll Posse (2007). Both albums received generally favorable reviews. The Beekeeper was conceptually influenced by the ancient art of beekeeping, which she considered a source of female inspiration and empowerment. Through extensive study, Amos also wove in the stories of the Gnostic gospels and the removal of women from a position of power within the Christian church to create an album based largely on religion and politics. The album debuted at No. 5 on the Billboard 200, placing her in an elite group of women who have secured five or more US Top 10 album debuts. While the newly merged label was present throughout the production process of The Beekeeper, Amos and her crew nearly completed her next project, American Doll Posse, before inviting the label to listen to it. American Doll Posse, another concept album, is fashioned around a group of girls (the "posse") who are used as a theme of alter-egos of Amos's. Musically and stylistically, the album saw Amos return to a more confrontational nature. Like its predecessor, American Doll Posse debuted at No. 5 on the Billboard 200.
During her tenure with Epic Records, Amos also released a retrospective collection titled Tales of a Librarian (2003) through her former label, Atlantic Records; a two-disc DVD set Fade to Red (2006) containing most of Amos's solo music videos, released through the Warner Bros. reissue imprint Rhino; a five disc box set titled A Piano: The Collection (2006), celebrating Amos's 15-year solo career through remastered album tracks, remixes, alternate mixes, demos, and a string of unreleased songs from album recording sessions, also released through Rhino; and numerous official bootlegs from two world tours, The Original Bootlegs (2005) and Legs & Boots (2007) through Epic Records.
2008–2011: Abnormally Attracted to Sin and Midwinter Graces
In May 2008, Amos announced that, due to creative and financial disagreements with Epic Records, she had negotiated an end to her contract with the record label, and would be operating independently of major record labels on future work. In September of the same year, Amos released a live album and DVD, Live at Montreux 1991/1992, through Eagle Rock Entertainment, of two performances she gave at the Montreux Jazz Festival very early on in her career while promoting her debut solo album, Little Earthquakes. By December, after a chance encounter with chairman and CEO of Universal Music Group, Doug Morris, Amos signed a "joint venture" deal with Universal Republic Records.
Abnormally Attracted to Sin, Amos's tenth solo studio album and her first album released through Universal Republic, was released in May 2009 to mostly positive reviews. The album debuted in the top 10 of the Billboard 200, making it Amos's seventh album to do so. Abnormally Attracted to Sin, admitted Amos, is a "personal album", not a conceptual one, with the album exploring themes of power, boundaries, and the subjective view of sin. Continuing her distribution deal with Universal Republic, Amos released Midwinter Graces, her first seasonal album, in November of the same year. The album features reworked versions of traditional carols, as well as original songs written by Amos.
During her contract with the label, Amos recorded vocals for two songs for David Byrne's collaboration album with Fatboy Slim, titled Here Lies Love, which was released in April 2010. In July of the same year, the DVD Tori Amos- Live from the Artists Den was released exclusively through Barnes & Noble.
After a brief tour from June to September 2010, Amos released a live album From Russia With Love in December the same year, recorded in Moscow on September 3, 2010. The limited edition set included a signature edition Lomography Diana F+ camera, along with two lenses, a roll of film and one of five photographs taken of Amos during her time in Moscow. The set was released exclusively through her website and only 2000 copies were produced.
2011–2015: Night of Hunters, Gold Dust, and Unrepentant Geraldines
In September 2011, Amos released her first classical-style music album, Night of Hunters, featuring variations on a theme to pay tribute to composers such as Bach, Chopin, Debussy, Granados, Satie and Schubert, on the Deutsche Grammophon label, a division of Universal Music Group. Amos recorded the album with several musicians, including the Apollon Musagète string quartet.
To mark the 20th anniversary of her debut album, Little Earthquakes (1992), Amos released an album of songs from her back catalogue re-worked and re-recorded with the Metropole Orchestra. The album, titled Gold Dust, was released in October 2012 through Deutsche Grammophon.
On May 1, 2012, Amos announced the formation of her own record label, Transmission Galactic, which she intends to use to develop new artists.
In 2013, Amos collaborated with the Bullitts on the track "Wait Until Tomorrow" from their debut album, They Die by Dawn & Other Short Stories. She also stated in an interview that a new album and tour would materialize in 2014 and that it would be a "return to contemporary music".
September 2013 saw the launch of Amos's musical project adaptation of George MacDonald's The Light Princess, along with book writer Samuel Adamson and Marianne Elliott. It premiered at London's Royal National Theatre and ended in February 2014. The Light Princess and its lead actress, Rosalie Craig, were nominated for Best Musical and Best Musical Performance respectively at the Evening Standard Award. Craig won the Best Musical Performance category.
Amos's 14th studio album, Unrepentant Geraldines, was released on May 13, 2014, via Mercury Classics/Universal Music Classics in the US. Its first single, "Trouble's Lament", was released on March 28. The album was supported by the Unrepentant Geraldines Tour which began May 5, 2014, in Cork and continued across Europe, Africa, North America, and Australia, ending in Brisbane on November 21, 2014. In Sydney, Amos performed two orchestral concerts, reminiscent of the Gold Dust Orchestral Tour, with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra at the Sydney Opera House.
According to a press release, Unrepentant Geraldines was a "return to her core identity as a creator of contemporary songs of exquisite beauty following a series of more classically-inspired and innovative musical projects of the last four years. [It is] both one further step in the artistic evolution of one of the most successful and influential artists of her generation, and a return to the inspiring and personal music that Amos is known for all around the world."
The 2-CD set The Light Princess (Original Cast Recording) was released on October 9, 2015 via Universal/Mercury Classics. Apart from the original cast performances, the recording also includes two songs from the musical ("Highness in the Sky" and "Darkest Hour') performed by Amos.
2016–present: Native Invader, Christmastide and Ocean to Ocean
On November 18, 2016, Amos released a deluxe version of the album Boys for Pele to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the original release. This follows the deluxe re-releases of her first two albums in 2015.
On September 8, 2017, Amos released Native Invader, accompanied by a world tour. During the summer of 2017, Amos launched three songs from the album: "Cloud Riders", "Up the Creek" and "Reindeer King", the latter featuring string arrangements by John Philip Shenale. Produced by Amos, the album explores topics like American politics and environmental issues, mixed with mythological elements and first-person narrations.
The initial inspiration for the album came from a trip that Amos took to the Great Smoky Mountains (Tennessee-North Carolina), home of her alleged Native American ancestors; however, two events deeply influenced the final record: in November 2016, Donald Trump was elected President of the United States of America; two months later, in January 2017, Amos's mother, Mary Ellen, suffered a stroke that left her unable to speak. Shocked by both events, Amos spent the first half of 2017 writing and recording the songs that would eventually form Native Invader. The album, released on September 8, 2017, has been presented in two formats: standard and deluxe. The standard version includes 13 songs, while the deluxe edition adds two extra songs to the tracklist: "Upside Down 2" and "Russia". Native Invader has been well received by most music critics upon release. The album obtained a score of 76 out of 100 on the review aggregator website Metacritic, based on 17 reviews, indicating "generally favorable reviews".
On November 9, 2020, Amos announced the release of a holiday-themed EP entitled Christmastide on December 4, digitally and on limited-edition vinyl. The EP consists of four original songs and features her first work with bandmates Matt Chamberlain and Jon Evans since 2009. Amos recorded the EP remotely due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.
On September 20, 2021, Amos announced her sixteenth studio album, Ocean to Ocean, which was released on October 29. The album was written and recorded in Cornwall during lockdown as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic and explores "a universal story of going to rock bottom and renewing yourself all over again". Amos will embark on a European tour in support of the album in 2022. Matt Chamberlain and Jon Evans will again feature on drums and bass guitar respectively, their first collaboration with Amos on an album since 2009's Midwinter Graces.
In print
Released in conjunction with The Beekeeper, Amos co-authored an autobiography with rock music journalist Ann Powers titled Piece by Piece (2005). The book's subject is Amos's interest in mythology and religion, exploring her songwriting process, rise to fame, and her relationship with Atlantic Records.
Image Comics released Comic Book Tattoo (2008), a collection of comic stories, each based on or inspired by songs recorded by Amos. Editor Rantz Hoseley worked with Amos to gather 80 different artists for the book, including Pia Guerra, David Mack, and Leah Moore.
Additionally, Amos and her music have been the subject of numerous official and unofficial books, as well as academic critique, including Tori Amos: Lyrics (2001) and an earlier biography, Tori Amos: All These Years (1996).
Tori Amos: In the Studio (2011) by Jake Brown features an in-depth look at Amos's career, discography and recording process.
Amos released her second memoir called Resistance: A Songwriter’s Story of Hope, Change, and Courage on 5 May 2020.
Personal life
Amos married English sound engineer Mark Hawley on February 22, 1998. Their daughter was born in 2000. The family divides their time between Sewall's Point in Florida, US, and Bude, Cornwall in the UK.
Amos' mother, Mary Ellen, died on May 11, 2019.
Early in her professional career, Amos befriended author Neil Gaiman, who became a fan after she referred to him in the song "Tear in Your Hand" and also in print interviews. Although created before the two met, the character Delirium from Gaiman's The Sandman series is inspired by Amos; Gaiman has stated that they "steal shamelessly from each other". She wrote the foreword to his collection Death: The High Cost of Living; he in turn wrote the introduction to Comic Book Tattoo. Gaiman is godfather to her daughter and a poem written for her birth, Blueberry Girl, was published as a children's book of the same name in 2009. In 2019, Amos performed the British standard "A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square" over the closing credits of Gaiman's TV series Good Omens, based on the novel of the same name written by Gaiman and Terry Pratchett.
Activism
In June 1994, the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network (RAINN), a toll-free help line in the US connecting callers with their local rape crisis center, was founded. Amos, who was raped at knifepoint when she was 22, answered the ceremonial first call to launch the hotline. She was the first national spokesperson for the organization and has continued to be closely associated with RAINN. On August 18, 2013, a concert in honor of her 50th birthday was held, an event which raised money for RAINN. On August 22, 2020, Amos appeared on a panel called Artistry & Activism at the diversity and inclusion digital global conference CARLA.
Discography
Studio albums
Little Earthquakes (1992)
Under the Pink (1994)
Boys for Pele (1996)
From the Choirgirl Hotel (1998)
To Venus and Back (1999)
Strange Little Girls (2001)
Scarlet's Walk (2002)
The Beekeeper (2005)
American Doll Posse (2007)
Abnormally Attracted to Sin (2009)
Midwinter Graces (2009)
Night of Hunters (2011)
Gold Dust (2012)
Unrepentant Geraldines (2014)
Native Invader (2017)
Ocean to Ocean (2021)
Tours
Amos, who has been performing in bars and clubs from as early as 1976 and under her professional name as early as 1991 has performed more than 1,000 shows since her first world tour in 1992. In 2003, Amos was voted fifth best touring act by the readers of Rolling Stone magazine. Her concerts are notable for their changing set lists from night to night.
Little Earthquakes Tour
Amos's first world tour began on January 29, 1992 in London and ended on November 30, 1992 in Auckland. She performed solo with a Yamaha CP-70 unless the venue was able to provide a piano. The tour included 142 concerts around the globe.
Under the Pink Tour
Amos's second world tour began on February 24, 1994 in Newcastle upon Tyne and ended on December 13, 1994 in Perth, Western Australia. Amos performed solo each night on her iconic Bösendorfer piano, and on a prepared piano during "Bells for Her". The tour included 181 concerts.
Dew Drop Inn Tour
The third world tour began on February 23, 1996 in Ipswich, England, and ended on November 11, 1996 in Boulder. Amos performed each night on piano, harpsichord, and harmonium, with Steve Caton on guitar on some songs. The tour included 187 concerts.
Plugged '98 Tour
Amos's first band tour. Amos, on piano and Kurzweil keyboard, was joined by Steve Caton on guitar, Matt Chamberlain on drums, and Jon Evans on bass. The tour began on April 18, 1998 in Fort Lauderdale and ended on December 3, 1998 in East Lansing, Michigan, including 137 concerts.
5 ½ Weeks Tour / To Dallas and Back
Amos's fifth tour was North America–only. The first part of the tour was co-headlining with Alanis Morissette and featured the same band and equipment line-up as in 1998. Amos and the band continued for eight shows before Amos embarked on a series of solo shows. The tour began on August 18, 1999 in Fort Lauderdale, Florida and ended on December 9, 1999 in Denver, including 46 concerts.
Strange Little Tour
This tour was Amos's first since becoming a mother in 2000 and her first tour fully solo since 1994 (Steve Caton was present on some songs in 1996). It saw Amos perform on piano, Rhodes piano, and Wurlitzer electric piano, and though the tour was in support of her covers album, the set lists were not strictly covers-oriented. Having brought her one-year-old daughter on the road with her, this tour was also one of Amos's shortest ventures, lasting just three months. It began on August 30, 2001 in London and ended on December 17, 2001 in Milan, including 55 concerts.
On Scarlet's Walk / Lottapianos Tour
Amos's seventh tour saw her reunited with Matt Chamberlain and Jon Evans, but not Steve Caton. The first part of the tour, which featured Amos on piano, Kurzweil, Rhodes, and Wurlitzer, was six months long and Amos went out again in the summer of 2003 for a tour with Ben Folds opening. The tour began on November 7, 2002 in Tampa and ended on September 4, 2003 in West Palm Beach, featuring 124 concerts. The final show of the tour was filmed and released as part of a DVD/CD set titled Welcome to Sunny Florida (the set also included a studio EP titled Scarlet's Hidden Treasures, an extension of the Scarlet's Walk album).
Original Sinsuality Tour / Summer of Sin
This tour began on April 1, 2005 in Clearwater, Florida, with Amos on piano, two Hammond B-3 organs, and Rhodes. The tour also encompassed Australia for the first time since 1994. Amos announced at a concert on this tour that she would never stop touring but would scale down the tours. Amos returned to the road in August and September for the Summer of Sin North America leg, ending on September 17, 2005 in Los Angeles. The tour featured "Tori's Piano Bar", where fans could nominate cover songs on Amos's website which she would then choose from to play in a special section of each show. One of the songs chosen was the Kylie Minogue hit "Can't Get You Out of My Head", which Amos dedicated to her the day after Minogue's breast cancer was announced to the public. Other songs performed by Amos include The Doors' "People are Strange", Depeche Mode's "Personal Jesus", Joni Mitchell's "The Circle Game", Madonna's "Live to Tell" and "Like a Prayer", Björk's "Hyperballad", Led Zeppelin's "When the Levee Breaks" (which she debuted in Austin, Texas, just after the events of Hurricane Katrina), Kate Bush's "And Dream of Sheep" and Crowded House's "Don't Dream It's Over", dedicating it to drummer Paul Hester who had died a week before. The entire concert tour featured 82 concerts, and six full-length concerts were released as The Original Bootlegs.
American Doll Posse World Tour
This was Amos's first tour with a full band since her 1999 Five and a Half Weeks Tour, accompanied by long-time bandmates Jon Evans and Matt Chamberlain, with guitarist Dan Phelps rounding out Amos's new band. Amos's equipment included her piano, a Hammond B-3 organ, and two Yamaha S90 ES keyboards. The tour kicked off with its European leg in Rome, Italy on May 28, 2007, which lasted through July, concluding in Israel; the Australian leg took place during September; the North American leg lasted from October to December 16, 2007, when the tour concluded in Los Angeles. Amos opened each show dressed as one of the four non-Tori personae from the album, then Amos would emerge as herself to perform for the remaining two-thirds of the show. The entire concert tour featured 93 concerts, and 27 full-length concerts of the North American tour were released as official bootlegs in the Legs and Boots series.
Sinful Attraction Tour
For her tenth tour, Amos returned to the trio format of her 2002 and 2003 tours with bassist Jon Evans and drummer Matt Chamberlain while expanding her lineup of keyboards by adding three M-Audio MIDI controllers to her ensemble of her piano, a Hammond B-3 organ, and a Yamaha S90 ES keyboard. The North American and European band tour began on July 10, 2009 in Seattle, Washington and ended in Warsaw on October 10, 2009. A solo leg through Australia began in Melbourne on November 12, 2009 and ended in Brisbane on November 24, 2009. The entire tour featured 63 concerts.
Night of Hunters tour
Amos's eleventh tour was her first with a string quartet, Apollon Musagète, (Amos's equipment includes her piano and a Yamaha S90 ES keyboard) and her first time touring in South Africa. It kicked off on September 28, 2011 in Finland, Helsinki Ice Hall and ended on December 22, 2011 in Dallas, Texas.
Gold Dust Orchestral Tour
Amos began her 2012 tour in Rotterdam on October 1.
Unrepentant Geraldines Tour
Amos began her 2014 world tour on May 5, 2014 in Cork, Ireland, and concluded it in Brisbane, Australia on November 21, after playing 73 concerts.
Native Invader Tour
Amos's 2017 tour in support of the Native Invader album kicked off on September 6, 2017, with a series of European shows in Cork, Ireland, moving on to North America in October.
Ocean to Ocean Tour
Amos is to embark on a European tour in the spring of 2022 in support of her upcoming sixteenth studio album, Ocean to Ocean, beginning in Berlin, Germany and ending in Dublin, Ireland.
Awards and nominations
{| class="wikitable sortable plainrowheaders"
|-
! scope="col" | Award
! scope="col" | Year
! scope="col" | Nominee(s)
! scope="col" | Category
! scope="col" | Result
! scope="col" class="unsortable"|
|-
! scope="row" rowspan=3|Brit Awards
| rowspan=2|1993
| rowspan=3|Herself
| International Breakthrough Act
|
| rowspan=2|
|-
| International Solo Artist
|
|-
| 1995
| International Female Solo Artist
|
|
|-
! scope="row"|Critics' Choice Documentary Awards
| 2016
| "Flicker"
| Best Song in a Documentary
|
|
|-
!scope="row"|ECHO Awards
| 1995
| Herself
| Best International Female
|
|
|-
! scope="row"|ECHO Klassik Awards
| rowspan=1|2012
| Night of Hunters
| The Klassik-ohne-Grenzen Prize
|
|
|-
! scope="row" rowspan=4|GAFFA Awards
| 2000
| rowspan=3|Herself
| rowspan=2|Best Foreign Female Act
|
| rowspan=2|
|-
| 2003
|
|-
| rowspan=2|2022
| Best Foreign Solo Act
|
|
|-
| Ocean to Ocean
| Best Foreign Album
|
|-
! scope="row"|George Peabody Medal
| 2019
| Herself
| Outstanding Contributions to Music
|
|
|-
! scope="row"|Glamour Awards
| 1998
| Herself
| Woman of the Year
|
|
|-
! scope="row" rowspan=8|Grammy Awards
| 1995
| Under the Pink
| rowspan=3|Best Alternative Music Album
|
| rowspan=8|
|-
| 1997
| Boys for Pele
|
|-
| rowspan=2|1999
| From the Choirgirl Hotel
|
|-
| "Raspberry Swirl"
| rowspan=2|Best Female Rock Vocal Performance
|
|-
| rowspan=2|2000
| "Bliss"
|
|-
| To Venus and Back
| rowspan=2|Best Alternative Music Album
|
|-
| rowspan=2|2002
| Strange Little Girls
|
|-
| "Strange Little Girl"
| Best Female Rock Vocal Performance
|
|-
! scope="row"|Hollywood Music in Media Awards
| 2016
| "Flicker"
| Best Original Song in a Documentary
|
|
|-
! scope="row"|Hungarian Music Awards
| 2010
| Abnormally Attracted to Sin
| Best Foreign Alternative Album
|
|
|-
! scope="row"|MTV Europe Music Awards
| 1994
| Herself
| Best Female
|
|
|-
! scope="row" rowspan=4|MTV Video Music Awards
| rowspan=4|1992
| rowspan=4|"Silent All These Years"
| Best Female Video
|
|rowspan=4|
|-
| Best New Artist in a Video
|
|-
| Breakthrough Video
|
|-
| Best Cinematography in a Video
|
|-
! scope="row"|NME Awards
| 2016
| Under the Pink
| Best Reissue
|
|
|-
! scope="row"|North Carolina Music Hall of Fame
| 2012
| Herself
| Inducted
|
|
|-
!scope="row" rowspan=5|Pollstar Concert Industry Awards
| rowspan=2|1993
| rowspan=2|Little Earthquakes Tour
| Best New Rock Artist
|
| rowspan=2|
|-
| Club Tour Of The Year
|
|-
| 1995
| Under the Pink Tour
| rowspan=3|Small Hall Tour Of The Year
|
|
|-
| 1997
| Dew Drop Inn Tour
|
|
|-
| 1999
| 5 ½ Weeks Tour
|
|
|-
! scope="row"|Q Awards
| 1992
| Herself
| Best New Act
|
|
|-
! scope="row" rowspan=2|WhatsOnStage Awards
| rowspan=2|2014
| rowspan=2|The Light Princess
| Best New Musical
|
| rowspan=2|
|-
| Best London Newcomer of the Year
|
|-
!scope="row"|Žebřík Music Awards
| 2001
| Herself
| Best International Female
|
|
1999: Spin Readers' Poll Awards (Won)
On May 21, 2020, Amos was invited to and gave special remarks at her alma mater Johns Hopkins University's 2020 Commencement ceremony. Other notable guest speakers during the virtual ceremony included Reddit co-founder and commencement speaker Alexis Ohanian; philanthropist and former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg; Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and a leading member of the White House Coronavirus Task Force; and senior class president Pavan Patel.
Film appearances
Tori appears as a wedding singer in the film Mona Lisa Smile.
References
Citations
Works cited
External links
1963 births
20th-century American composers
20th-century American keyboardists
20th-century American women pianists
20th-century American pianists
20th-century American women singers
21st-century American keyboardists
21st-century American women pianists
21st-century American pianists
21st-century American women singers
Alternative rock keyboardists
Alternative rock pianists
Alternative rock singers
American alternative rock musicians
American expatriates in the Republic of Ireland
American expatriates in the United Kingdom
American women composers
American women singer-songwriters
American feminist writers
American harpsichordists
American mezzo-sopranos
American organists
American people who self-identify as being of Native American descent
American pop pianists
American rock pianists
American women rock singers
American rock songwriters
Articles containing video clips
Art rock musicians
Atlantic Records artists
Child classical musicians
Clavichordists
Deutsche Grammophon artists
Electronica musicians
Epic Records artists
Feminist musicians
Harmonium players
Island Records artists
Living people
Montgomery College alumni
Musicians from Baltimore
Musicians from County Cork
Musicians from Rockville, Maryland
People from Georgetown (Washington, D.C.)
People from Newton, North Carolina
People from Sewall's Point, Florida
Republic Records artists
Sexual abuse victim advocates
Singer-songwriters from Maryland
Singer-songwriters from North Carolina
Women organists
20th-century women composers
American women in electronic music
20th-century American singers
21st-century American singers
Singer-songwriters from Washington, D.C. | true | [
"{{Album ratings\n| rev1 = Allmusic\n| rev1Score = <ref name=\"allmusic\">{{cite web|last1=Adams|first1=Greg|url=https://www.allmusic.com/album/what-about-me-mw0000948918|title=What About Me|work=Allmusic|access-date=October 25, 2017}}</ref>}}What About Me is the debut studio album by Anne Murray issued in 1968 on Arc Records. Upon its release, the album was only issued in Canada (it would later be issued in the U.S. on the Pickwick label, following Murray's 1970s chart success there).\n\nThe album was reissued in Europe on the Astan label under the title Both Sides Now after original title track \"What About Me\" was dropped from the album. \"Both Sides Now\" is the well known Joni Mitchell song covered on the album. Other versions of the album kept the title Both Sides Now but include the \"What About Me\" track.\n\nIn 1980, Chevron Records (UK) released an album (#CHVL 1830) with the same title but with a different cover art - tracks 4 and 5 are a medley and this causes confusion but the Chevron issue is complete.\n\nTrack listing\n\"What About Me\" (Scott McKenzie) - 3:09\n\"Both Sides Now\" (Joni Mitchell) - 3:22\n\"It's All Over\" (Alan MacRae) - 2:09\n\"Some Birds\" (Ken Tobias) \n\"For Baby\" (John Denver credited as Deutshendorf'') - 4:31 (medley total for tracks 4 & 5) \n\"Paths of Victory\" (Brian Ahern) - 1:54\n\"David's Song\" (David Wiffen) - 3:10\n\"There Goes My Everything\" (Dallas Frazier) - 3:25\n\"Buffalo in the Park\" (Ahern, William Hawkins) - 2:52\n\"Last Thing on My Mind\" (Tom Paxton) - 2:28\n\"All the Time\" (Mel Tillis, Wayne Walker) - 2:39\n\nReferences\n\n1968 debut albums\nAnne Murray albums\nAlbums produced by Brian Ahern (producer)",
"No Turning Back: The Story So Far is the first compilation album by Shannon Noll. The album includes tracks from Noll's three studio albums to date, That's What I'm Talking About (2004), Lift (2005) and Turn It Up (2008) and five brand new tracks. The album was released in September 2008 and peaked at number 7 on the ARIA Charts, becoming Noll's fourth consecutive top ten album.\n\nUpon released, Noll said \"It was only once we started talking about the idea that it sank in how many singles there's been, from \"What About Me\" right through to \"Loud\" and \"In Pieces\". All these songs mean so much to me and showcase a journey that I've been through with my songwriting and recording, my career in general. It's great to have the new songs on the album, as they are just a taste of what we've got planned for next year!\"\n\nSingles\nThe first single taken from the album was \"Summertime\", which was originally by 2007 Canadian Idol Brian Melo. The track peaked at number 54 on the ARIA Chart.\n\nTrack listing\n\"Summertime\" – 3:42\n\"Shine\" – 3:34\n\"Lift\" – 3:56\n\"Lonely\" – 4:42\n\"Now I Run\" – 3:44\n\"What About Me\" – 3:21\n\"Drive\" – 3:58\n\"Learn to Fly\" – 4:09\n\"Don't Give Up\" (with Natalie Bassingthwaighte) – 4:40\n\"Loud\" – 3:10\n\"In Pieces\" – 3:32\n\"Tomorrow\" – 3:57\n\"No Turning Back\" – 3:43\n\"Crash\" – 3:21\n\"You're Never Alone\" – 5:01\n\"Sorry Is Just Too Late\" (featuring Kari Kimmel) (iTunes exclusive bonus track) – 3:54\n\nDisc 2 (DVD edition)\n\"What About Me\"\n\"Drive\"\n\"Learn to Fly\"\n\"Lonely\"\n\"Shine\"\n\"Lift\"\n\"Now I Run\"\n\"Loud\"\n\"In Pieces\"\n\"Don't Give Up\" (with Natalie Bassingthwaighte)\n\nOmissions\nThe compilation omits the following singles:\n \"Rise Up\" with Australian Idol Top 12 (2003) – was a collaborative single and is not considered part of Noll's official discography.\n \"New Beginning\" (2004) – was a radio-only single release from That's What I'm Talking About.\n \"C'mon Aussie C'mon\" (2004) – was a charity single only.\n \"Twelve Days of Christmas\" with Dreamtime Christmas All-Stars (2004) – was a collaborative single and is not considered part of Noll's official discography.\n \"Everybody Needs a Little Help\" (2008) – was a radio-only single release from Turn It Up.\n\nCharts\n\nWeekly charts\n\nYear-end charts\n\nRelease history\n\nReferences\n\nShannon Noll albums\nSony BMG albums\n2008 greatest hits albums\nCompilation albums by Australian artists"
]
|
[
"Tori Amos",
"The Universal Republic years (2008-11)",
"who/what were Universal Republic?",
"Amos signed a \"joint venture\" deal with Universal Republic Records.",
"What was her first album with Universal Republic?",
"Abnormally Attracted to Sin, Amos's tenth solo studio album and her first album released through Universal Republic, was released in May 2009",
"What was the album about?",
"the album exploring themes of power, boundaries, and the subjective view of sin."
]
| C_f2c7f26de77949ff80c91a7bd337fb42_0 | Did she release any other albums? | 4 | Other than Abnormally Attracted to Sin did Tori Amos release any other albums? | Tori Amos | In May 2008, Amos announced that, due to creative and financial disagreements with Epic Records, she had negotiated an end to her contract with the record label, and would be operating independently of major record labels on future work. In September of the same year, Amos released a live album and DVD, Live at Montreux 1991/1992, through Eagle Rock Entertainment, of two performances she gave at the Montreux Jazz Festival very early on in her career while promoting her debut solo album, Little Earthquakes. By December, after a chance encounter with chairman and CEO of Universal Music Group, Doug Morris, Amos signed a "joint venture" deal with Universal Republic Records. Abnormally Attracted to Sin, Amos's tenth solo studio album and her first album released through Universal Republic, was released in May 2009 to mostly positive reviews. The album debuted in the top 10 of the Billboard 200, making it Amos's seventh album to do so. Abnormally Attracted to Sin, admitted Amos, is a "personal album", not a conceptual one, with the album exploring themes of power, boundaries, and the subjective view of sin. Continuing her distribution deal with Universal Republic, Amos released Midwinter Graces, her first seasonal album, in November of the same year. The album features reworked versions of traditional carols, as well as original songs written by Amos. During her contract with the label, Amos recorded vocals for two songs for David Byrne's collaboration album with Fatboy Slim, titled Here Lies Love, which was released in April 2010. In July of the same year, the DVD Tori Amos- Live from the Artists Den was released exclusively through Barnes & Noble. After a brief tour from June to September 2010, Amos released the highly exclusive live album From Russia With Love in December the same year, recorded live in Moscow on September 3, 2010. The limited edition set included a signature edition Lomography Diana F+ camera, along with 2 lenses, a roll of film and 1 of 5 photographs taken of Tori during her time in Moscow. The set was released exclusively through toriamos.com and only 2000 copies were produced. CANNOTANSWER | After a brief tour from June to September 2010, Amos released the highly exclusive live album From Russia With Love | Tori Amos (born Myra Ellen Amos; August 22, 1963) is an American singer-songwriter and pianist. She is a classically trained musician with a mezzo-soprano vocal range. Having already begun composing instrumental pieces on piano, Amos won a full scholarship to the Peabody Institute at Johns Hopkins University at the age of five, the youngest person ever to have been admitted. She had to leave at the age of eleven when her scholarship was discontinued for what Rolling Stone described as "musical insubordination". Amos was the lead singer of the short-lived 1980s synth-pop group Y Kant Tori Read before achieving her breakthrough as a solo artist in the early 1990s. Her songs focus on a broad range of topics, including sexuality, feminism, politics, and religion.
Her charting singles include "Crucify", "Silent All These Years", "God", "Cornflake Girl", "Caught a Lite Sneeze", "Professional Widow", "Spark", "1000 Oceans", "Flavor" and "A Sorta Fairytale", her most commercially successful single in the U.S. to date. Amos has received five MTV VMA nominations and eight Grammy Award nominations, and won an Echo Klassik award for her Night of Hunters classical crossover album. She is listed on VH1's 1999 "100 Greatest Women of Rock and Roll" at number 71.
Early life and education
Amos is the third child of Mary Ellen (Copeland) and Edison McKinley Amos. She was born at the Old Catawba Hospital in Newton, North Carolina, during a trip from their Georgetown home in Washington, D.C. Of particular importance to her as a child was her maternal grandfather, Calvin Clinton Copeland, who was a great source of inspiration and guidance, offering a more pantheistic spiritual alternative to her father and paternal grandmother's traditional Christianity.
When she was two years old, her family moved to Baltimore, Maryland, where her father had transplanted his Methodist ministry from its original base in Washington, D.C. Her older brother and sister took piano lessons, but Tori did not need them. From the time she could reach the piano, she taught herself to play: when she was two, she could reproduce pieces of music she had only heard once, and, by the age of three, she was composing her own songs. She has described seeing music as structures of light since early childhood, an experience consistent with chromesthesia:
At five, she became the youngest student ever admitted to the preparatory division of the Peabody Conservatory of Music. She studied classical piano at Peabody from 1968 to 1974. In 1974, when she was eleven, her scholarship was discontinued, and she was asked to leave. Amos has asserted that she lost the scholarship because of her interest in rock and popular music, coupled with her dislike for reading from sheet music.
In 1972, the Amos family moved to Silver Spring, Maryland, where her father became pastor of the Good Shepherd United Methodist church. At thirteen, Amos began playing at gay bars and piano bars, chaperoned by her father.
Amos won a county teen talent contest in 1977, singing a song called "More Than Just a Friend". As a senior at Richard Montgomery High School, she co-wrote "Baltimore" with her brother, Mike Amos, for a competition involving the Baltimore Orioles. The song did not win the contest but became her first single, released as a 7-inch single pressed locally for family and friends in 1980 with another Amos-penned composition as a B-side, "Walking With You". Before this, she had performed under her middle name, Ellen, but permanently adopted Tori after a friend's boyfriend told her she looked like a Torrey pine, a tree native to the West Coast.
Career
1979–1989: Career beginnings and Y Kant Tori Read
By the time she was 17, Amos had a stock of homemade demo tapes that her father regularly sent out to record companies and producers. Producer Narada Michael Walden responded favorably: he and Amos cut some tracks together, but none were released. Eventually, Atlantic Records responded to one of the tapes, and, when A&R man Jason Flom flew to Baltimore to audition her in person, the label was convinced and signed her.
In 1984, Amos moved to Los Angeles to pursue her music career after several years performing on the piano bar circuit in the D.C. area.
In 1986, Amos formed a musical group called Y Kant Tori Read, named for her difficulty sight-reading. In addition to Amos, the group was composed of Steve Caton (who would later play guitars on all of her albums until 1999), drummer Matt Sorum, bass player Brad Cobb and, for a short time, keyboardist Jim Tauber. The band went through several iterations of songwriting and recording; Amos has said interference from record executives caused the band to lose its musical edge and direction during this time. Finally, in July 1988, the band's self-titled debut album, Y Kant Tori Read, was released. Although its producer, Joe Chiccarelli, stated that Amos was very happy with the album at the time, Amos has since criticized it, once remarking: "The only good thing about that album is my ankle high boots."
Following the album's commercial failure and the group's subsequent disbanding, Amos began working with other artists (including Stan Ridgway, Sandra Bernhard, and Al Stewart) as a backup vocalist. She also recorded a song called "Distant Storm" for the film China O'Brien. In the credits, the song is attributed to a band called Tess Makes Good.
1990–1995: Little Earthquakes and Under the Pink
Despite the disappointing reaction to Y Kant Tori Read, Amos still had to comply with her six-record contract with Atlantic Records, which, in 1989, wanted a new record by March 1990. The initial recordings were declined by the label, which Amos felt was because the album had not been properly presented. The album was reworked and expanded under the guidance of Doug Morris and the musical talents of Steve Caton, Eric Rosse, Will MacGregor, Carlo Nuccio, and Dan Nebenzal, resulting in Little Earthquakes, an album recounting her religious upbringing, sexual awakening, struggle to establish her identity, and sexual assault. This album became her commercial and artistic breakthrough, entering the British charts in January 1992 at Number 15. Little Earthquakes was released in the United States in February 1992 and slowly but steadily began to attract listeners, gaining more attention with the video for the single "Silent All These Years".
Amos traveled to New Mexico with personal and professional partner Eric Rosse in 1993 to write and largely record her second solo record, Under the Pink. The album was received with mostly favorable reviews and sold enough copies to chart at No. 12 on the Billboard 200, a significantly higher position than the preceding album's position at No. 54 on the same chart. However, the album found its biggest success in the UK, debuting at number one upon release in February 1994.
1996–2000: Boys for Pele, From the Choirgirl Hotel, and To Venus and Back
Her third solo album, Boys for Pele, was released in January 1996. Prior to its release, the first single, "Caught a Lite Sneeze" became the first full song released for streaming online prior to an album's release.
The album was recorded in an Irish church, in Delgany, County Wicklow, with Amos taking advantage of the church's acoustics. For this album, Amos used the harpsichord, harmonium, and clavichord as well as the piano. The album garnered mixed reviews upon its release, with some critics praising its intensity and uniqueness while others bemoaned its comparative impenetrability. Despite the album's erratic lyrical content and instrumentation, the latter of which kept it away from mainstream audiences, Boys for Pele is Amos's most successful simultaneous transatlantic release, reaching No. 2 on the UK Top 40 and No. 2 on the Billboard 200 upon its release.
Fueled by the desire to have her own recording studio to distance herself from record company executives, Amos had the barn of her home in Cornwall converted into the state-of-the-art recording studio of Martian Engineering Studios.
From the Choirgirl Hotel and To Venus and Back, released in May 1998 and September 1999, respectively, differ greatly from previous albums. Amos's trademark acoustic, piano-based sound is largely replaced with arrangements that include elements of electronica and dance music with vocal washes. The underlying themes of both albums deal with womanhood and Amos's own miscarriages and marriage. Reviews for From the Choirgirl Hotel were mostly favorable and praised Amos's continued artistic originality. Debut sales for From the Choirgirl Hotel are Amos's best to date, selling 153,000 copies in its first week. To Venus and Back, a two-disc release of original studio material and live material recorded from the previous world tour, received mostly positive reviews and included the first major-label single available for sale as a digital download.
2001–2004: Strange Little Girls and Scarlet's Walk
Shortly after giving birth to her daughter, Amos decided to record a cover album, taking songs written by men about women and reversing the gender roles to reflect a woman's perspective. That became Strange Little Girls, released in September 2001. The album is Amos's first concept album, with artwork featuring Amos photographed in character of the women portrayed in each song. Amos would later reveal that a stimulus for the album was to end her contract with Atlantic without giving them original songs; Amos felt that since 1998, the label had not been properly promoting her and had trapped her in a contract by refusing to sell her to another label.
With her Atlantic contract fulfilled after a 15-year stint, Amos signed to Epic in late 2001. In October 2002, Amos released Scarlet's Walk, another concept album. Described as a "sonic novel", the album explores Amos's alter ego, Scarlet, intertwined with her cross-country concert tour following 9/11. Through the songs, Amos explores such topics as the history of America, American people, Native American history, pornography, masochism, homophobia and misogyny. The album had a strong debut at No. 7 on the Billboard 200. Scarlet's Walk is Amos's last album to date to reach certified gold status from the RIAA.
Not long after Amos was ensconced with her new label, she received unsettling news when Polly Anthony resigned as president of Epic Records in 2003. Anthony had been one of the primary reasons Amos signed with the label and as a result of her resignation, Amos formed the Bridge Entertainment Group. Further trouble for Amos occurred the following year when her label, Epic/Sony Music Entertainment, merged with BMG Entertainment as a result of the industry's decline.
2005–2008: The Beekeeper and American Doll Posse
Amos released two more albums with the label, The Beekeeper (2005) and American Doll Posse (2007). Both albums received generally favorable reviews. The Beekeeper was conceptually influenced by the ancient art of beekeeping, which she considered a source of female inspiration and empowerment. Through extensive study, Amos also wove in the stories of the Gnostic gospels and the removal of women from a position of power within the Christian church to create an album based largely on religion and politics. The album debuted at No. 5 on the Billboard 200, placing her in an elite group of women who have secured five or more US Top 10 album debuts. While the newly merged label was present throughout the production process of The Beekeeper, Amos and her crew nearly completed her next project, American Doll Posse, before inviting the label to listen to it. American Doll Posse, another concept album, is fashioned around a group of girls (the "posse") who are used as a theme of alter-egos of Amos's. Musically and stylistically, the album saw Amos return to a more confrontational nature. Like its predecessor, American Doll Posse debuted at No. 5 on the Billboard 200.
During her tenure with Epic Records, Amos also released a retrospective collection titled Tales of a Librarian (2003) through her former label, Atlantic Records; a two-disc DVD set Fade to Red (2006) containing most of Amos's solo music videos, released through the Warner Bros. reissue imprint Rhino; a five disc box set titled A Piano: The Collection (2006), celebrating Amos's 15-year solo career through remastered album tracks, remixes, alternate mixes, demos, and a string of unreleased songs from album recording sessions, also released through Rhino; and numerous official bootlegs from two world tours, The Original Bootlegs (2005) and Legs & Boots (2007) through Epic Records.
2008–2011: Abnormally Attracted to Sin and Midwinter Graces
In May 2008, Amos announced that, due to creative and financial disagreements with Epic Records, she had negotiated an end to her contract with the record label, and would be operating independently of major record labels on future work. In September of the same year, Amos released a live album and DVD, Live at Montreux 1991/1992, through Eagle Rock Entertainment, of two performances she gave at the Montreux Jazz Festival very early on in her career while promoting her debut solo album, Little Earthquakes. By December, after a chance encounter with chairman and CEO of Universal Music Group, Doug Morris, Amos signed a "joint venture" deal with Universal Republic Records.
Abnormally Attracted to Sin, Amos's tenth solo studio album and her first album released through Universal Republic, was released in May 2009 to mostly positive reviews. The album debuted in the top 10 of the Billboard 200, making it Amos's seventh album to do so. Abnormally Attracted to Sin, admitted Amos, is a "personal album", not a conceptual one, with the album exploring themes of power, boundaries, and the subjective view of sin. Continuing her distribution deal with Universal Republic, Amos released Midwinter Graces, her first seasonal album, in November of the same year. The album features reworked versions of traditional carols, as well as original songs written by Amos.
During her contract with the label, Amos recorded vocals for two songs for David Byrne's collaboration album with Fatboy Slim, titled Here Lies Love, which was released in April 2010. In July of the same year, the DVD Tori Amos- Live from the Artists Den was released exclusively through Barnes & Noble.
After a brief tour from June to September 2010, Amos released a live album From Russia With Love in December the same year, recorded in Moscow on September 3, 2010. The limited edition set included a signature edition Lomography Diana F+ camera, along with two lenses, a roll of film and one of five photographs taken of Amos during her time in Moscow. The set was released exclusively through her website and only 2000 copies were produced.
2011–2015: Night of Hunters, Gold Dust, and Unrepentant Geraldines
In September 2011, Amos released her first classical-style music album, Night of Hunters, featuring variations on a theme to pay tribute to composers such as Bach, Chopin, Debussy, Granados, Satie and Schubert, on the Deutsche Grammophon label, a division of Universal Music Group. Amos recorded the album with several musicians, including the Apollon Musagète string quartet.
To mark the 20th anniversary of her debut album, Little Earthquakes (1992), Amos released an album of songs from her back catalogue re-worked and re-recorded with the Metropole Orchestra. The album, titled Gold Dust, was released in October 2012 through Deutsche Grammophon.
On May 1, 2012, Amos announced the formation of her own record label, Transmission Galactic, which she intends to use to develop new artists.
In 2013, Amos collaborated with the Bullitts on the track "Wait Until Tomorrow" from their debut album, They Die by Dawn & Other Short Stories. She also stated in an interview that a new album and tour would materialize in 2014 and that it would be a "return to contemporary music".
September 2013 saw the launch of Amos's musical project adaptation of George MacDonald's The Light Princess, along with book writer Samuel Adamson and Marianne Elliott. It premiered at London's Royal National Theatre and ended in February 2014. The Light Princess and its lead actress, Rosalie Craig, were nominated for Best Musical and Best Musical Performance respectively at the Evening Standard Award. Craig won the Best Musical Performance category.
Amos's 14th studio album, Unrepentant Geraldines, was released on May 13, 2014, via Mercury Classics/Universal Music Classics in the US. Its first single, "Trouble's Lament", was released on March 28. The album was supported by the Unrepentant Geraldines Tour which began May 5, 2014, in Cork and continued across Europe, Africa, North America, and Australia, ending in Brisbane on November 21, 2014. In Sydney, Amos performed two orchestral concerts, reminiscent of the Gold Dust Orchestral Tour, with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra at the Sydney Opera House.
According to a press release, Unrepentant Geraldines was a "return to her core identity as a creator of contemporary songs of exquisite beauty following a series of more classically-inspired and innovative musical projects of the last four years. [It is] both one further step in the artistic evolution of one of the most successful and influential artists of her generation, and a return to the inspiring and personal music that Amos is known for all around the world."
The 2-CD set The Light Princess (Original Cast Recording) was released on October 9, 2015 via Universal/Mercury Classics. Apart from the original cast performances, the recording also includes two songs from the musical ("Highness in the Sky" and "Darkest Hour') performed by Amos.
2016–present: Native Invader, Christmastide and Ocean to Ocean
On November 18, 2016, Amos released a deluxe version of the album Boys for Pele to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the original release. This follows the deluxe re-releases of her first two albums in 2015.
On September 8, 2017, Amos released Native Invader, accompanied by a world tour. During the summer of 2017, Amos launched three songs from the album: "Cloud Riders", "Up the Creek" and "Reindeer King", the latter featuring string arrangements by John Philip Shenale. Produced by Amos, the album explores topics like American politics and environmental issues, mixed with mythological elements and first-person narrations.
The initial inspiration for the album came from a trip that Amos took to the Great Smoky Mountains (Tennessee-North Carolina), home of her alleged Native American ancestors; however, two events deeply influenced the final record: in November 2016, Donald Trump was elected President of the United States of America; two months later, in January 2017, Amos's mother, Mary Ellen, suffered a stroke that left her unable to speak. Shocked by both events, Amos spent the first half of 2017 writing and recording the songs that would eventually form Native Invader. The album, released on September 8, 2017, has been presented in two formats: standard and deluxe. The standard version includes 13 songs, while the deluxe edition adds two extra songs to the tracklist: "Upside Down 2" and "Russia". Native Invader has been well received by most music critics upon release. The album obtained a score of 76 out of 100 on the review aggregator website Metacritic, based on 17 reviews, indicating "generally favorable reviews".
On November 9, 2020, Amos announced the release of a holiday-themed EP entitled Christmastide on December 4, digitally and on limited-edition vinyl. The EP consists of four original songs and features her first work with bandmates Matt Chamberlain and Jon Evans since 2009. Amos recorded the EP remotely due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.
On September 20, 2021, Amos announced her sixteenth studio album, Ocean to Ocean, which was released on October 29. The album was written and recorded in Cornwall during lockdown as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic and explores "a universal story of going to rock bottom and renewing yourself all over again". Amos will embark on a European tour in support of the album in 2022. Matt Chamberlain and Jon Evans will again feature on drums and bass guitar respectively, their first collaboration with Amos on an album since 2009's Midwinter Graces.
In print
Released in conjunction with The Beekeeper, Amos co-authored an autobiography with rock music journalist Ann Powers titled Piece by Piece (2005). The book's subject is Amos's interest in mythology and religion, exploring her songwriting process, rise to fame, and her relationship with Atlantic Records.
Image Comics released Comic Book Tattoo (2008), a collection of comic stories, each based on or inspired by songs recorded by Amos. Editor Rantz Hoseley worked with Amos to gather 80 different artists for the book, including Pia Guerra, David Mack, and Leah Moore.
Additionally, Amos and her music have been the subject of numerous official and unofficial books, as well as academic critique, including Tori Amos: Lyrics (2001) and an earlier biography, Tori Amos: All These Years (1996).
Tori Amos: In the Studio (2011) by Jake Brown features an in-depth look at Amos's career, discography and recording process.
Amos released her second memoir called Resistance: A Songwriter’s Story of Hope, Change, and Courage on 5 May 2020.
Personal life
Amos married English sound engineer Mark Hawley on February 22, 1998. Their daughter was born in 2000. The family divides their time between Sewall's Point in Florida, US, and Bude, Cornwall in the UK.
Amos' mother, Mary Ellen, died on May 11, 2019.
Early in her professional career, Amos befriended author Neil Gaiman, who became a fan after she referred to him in the song "Tear in Your Hand" and also in print interviews. Although created before the two met, the character Delirium from Gaiman's The Sandman series is inspired by Amos; Gaiman has stated that they "steal shamelessly from each other". She wrote the foreword to his collection Death: The High Cost of Living; he in turn wrote the introduction to Comic Book Tattoo. Gaiman is godfather to her daughter and a poem written for her birth, Blueberry Girl, was published as a children's book of the same name in 2009. In 2019, Amos performed the British standard "A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square" over the closing credits of Gaiman's TV series Good Omens, based on the novel of the same name written by Gaiman and Terry Pratchett.
Activism
In June 1994, the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network (RAINN), a toll-free help line in the US connecting callers with their local rape crisis center, was founded. Amos, who was raped at knifepoint when she was 22, answered the ceremonial first call to launch the hotline. She was the first national spokesperson for the organization and has continued to be closely associated with RAINN. On August 18, 2013, a concert in honor of her 50th birthday was held, an event which raised money for RAINN. On August 22, 2020, Amos appeared on a panel called Artistry & Activism at the diversity and inclusion digital global conference CARLA.
Discography
Studio albums
Little Earthquakes (1992)
Under the Pink (1994)
Boys for Pele (1996)
From the Choirgirl Hotel (1998)
To Venus and Back (1999)
Strange Little Girls (2001)
Scarlet's Walk (2002)
The Beekeeper (2005)
American Doll Posse (2007)
Abnormally Attracted to Sin (2009)
Midwinter Graces (2009)
Night of Hunters (2011)
Gold Dust (2012)
Unrepentant Geraldines (2014)
Native Invader (2017)
Ocean to Ocean (2021)
Tours
Amos, who has been performing in bars and clubs from as early as 1976 and under her professional name as early as 1991 has performed more than 1,000 shows since her first world tour in 1992. In 2003, Amos was voted fifth best touring act by the readers of Rolling Stone magazine. Her concerts are notable for their changing set lists from night to night.
Little Earthquakes Tour
Amos's first world tour began on January 29, 1992 in London and ended on November 30, 1992 in Auckland. She performed solo with a Yamaha CP-70 unless the venue was able to provide a piano. The tour included 142 concerts around the globe.
Under the Pink Tour
Amos's second world tour began on February 24, 1994 in Newcastle upon Tyne and ended on December 13, 1994 in Perth, Western Australia. Amos performed solo each night on her iconic Bösendorfer piano, and on a prepared piano during "Bells for Her". The tour included 181 concerts.
Dew Drop Inn Tour
The third world tour began on February 23, 1996 in Ipswich, England, and ended on November 11, 1996 in Boulder. Amos performed each night on piano, harpsichord, and harmonium, with Steve Caton on guitar on some songs. The tour included 187 concerts.
Plugged '98 Tour
Amos's first band tour. Amos, on piano and Kurzweil keyboard, was joined by Steve Caton on guitar, Matt Chamberlain on drums, and Jon Evans on bass. The tour began on April 18, 1998 in Fort Lauderdale and ended on December 3, 1998 in East Lansing, Michigan, including 137 concerts.
5 ½ Weeks Tour / To Dallas and Back
Amos's fifth tour was North America–only. The first part of the tour was co-headlining with Alanis Morissette and featured the same band and equipment line-up as in 1998. Amos and the band continued for eight shows before Amos embarked on a series of solo shows. The tour began on August 18, 1999 in Fort Lauderdale, Florida and ended on December 9, 1999 in Denver, including 46 concerts.
Strange Little Tour
This tour was Amos's first since becoming a mother in 2000 and her first tour fully solo since 1994 (Steve Caton was present on some songs in 1996). It saw Amos perform on piano, Rhodes piano, and Wurlitzer electric piano, and though the tour was in support of her covers album, the set lists were not strictly covers-oriented. Having brought her one-year-old daughter on the road with her, this tour was also one of Amos's shortest ventures, lasting just three months. It began on August 30, 2001 in London and ended on December 17, 2001 in Milan, including 55 concerts.
On Scarlet's Walk / Lottapianos Tour
Amos's seventh tour saw her reunited with Matt Chamberlain and Jon Evans, but not Steve Caton. The first part of the tour, which featured Amos on piano, Kurzweil, Rhodes, and Wurlitzer, was six months long and Amos went out again in the summer of 2003 for a tour with Ben Folds opening. The tour began on November 7, 2002 in Tampa and ended on September 4, 2003 in West Palm Beach, featuring 124 concerts. The final show of the tour was filmed and released as part of a DVD/CD set titled Welcome to Sunny Florida (the set also included a studio EP titled Scarlet's Hidden Treasures, an extension of the Scarlet's Walk album).
Original Sinsuality Tour / Summer of Sin
This tour began on April 1, 2005 in Clearwater, Florida, with Amos on piano, two Hammond B-3 organs, and Rhodes. The tour also encompassed Australia for the first time since 1994. Amos announced at a concert on this tour that she would never stop touring but would scale down the tours. Amos returned to the road in August and September for the Summer of Sin North America leg, ending on September 17, 2005 in Los Angeles. The tour featured "Tori's Piano Bar", where fans could nominate cover songs on Amos's website which she would then choose from to play in a special section of each show. One of the songs chosen was the Kylie Minogue hit "Can't Get You Out of My Head", which Amos dedicated to her the day after Minogue's breast cancer was announced to the public. Other songs performed by Amos include The Doors' "People are Strange", Depeche Mode's "Personal Jesus", Joni Mitchell's "The Circle Game", Madonna's "Live to Tell" and "Like a Prayer", Björk's "Hyperballad", Led Zeppelin's "When the Levee Breaks" (which she debuted in Austin, Texas, just after the events of Hurricane Katrina), Kate Bush's "And Dream of Sheep" and Crowded House's "Don't Dream It's Over", dedicating it to drummer Paul Hester who had died a week before. The entire concert tour featured 82 concerts, and six full-length concerts were released as The Original Bootlegs.
American Doll Posse World Tour
This was Amos's first tour with a full band since her 1999 Five and a Half Weeks Tour, accompanied by long-time bandmates Jon Evans and Matt Chamberlain, with guitarist Dan Phelps rounding out Amos's new band. Amos's equipment included her piano, a Hammond B-3 organ, and two Yamaha S90 ES keyboards. The tour kicked off with its European leg in Rome, Italy on May 28, 2007, which lasted through July, concluding in Israel; the Australian leg took place during September; the North American leg lasted from October to December 16, 2007, when the tour concluded in Los Angeles. Amos opened each show dressed as one of the four non-Tori personae from the album, then Amos would emerge as herself to perform for the remaining two-thirds of the show. The entire concert tour featured 93 concerts, and 27 full-length concerts of the North American tour were released as official bootlegs in the Legs and Boots series.
Sinful Attraction Tour
For her tenth tour, Amos returned to the trio format of her 2002 and 2003 tours with bassist Jon Evans and drummer Matt Chamberlain while expanding her lineup of keyboards by adding three M-Audio MIDI controllers to her ensemble of her piano, a Hammond B-3 organ, and a Yamaha S90 ES keyboard. The North American and European band tour began on July 10, 2009 in Seattle, Washington and ended in Warsaw on October 10, 2009. A solo leg through Australia began in Melbourne on November 12, 2009 and ended in Brisbane on November 24, 2009. The entire tour featured 63 concerts.
Night of Hunters tour
Amos's eleventh tour was her first with a string quartet, Apollon Musagète, (Amos's equipment includes her piano and a Yamaha S90 ES keyboard) and her first time touring in South Africa. It kicked off on September 28, 2011 in Finland, Helsinki Ice Hall and ended on December 22, 2011 in Dallas, Texas.
Gold Dust Orchestral Tour
Amos began her 2012 tour in Rotterdam on October 1.
Unrepentant Geraldines Tour
Amos began her 2014 world tour on May 5, 2014 in Cork, Ireland, and concluded it in Brisbane, Australia on November 21, after playing 73 concerts.
Native Invader Tour
Amos's 2017 tour in support of the Native Invader album kicked off on September 6, 2017, with a series of European shows in Cork, Ireland, moving on to North America in October.
Ocean to Ocean Tour
Amos is to embark on a European tour in the spring of 2022 in support of her upcoming sixteenth studio album, Ocean to Ocean, beginning in Berlin, Germany and ending in Dublin, Ireland.
Awards and nominations
{| class="wikitable sortable plainrowheaders"
|-
! scope="col" | Award
! scope="col" | Year
! scope="col" | Nominee(s)
! scope="col" | Category
! scope="col" | Result
! scope="col" class="unsortable"|
|-
! scope="row" rowspan=3|Brit Awards
| rowspan=2|1993
| rowspan=3|Herself
| International Breakthrough Act
|
| rowspan=2|
|-
| International Solo Artist
|
|-
| 1995
| International Female Solo Artist
|
|
|-
! scope="row"|Critics' Choice Documentary Awards
| 2016
| "Flicker"
| Best Song in a Documentary
|
|
|-
!scope="row"|ECHO Awards
| 1995
| Herself
| Best International Female
|
|
|-
! scope="row"|ECHO Klassik Awards
| rowspan=1|2012
| Night of Hunters
| The Klassik-ohne-Grenzen Prize
|
|
|-
! scope="row" rowspan=4|GAFFA Awards
| 2000
| rowspan=3|Herself
| rowspan=2|Best Foreign Female Act
|
| rowspan=2|
|-
| 2003
|
|-
| rowspan=2|2022
| Best Foreign Solo Act
|
|
|-
| Ocean to Ocean
| Best Foreign Album
|
|-
! scope="row"|George Peabody Medal
| 2019
| Herself
| Outstanding Contributions to Music
|
|
|-
! scope="row"|Glamour Awards
| 1998
| Herself
| Woman of the Year
|
|
|-
! scope="row" rowspan=8|Grammy Awards
| 1995
| Under the Pink
| rowspan=3|Best Alternative Music Album
|
| rowspan=8|
|-
| 1997
| Boys for Pele
|
|-
| rowspan=2|1999
| From the Choirgirl Hotel
|
|-
| "Raspberry Swirl"
| rowspan=2|Best Female Rock Vocal Performance
|
|-
| rowspan=2|2000
| "Bliss"
|
|-
| To Venus and Back
| rowspan=2|Best Alternative Music Album
|
|-
| rowspan=2|2002
| Strange Little Girls
|
|-
| "Strange Little Girl"
| Best Female Rock Vocal Performance
|
|-
! scope="row"|Hollywood Music in Media Awards
| 2016
| "Flicker"
| Best Original Song in a Documentary
|
|
|-
! scope="row"|Hungarian Music Awards
| 2010
| Abnormally Attracted to Sin
| Best Foreign Alternative Album
|
|
|-
! scope="row"|MTV Europe Music Awards
| 1994
| Herself
| Best Female
|
|
|-
! scope="row" rowspan=4|MTV Video Music Awards
| rowspan=4|1992
| rowspan=4|"Silent All These Years"
| Best Female Video
|
|rowspan=4|
|-
| Best New Artist in a Video
|
|-
| Breakthrough Video
|
|-
| Best Cinematography in a Video
|
|-
! scope="row"|NME Awards
| 2016
| Under the Pink
| Best Reissue
|
|
|-
! scope="row"|North Carolina Music Hall of Fame
| 2012
| Herself
| Inducted
|
|
|-
!scope="row" rowspan=5|Pollstar Concert Industry Awards
| rowspan=2|1993
| rowspan=2|Little Earthquakes Tour
| Best New Rock Artist
|
| rowspan=2|
|-
| Club Tour Of The Year
|
|-
| 1995
| Under the Pink Tour
| rowspan=3|Small Hall Tour Of The Year
|
|
|-
| 1997
| Dew Drop Inn Tour
|
|
|-
| 1999
| 5 ½ Weeks Tour
|
|
|-
! scope="row"|Q Awards
| 1992
| Herself
| Best New Act
|
|
|-
! scope="row" rowspan=2|WhatsOnStage Awards
| rowspan=2|2014
| rowspan=2|The Light Princess
| Best New Musical
|
| rowspan=2|
|-
| Best London Newcomer of the Year
|
|-
!scope="row"|Žebřík Music Awards
| 2001
| Herself
| Best International Female
|
|
1999: Spin Readers' Poll Awards (Won)
On May 21, 2020, Amos was invited to and gave special remarks at her alma mater Johns Hopkins University's 2020 Commencement ceremony. Other notable guest speakers during the virtual ceremony included Reddit co-founder and commencement speaker Alexis Ohanian; philanthropist and former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg; Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and a leading member of the White House Coronavirus Task Force; and senior class president Pavan Patel.
Film appearances
Tori appears as a wedding singer in the film Mona Lisa Smile.
References
Citations
Works cited
External links
1963 births
20th-century American composers
20th-century American keyboardists
20th-century American women pianists
20th-century American pianists
20th-century American women singers
21st-century American keyboardists
21st-century American women pianists
21st-century American pianists
21st-century American women singers
Alternative rock keyboardists
Alternative rock pianists
Alternative rock singers
American alternative rock musicians
American expatriates in the Republic of Ireland
American expatriates in the United Kingdom
American women composers
American women singer-songwriters
American feminist writers
American harpsichordists
American mezzo-sopranos
American organists
American people who self-identify as being of Native American descent
American pop pianists
American rock pianists
American women rock singers
American rock songwriters
Articles containing video clips
Art rock musicians
Atlantic Records artists
Child classical musicians
Clavichordists
Deutsche Grammophon artists
Electronica musicians
Epic Records artists
Feminist musicians
Harmonium players
Island Records artists
Living people
Montgomery College alumni
Musicians from Baltimore
Musicians from County Cork
Musicians from Rockville, Maryland
People from Georgetown (Washington, D.C.)
People from Newton, North Carolina
People from Sewall's Point, Florida
Republic Records artists
Sexual abuse victim advocates
Singer-songwriters from Maryland
Singer-songwriters from North Carolina
Women organists
20th-century women composers
American women in electronic music
20th-century American singers
21st-century American singers
Singer-songwriters from Washington, D.C. | false | [
"The discography of Pam Tillis, an American country music singer, consists of 13 studio albums and 45 singles. Her first release, Above and Beyond the Doll of Cutey in 1983, did not produce any major hits. Between 1990 and 2001, she recorded for Arista Nashville, achieving two gold albums and three platinum albums. 33 of her singles for Arista, plus a cut for the soundtrack to Happy, Texas, all made the Hot Country Songs in that timespan. Her only number one was \"Mi Vida Loca (My Crazy Life)\", although twelve other songs reached the top 10 on the same chart.\n\nStudio albums\n\n1980s–1990s\n\n2000s–2020s\n\nCompilation albums\n\nSingles\n\n1980s–1990s\n\n2000s–2020s\n\nAs a featured artist\n\nOther album appearances\n\nMusic videos\n\nGuest appearances\n\nNotes\n\nReferences\n\nCountry music discographies\n \n \nDiscographies of American artists",
"The discography of Mallu Magalhães, a Brazilian Folk singer, consists of two studio albums, one live albums, five singles as a lead artist, one collaborations with Marcelo Camelo and one video albums.\n\nIn 2008 she released her first eponymous album and in 2009 she released her second album, also self-titled.\n\nShe already has five singles released, and the most famous is Tchubaruba.\n\nAlbums\n\nStudio albums\n\nCompilations\n\nVideo albums\n\nNotes\n These albums did not reach any of the charts in Brazil.\n\nSingles\n\nAs lead artist\n\nOther appearances\n\nNotes\n These albums did not reach any of the charts in Brazil.\n\nMusic videos \n J1 (2008)\n Tchubaruba (2008)\n O Preço da Flor (2009)\n Vanguart (2009)\n Shine Yellow (2009)\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\nMallu Magalhães's official website\nMallu Magalhães's official MySpace\n\nFolk music discographies\nDiscography\nDiscographies of Brazilian artists\nLatin music discographies"
]
|
[
"Tori Amos",
"The Universal Republic years (2008-11)",
"who/what were Universal Republic?",
"Amos signed a \"joint venture\" deal with Universal Republic Records.",
"What was her first album with Universal Republic?",
"Abnormally Attracted to Sin, Amos's tenth solo studio album and her first album released through Universal Republic, was released in May 2009",
"What was the album about?",
"the album exploring themes of power, boundaries, and the subjective view of sin.",
"Did she release any other albums?",
"After a brief tour from June to September 2010, Amos released the highly exclusive live album From Russia With Love"
]
| C_f2c7f26de77949ff80c91a7bd337fb42_0 | Why was it highly exclusive? | 5 | Why was Tori Amos' From Russia With Love album highly exclusive? | Tori Amos | In May 2008, Amos announced that, due to creative and financial disagreements with Epic Records, she had negotiated an end to her contract with the record label, and would be operating independently of major record labels on future work. In September of the same year, Amos released a live album and DVD, Live at Montreux 1991/1992, through Eagle Rock Entertainment, of two performances she gave at the Montreux Jazz Festival very early on in her career while promoting her debut solo album, Little Earthquakes. By December, after a chance encounter with chairman and CEO of Universal Music Group, Doug Morris, Amos signed a "joint venture" deal with Universal Republic Records. Abnormally Attracted to Sin, Amos's tenth solo studio album and her first album released through Universal Republic, was released in May 2009 to mostly positive reviews. The album debuted in the top 10 of the Billboard 200, making it Amos's seventh album to do so. Abnormally Attracted to Sin, admitted Amos, is a "personal album", not a conceptual one, with the album exploring themes of power, boundaries, and the subjective view of sin. Continuing her distribution deal with Universal Republic, Amos released Midwinter Graces, her first seasonal album, in November of the same year. The album features reworked versions of traditional carols, as well as original songs written by Amos. During her contract with the label, Amos recorded vocals for two songs for David Byrne's collaboration album with Fatboy Slim, titled Here Lies Love, which was released in April 2010. In July of the same year, the DVD Tori Amos- Live from the Artists Den was released exclusively through Barnes & Noble. After a brief tour from June to September 2010, Amos released the highly exclusive live album From Russia With Love in December the same year, recorded live in Moscow on September 3, 2010. The limited edition set included a signature edition Lomography Diana F+ camera, along with 2 lenses, a roll of film and 1 of 5 photographs taken of Tori during her time in Moscow. The set was released exclusively through toriamos.com and only 2000 copies were produced. CANNOTANSWER | The limited edition set included a signature edition Lomography Diana F+ camera, | Tori Amos (born Myra Ellen Amos; August 22, 1963) is an American singer-songwriter and pianist. She is a classically trained musician with a mezzo-soprano vocal range. Having already begun composing instrumental pieces on piano, Amos won a full scholarship to the Peabody Institute at Johns Hopkins University at the age of five, the youngest person ever to have been admitted. She had to leave at the age of eleven when her scholarship was discontinued for what Rolling Stone described as "musical insubordination". Amos was the lead singer of the short-lived 1980s synth-pop group Y Kant Tori Read before achieving her breakthrough as a solo artist in the early 1990s. Her songs focus on a broad range of topics, including sexuality, feminism, politics, and religion.
Her charting singles include "Crucify", "Silent All These Years", "God", "Cornflake Girl", "Caught a Lite Sneeze", "Professional Widow", "Spark", "1000 Oceans", "Flavor" and "A Sorta Fairytale", her most commercially successful single in the U.S. to date. Amos has received five MTV VMA nominations and eight Grammy Award nominations, and won an Echo Klassik award for her Night of Hunters classical crossover album. She is listed on VH1's 1999 "100 Greatest Women of Rock and Roll" at number 71.
Early life and education
Amos is the third child of Mary Ellen (Copeland) and Edison McKinley Amos. She was born at the Old Catawba Hospital in Newton, North Carolina, during a trip from their Georgetown home in Washington, D.C. Of particular importance to her as a child was her maternal grandfather, Calvin Clinton Copeland, who was a great source of inspiration and guidance, offering a more pantheistic spiritual alternative to her father and paternal grandmother's traditional Christianity.
When she was two years old, her family moved to Baltimore, Maryland, where her father had transplanted his Methodist ministry from its original base in Washington, D.C. Her older brother and sister took piano lessons, but Tori did not need them. From the time she could reach the piano, she taught herself to play: when she was two, she could reproduce pieces of music she had only heard once, and, by the age of three, she was composing her own songs. She has described seeing music as structures of light since early childhood, an experience consistent with chromesthesia:
At five, she became the youngest student ever admitted to the preparatory division of the Peabody Conservatory of Music. She studied classical piano at Peabody from 1968 to 1974. In 1974, when she was eleven, her scholarship was discontinued, and she was asked to leave. Amos has asserted that she lost the scholarship because of her interest in rock and popular music, coupled with her dislike for reading from sheet music.
In 1972, the Amos family moved to Silver Spring, Maryland, where her father became pastor of the Good Shepherd United Methodist church. At thirteen, Amos began playing at gay bars and piano bars, chaperoned by her father.
Amos won a county teen talent contest in 1977, singing a song called "More Than Just a Friend". As a senior at Richard Montgomery High School, she co-wrote "Baltimore" with her brother, Mike Amos, for a competition involving the Baltimore Orioles. The song did not win the contest but became her first single, released as a 7-inch single pressed locally for family and friends in 1980 with another Amos-penned composition as a B-side, "Walking With You". Before this, she had performed under her middle name, Ellen, but permanently adopted Tori after a friend's boyfriend told her she looked like a Torrey pine, a tree native to the West Coast.
Career
1979–1989: Career beginnings and Y Kant Tori Read
By the time she was 17, Amos had a stock of homemade demo tapes that her father regularly sent out to record companies and producers. Producer Narada Michael Walden responded favorably: he and Amos cut some tracks together, but none were released. Eventually, Atlantic Records responded to one of the tapes, and, when A&R man Jason Flom flew to Baltimore to audition her in person, the label was convinced and signed her.
In 1984, Amos moved to Los Angeles to pursue her music career after several years performing on the piano bar circuit in the D.C. area.
In 1986, Amos formed a musical group called Y Kant Tori Read, named for her difficulty sight-reading. In addition to Amos, the group was composed of Steve Caton (who would later play guitars on all of her albums until 1999), drummer Matt Sorum, bass player Brad Cobb and, for a short time, keyboardist Jim Tauber. The band went through several iterations of songwriting and recording; Amos has said interference from record executives caused the band to lose its musical edge and direction during this time. Finally, in July 1988, the band's self-titled debut album, Y Kant Tori Read, was released. Although its producer, Joe Chiccarelli, stated that Amos was very happy with the album at the time, Amos has since criticized it, once remarking: "The only good thing about that album is my ankle high boots."
Following the album's commercial failure and the group's subsequent disbanding, Amos began working with other artists (including Stan Ridgway, Sandra Bernhard, and Al Stewart) as a backup vocalist. She also recorded a song called "Distant Storm" for the film China O'Brien. In the credits, the song is attributed to a band called Tess Makes Good.
1990–1995: Little Earthquakes and Under the Pink
Despite the disappointing reaction to Y Kant Tori Read, Amos still had to comply with her six-record contract with Atlantic Records, which, in 1989, wanted a new record by March 1990. The initial recordings were declined by the label, which Amos felt was because the album had not been properly presented. The album was reworked and expanded under the guidance of Doug Morris and the musical talents of Steve Caton, Eric Rosse, Will MacGregor, Carlo Nuccio, and Dan Nebenzal, resulting in Little Earthquakes, an album recounting her religious upbringing, sexual awakening, struggle to establish her identity, and sexual assault. This album became her commercial and artistic breakthrough, entering the British charts in January 1992 at Number 15. Little Earthquakes was released in the United States in February 1992 and slowly but steadily began to attract listeners, gaining more attention with the video for the single "Silent All These Years".
Amos traveled to New Mexico with personal and professional partner Eric Rosse in 1993 to write and largely record her second solo record, Under the Pink. The album was received with mostly favorable reviews and sold enough copies to chart at No. 12 on the Billboard 200, a significantly higher position than the preceding album's position at No. 54 on the same chart. However, the album found its biggest success in the UK, debuting at number one upon release in February 1994.
1996–2000: Boys for Pele, From the Choirgirl Hotel, and To Venus and Back
Her third solo album, Boys for Pele, was released in January 1996. Prior to its release, the first single, "Caught a Lite Sneeze" became the first full song released for streaming online prior to an album's release.
The album was recorded in an Irish church, in Delgany, County Wicklow, with Amos taking advantage of the church's acoustics. For this album, Amos used the harpsichord, harmonium, and clavichord as well as the piano. The album garnered mixed reviews upon its release, with some critics praising its intensity and uniqueness while others bemoaned its comparative impenetrability. Despite the album's erratic lyrical content and instrumentation, the latter of which kept it away from mainstream audiences, Boys for Pele is Amos's most successful simultaneous transatlantic release, reaching No. 2 on the UK Top 40 and No. 2 on the Billboard 200 upon its release.
Fueled by the desire to have her own recording studio to distance herself from record company executives, Amos had the barn of her home in Cornwall converted into the state-of-the-art recording studio of Martian Engineering Studios.
From the Choirgirl Hotel and To Venus and Back, released in May 1998 and September 1999, respectively, differ greatly from previous albums. Amos's trademark acoustic, piano-based sound is largely replaced with arrangements that include elements of electronica and dance music with vocal washes. The underlying themes of both albums deal with womanhood and Amos's own miscarriages and marriage. Reviews for From the Choirgirl Hotel were mostly favorable and praised Amos's continued artistic originality. Debut sales for From the Choirgirl Hotel are Amos's best to date, selling 153,000 copies in its first week. To Venus and Back, a two-disc release of original studio material and live material recorded from the previous world tour, received mostly positive reviews and included the first major-label single available for sale as a digital download.
2001–2004: Strange Little Girls and Scarlet's Walk
Shortly after giving birth to her daughter, Amos decided to record a cover album, taking songs written by men about women and reversing the gender roles to reflect a woman's perspective. That became Strange Little Girls, released in September 2001. The album is Amos's first concept album, with artwork featuring Amos photographed in character of the women portrayed in each song. Amos would later reveal that a stimulus for the album was to end her contract with Atlantic without giving them original songs; Amos felt that since 1998, the label had not been properly promoting her and had trapped her in a contract by refusing to sell her to another label.
With her Atlantic contract fulfilled after a 15-year stint, Amos signed to Epic in late 2001. In October 2002, Amos released Scarlet's Walk, another concept album. Described as a "sonic novel", the album explores Amos's alter ego, Scarlet, intertwined with her cross-country concert tour following 9/11. Through the songs, Amos explores such topics as the history of America, American people, Native American history, pornography, masochism, homophobia and misogyny. The album had a strong debut at No. 7 on the Billboard 200. Scarlet's Walk is Amos's last album to date to reach certified gold status from the RIAA.
Not long after Amos was ensconced with her new label, she received unsettling news when Polly Anthony resigned as president of Epic Records in 2003. Anthony had been one of the primary reasons Amos signed with the label and as a result of her resignation, Amos formed the Bridge Entertainment Group. Further trouble for Amos occurred the following year when her label, Epic/Sony Music Entertainment, merged with BMG Entertainment as a result of the industry's decline.
2005–2008: The Beekeeper and American Doll Posse
Amos released two more albums with the label, The Beekeeper (2005) and American Doll Posse (2007). Both albums received generally favorable reviews. The Beekeeper was conceptually influenced by the ancient art of beekeeping, which she considered a source of female inspiration and empowerment. Through extensive study, Amos also wove in the stories of the Gnostic gospels and the removal of women from a position of power within the Christian church to create an album based largely on religion and politics. The album debuted at No. 5 on the Billboard 200, placing her in an elite group of women who have secured five or more US Top 10 album debuts. While the newly merged label was present throughout the production process of The Beekeeper, Amos and her crew nearly completed her next project, American Doll Posse, before inviting the label to listen to it. American Doll Posse, another concept album, is fashioned around a group of girls (the "posse") who are used as a theme of alter-egos of Amos's. Musically and stylistically, the album saw Amos return to a more confrontational nature. Like its predecessor, American Doll Posse debuted at No. 5 on the Billboard 200.
During her tenure with Epic Records, Amos also released a retrospective collection titled Tales of a Librarian (2003) through her former label, Atlantic Records; a two-disc DVD set Fade to Red (2006) containing most of Amos's solo music videos, released through the Warner Bros. reissue imprint Rhino; a five disc box set titled A Piano: The Collection (2006), celebrating Amos's 15-year solo career through remastered album tracks, remixes, alternate mixes, demos, and a string of unreleased songs from album recording sessions, also released through Rhino; and numerous official bootlegs from two world tours, The Original Bootlegs (2005) and Legs & Boots (2007) through Epic Records.
2008–2011: Abnormally Attracted to Sin and Midwinter Graces
In May 2008, Amos announced that, due to creative and financial disagreements with Epic Records, she had negotiated an end to her contract with the record label, and would be operating independently of major record labels on future work. In September of the same year, Amos released a live album and DVD, Live at Montreux 1991/1992, through Eagle Rock Entertainment, of two performances she gave at the Montreux Jazz Festival very early on in her career while promoting her debut solo album, Little Earthquakes. By December, after a chance encounter with chairman and CEO of Universal Music Group, Doug Morris, Amos signed a "joint venture" deal with Universal Republic Records.
Abnormally Attracted to Sin, Amos's tenth solo studio album and her first album released through Universal Republic, was released in May 2009 to mostly positive reviews. The album debuted in the top 10 of the Billboard 200, making it Amos's seventh album to do so. Abnormally Attracted to Sin, admitted Amos, is a "personal album", not a conceptual one, with the album exploring themes of power, boundaries, and the subjective view of sin. Continuing her distribution deal with Universal Republic, Amos released Midwinter Graces, her first seasonal album, in November of the same year. The album features reworked versions of traditional carols, as well as original songs written by Amos.
During her contract with the label, Amos recorded vocals for two songs for David Byrne's collaboration album with Fatboy Slim, titled Here Lies Love, which was released in April 2010. In July of the same year, the DVD Tori Amos- Live from the Artists Den was released exclusively through Barnes & Noble.
After a brief tour from June to September 2010, Amos released a live album From Russia With Love in December the same year, recorded in Moscow on September 3, 2010. The limited edition set included a signature edition Lomography Diana F+ camera, along with two lenses, a roll of film and one of five photographs taken of Amos during her time in Moscow. The set was released exclusively through her website and only 2000 copies were produced.
2011–2015: Night of Hunters, Gold Dust, and Unrepentant Geraldines
In September 2011, Amos released her first classical-style music album, Night of Hunters, featuring variations on a theme to pay tribute to composers such as Bach, Chopin, Debussy, Granados, Satie and Schubert, on the Deutsche Grammophon label, a division of Universal Music Group. Amos recorded the album with several musicians, including the Apollon Musagète string quartet.
To mark the 20th anniversary of her debut album, Little Earthquakes (1992), Amos released an album of songs from her back catalogue re-worked and re-recorded with the Metropole Orchestra. The album, titled Gold Dust, was released in October 2012 through Deutsche Grammophon.
On May 1, 2012, Amos announced the formation of her own record label, Transmission Galactic, which she intends to use to develop new artists.
In 2013, Amos collaborated with the Bullitts on the track "Wait Until Tomorrow" from their debut album, They Die by Dawn & Other Short Stories. She also stated in an interview that a new album and tour would materialize in 2014 and that it would be a "return to contemporary music".
September 2013 saw the launch of Amos's musical project adaptation of George MacDonald's The Light Princess, along with book writer Samuel Adamson and Marianne Elliott. It premiered at London's Royal National Theatre and ended in February 2014. The Light Princess and its lead actress, Rosalie Craig, were nominated for Best Musical and Best Musical Performance respectively at the Evening Standard Award. Craig won the Best Musical Performance category.
Amos's 14th studio album, Unrepentant Geraldines, was released on May 13, 2014, via Mercury Classics/Universal Music Classics in the US. Its first single, "Trouble's Lament", was released on March 28. The album was supported by the Unrepentant Geraldines Tour which began May 5, 2014, in Cork and continued across Europe, Africa, North America, and Australia, ending in Brisbane on November 21, 2014. In Sydney, Amos performed two orchestral concerts, reminiscent of the Gold Dust Orchestral Tour, with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra at the Sydney Opera House.
According to a press release, Unrepentant Geraldines was a "return to her core identity as a creator of contemporary songs of exquisite beauty following a series of more classically-inspired and innovative musical projects of the last four years. [It is] both one further step in the artistic evolution of one of the most successful and influential artists of her generation, and a return to the inspiring and personal music that Amos is known for all around the world."
The 2-CD set The Light Princess (Original Cast Recording) was released on October 9, 2015 via Universal/Mercury Classics. Apart from the original cast performances, the recording also includes two songs from the musical ("Highness in the Sky" and "Darkest Hour') performed by Amos.
2016–present: Native Invader, Christmastide and Ocean to Ocean
On November 18, 2016, Amos released a deluxe version of the album Boys for Pele to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the original release. This follows the deluxe re-releases of her first two albums in 2015.
On September 8, 2017, Amos released Native Invader, accompanied by a world tour. During the summer of 2017, Amos launched three songs from the album: "Cloud Riders", "Up the Creek" and "Reindeer King", the latter featuring string arrangements by John Philip Shenale. Produced by Amos, the album explores topics like American politics and environmental issues, mixed with mythological elements and first-person narrations.
The initial inspiration for the album came from a trip that Amos took to the Great Smoky Mountains (Tennessee-North Carolina), home of her alleged Native American ancestors; however, two events deeply influenced the final record: in November 2016, Donald Trump was elected President of the United States of America; two months later, in January 2017, Amos's mother, Mary Ellen, suffered a stroke that left her unable to speak. Shocked by both events, Amos spent the first half of 2017 writing and recording the songs that would eventually form Native Invader. The album, released on September 8, 2017, has been presented in two formats: standard and deluxe. The standard version includes 13 songs, while the deluxe edition adds two extra songs to the tracklist: "Upside Down 2" and "Russia". Native Invader has been well received by most music critics upon release. The album obtained a score of 76 out of 100 on the review aggregator website Metacritic, based on 17 reviews, indicating "generally favorable reviews".
On November 9, 2020, Amos announced the release of a holiday-themed EP entitled Christmastide on December 4, digitally and on limited-edition vinyl. The EP consists of four original songs and features her first work with bandmates Matt Chamberlain and Jon Evans since 2009. Amos recorded the EP remotely due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.
On September 20, 2021, Amos announced her sixteenth studio album, Ocean to Ocean, which was released on October 29. The album was written and recorded in Cornwall during lockdown as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic and explores "a universal story of going to rock bottom and renewing yourself all over again". Amos will embark on a European tour in support of the album in 2022. Matt Chamberlain and Jon Evans will again feature on drums and bass guitar respectively, their first collaboration with Amos on an album since 2009's Midwinter Graces.
In print
Released in conjunction with The Beekeeper, Amos co-authored an autobiography with rock music journalist Ann Powers titled Piece by Piece (2005). The book's subject is Amos's interest in mythology and religion, exploring her songwriting process, rise to fame, and her relationship with Atlantic Records.
Image Comics released Comic Book Tattoo (2008), a collection of comic stories, each based on or inspired by songs recorded by Amos. Editor Rantz Hoseley worked with Amos to gather 80 different artists for the book, including Pia Guerra, David Mack, and Leah Moore.
Additionally, Amos and her music have been the subject of numerous official and unofficial books, as well as academic critique, including Tori Amos: Lyrics (2001) and an earlier biography, Tori Amos: All These Years (1996).
Tori Amos: In the Studio (2011) by Jake Brown features an in-depth look at Amos's career, discography and recording process.
Amos released her second memoir called Resistance: A Songwriter’s Story of Hope, Change, and Courage on 5 May 2020.
Personal life
Amos married English sound engineer Mark Hawley on February 22, 1998. Their daughter was born in 2000. The family divides their time between Sewall's Point in Florida, US, and Bude, Cornwall in the UK.
Amos' mother, Mary Ellen, died on May 11, 2019.
Early in her professional career, Amos befriended author Neil Gaiman, who became a fan after she referred to him in the song "Tear in Your Hand" and also in print interviews. Although created before the two met, the character Delirium from Gaiman's The Sandman series is inspired by Amos; Gaiman has stated that they "steal shamelessly from each other". She wrote the foreword to his collection Death: The High Cost of Living; he in turn wrote the introduction to Comic Book Tattoo. Gaiman is godfather to her daughter and a poem written for her birth, Blueberry Girl, was published as a children's book of the same name in 2009. In 2019, Amos performed the British standard "A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square" over the closing credits of Gaiman's TV series Good Omens, based on the novel of the same name written by Gaiman and Terry Pratchett.
Activism
In June 1994, the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network (RAINN), a toll-free help line in the US connecting callers with their local rape crisis center, was founded. Amos, who was raped at knifepoint when she was 22, answered the ceremonial first call to launch the hotline. She was the first national spokesperson for the organization and has continued to be closely associated with RAINN. On August 18, 2013, a concert in honor of her 50th birthday was held, an event which raised money for RAINN. On August 22, 2020, Amos appeared on a panel called Artistry & Activism at the diversity and inclusion digital global conference CARLA.
Discography
Studio albums
Little Earthquakes (1992)
Under the Pink (1994)
Boys for Pele (1996)
From the Choirgirl Hotel (1998)
To Venus and Back (1999)
Strange Little Girls (2001)
Scarlet's Walk (2002)
The Beekeeper (2005)
American Doll Posse (2007)
Abnormally Attracted to Sin (2009)
Midwinter Graces (2009)
Night of Hunters (2011)
Gold Dust (2012)
Unrepentant Geraldines (2014)
Native Invader (2017)
Ocean to Ocean (2021)
Tours
Amos, who has been performing in bars and clubs from as early as 1976 and under her professional name as early as 1991 has performed more than 1,000 shows since her first world tour in 1992. In 2003, Amos was voted fifth best touring act by the readers of Rolling Stone magazine. Her concerts are notable for their changing set lists from night to night.
Little Earthquakes Tour
Amos's first world tour began on January 29, 1992 in London and ended on November 30, 1992 in Auckland. She performed solo with a Yamaha CP-70 unless the venue was able to provide a piano. The tour included 142 concerts around the globe.
Under the Pink Tour
Amos's second world tour began on February 24, 1994 in Newcastle upon Tyne and ended on December 13, 1994 in Perth, Western Australia. Amos performed solo each night on her iconic Bösendorfer piano, and on a prepared piano during "Bells for Her". The tour included 181 concerts.
Dew Drop Inn Tour
The third world tour began on February 23, 1996 in Ipswich, England, and ended on November 11, 1996 in Boulder. Amos performed each night on piano, harpsichord, and harmonium, with Steve Caton on guitar on some songs. The tour included 187 concerts.
Plugged '98 Tour
Amos's first band tour. Amos, on piano and Kurzweil keyboard, was joined by Steve Caton on guitar, Matt Chamberlain on drums, and Jon Evans on bass. The tour began on April 18, 1998 in Fort Lauderdale and ended on December 3, 1998 in East Lansing, Michigan, including 137 concerts.
5 ½ Weeks Tour / To Dallas and Back
Amos's fifth tour was North America–only. The first part of the tour was co-headlining with Alanis Morissette and featured the same band and equipment line-up as in 1998. Amos and the band continued for eight shows before Amos embarked on a series of solo shows. The tour began on August 18, 1999 in Fort Lauderdale, Florida and ended on December 9, 1999 in Denver, including 46 concerts.
Strange Little Tour
This tour was Amos's first since becoming a mother in 2000 and her first tour fully solo since 1994 (Steve Caton was present on some songs in 1996). It saw Amos perform on piano, Rhodes piano, and Wurlitzer electric piano, and though the tour was in support of her covers album, the set lists were not strictly covers-oriented. Having brought her one-year-old daughter on the road with her, this tour was also one of Amos's shortest ventures, lasting just three months. It began on August 30, 2001 in London and ended on December 17, 2001 in Milan, including 55 concerts.
On Scarlet's Walk / Lottapianos Tour
Amos's seventh tour saw her reunited with Matt Chamberlain and Jon Evans, but not Steve Caton. The first part of the tour, which featured Amos on piano, Kurzweil, Rhodes, and Wurlitzer, was six months long and Amos went out again in the summer of 2003 for a tour with Ben Folds opening. The tour began on November 7, 2002 in Tampa and ended on September 4, 2003 in West Palm Beach, featuring 124 concerts. The final show of the tour was filmed and released as part of a DVD/CD set titled Welcome to Sunny Florida (the set also included a studio EP titled Scarlet's Hidden Treasures, an extension of the Scarlet's Walk album).
Original Sinsuality Tour / Summer of Sin
This tour began on April 1, 2005 in Clearwater, Florida, with Amos on piano, two Hammond B-3 organs, and Rhodes. The tour also encompassed Australia for the first time since 1994. Amos announced at a concert on this tour that she would never stop touring but would scale down the tours. Amos returned to the road in August and September for the Summer of Sin North America leg, ending on September 17, 2005 in Los Angeles. The tour featured "Tori's Piano Bar", where fans could nominate cover songs on Amos's website which she would then choose from to play in a special section of each show. One of the songs chosen was the Kylie Minogue hit "Can't Get You Out of My Head", which Amos dedicated to her the day after Minogue's breast cancer was announced to the public. Other songs performed by Amos include The Doors' "People are Strange", Depeche Mode's "Personal Jesus", Joni Mitchell's "The Circle Game", Madonna's "Live to Tell" and "Like a Prayer", Björk's "Hyperballad", Led Zeppelin's "When the Levee Breaks" (which she debuted in Austin, Texas, just after the events of Hurricane Katrina), Kate Bush's "And Dream of Sheep" and Crowded House's "Don't Dream It's Over", dedicating it to drummer Paul Hester who had died a week before. The entire concert tour featured 82 concerts, and six full-length concerts were released as The Original Bootlegs.
American Doll Posse World Tour
This was Amos's first tour with a full band since her 1999 Five and a Half Weeks Tour, accompanied by long-time bandmates Jon Evans and Matt Chamberlain, with guitarist Dan Phelps rounding out Amos's new band. Amos's equipment included her piano, a Hammond B-3 organ, and two Yamaha S90 ES keyboards. The tour kicked off with its European leg in Rome, Italy on May 28, 2007, which lasted through July, concluding in Israel; the Australian leg took place during September; the North American leg lasted from October to December 16, 2007, when the tour concluded in Los Angeles. Amos opened each show dressed as one of the four non-Tori personae from the album, then Amos would emerge as herself to perform for the remaining two-thirds of the show. The entire concert tour featured 93 concerts, and 27 full-length concerts of the North American tour were released as official bootlegs in the Legs and Boots series.
Sinful Attraction Tour
For her tenth tour, Amos returned to the trio format of her 2002 and 2003 tours with bassist Jon Evans and drummer Matt Chamberlain while expanding her lineup of keyboards by adding three M-Audio MIDI controllers to her ensemble of her piano, a Hammond B-3 organ, and a Yamaha S90 ES keyboard. The North American and European band tour began on July 10, 2009 in Seattle, Washington and ended in Warsaw on October 10, 2009. A solo leg through Australia began in Melbourne on November 12, 2009 and ended in Brisbane on November 24, 2009. The entire tour featured 63 concerts.
Night of Hunters tour
Amos's eleventh tour was her first with a string quartet, Apollon Musagète, (Amos's equipment includes her piano and a Yamaha S90 ES keyboard) and her first time touring in South Africa. It kicked off on September 28, 2011 in Finland, Helsinki Ice Hall and ended on December 22, 2011 in Dallas, Texas.
Gold Dust Orchestral Tour
Amos began her 2012 tour in Rotterdam on October 1.
Unrepentant Geraldines Tour
Amos began her 2014 world tour on May 5, 2014 in Cork, Ireland, and concluded it in Brisbane, Australia on November 21, after playing 73 concerts.
Native Invader Tour
Amos's 2017 tour in support of the Native Invader album kicked off on September 6, 2017, with a series of European shows in Cork, Ireland, moving on to North America in October.
Ocean to Ocean Tour
Amos is to embark on a European tour in the spring of 2022 in support of her upcoming sixteenth studio album, Ocean to Ocean, beginning in Berlin, Germany and ending in Dublin, Ireland.
Awards and nominations
{| class="wikitable sortable plainrowheaders"
|-
! scope="col" | Award
! scope="col" | Year
! scope="col" | Nominee(s)
! scope="col" | Category
! scope="col" | Result
! scope="col" class="unsortable"|
|-
! scope="row" rowspan=3|Brit Awards
| rowspan=2|1993
| rowspan=3|Herself
| International Breakthrough Act
|
| rowspan=2|
|-
| International Solo Artist
|
|-
| 1995
| International Female Solo Artist
|
|
|-
! scope="row"|Critics' Choice Documentary Awards
| 2016
| "Flicker"
| Best Song in a Documentary
|
|
|-
!scope="row"|ECHO Awards
| 1995
| Herself
| Best International Female
|
|
|-
! scope="row"|ECHO Klassik Awards
| rowspan=1|2012
| Night of Hunters
| The Klassik-ohne-Grenzen Prize
|
|
|-
! scope="row" rowspan=4|GAFFA Awards
| 2000
| rowspan=3|Herself
| rowspan=2|Best Foreign Female Act
|
| rowspan=2|
|-
| 2003
|
|-
| rowspan=2|2022
| Best Foreign Solo Act
|
|
|-
| Ocean to Ocean
| Best Foreign Album
|
|-
! scope="row"|George Peabody Medal
| 2019
| Herself
| Outstanding Contributions to Music
|
|
|-
! scope="row"|Glamour Awards
| 1998
| Herself
| Woman of the Year
|
|
|-
! scope="row" rowspan=8|Grammy Awards
| 1995
| Under the Pink
| rowspan=3|Best Alternative Music Album
|
| rowspan=8|
|-
| 1997
| Boys for Pele
|
|-
| rowspan=2|1999
| From the Choirgirl Hotel
|
|-
| "Raspberry Swirl"
| rowspan=2|Best Female Rock Vocal Performance
|
|-
| rowspan=2|2000
| "Bliss"
|
|-
| To Venus and Back
| rowspan=2|Best Alternative Music Album
|
|-
| rowspan=2|2002
| Strange Little Girls
|
|-
| "Strange Little Girl"
| Best Female Rock Vocal Performance
|
|-
! scope="row"|Hollywood Music in Media Awards
| 2016
| "Flicker"
| Best Original Song in a Documentary
|
|
|-
! scope="row"|Hungarian Music Awards
| 2010
| Abnormally Attracted to Sin
| Best Foreign Alternative Album
|
|
|-
! scope="row"|MTV Europe Music Awards
| 1994
| Herself
| Best Female
|
|
|-
! scope="row" rowspan=4|MTV Video Music Awards
| rowspan=4|1992
| rowspan=4|"Silent All These Years"
| Best Female Video
|
|rowspan=4|
|-
| Best New Artist in a Video
|
|-
| Breakthrough Video
|
|-
| Best Cinematography in a Video
|
|-
! scope="row"|NME Awards
| 2016
| Under the Pink
| Best Reissue
|
|
|-
! scope="row"|North Carolina Music Hall of Fame
| 2012
| Herself
| Inducted
|
|
|-
!scope="row" rowspan=5|Pollstar Concert Industry Awards
| rowspan=2|1993
| rowspan=2|Little Earthquakes Tour
| Best New Rock Artist
|
| rowspan=2|
|-
| Club Tour Of The Year
|
|-
| 1995
| Under the Pink Tour
| rowspan=3|Small Hall Tour Of The Year
|
|
|-
| 1997
| Dew Drop Inn Tour
|
|
|-
| 1999
| 5 ½ Weeks Tour
|
|
|-
! scope="row"|Q Awards
| 1992
| Herself
| Best New Act
|
|
|-
! scope="row" rowspan=2|WhatsOnStage Awards
| rowspan=2|2014
| rowspan=2|The Light Princess
| Best New Musical
|
| rowspan=2|
|-
| Best London Newcomer of the Year
|
|-
!scope="row"|Žebřík Music Awards
| 2001
| Herself
| Best International Female
|
|
1999: Spin Readers' Poll Awards (Won)
On May 21, 2020, Amos was invited to and gave special remarks at her alma mater Johns Hopkins University's 2020 Commencement ceremony. Other notable guest speakers during the virtual ceremony included Reddit co-founder and commencement speaker Alexis Ohanian; philanthropist and former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg; Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and a leading member of the White House Coronavirus Task Force; and senior class president Pavan Patel.
Film appearances
Tori appears as a wedding singer in the film Mona Lisa Smile.
References
Citations
Works cited
External links
1963 births
20th-century American composers
20th-century American keyboardists
20th-century American women pianists
20th-century American pianists
20th-century American women singers
21st-century American keyboardists
21st-century American women pianists
21st-century American pianists
21st-century American women singers
Alternative rock keyboardists
Alternative rock pianists
Alternative rock singers
American alternative rock musicians
American expatriates in the Republic of Ireland
American expatriates in the United Kingdom
American women composers
American women singer-songwriters
American feminist writers
American harpsichordists
American mezzo-sopranos
American organists
American people who self-identify as being of Native American descent
American pop pianists
American rock pianists
American women rock singers
American rock songwriters
Articles containing video clips
Art rock musicians
Atlantic Records artists
Child classical musicians
Clavichordists
Deutsche Grammophon artists
Electronica musicians
Epic Records artists
Feminist musicians
Harmonium players
Island Records artists
Living people
Montgomery College alumni
Musicians from Baltimore
Musicians from County Cork
Musicians from Rockville, Maryland
People from Georgetown (Washington, D.C.)
People from Newton, North Carolina
People from Sewall's Point, Florida
Republic Records artists
Sexual abuse victim advocates
Singer-songwriters from Maryland
Singer-songwriters from North Carolina
Women organists
20th-century women composers
American women in electronic music
20th-century American singers
21st-century American singers
Singer-songwriters from Washington, D.C. | true | [
"MuchTemp or MuchBrass is an annual contest held across the nation of Canada by MuchMusic. The successful candidate gets an exclusive 2-month summer work experience to learn about all aspects of TV production. Over the years, the Temp contest has evolved into a nationally recognized and highly coveted annual summertime job opportunity.\n\nOne of the longest-tenured Muchmusic VJ's ever, Rick Campanelli, was a product of MuchTemp, and was often referred to as simply Temp or Rick The Temp, in reference to the contest.\n\nMuch (TV channel)",
"Late Night Tales: Friendly Fires is a mix album compiled by Friendly Fires, released on 5 November 2012. It is the thirtieth album in the Late Night Tales series.\n\n\"...the perfect prescription of head, heart and footwork that defines ideal participants for constructing Late Night Tales\"\n\nTheir compilation features tracks from artists such as SBTRKT, Bibio, Cocteau Twins, Laurel Halo and Stereolab. It also features an exclusive Friendly Fires' cover of Eberhard Schoener + Sting's song \"Why Don't You Answer?\" off the 1978 album Flashback.\n\nHistory\nIn November 2012, a music video was released for Friendly Fires' cover \"Why Don't You Answer?\", directed by Fred Rowson for Colonel Blimp. It was premiered on The Guardians new music blog.\n\nTrack listing\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\nOfficial Friendly Fires site\nOfficial Friendly Fires late Night Tales Page\n\n2012 compilation albums\nFriendly Fires albums\nFriendly Fires"
]
|
[
"Tori Amos",
"The Universal Republic years (2008-11)",
"who/what were Universal Republic?",
"Amos signed a \"joint venture\" deal with Universal Republic Records.",
"What was her first album with Universal Republic?",
"Abnormally Attracted to Sin, Amos's tenth solo studio album and her first album released through Universal Republic, was released in May 2009",
"What was the album about?",
"the album exploring themes of power, boundaries, and the subjective view of sin.",
"Did she release any other albums?",
"After a brief tour from June to September 2010, Amos released the highly exclusive live album From Russia With Love",
"Why was it highly exclusive?",
"The limited edition set included a signature edition Lomography Diana F+ camera,"
]
| C_f2c7f26de77949ff80c91a7bd337fb42_0 | Did she sing with anyone else? | 6 | Did Tori Amos sing along with anyone else? | Tori Amos | In May 2008, Amos announced that, due to creative and financial disagreements with Epic Records, she had negotiated an end to her contract with the record label, and would be operating independently of major record labels on future work. In September of the same year, Amos released a live album and DVD, Live at Montreux 1991/1992, through Eagle Rock Entertainment, of two performances she gave at the Montreux Jazz Festival very early on in her career while promoting her debut solo album, Little Earthquakes. By December, after a chance encounter with chairman and CEO of Universal Music Group, Doug Morris, Amos signed a "joint venture" deal with Universal Republic Records. Abnormally Attracted to Sin, Amos's tenth solo studio album and her first album released through Universal Republic, was released in May 2009 to mostly positive reviews. The album debuted in the top 10 of the Billboard 200, making it Amos's seventh album to do so. Abnormally Attracted to Sin, admitted Amos, is a "personal album", not a conceptual one, with the album exploring themes of power, boundaries, and the subjective view of sin. Continuing her distribution deal with Universal Republic, Amos released Midwinter Graces, her first seasonal album, in November of the same year. The album features reworked versions of traditional carols, as well as original songs written by Amos. During her contract with the label, Amos recorded vocals for two songs for David Byrne's collaboration album with Fatboy Slim, titled Here Lies Love, which was released in April 2010. In July of the same year, the DVD Tori Amos- Live from the Artists Den was released exclusively through Barnes & Noble. After a brief tour from June to September 2010, Amos released the highly exclusive live album From Russia With Love in December the same year, recorded live in Moscow on September 3, 2010. The limited edition set included a signature edition Lomography Diana F+ camera, along with 2 lenses, a roll of film and 1 of 5 photographs taken of Tori during her time in Moscow. The set was released exclusively through toriamos.com and only 2000 copies were produced. CANNOTANSWER | Amos recorded vocals for two songs for David Byrne's collaboration album with Fatboy Slim, | Tori Amos (born Myra Ellen Amos; August 22, 1963) is an American singer-songwriter and pianist. She is a classically trained musician with a mezzo-soprano vocal range. Having already begun composing instrumental pieces on piano, Amos won a full scholarship to the Peabody Institute at Johns Hopkins University at the age of five, the youngest person ever to have been admitted. She had to leave at the age of eleven when her scholarship was discontinued for what Rolling Stone described as "musical insubordination". Amos was the lead singer of the short-lived 1980s synth-pop group Y Kant Tori Read before achieving her breakthrough as a solo artist in the early 1990s. Her songs focus on a broad range of topics, including sexuality, feminism, politics, and religion.
Her charting singles include "Crucify", "Silent All These Years", "God", "Cornflake Girl", "Caught a Lite Sneeze", "Professional Widow", "Spark", "1000 Oceans", "Flavor" and "A Sorta Fairytale", her most commercially successful single in the U.S. to date. Amos has received five MTV VMA nominations and eight Grammy Award nominations, and won an Echo Klassik award for her Night of Hunters classical crossover album. She is listed on VH1's 1999 "100 Greatest Women of Rock and Roll" at number 71.
Early life and education
Amos is the third child of Mary Ellen (Copeland) and Edison McKinley Amos. She was born at the Old Catawba Hospital in Newton, North Carolina, during a trip from their Georgetown home in Washington, D.C. Of particular importance to her as a child was her maternal grandfather, Calvin Clinton Copeland, who was a great source of inspiration and guidance, offering a more pantheistic spiritual alternative to her father and paternal grandmother's traditional Christianity.
When she was two years old, her family moved to Baltimore, Maryland, where her father had transplanted his Methodist ministry from its original base in Washington, D.C. Her older brother and sister took piano lessons, but Tori did not need them. From the time she could reach the piano, she taught herself to play: when she was two, she could reproduce pieces of music she had only heard once, and, by the age of three, she was composing her own songs. She has described seeing music as structures of light since early childhood, an experience consistent with chromesthesia:
At five, she became the youngest student ever admitted to the preparatory division of the Peabody Conservatory of Music. She studied classical piano at Peabody from 1968 to 1974. In 1974, when she was eleven, her scholarship was discontinued, and she was asked to leave. Amos has asserted that she lost the scholarship because of her interest in rock and popular music, coupled with her dislike for reading from sheet music.
In 1972, the Amos family moved to Silver Spring, Maryland, where her father became pastor of the Good Shepherd United Methodist church. At thirteen, Amos began playing at gay bars and piano bars, chaperoned by her father.
Amos won a county teen talent contest in 1977, singing a song called "More Than Just a Friend". As a senior at Richard Montgomery High School, she co-wrote "Baltimore" with her brother, Mike Amos, for a competition involving the Baltimore Orioles. The song did not win the contest but became her first single, released as a 7-inch single pressed locally for family and friends in 1980 with another Amos-penned composition as a B-side, "Walking With You". Before this, she had performed under her middle name, Ellen, but permanently adopted Tori after a friend's boyfriend told her she looked like a Torrey pine, a tree native to the West Coast.
Career
1979–1989: Career beginnings and Y Kant Tori Read
By the time she was 17, Amos had a stock of homemade demo tapes that her father regularly sent out to record companies and producers. Producer Narada Michael Walden responded favorably: he and Amos cut some tracks together, but none were released. Eventually, Atlantic Records responded to one of the tapes, and, when A&R man Jason Flom flew to Baltimore to audition her in person, the label was convinced and signed her.
In 1984, Amos moved to Los Angeles to pursue her music career after several years performing on the piano bar circuit in the D.C. area.
In 1986, Amos formed a musical group called Y Kant Tori Read, named for her difficulty sight-reading. In addition to Amos, the group was composed of Steve Caton (who would later play guitars on all of her albums until 1999), drummer Matt Sorum, bass player Brad Cobb and, for a short time, keyboardist Jim Tauber. The band went through several iterations of songwriting and recording; Amos has said interference from record executives caused the band to lose its musical edge and direction during this time. Finally, in July 1988, the band's self-titled debut album, Y Kant Tori Read, was released. Although its producer, Joe Chiccarelli, stated that Amos was very happy with the album at the time, Amos has since criticized it, once remarking: "The only good thing about that album is my ankle high boots."
Following the album's commercial failure and the group's subsequent disbanding, Amos began working with other artists (including Stan Ridgway, Sandra Bernhard, and Al Stewart) as a backup vocalist. She also recorded a song called "Distant Storm" for the film China O'Brien. In the credits, the song is attributed to a band called Tess Makes Good.
1990–1995: Little Earthquakes and Under the Pink
Despite the disappointing reaction to Y Kant Tori Read, Amos still had to comply with her six-record contract with Atlantic Records, which, in 1989, wanted a new record by March 1990. The initial recordings were declined by the label, which Amos felt was because the album had not been properly presented. The album was reworked and expanded under the guidance of Doug Morris and the musical talents of Steve Caton, Eric Rosse, Will MacGregor, Carlo Nuccio, and Dan Nebenzal, resulting in Little Earthquakes, an album recounting her religious upbringing, sexual awakening, struggle to establish her identity, and sexual assault. This album became her commercial and artistic breakthrough, entering the British charts in January 1992 at Number 15. Little Earthquakes was released in the United States in February 1992 and slowly but steadily began to attract listeners, gaining more attention with the video for the single "Silent All These Years".
Amos traveled to New Mexico with personal and professional partner Eric Rosse in 1993 to write and largely record her second solo record, Under the Pink. The album was received with mostly favorable reviews and sold enough copies to chart at No. 12 on the Billboard 200, a significantly higher position than the preceding album's position at No. 54 on the same chart. However, the album found its biggest success in the UK, debuting at number one upon release in February 1994.
1996–2000: Boys for Pele, From the Choirgirl Hotel, and To Venus and Back
Her third solo album, Boys for Pele, was released in January 1996. Prior to its release, the first single, "Caught a Lite Sneeze" became the first full song released for streaming online prior to an album's release.
The album was recorded in an Irish church, in Delgany, County Wicklow, with Amos taking advantage of the church's acoustics. For this album, Amos used the harpsichord, harmonium, and clavichord as well as the piano. The album garnered mixed reviews upon its release, with some critics praising its intensity and uniqueness while others bemoaned its comparative impenetrability. Despite the album's erratic lyrical content and instrumentation, the latter of which kept it away from mainstream audiences, Boys for Pele is Amos's most successful simultaneous transatlantic release, reaching No. 2 on the UK Top 40 and No. 2 on the Billboard 200 upon its release.
Fueled by the desire to have her own recording studio to distance herself from record company executives, Amos had the barn of her home in Cornwall converted into the state-of-the-art recording studio of Martian Engineering Studios.
From the Choirgirl Hotel and To Venus and Back, released in May 1998 and September 1999, respectively, differ greatly from previous albums. Amos's trademark acoustic, piano-based sound is largely replaced with arrangements that include elements of electronica and dance music with vocal washes. The underlying themes of both albums deal with womanhood and Amos's own miscarriages and marriage. Reviews for From the Choirgirl Hotel were mostly favorable and praised Amos's continued artistic originality. Debut sales for From the Choirgirl Hotel are Amos's best to date, selling 153,000 copies in its first week. To Venus and Back, a two-disc release of original studio material and live material recorded from the previous world tour, received mostly positive reviews and included the first major-label single available for sale as a digital download.
2001–2004: Strange Little Girls and Scarlet's Walk
Shortly after giving birth to her daughter, Amos decided to record a cover album, taking songs written by men about women and reversing the gender roles to reflect a woman's perspective. That became Strange Little Girls, released in September 2001. The album is Amos's first concept album, with artwork featuring Amos photographed in character of the women portrayed in each song. Amos would later reveal that a stimulus for the album was to end her contract with Atlantic without giving them original songs; Amos felt that since 1998, the label had not been properly promoting her and had trapped her in a contract by refusing to sell her to another label.
With her Atlantic contract fulfilled after a 15-year stint, Amos signed to Epic in late 2001. In October 2002, Amos released Scarlet's Walk, another concept album. Described as a "sonic novel", the album explores Amos's alter ego, Scarlet, intertwined with her cross-country concert tour following 9/11. Through the songs, Amos explores such topics as the history of America, American people, Native American history, pornography, masochism, homophobia and misogyny. The album had a strong debut at No. 7 on the Billboard 200. Scarlet's Walk is Amos's last album to date to reach certified gold status from the RIAA.
Not long after Amos was ensconced with her new label, she received unsettling news when Polly Anthony resigned as president of Epic Records in 2003. Anthony had been one of the primary reasons Amos signed with the label and as a result of her resignation, Amos formed the Bridge Entertainment Group. Further trouble for Amos occurred the following year when her label, Epic/Sony Music Entertainment, merged with BMG Entertainment as a result of the industry's decline.
2005–2008: The Beekeeper and American Doll Posse
Amos released two more albums with the label, The Beekeeper (2005) and American Doll Posse (2007). Both albums received generally favorable reviews. The Beekeeper was conceptually influenced by the ancient art of beekeeping, which she considered a source of female inspiration and empowerment. Through extensive study, Amos also wove in the stories of the Gnostic gospels and the removal of women from a position of power within the Christian church to create an album based largely on religion and politics. The album debuted at No. 5 on the Billboard 200, placing her in an elite group of women who have secured five or more US Top 10 album debuts. While the newly merged label was present throughout the production process of The Beekeeper, Amos and her crew nearly completed her next project, American Doll Posse, before inviting the label to listen to it. American Doll Posse, another concept album, is fashioned around a group of girls (the "posse") who are used as a theme of alter-egos of Amos's. Musically and stylistically, the album saw Amos return to a more confrontational nature. Like its predecessor, American Doll Posse debuted at No. 5 on the Billboard 200.
During her tenure with Epic Records, Amos also released a retrospective collection titled Tales of a Librarian (2003) through her former label, Atlantic Records; a two-disc DVD set Fade to Red (2006) containing most of Amos's solo music videos, released through the Warner Bros. reissue imprint Rhino; a five disc box set titled A Piano: The Collection (2006), celebrating Amos's 15-year solo career through remastered album tracks, remixes, alternate mixes, demos, and a string of unreleased songs from album recording sessions, also released through Rhino; and numerous official bootlegs from two world tours, The Original Bootlegs (2005) and Legs & Boots (2007) through Epic Records.
2008–2011: Abnormally Attracted to Sin and Midwinter Graces
In May 2008, Amos announced that, due to creative and financial disagreements with Epic Records, she had negotiated an end to her contract with the record label, and would be operating independently of major record labels on future work. In September of the same year, Amos released a live album and DVD, Live at Montreux 1991/1992, through Eagle Rock Entertainment, of two performances she gave at the Montreux Jazz Festival very early on in her career while promoting her debut solo album, Little Earthquakes. By December, after a chance encounter with chairman and CEO of Universal Music Group, Doug Morris, Amos signed a "joint venture" deal with Universal Republic Records.
Abnormally Attracted to Sin, Amos's tenth solo studio album and her first album released through Universal Republic, was released in May 2009 to mostly positive reviews. The album debuted in the top 10 of the Billboard 200, making it Amos's seventh album to do so. Abnormally Attracted to Sin, admitted Amos, is a "personal album", not a conceptual one, with the album exploring themes of power, boundaries, and the subjective view of sin. Continuing her distribution deal with Universal Republic, Amos released Midwinter Graces, her first seasonal album, in November of the same year. The album features reworked versions of traditional carols, as well as original songs written by Amos.
During her contract with the label, Amos recorded vocals for two songs for David Byrne's collaboration album with Fatboy Slim, titled Here Lies Love, which was released in April 2010. In July of the same year, the DVD Tori Amos- Live from the Artists Den was released exclusively through Barnes & Noble.
After a brief tour from June to September 2010, Amos released a live album From Russia With Love in December the same year, recorded in Moscow on September 3, 2010. The limited edition set included a signature edition Lomography Diana F+ camera, along with two lenses, a roll of film and one of five photographs taken of Amos during her time in Moscow. The set was released exclusively through her website and only 2000 copies were produced.
2011–2015: Night of Hunters, Gold Dust, and Unrepentant Geraldines
In September 2011, Amos released her first classical-style music album, Night of Hunters, featuring variations on a theme to pay tribute to composers such as Bach, Chopin, Debussy, Granados, Satie and Schubert, on the Deutsche Grammophon label, a division of Universal Music Group. Amos recorded the album with several musicians, including the Apollon Musagète string quartet.
To mark the 20th anniversary of her debut album, Little Earthquakes (1992), Amos released an album of songs from her back catalogue re-worked and re-recorded with the Metropole Orchestra. The album, titled Gold Dust, was released in October 2012 through Deutsche Grammophon.
On May 1, 2012, Amos announced the formation of her own record label, Transmission Galactic, which she intends to use to develop new artists.
In 2013, Amos collaborated with the Bullitts on the track "Wait Until Tomorrow" from their debut album, They Die by Dawn & Other Short Stories. She also stated in an interview that a new album and tour would materialize in 2014 and that it would be a "return to contemporary music".
September 2013 saw the launch of Amos's musical project adaptation of George MacDonald's The Light Princess, along with book writer Samuel Adamson and Marianne Elliott. It premiered at London's Royal National Theatre and ended in February 2014. The Light Princess and its lead actress, Rosalie Craig, were nominated for Best Musical and Best Musical Performance respectively at the Evening Standard Award. Craig won the Best Musical Performance category.
Amos's 14th studio album, Unrepentant Geraldines, was released on May 13, 2014, via Mercury Classics/Universal Music Classics in the US. Its first single, "Trouble's Lament", was released on March 28. The album was supported by the Unrepentant Geraldines Tour which began May 5, 2014, in Cork and continued across Europe, Africa, North America, and Australia, ending in Brisbane on November 21, 2014. In Sydney, Amos performed two orchestral concerts, reminiscent of the Gold Dust Orchestral Tour, with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra at the Sydney Opera House.
According to a press release, Unrepentant Geraldines was a "return to her core identity as a creator of contemporary songs of exquisite beauty following a series of more classically-inspired and innovative musical projects of the last four years. [It is] both one further step in the artistic evolution of one of the most successful and influential artists of her generation, and a return to the inspiring and personal music that Amos is known for all around the world."
The 2-CD set The Light Princess (Original Cast Recording) was released on October 9, 2015 via Universal/Mercury Classics. Apart from the original cast performances, the recording also includes two songs from the musical ("Highness in the Sky" and "Darkest Hour') performed by Amos.
2016–present: Native Invader, Christmastide and Ocean to Ocean
On November 18, 2016, Amos released a deluxe version of the album Boys for Pele to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the original release. This follows the deluxe re-releases of her first two albums in 2015.
On September 8, 2017, Amos released Native Invader, accompanied by a world tour. During the summer of 2017, Amos launched three songs from the album: "Cloud Riders", "Up the Creek" and "Reindeer King", the latter featuring string arrangements by John Philip Shenale. Produced by Amos, the album explores topics like American politics and environmental issues, mixed with mythological elements and first-person narrations.
The initial inspiration for the album came from a trip that Amos took to the Great Smoky Mountains (Tennessee-North Carolina), home of her alleged Native American ancestors; however, two events deeply influenced the final record: in November 2016, Donald Trump was elected President of the United States of America; two months later, in January 2017, Amos's mother, Mary Ellen, suffered a stroke that left her unable to speak. Shocked by both events, Amos spent the first half of 2017 writing and recording the songs that would eventually form Native Invader. The album, released on September 8, 2017, has been presented in two formats: standard and deluxe. The standard version includes 13 songs, while the deluxe edition adds two extra songs to the tracklist: "Upside Down 2" and "Russia". Native Invader has been well received by most music critics upon release. The album obtained a score of 76 out of 100 on the review aggregator website Metacritic, based on 17 reviews, indicating "generally favorable reviews".
On November 9, 2020, Amos announced the release of a holiday-themed EP entitled Christmastide on December 4, digitally and on limited-edition vinyl. The EP consists of four original songs and features her first work with bandmates Matt Chamberlain and Jon Evans since 2009. Amos recorded the EP remotely due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.
On September 20, 2021, Amos announced her sixteenth studio album, Ocean to Ocean, which was released on October 29. The album was written and recorded in Cornwall during lockdown as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic and explores "a universal story of going to rock bottom and renewing yourself all over again". Amos will embark on a European tour in support of the album in 2022. Matt Chamberlain and Jon Evans will again feature on drums and bass guitar respectively, their first collaboration with Amos on an album since 2009's Midwinter Graces.
In print
Released in conjunction with The Beekeeper, Amos co-authored an autobiography with rock music journalist Ann Powers titled Piece by Piece (2005). The book's subject is Amos's interest in mythology and religion, exploring her songwriting process, rise to fame, and her relationship with Atlantic Records.
Image Comics released Comic Book Tattoo (2008), a collection of comic stories, each based on or inspired by songs recorded by Amos. Editor Rantz Hoseley worked with Amos to gather 80 different artists for the book, including Pia Guerra, David Mack, and Leah Moore.
Additionally, Amos and her music have been the subject of numerous official and unofficial books, as well as academic critique, including Tori Amos: Lyrics (2001) and an earlier biography, Tori Amos: All These Years (1996).
Tori Amos: In the Studio (2011) by Jake Brown features an in-depth look at Amos's career, discography and recording process.
Amos released her second memoir called Resistance: A Songwriter’s Story of Hope, Change, and Courage on 5 May 2020.
Personal life
Amos married English sound engineer Mark Hawley on February 22, 1998. Their daughter was born in 2000. The family divides their time between Sewall's Point in Florida, US, and Bude, Cornwall in the UK.
Amos' mother, Mary Ellen, died on May 11, 2019.
Early in her professional career, Amos befriended author Neil Gaiman, who became a fan after she referred to him in the song "Tear in Your Hand" and also in print interviews. Although created before the two met, the character Delirium from Gaiman's The Sandman series is inspired by Amos; Gaiman has stated that they "steal shamelessly from each other". She wrote the foreword to his collection Death: The High Cost of Living; he in turn wrote the introduction to Comic Book Tattoo. Gaiman is godfather to her daughter and a poem written for her birth, Blueberry Girl, was published as a children's book of the same name in 2009. In 2019, Amos performed the British standard "A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square" over the closing credits of Gaiman's TV series Good Omens, based on the novel of the same name written by Gaiman and Terry Pratchett.
Activism
In June 1994, the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network (RAINN), a toll-free help line in the US connecting callers with their local rape crisis center, was founded. Amos, who was raped at knifepoint when she was 22, answered the ceremonial first call to launch the hotline. She was the first national spokesperson for the organization and has continued to be closely associated with RAINN. On August 18, 2013, a concert in honor of her 50th birthday was held, an event which raised money for RAINN. On August 22, 2020, Amos appeared on a panel called Artistry & Activism at the diversity and inclusion digital global conference CARLA.
Discography
Studio albums
Little Earthquakes (1992)
Under the Pink (1994)
Boys for Pele (1996)
From the Choirgirl Hotel (1998)
To Venus and Back (1999)
Strange Little Girls (2001)
Scarlet's Walk (2002)
The Beekeeper (2005)
American Doll Posse (2007)
Abnormally Attracted to Sin (2009)
Midwinter Graces (2009)
Night of Hunters (2011)
Gold Dust (2012)
Unrepentant Geraldines (2014)
Native Invader (2017)
Ocean to Ocean (2021)
Tours
Amos, who has been performing in bars and clubs from as early as 1976 and under her professional name as early as 1991 has performed more than 1,000 shows since her first world tour in 1992. In 2003, Amos was voted fifth best touring act by the readers of Rolling Stone magazine. Her concerts are notable for their changing set lists from night to night.
Little Earthquakes Tour
Amos's first world tour began on January 29, 1992 in London and ended on November 30, 1992 in Auckland. She performed solo with a Yamaha CP-70 unless the venue was able to provide a piano. The tour included 142 concerts around the globe.
Under the Pink Tour
Amos's second world tour began on February 24, 1994 in Newcastle upon Tyne and ended on December 13, 1994 in Perth, Western Australia. Amos performed solo each night on her iconic Bösendorfer piano, and on a prepared piano during "Bells for Her". The tour included 181 concerts.
Dew Drop Inn Tour
The third world tour began on February 23, 1996 in Ipswich, England, and ended on November 11, 1996 in Boulder. Amos performed each night on piano, harpsichord, and harmonium, with Steve Caton on guitar on some songs. The tour included 187 concerts.
Plugged '98 Tour
Amos's first band tour. Amos, on piano and Kurzweil keyboard, was joined by Steve Caton on guitar, Matt Chamberlain on drums, and Jon Evans on bass. The tour began on April 18, 1998 in Fort Lauderdale and ended on December 3, 1998 in East Lansing, Michigan, including 137 concerts.
5 ½ Weeks Tour / To Dallas and Back
Amos's fifth tour was North America–only. The first part of the tour was co-headlining with Alanis Morissette and featured the same band and equipment line-up as in 1998. Amos and the band continued for eight shows before Amos embarked on a series of solo shows. The tour began on August 18, 1999 in Fort Lauderdale, Florida and ended on December 9, 1999 in Denver, including 46 concerts.
Strange Little Tour
This tour was Amos's first since becoming a mother in 2000 and her first tour fully solo since 1994 (Steve Caton was present on some songs in 1996). It saw Amos perform on piano, Rhodes piano, and Wurlitzer electric piano, and though the tour was in support of her covers album, the set lists were not strictly covers-oriented. Having brought her one-year-old daughter on the road with her, this tour was also one of Amos's shortest ventures, lasting just three months. It began on August 30, 2001 in London and ended on December 17, 2001 in Milan, including 55 concerts.
On Scarlet's Walk / Lottapianos Tour
Amos's seventh tour saw her reunited with Matt Chamberlain and Jon Evans, but not Steve Caton. The first part of the tour, which featured Amos on piano, Kurzweil, Rhodes, and Wurlitzer, was six months long and Amos went out again in the summer of 2003 for a tour with Ben Folds opening. The tour began on November 7, 2002 in Tampa and ended on September 4, 2003 in West Palm Beach, featuring 124 concerts. The final show of the tour was filmed and released as part of a DVD/CD set titled Welcome to Sunny Florida (the set also included a studio EP titled Scarlet's Hidden Treasures, an extension of the Scarlet's Walk album).
Original Sinsuality Tour / Summer of Sin
This tour began on April 1, 2005 in Clearwater, Florida, with Amos on piano, two Hammond B-3 organs, and Rhodes. The tour also encompassed Australia for the first time since 1994. Amos announced at a concert on this tour that she would never stop touring but would scale down the tours. Amos returned to the road in August and September for the Summer of Sin North America leg, ending on September 17, 2005 in Los Angeles. The tour featured "Tori's Piano Bar", where fans could nominate cover songs on Amos's website which she would then choose from to play in a special section of each show. One of the songs chosen was the Kylie Minogue hit "Can't Get You Out of My Head", which Amos dedicated to her the day after Minogue's breast cancer was announced to the public. Other songs performed by Amos include The Doors' "People are Strange", Depeche Mode's "Personal Jesus", Joni Mitchell's "The Circle Game", Madonna's "Live to Tell" and "Like a Prayer", Björk's "Hyperballad", Led Zeppelin's "When the Levee Breaks" (which she debuted in Austin, Texas, just after the events of Hurricane Katrina), Kate Bush's "And Dream of Sheep" and Crowded House's "Don't Dream It's Over", dedicating it to drummer Paul Hester who had died a week before. The entire concert tour featured 82 concerts, and six full-length concerts were released as The Original Bootlegs.
American Doll Posse World Tour
This was Amos's first tour with a full band since her 1999 Five and a Half Weeks Tour, accompanied by long-time bandmates Jon Evans and Matt Chamberlain, with guitarist Dan Phelps rounding out Amos's new band. Amos's equipment included her piano, a Hammond B-3 organ, and two Yamaha S90 ES keyboards. The tour kicked off with its European leg in Rome, Italy on May 28, 2007, which lasted through July, concluding in Israel; the Australian leg took place during September; the North American leg lasted from October to December 16, 2007, when the tour concluded in Los Angeles. Amos opened each show dressed as one of the four non-Tori personae from the album, then Amos would emerge as herself to perform for the remaining two-thirds of the show. The entire concert tour featured 93 concerts, and 27 full-length concerts of the North American tour were released as official bootlegs in the Legs and Boots series.
Sinful Attraction Tour
For her tenth tour, Amos returned to the trio format of her 2002 and 2003 tours with bassist Jon Evans and drummer Matt Chamberlain while expanding her lineup of keyboards by adding three M-Audio MIDI controllers to her ensemble of her piano, a Hammond B-3 organ, and a Yamaha S90 ES keyboard. The North American and European band tour began on July 10, 2009 in Seattle, Washington and ended in Warsaw on October 10, 2009. A solo leg through Australia began in Melbourne on November 12, 2009 and ended in Brisbane on November 24, 2009. The entire tour featured 63 concerts.
Night of Hunters tour
Amos's eleventh tour was her first with a string quartet, Apollon Musagète, (Amos's equipment includes her piano and a Yamaha S90 ES keyboard) and her first time touring in South Africa. It kicked off on September 28, 2011 in Finland, Helsinki Ice Hall and ended on December 22, 2011 in Dallas, Texas.
Gold Dust Orchestral Tour
Amos began her 2012 tour in Rotterdam on October 1.
Unrepentant Geraldines Tour
Amos began her 2014 world tour on May 5, 2014 in Cork, Ireland, and concluded it in Brisbane, Australia on November 21, after playing 73 concerts.
Native Invader Tour
Amos's 2017 tour in support of the Native Invader album kicked off on September 6, 2017, with a series of European shows in Cork, Ireland, moving on to North America in October.
Ocean to Ocean Tour
Amos is to embark on a European tour in the spring of 2022 in support of her upcoming sixteenth studio album, Ocean to Ocean, beginning in Berlin, Germany and ending in Dublin, Ireland.
Awards and nominations
{| class="wikitable sortable plainrowheaders"
|-
! scope="col" | Award
! scope="col" | Year
! scope="col" | Nominee(s)
! scope="col" | Category
! scope="col" | Result
! scope="col" class="unsortable"|
|-
! scope="row" rowspan=3|Brit Awards
| rowspan=2|1993
| rowspan=3|Herself
| International Breakthrough Act
|
| rowspan=2|
|-
| International Solo Artist
|
|-
| 1995
| International Female Solo Artist
|
|
|-
! scope="row"|Critics' Choice Documentary Awards
| 2016
| "Flicker"
| Best Song in a Documentary
|
|
|-
!scope="row"|ECHO Awards
| 1995
| Herself
| Best International Female
|
|
|-
! scope="row"|ECHO Klassik Awards
| rowspan=1|2012
| Night of Hunters
| The Klassik-ohne-Grenzen Prize
|
|
|-
! scope="row" rowspan=4|GAFFA Awards
| 2000
| rowspan=3|Herself
| rowspan=2|Best Foreign Female Act
|
| rowspan=2|
|-
| 2003
|
|-
| rowspan=2|2022
| Best Foreign Solo Act
|
|
|-
| Ocean to Ocean
| Best Foreign Album
|
|-
! scope="row"|George Peabody Medal
| 2019
| Herself
| Outstanding Contributions to Music
|
|
|-
! scope="row"|Glamour Awards
| 1998
| Herself
| Woman of the Year
|
|
|-
! scope="row" rowspan=8|Grammy Awards
| 1995
| Under the Pink
| rowspan=3|Best Alternative Music Album
|
| rowspan=8|
|-
| 1997
| Boys for Pele
|
|-
| rowspan=2|1999
| From the Choirgirl Hotel
|
|-
| "Raspberry Swirl"
| rowspan=2|Best Female Rock Vocal Performance
|
|-
| rowspan=2|2000
| "Bliss"
|
|-
| To Venus and Back
| rowspan=2|Best Alternative Music Album
|
|-
| rowspan=2|2002
| Strange Little Girls
|
|-
| "Strange Little Girl"
| Best Female Rock Vocal Performance
|
|-
! scope="row"|Hollywood Music in Media Awards
| 2016
| "Flicker"
| Best Original Song in a Documentary
|
|
|-
! scope="row"|Hungarian Music Awards
| 2010
| Abnormally Attracted to Sin
| Best Foreign Alternative Album
|
|
|-
! scope="row"|MTV Europe Music Awards
| 1994
| Herself
| Best Female
|
|
|-
! scope="row" rowspan=4|MTV Video Music Awards
| rowspan=4|1992
| rowspan=4|"Silent All These Years"
| Best Female Video
|
|rowspan=4|
|-
| Best New Artist in a Video
|
|-
| Breakthrough Video
|
|-
| Best Cinematography in a Video
|
|-
! scope="row"|NME Awards
| 2016
| Under the Pink
| Best Reissue
|
|
|-
! scope="row"|North Carolina Music Hall of Fame
| 2012
| Herself
| Inducted
|
|
|-
!scope="row" rowspan=5|Pollstar Concert Industry Awards
| rowspan=2|1993
| rowspan=2|Little Earthquakes Tour
| Best New Rock Artist
|
| rowspan=2|
|-
| Club Tour Of The Year
|
|-
| 1995
| Under the Pink Tour
| rowspan=3|Small Hall Tour Of The Year
|
|
|-
| 1997
| Dew Drop Inn Tour
|
|
|-
| 1999
| 5 ½ Weeks Tour
|
|
|-
! scope="row"|Q Awards
| 1992
| Herself
| Best New Act
|
|
|-
! scope="row" rowspan=2|WhatsOnStage Awards
| rowspan=2|2014
| rowspan=2|The Light Princess
| Best New Musical
|
| rowspan=2|
|-
| Best London Newcomer of the Year
|
|-
!scope="row"|Žebřík Music Awards
| 2001
| Herself
| Best International Female
|
|
1999: Spin Readers' Poll Awards (Won)
On May 21, 2020, Amos was invited to and gave special remarks at her alma mater Johns Hopkins University's 2020 Commencement ceremony. Other notable guest speakers during the virtual ceremony included Reddit co-founder and commencement speaker Alexis Ohanian; philanthropist and former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg; Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and a leading member of the White House Coronavirus Task Force; and senior class president Pavan Patel.
Film appearances
Tori appears as a wedding singer in the film Mona Lisa Smile.
References
Citations
Works cited
External links
1963 births
20th-century American composers
20th-century American keyboardists
20th-century American women pianists
20th-century American pianists
20th-century American women singers
21st-century American keyboardists
21st-century American women pianists
21st-century American pianists
21st-century American women singers
Alternative rock keyboardists
Alternative rock pianists
Alternative rock singers
American alternative rock musicians
American expatriates in the Republic of Ireland
American expatriates in the United Kingdom
American women composers
American women singer-songwriters
American feminist writers
American harpsichordists
American mezzo-sopranos
American organists
American people who self-identify as being of Native American descent
American pop pianists
American rock pianists
American women rock singers
American rock songwriters
Articles containing video clips
Art rock musicians
Atlantic Records artists
Child classical musicians
Clavichordists
Deutsche Grammophon artists
Electronica musicians
Epic Records artists
Feminist musicians
Harmonium players
Island Records artists
Living people
Montgomery College alumni
Musicians from Baltimore
Musicians from County Cork
Musicians from Rockville, Maryland
People from Georgetown (Washington, D.C.)
People from Newton, North Carolina
People from Sewall's Point, Florida
Republic Records artists
Sexual abuse victim advocates
Singer-songwriters from Maryland
Singer-songwriters from North Carolina
Women organists
20th-century women composers
American women in electronic music
20th-century American singers
21st-century American singers
Singer-songwriters from Washington, D.C. | true | [
"Ruwida El-Hubti (born 16 April 1989) is an Olympic athlete from Libya. At the 2004 Summer Olympics, she competed in the Women's 400 metres. She finished last in her heat with a time of 1:03.57, almost 11 seconds slower than anyone else in the heat, and the slowest of anyone in the competition. However, she did set a national record.\n\nReferences\n\n1989 births\nLiving people\nOlympic athletes of Libya\nAthletes (track and field) at the 2004 Summer Olympics",
"Emma Anderson (born 10 June 1967) is an English musician. She is best known for being a songwriter, guitarist and singer in the shoegazing/Britpop band Lush.\n\nMusical career\nBorn in Wimbledon, London, the adopted daughter of a former army officer who ran a gentleman's club in Piccadilly, Anderson attended several schools before taking her O-Levels at Queen's College, where she met Miki Berenyi. As keen music fans, they wrote a fanzine called Alphabet Soup. Her first band, which she joined in 1986, was the Rover Girls (which featured Chris P Mowforth and Stuart Watson, who were both later in Silverfish) as a bass player.\n\nIn 1987, while Anderson was at Ealing College of Higher Education studying Humanities and Berenyi was at North London Polytechnic, they formed Lush. Lush played their very first performance at the Camden Falcon in London on 6 March 1988. They went on to reasonable success, having a number of Top 40 hits over an eight-year career. Anderson told Everett True in Melody Maker, \"I remember when I couldn't play, I wasn't in a band, didn't know anyone else who could play, and now we've got a record out on 4AD. I sometimes find it impossible to come to terms with what's happening.\" Anderson and Berenyi were the only women to take part in the 1992 Lollapalooza tour of the United States.\n\nBoth Anderson and Berenyi became major music press celebrities as part of The Scene That Celebrates Itself. Music magazines the NME and Melody Maker gleefully reported their social activities on a regular basis, which could be said to overshadow their increasingly strong songwriting. As drummer Chris Acland stated, \"people seem to want to talk about Lush's relationship to the press more than they want to talk about Lush.\"\n\nOf the sound of Lush, Emma said, \"\"We were kind of punk rock in one way. We did think 'Well, if they can do it, why the fuck can't we?' Basically, our idea was to have extremely loud guitars with much weaker vocals. And, really the vocals were weaker due to nervousness – we'd always be going 'Turn them down! Turn them down!'.\"\"\n\nAfter their biggest hits, the Top 30 \"Single Girl\", \"Ladykillers\" and \"500 (Shake Baby Shake)\" and Top 10 album, Lovelife, the band's drummer Chris Acland took his own life in 1996. The members were devastated and they split in 1996. Lush officially announced their breakup on 23 February 1998.\n\nWhile a member of Lush, Anderson also worked with Drum Club contributing vocals and guitar on \"Spaced Out Locked In\" on their 1993 album Everything Is Now, also playing guitar on \"Sound System\".\n\nIn 1997 Anderson formed a new band with vocalist Lisa O'Neill, Sing-Sing. Emma explained how it started, \"I just started writing songs not really knowing what was going to happen though I kind of knew I didn't want to form another 4-piece indie band. I demoed those songs for 4AD with myself singing but was dropped but I wasn't fazed. I then met Lisa O'Neill via a guy I was going out with at the time. She had worked with Mark Van Hoen whom funnily enough, someone I knew said, was looking for collaborators so it kind of all fell into place and Sing-Sing was born.\"\nThey released two albums – The Joy of Sing-Sing in 2001 and Sing-Sing and I in 2005, before officially disbanding on New Year's Day 2008.\n\nAnderson joined in reforming Lush in 2015, releasing a four-track EP Blind Spot in early 2016.\n\nAnderson currently resides in Hastings.\n\nDiscography\n\nLush\nScar (mini-LP) – October 1989\nGala – December 1990\nSpooky – January 1992\nSplit – June 1994\nLovelife – March 1996\nCiao! Best of Lush – 2001\nBlind Spot – April 2016\n\nSing-Sing\nThe Joy of Sing-Sing – 2001\nSing-Sing and I – 2005\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\nSing-Sing's MySpace\n4AD Lush Page\n\n1967 births\nLiving people\nEnglish adoptees\nPeople educated at Queen's College, London\nEnglish women guitarists\nEnglish rock guitarists\nEnglish women singers\nEnglish rock singers\nEnglish songwriters\nPeople from Wimbledon, London\nShoegazing musicians\nLush (band) members"
]
|
[
"Tori Amos",
"The Universal Republic years (2008-11)",
"who/what were Universal Republic?",
"Amos signed a \"joint venture\" deal with Universal Republic Records.",
"What was her first album with Universal Republic?",
"Abnormally Attracted to Sin, Amos's tenth solo studio album and her first album released through Universal Republic, was released in May 2009",
"What was the album about?",
"the album exploring themes of power, boundaries, and the subjective view of sin.",
"Did she release any other albums?",
"After a brief tour from June to September 2010, Amos released the highly exclusive live album From Russia With Love",
"Why was it highly exclusive?",
"The limited edition set included a signature edition Lomography Diana F+ camera,",
"Did she sing with anyone else?",
"Amos recorded vocals for two songs for David Byrne's collaboration album with Fatboy Slim,"
]
| C_f2c7f26de77949ff80c91a7bd337fb42_0 | What album was that on? | 7 | What album was Tori Amos' collaboration with David Byrne on? | Tori Amos | In May 2008, Amos announced that, due to creative and financial disagreements with Epic Records, she had negotiated an end to her contract with the record label, and would be operating independently of major record labels on future work. In September of the same year, Amos released a live album and DVD, Live at Montreux 1991/1992, through Eagle Rock Entertainment, of two performances she gave at the Montreux Jazz Festival very early on in her career while promoting her debut solo album, Little Earthquakes. By December, after a chance encounter with chairman and CEO of Universal Music Group, Doug Morris, Amos signed a "joint venture" deal with Universal Republic Records. Abnormally Attracted to Sin, Amos's tenth solo studio album and her first album released through Universal Republic, was released in May 2009 to mostly positive reviews. The album debuted in the top 10 of the Billboard 200, making it Amos's seventh album to do so. Abnormally Attracted to Sin, admitted Amos, is a "personal album", not a conceptual one, with the album exploring themes of power, boundaries, and the subjective view of sin. Continuing her distribution deal with Universal Republic, Amos released Midwinter Graces, her first seasonal album, in November of the same year. The album features reworked versions of traditional carols, as well as original songs written by Amos. During her contract with the label, Amos recorded vocals for two songs for David Byrne's collaboration album with Fatboy Slim, titled Here Lies Love, which was released in April 2010. In July of the same year, the DVD Tori Amos- Live from the Artists Den was released exclusively through Barnes & Noble. After a brief tour from June to September 2010, Amos released the highly exclusive live album From Russia With Love in December the same year, recorded live in Moscow on September 3, 2010. The limited edition set included a signature edition Lomography Diana F+ camera, along with 2 lenses, a roll of film and 1 of 5 photographs taken of Tori during her time in Moscow. The set was released exclusively through toriamos.com and only 2000 copies were produced. CANNOTANSWER | Here Lies Love, | Tori Amos (born Myra Ellen Amos; August 22, 1963) is an American singer-songwriter and pianist. She is a classically trained musician with a mezzo-soprano vocal range. Having already begun composing instrumental pieces on piano, Amos won a full scholarship to the Peabody Institute at Johns Hopkins University at the age of five, the youngest person ever to have been admitted. She had to leave at the age of eleven when her scholarship was discontinued for what Rolling Stone described as "musical insubordination". Amos was the lead singer of the short-lived 1980s synth-pop group Y Kant Tori Read before achieving her breakthrough as a solo artist in the early 1990s. Her songs focus on a broad range of topics, including sexuality, feminism, politics, and religion.
Her charting singles include "Crucify", "Silent All These Years", "God", "Cornflake Girl", "Caught a Lite Sneeze", "Professional Widow", "Spark", "1000 Oceans", "Flavor" and "A Sorta Fairytale", her most commercially successful single in the U.S. to date. Amos has received five MTV VMA nominations and eight Grammy Award nominations, and won an Echo Klassik award for her Night of Hunters classical crossover album. She is listed on VH1's 1999 "100 Greatest Women of Rock and Roll" at number 71.
Early life and education
Amos is the third child of Mary Ellen (Copeland) and Edison McKinley Amos. She was born at the Old Catawba Hospital in Newton, North Carolina, during a trip from their Georgetown home in Washington, D.C. Of particular importance to her as a child was her maternal grandfather, Calvin Clinton Copeland, who was a great source of inspiration and guidance, offering a more pantheistic spiritual alternative to her father and paternal grandmother's traditional Christianity.
When she was two years old, her family moved to Baltimore, Maryland, where her father had transplanted his Methodist ministry from its original base in Washington, D.C. Her older brother and sister took piano lessons, but Tori did not need them. From the time she could reach the piano, she taught herself to play: when she was two, she could reproduce pieces of music she had only heard once, and, by the age of three, she was composing her own songs. She has described seeing music as structures of light since early childhood, an experience consistent with chromesthesia:
At five, she became the youngest student ever admitted to the preparatory division of the Peabody Conservatory of Music. She studied classical piano at Peabody from 1968 to 1974. In 1974, when she was eleven, her scholarship was discontinued, and she was asked to leave. Amos has asserted that she lost the scholarship because of her interest in rock and popular music, coupled with her dislike for reading from sheet music.
In 1972, the Amos family moved to Silver Spring, Maryland, where her father became pastor of the Good Shepherd United Methodist church. At thirteen, Amos began playing at gay bars and piano bars, chaperoned by her father.
Amos won a county teen talent contest in 1977, singing a song called "More Than Just a Friend". As a senior at Richard Montgomery High School, she co-wrote "Baltimore" with her brother, Mike Amos, for a competition involving the Baltimore Orioles. The song did not win the contest but became her first single, released as a 7-inch single pressed locally for family and friends in 1980 with another Amos-penned composition as a B-side, "Walking With You". Before this, she had performed under her middle name, Ellen, but permanently adopted Tori after a friend's boyfriend told her she looked like a Torrey pine, a tree native to the West Coast.
Career
1979–1989: Career beginnings and Y Kant Tori Read
By the time she was 17, Amos had a stock of homemade demo tapes that her father regularly sent out to record companies and producers. Producer Narada Michael Walden responded favorably: he and Amos cut some tracks together, but none were released. Eventually, Atlantic Records responded to one of the tapes, and, when A&R man Jason Flom flew to Baltimore to audition her in person, the label was convinced and signed her.
In 1984, Amos moved to Los Angeles to pursue her music career after several years performing on the piano bar circuit in the D.C. area.
In 1986, Amos formed a musical group called Y Kant Tori Read, named for her difficulty sight-reading. In addition to Amos, the group was composed of Steve Caton (who would later play guitars on all of her albums until 1999), drummer Matt Sorum, bass player Brad Cobb and, for a short time, keyboardist Jim Tauber. The band went through several iterations of songwriting and recording; Amos has said interference from record executives caused the band to lose its musical edge and direction during this time. Finally, in July 1988, the band's self-titled debut album, Y Kant Tori Read, was released. Although its producer, Joe Chiccarelli, stated that Amos was very happy with the album at the time, Amos has since criticized it, once remarking: "The only good thing about that album is my ankle high boots."
Following the album's commercial failure and the group's subsequent disbanding, Amos began working with other artists (including Stan Ridgway, Sandra Bernhard, and Al Stewart) as a backup vocalist. She also recorded a song called "Distant Storm" for the film China O'Brien. In the credits, the song is attributed to a band called Tess Makes Good.
1990–1995: Little Earthquakes and Under the Pink
Despite the disappointing reaction to Y Kant Tori Read, Amos still had to comply with her six-record contract with Atlantic Records, which, in 1989, wanted a new record by March 1990. The initial recordings were declined by the label, which Amos felt was because the album had not been properly presented. The album was reworked and expanded under the guidance of Doug Morris and the musical talents of Steve Caton, Eric Rosse, Will MacGregor, Carlo Nuccio, and Dan Nebenzal, resulting in Little Earthquakes, an album recounting her religious upbringing, sexual awakening, struggle to establish her identity, and sexual assault. This album became her commercial and artistic breakthrough, entering the British charts in January 1992 at Number 15. Little Earthquakes was released in the United States in February 1992 and slowly but steadily began to attract listeners, gaining more attention with the video for the single "Silent All These Years".
Amos traveled to New Mexico with personal and professional partner Eric Rosse in 1993 to write and largely record her second solo record, Under the Pink. The album was received with mostly favorable reviews and sold enough copies to chart at No. 12 on the Billboard 200, a significantly higher position than the preceding album's position at No. 54 on the same chart. However, the album found its biggest success in the UK, debuting at number one upon release in February 1994.
1996–2000: Boys for Pele, From the Choirgirl Hotel, and To Venus and Back
Her third solo album, Boys for Pele, was released in January 1996. Prior to its release, the first single, "Caught a Lite Sneeze" became the first full song released for streaming online prior to an album's release.
The album was recorded in an Irish church, in Delgany, County Wicklow, with Amos taking advantage of the church's acoustics. For this album, Amos used the harpsichord, harmonium, and clavichord as well as the piano. The album garnered mixed reviews upon its release, with some critics praising its intensity and uniqueness while others bemoaned its comparative impenetrability. Despite the album's erratic lyrical content and instrumentation, the latter of which kept it away from mainstream audiences, Boys for Pele is Amos's most successful simultaneous transatlantic release, reaching No. 2 on the UK Top 40 and No. 2 on the Billboard 200 upon its release.
Fueled by the desire to have her own recording studio to distance herself from record company executives, Amos had the barn of her home in Cornwall converted into the state-of-the-art recording studio of Martian Engineering Studios.
From the Choirgirl Hotel and To Venus and Back, released in May 1998 and September 1999, respectively, differ greatly from previous albums. Amos's trademark acoustic, piano-based sound is largely replaced with arrangements that include elements of electronica and dance music with vocal washes. The underlying themes of both albums deal with womanhood and Amos's own miscarriages and marriage. Reviews for From the Choirgirl Hotel were mostly favorable and praised Amos's continued artistic originality. Debut sales for From the Choirgirl Hotel are Amos's best to date, selling 153,000 copies in its first week. To Venus and Back, a two-disc release of original studio material and live material recorded from the previous world tour, received mostly positive reviews and included the first major-label single available for sale as a digital download.
2001–2004: Strange Little Girls and Scarlet's Walk
Shortly after giving birth to her daughter, Amos decided to record a cover album, taking songs written by men about women and reversing the gender roles to reflect a woman's perspective. That became Strange Little Girls, released in September 2001. The album is Amos's first concept album, with artwork featuring Amos photographed in character of the women portrayed in each song. Amos would later reveal that a stimulus for the album was to end her contract with Atlantic without giving them original songs; Amos felt that since 1998, the label had not been properly promoting her and had trapped her in a contract by refusing to sell her to another label.
With her Atlantic contract fulfilled after a 15-year stint, Amos signed to Epic in late 2001. In October 2002, Amos released Scarlet's Walk, another concept album. Described as a "sonic novel", the album explores Amos's alter ego, Scarlet, intertwined with her cross-country concert tour following 9/11. Through the songs, Amos explores such topics as the history of America, American people, Native American history, pornography, masochism, homophobia and misogyny. The album had a strong debut at No. 7 on the Billboard 200. Scarlet's Walk is Amos's last album to date to reach certified gold status from the RIAA.
Not long after Amos was ensconced with her new label, she received unsettling news when Polly Anthony resigned as president of Epic Records in 2003. Anthony had been one of the primary reasons Amos signed with the label and as a result of her resignation, Amos formed the Bridge Entertainment Group. Further trouble for Amos occurred the following year when her label, Epic/Sony Music Entertainment, merged with BMG Entertainment as a result of the industry's decline.
2005–2008: The Beekeeper and American Doll Posse
Amos released two more albums with the label, The Beekeeper (2005) and American Doll Posse (2007). Both albums received generally favorable reviews. The Beekeeper was conceptually influenced by the ancient art of beekeeping, which she considered a source of female inspiration and empowerment. Through extensive study, Amos also wove in the stories of the Gnostic gospels and the removal of women from a position of power within the Christian church to create an album based largely on religion and politics. The album debuted at No. 5 on the Billboard 200, placing her in an elite group of women who have secured five or more US Top 10 album debuts. While the newly merged label was present throughout the production process of The Beekeeper, Amos and her crew nearly completed her next project, American Doll Posse, before inviting the label to listen to it. American Doll Posse, another concept album, is fashioned around a group of girls (the "posse") who are used as a theme of alter-egos of Amos's. Musically and stylistically, the album saw Amos return to a more confrontational nature. Like its predecessor, American Doll Posse debuted at No. 5 on the Billboard 200.
During her tenure with Epic Records, Amos also released a retrospective collection titled Tales of a Librarian (2003) through her former label, Atlantic Records; a two-disc DVD set Fade to Red (2006) containing most of Amos's solo music videos, released through the Warner Bros. reissue imprint Rhino; a five disc box set titled A Piano: The Collection (2006), celebrating Amos's 15-year solo career through remastered album tracks, remixes, alternate mixes, demos, and a string of unreleased songs from album recording sessions, also released through Rhino; and numerous official bootlegs from two world tours, The Original Bootlegs (2005) and Legs & Boots (2007) through Epic Records.
2008–2011: Abnormally Attracted to Sin and Midwinter Graces
In May 2008, Amos announced that, due to creative and financial disagreements with Epic Records, she had negotiated an end to her contract with the record label, and would be operating independently of major record labels on future work. In September of the same year, Amos released a live album and DVD, Live at Montreux 1991/1992, through Eagle Rock Entertainment, of two performances she gave at the Montreux Jazz Festival very early on in her career while promoting her debut solo album, Little Earthquakes. By December, after a chance encounter with chairman and CEO of Universal Music Group, Doug Morris, Amos signed a "joint venture" deal with Universal Republic Records.
Abnormally Attracted to Sin, Amos's tenth solo studio album and her first album released through Universal Republic, was released in May 2009 to mostly positive reviews. The album debuted in the top 10 of the Billboard 200, making it Amos's seventh album to do so. Abnormally Attracted to Sin, admitted Amos, is a "personal album", not a conceptual one, with the album exploring themes of power, boundaries, and the subjective view of sin. Continuing her distribution deal with Universal Republic, Amos released Midwinter Graces, her first seasonal album, in November of the same year. The album features reworked versions of traditional carols, as well as original songs written by Amos.
During her contract with the label, Amos recorded vocals for two songs for David Byrne's collaboration album with Fatboy Slim, titled Here Lies Love, which was released in April 2010. In July of the same year, the DVD Tori Amos- Live from the Artists Den was released exclusively through Barnes & Noble.
After a brief tour from June to September 2010, Amos released a live album From Russia With Love in December the same year, recorded in Moscow on September 3, 2010. The limited edition set included a signature edition Lomography Diana F+ camera, along with two lenses, a roll of film and one of five photographs taken of Amos during her time in Moscow. The set was released exclusively through her website and only 2000 copies were produced.
2011–2015: Night of Hunters, Gold Dust, and Unrepentant Geraldines
In September 2011, Amos released her first classical-style music album, Night of Hunters, featuring variations on a theme to pay tribute to composers such as Bach, Chopin, Debussy, Granados, Satie and Schubert, on the Deutsche Grammophon label, a division of Universal Music Group. Amos recorded the album with several musicians, including the Apollon Musagète string quartet.
To mark the 20th anniversary of her debut album, Little Earthquakes (1992), Amos released an album of songs from her back catalogue re-worked and re-recorded with the Metropole Orchestra. The album, titled Gold Dust, was released in October 2012 through Deutsche Grammophon.
On May 1, 2012, Amos announced the formation of her own record label, Transmission Galactic, which she intends to use to develop new artists.
In 2013, Amos collaborated with the Bullitts on the track "Wait Until Tomorrow" from their debut album, They Die by Dawn & Other Short Stories. She also stated in an interview that a new album and tour would materialize in 2014 and that it would be a "return to contemporary music".
September 2013 saw the launch of Amos's musical project adaptation of George MacDonald's The Light Princess, along with book writer Samuel Adamson and Marianne Elliott. It premiered at London's Royal National Theatre and ended in February 2014. The Light Princess and its lead actress, Rosalie Craig, were nominated for Best Musical and Best Musical Performance respectively at the Evening Standard Award. Craig won the Best Musical Performance category.
Amos's 14th studio album, Unrepentant Geraldines, was released on May 13, 2014, via Mercury Classics/Universal Music Classics in the US. Its first single, "Trouble's Lament", was released on March 28. The album was supported by the Unrepentant Geraldines Tour which began May 5, 2014, in Cork and continued across Europe, Africa, North America, and Australia, ending in Brisbane on November 21, 2014. In Sydney, Amos performed two orchestral concerts, reminiscent of the Gold Dust Orchestral Tour, with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra at the Sydney Opera House.
According to a press release, Unrepentant Geraldines was a "return to her core identity as a creator of contemporary songs of exquisite beauty following a series of more classically-inspired and innovative musical projects of the last four years. [It is] both one further step in the artistic evolution of one of the most successful and influential artists of her generation, and a return to the inspiring and personal music that Amos is known for all around the world."
The 2-CD set The Light Princess (Original Cast Recording) was released on October 9, 2015 via Universal/Mercury Classics. Apart from the original cast performances, the recording also includes two songs from the musical ("Highness in the Sky" and "Darkest Hour') performed by Amos.
2016–present: Native Invader, Christmastide and Ocean to Ocean
On November 18, 2016, Amos released a deluxe version of the album Boys for Pele to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the original release. This follows the deluxe re-releases of her first two albums in 2015.
On September 8, 2017, Amos released Native Invader, accompanied by a world tour. During the summer of 2017, Amos launched three songs from the album: "Cloud Riders", "Up the Creek" and "Reindeer King", the latter featuring string arrangements by John Philip Shenale. Produced by Amos, the album explores topics like American politics and environmental issues, mixed with mythological elements and first-person narrations.
The initial inspiration for the album came from a trip that Amos took to the Great Smoky Mountains (Tennessee-North Carolina), home of her alleged Native American ancestors; however, two events deeply influenced the final record: in November 2016, Donald Trump was elected President of the United States of America; two months later, in January 2017, Amos's mother, Mary Ellen, suffered a stroke that left her unable to speak. Shocked by both events, Amos spent the first half of 2017 writing and recording the songs that would eventually form Native Invader. The album, released on September 8, 2017, has been presented in two formats: standard and deluxe. The standard version includes 13 songs, while the deluxe edition adds two extra songs to the tracklist: "Upside Down 2" and "Russia". Native Invader has been well received by most music critics upon release. The album obtained a score of 76 out of 100 on the review aggregator website Metacritic, based on 17 reviews, indicating "generally favorable reviews".
On November 9, 2020, Amos announced the release of a holiday-themed EP entitled Christmastide on December 4, digitally and on limited-edition vinyl. The EP consists of four original songs and features her first work with bandmates Matt Chamberlain and Jon Evans since 2009. Amos recorded the EP remotely due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.
On September 20, 2021, Amos announced her sixteenth studio album, Ocean to Ocean, which was released on October 29. The album was written and recorded in Cornwall during lockdown as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic and explores "a universal story of going to rock bottom and renewing yourself all over again". Amos will embark on a European tour in support of the album in 2022. Matt Chamberlain and Jon Evans will again feature on drums and bass guitar respectively, their first collaboration with Amos on an album since 2009's Midwinter Graces.
In print
Released in conjunction with The Beekeeper, Amos co-authored an autobiography with rock music journalist Ann Powers titled Piece by Piece (2005). The book's subject is Amos's interest in mythology and religion, exploring her songwriting process, rise to fame, and her relationship with Atlantic Records.
Image Comics released Comic Book Tattoo (2008), a collection of comic stories, each based on or inspired by songs recorded by Amos. Editor Rantz Hoseley worked with Amos to gather 80 different artists for the book, including Pia Guerra, David Mack, and Leah Moore.
Additionally, Amos and her music have been the subject of numerous official and unofficial books, as well as academic critique, including Tori Amos: Lyrics (2001) and an earlier biography, Tori Amos: All These Years (1996).
Tori Amos: In the Studio (2011) by Jake Brown features an in-depth look at Amos's career, discography and recording process.
Amos released her second memoir called Resistance: A Songwriter’s Story of Hope, Change, and Courage on 5 May 2020.
Personal life
Amos married English sound engineer Mark Hawley on February 22, 1998. Their daughter was born in 2000. The family divides their time between Sewall's Point in Florida, US, and Bude, Cornwall in the UK.
Amos' mother, Mary Ellen, died on May 11, 2019.
Early in her professional career, Amos befriended author Neil Gaiman, who became a fan after she referred to him in the song "Tear in Your Hand" and also in print interviews. Although created before the two met, the character Delirium from Gaiman's The Sandman series is inspired by Amos; Gaiman has stated that they "steal shamelessly from each other". She wrote the foreword to his collection Death: The High Cost of Living; he in turn wrote the introduction to Comic Book Tattoo. Gaiman is godfather to her daughter and a poem written for her birth, Blueberry Girl, was published as a children's book of the same name in 2009. In 2019, Amos performed the British standard "A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square" over the closing credits of Gaiman's TV series Good Omens, based on the novel of the same name written by Gaiman and Terry Pratchett.
Activism
In June 1994, the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network (RAINN), a toll-free help line in the US connecting callers with their local rape crisis center, was founded. Amos, who was raped at knifepoint when she was 22, answered the ceremonial first call to launch the hotline. She was the first national spokesperson for the organization and has continued to be closely associated with RAINN. On August 18, 2013, a concert in honor of her 50th birthday was held, an event which raised money for RAINN. On August 22, 2020, Amos appeared on a panel called Artistry & Activism at the diversity and inclusion digital global conference CARLA.
Discography
Studio albums
Little Earthquakes (1992)
Under the Pink (1994)
Boys for Pele (1996)
From the Choirgirl Hotel (1998)
To Venus and Back (1999)
Strange Little Girls (2001)
Scarlet's Walk (2002)
The Beekeeper (2005)
American Doll Posse (2007)
Abnormally Attracted to Sin (2009)
Midwinter Graces (2009)
Night of Hunters (2011)
Gold Dust (2012)
Unrepentant Geraldines (2014)
Native Invader (2017)
Ocean to Ocean (2021)
Tours
Amos, who has been performing in bars and clubs from as early as 1976 and under her professional name as early as 1991 has performed more than 1,000 shows since her first world tour in 1992. In 2003, Amos was voted fifth best touring act by the readers of Rolling Stone magazine. Her concerts are notable for their changing set lists from night to night.
Little Earthquakes Tour
Amos's first world tour began on January 29, 1992 in London and ended on November 30, 1992 in Auckland. She performed solo with a Yamaha CP-70 unless the venue was able to provide a piano. The tour included 142 concerts around the globe.
Under the Pink Tour
Amos's second world tour began on February 24, 1994 in Newcastle upon Tyne and ended on December 13, 1994 in Perth, Western Australia. Amos performed solo each night on her iconic Bösendorfer piano, and on a prepared piano during "Bells for Her". The tour included 181 concerts.
Dew Drop Inn Tour
The third world tour began on February 23, 1996 in Ipswich, England, and ended on November 11, 1996 in Boulder. Amos performed each night on piano, harpsichord, and harmonium, with Steve Caton on guitar on some songs. The tour included 187 concerts.
Plugged '98 Tour
Amos's first band tour. Amos, on piano and Kurzweil keyboard, was joined by Steve Caton on guitar, Matt Chamberlain on drums, and Jon Evans on bass. The tour began on April 18, 1998 in Fort Lauderdale and ended on December 3, 1998 in East Lansing, Michigan, including 137 concerts.
5 ½ Weeks Tour / To Dallas and Back
Amos's fifth tour was North America–only. The first part of the tour was co-headlining with Alanis Morissette and featured the same band and equipment line-up as in 1998. Amos and the band continued for eight shows before Amos embarked on a series of solo shows. The tour began on August 18, 1999 in Fort Lauderdale, Florida and ended on December 9, 1999 in Denver, including 46 concerts.
Strange Little Tour
This tour was Amos's first since becoming a mother in 2000 and her first tour fully solo since 1994 (Steve Caton was present on some songs in 1996). It saw Amos perform on piano, Rhodes piano, and Wurlitzer electric piano, and though the tour was in support of her covers album, the set lists were not strictly covers-oriented. Having brought her one-year-old daughter on the road with her, this tour was also one of Amos's shortest ventures, lasting just three months. It began on August 30, 2001 in London and ended on December 17, 2001 in Milan, including 55 concerts.
On Scarlet's Walk / Lottapianos Tour
Amos's seventh tour saw her reunited with Matt Chamberlain and Jon Evans, but not Steve Caton. The first part of the tour, which featured Amos on piano, Kurzweil, Rhodes, and Wurlitzer, was six months long and Amos went out again in the summer of 2003 for a tour with Ben Folds opening. The tour began on November 7, 2002 in Tampa and ended on September 4, 2003 in West Palm Beach, featuring 124 concerts. The final show of the tour was filmed and released as part of a DVD/CD set titled Welcome to Sunny Florida (the set also included a studio EP titled Scarlet's Hidden Treasures, an extension of the Scarlet's Walk album).
Original Sinsuality Tour / Summer of Sin
This tour began on April 1, 2005 in Clearwater, Florida, with Amos on piano, two Hammond B-3 organs, and Rhodes. The tour also encompassed Australia for the first time since 1994. Amos announced at a concert on this tour that she would never stop touring but would scale down the tours. Amos returned to the road in August and September for the Summer of Sin North America leg, ending on September 17, 2005 in Los Angeles. The tour featured "Tori's Piano Bar", where fans could nominate cover songs on Amos's website which she would then choose from to play in a special section of each show. One of the songs chosen was the Kylie Minogue hit "Can't Get You Out of My Head", which Amos dedicated to her the day after Minogue's breast cancer was announced to the public. Other songs performed by Amos include The Doors' "People are Strange", Depeche Mode's "Personal Jesus", Joni Mitchell's "The Circle Game", Madonna's "Live to Tell" and "Like a Prayer", Björk's "Hyperballad", Led Zeppelin's "When the Levee Breaks" (which she debuted in Austin, Texas, just after the events of Hurricane Katrina), Kate Bush's "And Dream of Sheep" and Crowded House's "Don't Dream It's Over", dedicating it to drummer Paul Hester who had died a week before. The entire concert tour featured 82 concerts, and six full-length concerts were released as The Original Bootlegs.
American Doll Posse World Tour
This was Amos's first tour with a full band since her 1999 Five and a Half Weeks Tour, accompanied by long-time bandmates Jon Evans and Matt Chamberlain, with guitarist Dan Phelps rounding out Amos's new band. Amos's equipment included her piano, a Hammond B-3 organ, and two Yamaha S90 ES keyboards. The tour kicked off with its European leg in Rome, Italy on May 28, 2007, which lasted through July, concluding in Israel; the Australian leg took place during September; the North American leg lasted from October to December 16, 2007, when the tour concluded in Los Angeles. Amos opened each show dressed as one of the four non-Tori personae from the album, then Amos would emerge as herself to perform for the remaining two-thirds of the show. The entire concert tour featured 93 concerts, and 27 full-length concerts of the North American tour were released as official bootlegs in the Legs and Boots series.
Sinful Attraction Tour
For her tenth tour, Amos returned to the trio format of her 2002 and 2003 tours with bassist Jon Evans and drummer Matt Chamberlain while expanding her lineup of keyboards by adding three M-Audio MIDI controllers to her ensemble of her piano, a Hammond B-3 organ, and a Yamaha S90 ES keyboard. The North American and European band tour began on July 10, 2009 in Seattle, Washington and ended in Warsaw on October 10, 2009. A solo leg through Australia began in Melbourne on November 12, 2009 and ended in Brisbane on November 24, 2009. The entire tour featured 63 concerts.
Night of Hunters tour
Amos's eleventh tour was her first with a string quartet, Apollon Musagète, (Amos's equipment includes her piano and a Yamaha S90 ES keyboard) and her first time touring in South Africa. It kicked off on September 28, 2011 in Finland, Helsinki Ice Hall and ended on December 22, 2011 in Dallas, Texas.
Gold Dust Orchestral Tour
Amos began her 2012 tour in Rotterdam on October 1.
Unrepentant Geraldines Tour
Amos began her 2014 world tour on May 5, 2014 in Cork, Ireland, and concluded it in Brisbane, Australia on November 21, after playing 73 concerts.
Native Invader Tour
Amos's 2017 tour in support of the Native Invader album kicked off on September 6, 2017, with a series of European shows in Cork, Ireland, moving on to North America in October.
Ocean to Ocean Tour
Amos is to embark on a European tour in the spring of 2022 in support of her upcoming sixteenth studio album, Ocean to Ocean, beginning in Berlin, Germany and ending in Dublin, Ireland.
Awards and nominations
{| class="wikitable sortable plainrowheaders"
|-
! scope="col" | Award
! scope="col" | Year
! scope="col" | Nominee(s)
! scope="col" | Category
! scope="col" | Result
! scope="col" class="unsortable"|
|-
! scope="row" rowspan=3|Brit Awards
| rowspan=2|1993
| rowspan=3|Herself
| International Breakthrough Act
|
| rowspan=2|
|-
| International Solo Artist
|
|-
| 1995
| International Female Solo Artist
|
|
|-
! scope="row"|Critics' Choice Documentary Awards
| 2016
| "Flicker"
| Best Song in a Documentary
|
|
|-
!scope="row"|ECHO Awards
| 1995
| Herself
| Best International Female
|
|
|-
! scope="row"|ECHO Klassik Awards
| rowspan=1|2012
| Night of Hunters
| The Klassik-ohne-Grenzen Prize
|
|
|-
! scope="row" rowspan=4|GAFFA Awards
| 2000
| rowspan=3|Herself
| rowspan=2|Best Foreign Female Act
|
| rowspan=2|
|-
| 2003
|
|-
| rowspan=2|2022
| Best Foreign Solo Act
|
|
|-
| Ocean to Ocean
| Best Foreign Album
|
|-
! scope="row"|George Peabody Medal
| 2019
| Herself
| Outstanding Contributions to Music
|
|
|-
! scope="row"|Glamour Awards
| 1998
| Herself
| Woman of the Year
|
|
|-
! scope="row" rowspan=8|Grammy Awards
| 1995
| Under the Pink
| rowspan=3|Best Alternative Music Album
|
| rowspan=8|
|-
| 1997
| Boys for Pele
|
|-
| rowspan=2|1999
| From the Choirgirl Hotel
|
|-
| "Raspberry Swirl"
| rowspan=2|Best Female Rock Vocal Performance
|
|-
| rowspan=2|2000
| "Bliss"
|
|-
| To Venus and Back
| rowspan=2|Best Alternative Music Album
|
|-
| rowspan=2|2002
| Strange Little Girls
|
|-
| "Strange Little Girl"
| Best Female Rock Vocal Performance
|
|-
! scope="row"|Hollywood Music in Media Awards
| 2016
| "Flicker"
| Best Original Song in a Documentary
|
|
|-
! scope="row"|Hungarian Music Awards
| 2010
| Abnormally Attracted to Sin
| Best Foreign Alternative Album
|
|
|-
! scope="row"|MTV Europe Music Awards
| 1994
| Herself
| Best Female
|
|
|-
! scope="row" rowspan=4|MTV Video Music Awards
| rowspan=4|1992
| rowspan=4|"Silent All These Years"
| Best Female Video
|
|rowspan=4|
|-
| Best New Artist in a Video
|
|-
| Breakthrough Video
|
|-
| Best Cinematography in a Video
|
|-
! scope="row"|NME Awards
| 2016
| Under the Pink
| Best Reissue
|
|
|-
! scope="row"|North Carolina Music Hall of Fame
| 2012
| Herself
| Inducted
|
|
|-
!scope="row" rowspan=5|Pollstar Concert Industry Awards
| rowspan=2|1993
| rowspan=2|Little Earthquakes Tour
| Best New Rock Artist
|
| rowspan=2|
|-
| Club Tour Of The Year
|
|-
| 1995
| Under the Pink Tour
| rowspan=3|Small Hall Tour Of The Year
|
|
|-
| 1997
| Dew Drop Inn Tour
|
|
|-
| 1999
| 5 ½ Weeks Tour
|
|
|-
! scope="row"|Q Awards
| 1992
| Herself
| Best New Act
|
|
|-
! scope="row" rowspan=2|WhatsOnStage Awards
| rowspan=2|2014
| rowspan=2|The Light Princess
| Best New Musical
|
| rowspan=2|
|-
| Best London Newcomer of the Year
|
|-
!scope="row"|Žebřík Music Awards
| 2001
| Herself
| Best International Female
|
|
1999: Spin Readers' Poll Awards (Won)
On May 21, 2020, Amos was invited to and gave special remarks at her alma mater Johns Hopkins University's 2020 Commencement ceremony. Other notable guest speakers during the virtual ceremony included Reddit co-founder and commencement speaker Alexis Ohanian; philanthropist and former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg; Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and a leading member of the White House Coronavirus Task Force; and senior class president Pavan Patel.
Film appearances
Tori appears as a wedding singer in the film Mona Lisa Smile.
References
Citations
Works cited
External links
1963 births
20th-century American composers
20th-century American keyboardists
20th-century American women pianists
20th-century American pianists
20th-century American women singers
21st-century American keyboardists
21st-century American women pianists
21st-century American pianists
21st-century American women singers
Alternative rock keyboardists
Alternative rock pianists
Alternative rock singers
American alternative rock musicians
American expatriates in the Republic of Ireland
American expatriates in the United Kingdom
American women composers
American women singer-songwriters
American feminist writers
American harpsichordists
American mezzo-sopranos
American organists
American people who self-identify as being of Native American descent
American pop pianists
American rock pianists
American women rock singers
American rock songwriters
Articles containing video clips
Art rock musicians
Atlantic Records artists
Child classical musicians
Clavichordists
Deutsche Grammophon artists
Electronica musicians
Epic Records artists
Feminist musicians
Harmonium players
Island Records artists
Living people
Montgomery College alumni
Musicians from Baltimore
Musicians from County Cork
Musicians from Rockville, Maryland
People from Georgetown (Washington, D.C.)
People from Newton, North Carolina
People from Sewall's Point, Florida
Republic Records artists
Sexual abuse victim advocates
Singer-songwriters from Maryland
Singer-songwriters from North Carolina
Women organists
20th-century women composers
American women in electronic music
20th-century American singers
21st-century American singers
Singer-songwriters from Washington, D.C. | true | [
"Feel What U Feel is a children's album by American musician Lisa Loeb. The album was released on October 7, 2016, and the album's first single was \"Feel What U Feel.\" The album won Best Children's Album at the 60th Annual Grammy Awards.\n\nRelease \nThe album was announced on September 8, 2016 with the release of the lead single \"Feel What U Feel,\" featuring Craig Robinson. The album was then released by Furious Rose Productions on October 7, 2016 as an Amazon Music exclusive.\n\nPromotion \nLisa Loeb Embarked a small tour to promote the Children's album in the Fall of 2016 & Winter of 2017. Despite going on a children's tour, Lisa performed many of her \"Adult\" and \"Older\" songs. Lisa also constantly played her songs on \"Kids Place Live Radio\" for nearly 1 year after release.\n\nSingles \n\"Feel What U Feel\" was released as the album's lead single of September 8, 2016. The second single, \"Moon Star Pie (It's Gunna Be Alright)\" was released on October 7, 2016. The third single, \"Wanna Do Day\" ft. Ed Helms was released on January 12, 2017. The fourth and final single of the album, \"The Sky Is Always Blue\" was released on March 13, 2017.\n\nTrack listing\n\nReferences \n\n2016 albums\nChildren's music albums\nLisa Loeb albums",
"The Project is the third studio album and major label debut by Canadian country music artist Lindsay Ell. It was released by Stoney Creek Records on August 11, 2017. The Project was the number-one selling country album the week of its release. The album was released in physical format in the United Kingdom on March 9, 2018.\n\nSingles\n\"Waiting on You\", the album's lead single, was released on March 24, 2017 as part of Ell's EP, Worth the Wait. The song was released to American country radio on May 29, 2017.\n\nThe second single, \"Criminal\", was released to American country radio on December 11, 2017.\n\nPromotional singles\n\"Champagne\" was released as the album's first promotional single on July 21, 2017. \"Good\" was released as the second promotional single on July 28, 2017.\n\nProduction\nBefore recording the album, Ell was worried about what sort of music she wanted to make and brought her concerns to producer Bush. Upon being asked what her favourite album was, she replied with Continuum by John Mayer. Bush then tasked her with recording the entire album by herself in under three weeks so that she could determine what sounds and production elements she liked, resulting in The Continuum Project which was released separately in 2018.\n\nCritical reception\nMatt Bjorke of Roughstock wrote that Kristian Bush's production \"allowed Lindsay to shine in a way that accentuates every nuanced talent she has as a singer, songwriter and guitarist,\" and called The Project \"a beautiful collection worthy of revisiting time and time again.\" Cillea Houghton of Sounds Like Nashville praised Ell's artistry, writing that \"what makes The Project so compelling is not just the songs themselves, but the fact that they are so unique from one another but still work cohesively.\"\n\nCommercial performance\nThe Project debuted at number 40 on the Billboard 200 chart dated September 2, 2017. On the Top Album Sales component chart, the album debuted at number seven. It also debuted at number four on the Top Country Albums chart, and at number one on the Country Album Sales component chart. The album sold 10,000 copies and 1,000 album-equivalent units in its first week. As of September 2017, the album has sold 14,600 copies in the US.\n\nTrack listing\n\nCharts\n\nRelease history\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n \n\n2017 debut albums\nLindsay Ell albums\nBBR Music Group albums"
]
|
[
"Huey Long",
"Increased tensions in Louisiana"
]
| C_04be97353a2c41469cce24af4cbfcb97_0 | What lead up to the increase in tensions? | 1 | What lead up to the increase in tensions in Louisiana in regards to Huey Long? | Huey Long | By 1935, Long's most recent consolidation of personal power led to talk of armed opposition from his enemies. Opponents increasingly invoked the memory of the Battle of Liberty Place of 1874, in which the White League staged an uprising against Louisiana's Reconstruction-era government. In January 1935, an anti-Long paramilitary organization called the Square Deal Association was formed. Its members included former governors John M. Parker and Ruffin G. Pleasant and New Orleans Mayor T. Semmes Walmsley. On January 25, 200 armed Square Dealers took over the courthouse of East Baton Rouge Parish. Long had Governor Allen call out the National Guard, declare martial law, ban public gatherings of two or more persons, and forbid the publication of criticism of state officials. The Square Dealers left the courthouse, but there was a brief armed skirmish at the Baton Rouge Airport. Tear gas and live ammunition were fired; one person was wounded but there were no fatalities. In the summer of 1935, Long called for two more special sessions of the legislature; bills were passed in rapid-fire succession without being read or discussed. The new laws further centralized Long's control over the state by creating several new Long-appointed state agencies: a state bond and tax board holding sole authority to approve all loans to parish and municipal governments, a new state printing board which could withhold "official printer" status from uncooperative newspapers, a new board of election supervisors which would appoint all poll watchers, and a State Board of Censors. They also stripped away the remaining lucrative powers of the mayor of New Orleans to cripple the entrenched opposition. Long boasted that he had "taken over every board and commission in New Orleans except the Community Chest and the Red Cross." Long quarreled with former State Senator Henry E. Hardtner of La Salle Parish. While proceeding to Baton Rouge in August 1935 to confront the state government over a tax matter relating to his Urania Lumber Company, based in Urania, Hardtner, known as "the father of forestry in the South," was killed in a car-train accident. CANNOTANSWER | By 1935, Long's most recent consolidation of personal power led to talk of armed opposition from his enemies. Opponents increasingly invoked | Huey Pierce Long Jr. (August 30, 1893September 10, 1935), nicknamed "the Kingfish", was an American politician who served as the 40th governor of Louisiana from 1928 to 1932 and as a United States Senator from 1932 until his assassination in 1935. He was a populist member of the Democratic Party and rose to national prominence during the Great Depression for his vocal criticism of President Franklin D. Roosevelt and his New Deal, which Long deemed insufficiently radical. As the political leader of Louisiana, he commanded wide networks of supporters and often took forceful action. A controversial figure, Long is celebrated as a populist champion of the poor or, conversely, denounced as a demagogue.
Long was born in the impoverished north of Louisiana in 1893. After working as a traveling salesman and briefly attending three colleges, he entered the bar in Louisiana. Following a short private legal career in which he represented poor plaintiffs, Long was elected to the Louisiana Public Service Commission. As Commissioner, he prosecuted large corporations such as Standard Oil, a lifelong target of his rhetorical attacks. After Long successfully argued before the U.S. Supreme Court, Chief Justice and former president William Howard Taft praised him as "the most brilliant lawyer who ever practiced before the United States Supreme Court".
After a failed 1924 campaign, Long used the sharp economic and class divisions in Louisiana to win the 1928 gubernatorial election. Once in office, he expanded social programs, organized massive public works projects, such as a modern highway system and the tallest capitol building in the nation, and proposed a cotton holiday. Through political maneuvering, Long became the political boss of Louisiana. He was impeached in 1929 for abuses of power, but the proceedings collapsed in the State Senate. His opponents argued his policies and methods were unconstitutional and dictatorial. At its climax, political opposition organized a minor insurrection.
Long was elected to the U.S. Senate in 1930 but did not assume his seat until 1932. He established himself as an isolationist, arguing that Standard Oil and Wall Street orchestrated American foreign policy. He was instrumental in securing Roosevelt's 1932 nomination but split with him in 1933, becoming a prominent critic of his New Deal. As an alternative, he proposed the Share Our Wealth program in 1934. To stimulate the economy, he advocated massive federal spending, a wealth tax, and wealth redistribution. These proposals drew wide support with millions joining local Share Our Wealth clubs. Poised for a 1936 presidential bid, Long was mortally wounded by a lone assassin in 1935. Although Long's movement faded, Roosevelt adopted many of his proposals in the Second New Deal, and Louisiana elections would be organized along anti- or pro-Long factions until the 1960s. He left behind a political dynasty that included his wife Senator Rose McConnell Long, his son Senator Russell B. Long, and his brother Governor Earl Long, among others.
Early life (1893–1915)
Childhood
Long was born on August 30, 1893, near Winnfield, a small town in north-central Louisiana, the seat of Winn Parish. Although Long often told followers he was born in a log cabin to an impoverished family, they lived in a "comfortable" farmhouse and were well-off compared to others in Winnfield. Winn Parish was impoverished, and its residents, mostly Southern Baptists, were often outsiders in Louisiana's political system. During the Civil War, Winn Parish had been a stronghold of Unionism in an otherwise Confederate state. At Louisiana's 1861 convention on secession, the delegate from Winn voted to remain in the Union saying: "Who wants to fight to keep the Negroes for the wealthy planters?" In the 1890s, the parish was a bastion of the Populist Party, and in the 1912 election, a plurality (35%) voted for the Socialist presidential candidate, Eugene V. Debs. Long embraced these populist sentiments.
One of nine children, Long was home schooled until age eleven. In the public system, he earned a reputation as an excellent student with a remarkable memory and convinced his teachers to let him skip seventh grade. At Winnfield High School, he and his friends formed a secret society, advertising their exclusivity by wearing a red ribbon. According to Long, his club's mission was "to run things, laying down certain rules the students would have to follow". The faculty learned of Long's antics and warned him to obey the school's rules. Long continued to rebel, writing and distributing a flyer that criticized his teachers and the necessity of a recently state-mandated fourth year of secondary education, for which he was expelled in 1910. Although Long successfully petitioned to fire the principal, he never returned to high school. As a student, Long proved a capable debater. At a state debate competition in Baton Rouge, he won a full-tuition scholarship to Louisiana State University (LSU). Because the scholarship did not cover textbooks or living expenses, his family could not afford for him to attend. Long was also unable to attend because he did not graduate from high school. Instead, he entered the workforce as a traveling salesman in the rural South.
Education and marriage
In September 1911, Long started attending seminary classes at Oklahoma Baptist University at the urging of his mother, a devout Baptist. Living with his brother George, Long attended for only one semester, rarely appearing at lectures. After deciding he was unsuited to preaching, Long focused on law. Borrowing one hundred dollars from his brother (which he later lost playing roulette in Oklahoma City), he attended the University of Oklahoma College of Law for a semester in 1912. To earn money while studying law part-time, he continued to work as a salesman. Of the four classes Long took, he received one incomplete and three C's. He later confessed he learned little because there was "too much excitement, all those gambling houses and everything".
Long met Rose McConnell at a baking contest he had promoted to sell Cottolene shortening. The two began a two-and-a-half-year courtship and married in April 1913 at the Gayoso Hotel in Memphis, Tennessee. On their wedding day, Long had no cash with him and had to borrow $10 from his fiancée to pay the officiant. Shortly after their marriage, Long revealed to his wife his aspirations to run for a statewide office, the governorship, the Senate, and ultimately the presidency. The Longs had a daughter named Rose (1917–2006) and two sons: Russell B. Long (1918–2003), who became a U.S. senator, and Palmer Reid Long (1921–2010), who became an oilman in Shreveport, Louisiana.
Long enrolled at Tulane University Law School in New Orleans in the fall of 1914. After a year of study that concentrated on the courses necessary for the bar exam, he successfully petitioned the Louisiana Supreme Court for permission to take the test before its scheduled June 1915 date. He was examined in May, passed, and received his license to practice. According to Long: "I came out of that courtroom running for office."
Legal career (1915–1923)
In 1915, Long established a private practice in Winnfield. He represented poor plaintiffs, usually in workers' compensation cases. Long avoided fighting in World War I by obtaining a draft deferment on the grounds that he was married and had a dependent child. He successfully defended from prosecution under the Espionage Act of 1917 the state senator who had loaned him the money to complete his legal studies, and later claimed he did not serve because, "I was not mad at anybody over there." In 1918, Long invested $1,050 () in a well that struck oil. The Standard Oil Company refused to accept any of the oil in its pipelines, costing Long his investment. This episode served as the catalyst for Long's lifelong hatred of Standard Oil.
That same year, Long entered the race to serve on the three-seat Louisiana Railroad Commission. According to historian William Ivy Hair, Long's political message:
... would be repeated until the end of his days: he was a young warrior of and for the plain people, battling the evil giants of Wall Street and their corporations; too much of America's wealth was concentrated in too few hands, and this unfairness was perpetuated by an educational system so stacked against the poor that (according to his statistics) only fourteen out of every thousand children obtained a college education. The way to begin rectifying these wrongs was to turn out of office the corrupt local flunkies of big business ... and elect instead true men of the people, such as [himself].
In the Democratic primary, Long polled second behind incumbent Burk Bridges. Since no candidate garnered a majority of the votes, a run-off election was held, for which Long campaigned tirelessly across northern Louisiana. The race was close: Long defeated Burk by just 636 votes. Although the returns revealed wide support for Long in rural areas, he performed poorly in urban areas. On the Commission, Long forced utilities to lower rates, ordered railroads to extend service to small towns, and demanded that Standard Oil cease the importation of Mexican crude oil and use more oil from Louisiana wells.
In the gubernatorial election of 1920, Long campaigned heavily for John M. Parker; today, he is often credited with helping Parker win northern parishes. After Parker was elected, the two became bitter rivals. Their break was largely caused by Long's demand and Parker's refusal to declare the state's oil pipelines public utilities. Long was infuriated when Parker allowed oil companies, led by Standard Oil's legal team, to assist in writing severance tax laws. Long denounced Parker as corporate "chattel". The feud climaxed in 1921, when Parker tried unsuccessfully to have Long ousted from the commission.
By 1922, Long had become chairman of the commission, now called the "Public Service Commission". That year, Long prosecuted the Cumberland Telephone & Telegraph Company for unfair rate increases; he successfully argued the case on appeal before the United States Supreme Court, which resulted in cash refunds to thousands of overcharged customers. After the decision, Chief Justice and former President William Howard Taft praised Long as "the most brilliant lawyer who ever practiced" before the court.
Gubernatorial campaigns (1924–1928)
1924 election
On August 30, 1923, Long announced his candidacy for the governorship of Louisiana. Long stumped throughout the state, personally distributing circulars and posters. He denounced Governor Parker as a corporate stooge, vilified Standard Oil, and assailed local political bosses.
He campaigned in rural areas disenfranchised by the state's political establishment, the "Old Regulars". Since the 1877 end of Republican-controlled Reconstruction government, they had controlled most of the state through alliances with local officials. With negligible support for Republicans, Louisiana was essentially a one party state under the Democratic Old Regulars. Holding mock elections in which they invoked the Lost Cause of the Confederacy, the Old Regulars presided over a corrupt government that largely benefited the planter class. Consequently, Louisiana was one of the least developed states: It had just 300 miles of paved roads and the lowest literacy rate.
Despite an enthusiastic campaign, Long came third in the primary and was eliminated. Although polls projected only a few thousand votes, he attracted almost 72,000, around 31% of the electorate, and carried 28 parishes—more than either opponent. Limited to sectional appeal, he performed best in the poor rural north.
The Ku Klux Klan's prominence in Louisiana was the campaign's primary issue. While the two other candidates either strongly opposed or supported the Klan, Long remained neutral, alienating both sides. He also failed to attract Roman Catholic voters, which limited his chances in the south of the state. In majority Catholic New Orleans, he polled just 12,000 votes (17%). Long blamed heavy rain on election day for suppressing voter turnout among his base in the north, where voters could not reach the polls over dirt roads that had turned to mud. It was the only election Long ever lost.
1928 election
Long spent the intervening four years building his reputation and political organization, particularly in the heavily Catholic urban south. Despite disagreeing with their politics, Long campaigned for Catholic U.S. Senators in 1924 and 1926. Government mismanagement during the Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 gained Long the support of Cajuns, whose land had been affected. He formally launched his second campaign for governor in 1927, using the slogan, "Every man a king, but no one wears a crown", a phrase adopted from Democratic presidential candidate William Jennings Bryan.
Long developed novel campaign techniques, including the use of sound trucks and radio commercials. His stance on race was unorthodox. According to T. Harry Williams, Long was "the first Southern mass leader to leave aside race baiting and appeals to the Southern tradition and the Southern past and address himself to the social and economic problems of the present". The campaign sometimes descended into brutality. When the 60-year-old incumbent governor called Long a liar during a chance encounter in the lobby of the Roosevelt Hotel, Long punched him in the face.
In the Democratic primary election, Long polled 126,842 votes: a plurality of 43.9 percent. His margin was the largest in state history, and no opponent chose to face him in a runoff. After earning the Democratic nomination, he easily defeated the Republican nominee in the general election with 96.1 percent of the vote. At age 35, Long was the youngest person ever elected governor of Louisiana.
Some fifteen thousand Louisianians traveled to Baton Rouge for Long's inauguration. He set up large tents, free drinks, and jazz bands on the capitol grounds, evoking Andrew Jackson's 1829 inaugural festivities. His victory was seen as a public backlash against the urban establishment; journalist Hodding Carter described it as a "fantastic vengeance upon the Sodom and Gomorrah that was called New Orleans". While previous elections were normally divided culturally and religiously, Long highlighted the sharp economic divide in the state and built a new coalition based on class. Long's strength, said the contemporary novelist Sherwood Anderson, relied on "the terrible South ... the beaten, ignorant, Bible-ridden, white South. Faulkner occasionally really touches it. It has yet to be paid for."
Louisiana Governorship (1928–1932)
First year
Once in office on May 21, 1928, Long moved quickly to consolidate power, firing hundreds of opponents in the state bureaucracy at all ranks from cabinet-level heads of departments to state road workers. Like previous governors, he filled the vacancies with patronage appointments from his network of political supporters. Every state employee who depended on Long for a job was expected to pay a portion of their salary at election time directly into his campaign fund.
Once his control over the state's political apparatus was strengthened, Long pushed several bills through the 1929 session of the Louisiana State Legislature to fulfill campaign promises. His bills met opposition from legislators, wealthy citizens, and the media, but Long used aggressive tactics to ensure passage. He would appear unannounced on the floor of both the House and Senate or in House committees, corralling reluctant representatives and state senators and bullying opponents. When an opposing legislator once suggested Long was unfamiliar with the Louisiana Constitution, he declared, "I'm the Constitution around here now."
One program Long approved was a free textbook program for schoolchildren. Long's free school books angered Catholics, who usually sent their children to private schools. Long assured them that the books would be granted directly to all children, regardless of whether they attended public school. Yet this assurance was criticized by conservative constitutionalists, who claimed it violated the separation of church and state and sued Long. The case went to the U.S. Supreme Court, which ruled in Long's favor.
Irritated by "immoral" gambling dens and brothels in New Orleans, Long sent the National Guard to raid these establishments with orders to "shoot without hesitation". Gambling equipment was burned, prostitutes were arrested, and over $25,000 () was confiscated for government funds. Local newspapers ran photos of National Guardsmen forcibly searching nude women. City authorities had not requested military force, and martial law had not been declared. The Louisiana attorney general denounced Long's actions as illegal but Long rebuked him saying: "Nobody asked him for his opinion."
Despite wide disapproval, Long had the Governor's Mansion, built in 1887, razed by convicts from the State Penitentiary under his personal supervision. In its place, Long had a much larger Georgian mansion built. It bore a strong resemblance to the White House; he reportedly wanted to be familiar with the residence when he became president.
Impeachment
In 1929, Long called a special legislative session to enact a five-cent per barrel tax on refined oil production to fund his social programs. The state's oil interests opposed the bill. Long declared in a radio address that any legislator who refused to support the tax had been "bought" by oil companies. Instead of persuading the legislature, the accusation infuriated many of its members. The "dynamite squad", a caucus of opponents led by freshman lawmakers Cecil Morgan and Ralph Norman Bauer, introduced an impeachment resolution against Long. Nineteen charges were listed, ranging from blasphemy to subornation of murder. Even Long's lieutenant governor, Paul Cyr, supported impeachment; he accused Long of nepotism and alleged he had made corrupt deals with a Texan oil company.
Concerned, Long tried to close the session. Pro-Long Speaker John B. Fournet called for a vote to adjourn. Despite most representatives opposing adjournment, the electronic voting board tallied 68 ayes and 13 nays. This sparked confusion; anti-Long representatives began chanting that the voting machine had been rigged. Some ran for the speaker's chair to call for a new vote but met resistance from their pro-Long colleagues, sparking a brawl later known as "Bloody Monday". In the scuffle, legislators threw inkwells, allegedly attacked others with brass knuckles, and Long's brother Earl bit a legislator's neck. Following the fight, the legislature voted to remain in session and proceed with impeachment. A trial in the house took place with dozens of witnesses, including a hula dancer who claimed that Long had been "frisky" with her. Impeached on eight of the 19 charges, Long was the first Louisiana governor charged in the state's history.
Long was frightened by the prospect of conviction, for it would force him from the governorship and permanently disqualify him from holding public office in Louisiana. He took his case to the people with a mass meeting in Baton Rouge, where he alleged that impeachment was a ploy by Standard Oil to thwart his programs. The House referred the charges to the Louisiana Senate, in which conviction required a two-thirds majority. Long produced a round robin statement signed by fifteen senators pledging to vote "not guilty" regardless of the evidence. The impeachment process, now futile, was suspended. It has been alleged that both sides used bribes to buy votes and that Long later rewarded the round robin signers with positions or other favors.
Following the failed trial, Long treated his opponents ruthlessly. He fired their relatives from state jobs and supported their challengers in elections. Long concluded that extra-legal means would be needed to accomplish his goals: "I used to try to get things done by saying 'please.' Now... I dynamite 'em out of my path." Receiving death threats, he surrounded himself with bodyguards. Now a resolute critic of the "lying" press, Long established his own newspaper in March 1930: the Louisiana Progress. The paper was extremely popular, widely distributed by policemen, highway workers, and government truckers.
Senate campaign
Shortly after the impeachment, Long—now nicknamed "The Kingfish" after an Amos 'n' Andy character—announced his candidacy for the U.S. Senate in the 1930 Democratic primary. He framed his campaign as a referendum. If he won, he presumed the public supported his programs over the opposition of the legislature. If he lost, he promised to resign.
His opponent was incumbent Joseph E. Ransdell, the Catholic senator whom Long endorsed in 1924. At 72 years old, Ransdell had been in the Senate since Long was age four. Aligned with the establishment, Ransdell had the support of all 18 of the state's daily newspapers. To combat this, Long purchased two new $30,000 sound trucks and distributed over two million circulars. Although promising not to make personal attacks, Long seized on Ransdell's age, calling him "Old Feather Duster". The campaign became increasingly vicious, The New York Times calling it "as amusing as it was depressing". Long critic Sam Irby, set to testify on Long's corruption to state authorities, was abducted by Long's bodyguards shortly before the election. Irby emerged after the election; he had been missing for four days. Surrounded by Long's guards, he gave a radio address in which he "confessed" that he had actually asked Long for protection. The New Orleans mayor labelled it "the most heinous public crime in Louisiana history".
Ultimately, on September 9, 1930, Long defeated Ransdell by 149,640 (57.3 percent) to 111,451 (42.7 percent). There were accusations of voter fraud against Long; voting records showed people voting in alphabetical order, among them celebrities like Charlie Chaplin, Jack Dempsey and Babe Ruth.
Although his Senate term began on March 4, 1931, Long completed most of his four-year term as governor, which did not end until May 1932. He declared that leaving the seat vacant would not hurt Louisiana: "[W]ith Ransdell as Senator, the seat was vacant anyway." By occupying the governorship until January 25, 1932, Long prevented Lieutenant Governor Cyr, who threatened to undo Long's reforms, from succeeding to the office. In October 1931, Cyr learned Long was in Mississippi and declared himself the state's legitimate governor. In response, Long ordered National Guard troops to surround the Capitol to block Cyr's "coup d'état" and petitioned the Louisiana Supreme Court. Long successfully argued that Cyr had vacated the office of lieutenant-governor when trying to assume the governorship and had the court eject Cyr.
Senator-elect
Now governor and senator-elect, Long returned to completing his legislative agenda with renewed strength. He continued his intimidating practice of presiding over the legislature, shouting "Shut up!" or "Sit down!" when legislators voiced their concerns. In a single night, Long passed 44 bills in just two hours: one every three minutes. He later explained his tactics: "The end justifies the means." Long endorsed pro-Long candidates and wooed others with favors; he often joked his legislature was the "finest collection of lawmakers money can buy". He organized and concentrated his power into a political machine: "a one-man" operation, according to Williams. He placed his brother Earl in charge of allotting patronage appointments to local politicians and signing state contracts with businessmen in exchange for loyalty. Long appointed allies to key government positions, such as giving Robert Maestri the office of Conservation Commissioner and making Oscar K. Allen head of the Louisiana Highway Commission. Maestri would deliberately neglect the regulation of energy companies in exchange for industry donations to Long's campaign fund, while Allen took direction from Earl on which construction and supply companies to contract for road work. Concerned by these tactics, Long's opponents charged he had become the virtual dictator of the state.
To address record low cotton prices amid a Great Depression surplus, Long proposed the major cotton-producing states mandate a 1932 "cotton holiday", which would ban cotton production for the entire year. He further proposed that the holiday be imposed internationally, which some nations, such as Egypt, supported. In 1931, Long convened the New Orleans Cotton Conference, attended by delegates from every major cotton-producing state. The delegates agreed to codify Long's proposal into law on the caveat that it would not come into effect until states producing three-quarters of U.S. cotton passed such laws. As the proposer, Louisiana unanimously passed the legislation. When conservative politicians in Texas—the largest cotton producer in the U.S.—rejected the measure, the holiday movement collapsed. Although traditional politicians would have been ruined by such a defeat, Long became a national figure and cemented his image as a champion of the poor. Senator Carter Glass, although a fervid critic of Long, credited him with first suggesting artificial scarcity as a solution to the depression.
Accomplishments in Louisiana
Long was unusual among southern populists in that he achieved tangible progress. Williams concluded "the secret of Long's power, in the final analysis, was not in his machine or his political dealings but in his record—he delivered something". Referencing Long's contributions to Louisiana, Robert Penn Warren, a professor at LSU during Long's term as governor, stated: "Dictators, always give something for what they get."
Long created a public works program that was unprecedented in the South, constructing roads, bridges, hospitals, schools, and state buildings. During his four years as governor, Long increased paved highways in Louisiana from and constructed of gravel roads. By 1936, the infrastructure program begun by Long had completed some of new roads, doubling Louisiana's road system. He built 111 bridges and started construction on the first bridge over the Mississippi entirely in Louisiana, the Huey P. Long Bridge. These projects provided thousands of jobs during the depression: Louisiana employed more highway workers than any other state. Long built a State Capitol, which at tall remains the tallest capitol, state or federal, in the United States. Long's infrastructure spending increased the state government's debt from $11 million in 1928 to $150 million in 1935.
Long was an ardent supporter of the state's flagship public university, Louisiana State University (LSU). Having been unable to attend, Long now regarded it as "his" university. He increased LSU's funding and intervened in the university's affairs, expelling seven students who criticized him in the school newspaper. He constructed new buildings, including a fieldhouse that reportedly contained the longest pool in the United States. Long founded an LSU Medical School in New Orleans. To raise the stature of the football program, he converted the school's military marching band into the flashy "Show Band of the South" and hired Costa Rican composer Castro Carazo as the band director. As well as nearly doubling the size of the stadium, he arranged for lowered train fares, so students could travel to away games. Long's contributions resulted in LSU gaining a class A accreditation from the Association of American Universities.
Long's night schools taught 100,000 adults to read. His provision of free textbooks contributed to a 20 percent increase in school enrollment. He modernized public health facilities and ensured adequate conditions for the mentally ill. He established Louisiana's first rehabilitation program for penitentiary inmates. Through tax reform, Long made the first $2,000 in property assessment free, waiving property taxes for half the state's homeowners. Historians have criticized other policies, like high consumer taxes on gasoline and cigarettes, a reduced mother's pension, and low teacher salaries.
U.S. Senate (1932–1935)
Senator
When Long arrived in the Senate, America was in the throes of the Great Depression. With this backdrop, Long made characteristically fiery speeches that denounced wealth inequality. He criticized the leaders of both parties for failing to address the crisis adequately, notably attacking conservative Senate Democratic Leader Joseph Robinson of Arkansas for his apparent closeness with President Herbert Hoover and big business.
In the 1932 presidential election, Long was a vocal supporter of New York Governor Franklin D. Roosevelt. At that year's Democratic National Convention, Long kept the delegations of several wavering Southern states in the Roosevelt camp. Due to this, Long expected to be featured prominently in Roosevelt's campaign but was disappointed with a peripheral speaking tour limited to four Midwestern states.
Not discouraged after being snubbed, Long found other venues for his populist message. He endorsed Senator Hattie Caraway of Arkansas, a widow and the underdog candidate in a crowded field and conducted a whirlwind, seven-day tour of that state. During the campaign, Long gave 39 speeches, traveled , and spoke to over 200,000 people. In an upset win, Caraway became the first woman elected to a full term in the Senate.
Returning to Washington, Long gave theatrical speeches which drew wide attention. Public viewing areas were crowded with onlookers, among them a young Lyndon B. Johnson, who later said he was "simply entranced" by Long. Long obstructed bills for weeks, launching hour-long filibusters and having the clerk read superfluous documents. Long's antics, one editorial claimed, had made the Senate "impotent". In May 1932, The Washington Post called for his resignation. Long's behavior and radical rhetoric did little to endear him to his fellow senators. None of his proposed bills, resolutions, or motions were passed during his three years in the Senate.
Roosevelt and the New Deal
During the first 100 days of Roosevelt's presidency in spring 1933, Long's attitude towards Roosevelt and the New Deal was tepid. Aware that Roosevelt had no intention of radically redistributing the country's wealth, Long became one of the few national politicians to oppose Roosevelt's New Deal policies from the left. He considered them inadequate in the face of the escalating economic crisis but still supported some of Roosevelt's programs in the Senate, explaining: "Whenever this administration has gone to the left I have voted with it, and whenever it has gone to the right I have voted against it."
Long opposed the National Recovery Act, claiming it favored industrialists. In an attempt to prevent its passage, Long held a lone filibuster, speaking for 15 hours and 30 minutes, the second longest filibuster at the time. He also criticized Social Security, calling it inadequate and expressing his concerns that states would administer it in a way discriminatory to blacks. In 1933, he was a leader of a three-week Senate filibuster against the Glass banking bill, which he later supported as the Glass–Steagall Act after provisions extended government deposit insurance to state banks as well as national banks.
Roosevelt considered Long a radical demagogue and stated that Long, along with General Douglas MacArthur, "was one of the two most dangerous men in America". In June 1933, in an effort to undermine Long's political dominance, Roosevelt cut him out of consultations on the distribution of federal funds and patronage in Louisiana and placed Long's opponents in charge of federal programs in the state. Roosevelt supported a Senate inquiry into the election of Long ally John H. Overton to the Senate in 1932. The Long machine was accused of election fraud and voter intimidation, but the inquiry came up empty, and Overton was seated. To discredit Long and damage his support base, Roosevelt had Long's finances investigated by the Internal Revenue Service in 1934. Although they failed to link Long to any illegality, some of his lieutenants were charged with income tax evasion. Roosevelt's son, Elliott, would later note that in this instance, his father "may have been the originator of the concept of employing the IRS as a weapon of political retribution".
Chaco War and foreign policy
On May 30, 1934, Long took to the Senate floor to debate the abrogation of the Platt amendment. But instead of debating the amendment, Long declared his support for Paraguay against Bolivia in the Chaco War. He maintained that U.S. President Rutherford B. Hayes had awarded the oil-rich Chaco region to Paraguay in 1878. He attested Standard Oil had corrupted the Bolivian government and organized the war and that Wall Street orchestrated American foreign policy in Latin America. For his speech, Long received praise in Paraguay: after capturing a Bolivian fort in July 1934, they renamed it Fort Long. Long's allegations were widely publicized in Latin American newspapers. This drew the concern of the State Department, who believed that Long was damaging the reputation of the United States. Throughout the summer of 1934, they waged a sustained public relations campaign against Long throughout Latin America. This speech and others established Long as one of the most ardent isolationists in the Senate. He further argued that American involvement in the Spanish–American War and the First World War had been deadly mistakes conducted on behalf of Wall Street. Consequently, Long demanded the immediate independence of the Philippines, which the United States had occupied since 1898. He also opposed American entry into the World Court.
Share Our Wealth
In March 1933, Long revealed a series of bills collectively known as "the Long plan" to redistribute wealth. Together, they would cap fortunes at $100 million, limit annual income to $1 million, and cap individual inheritances at $5 million.
In a nationwide February 1934 radio broadcast, Long introduced his Share Our Wealth plan. The legislation would use the wealth from the Long plan to guarantee every family a basic household grant of $5,000 and a minimum annual income of one-third of the average family homestead value and income. Long supplemented his plan with proposals for free college and vocational training, veterans' benefits, federal assistance to farmers, public works projects, greater federal economic regulation, a $30 monthly elderly pension, a month's vacation for every worker, a thirty-hour workweek, a $10 billion land reclamation project to end the Dust Bowl, and free medical service and a "war on disease" led by the Mayo brothers. These reforms, Long claimed, would end the Great Depression. The plans were widely criticized and labeled impossible by economists.
With the Senate unwilling to support his proposals, in February 1934 Long formed the Share Our Wealth Society, a national network of local clubs that operated in opposition to the Democratic Party and Roosevelt. By 1935, the society had over 7.5 million members in 27,000 clubs. Long's Senate office received an average of 60,000 letters a week, resulting in Long hiring 48 stenographers to type responses. Of the two trucks that delivered mail to the Senate, one was devoted solely to mail for Long. Long's newspaper, now renamed American Progress, averaged a circulation of 300,000, some issues reaching over 1.5 million. Long drew international attention: English writer H. G. Wells interviewed Long, noting he was "like a Winston Churchill who has never been at Harrow. He abounds in promises."
Some historians believe that pressure from Share Our Wealth contributed to Roosevelt's "turn to the left" in the Second New Deal (1935), which consisted of the Social Security Act, the Works Progress Administration, the National Labor Relations Board, Aid to Dependent Children, and the Wealth Tax Act of 1935. Roosevelt reportedly admitted in private to trying to "steal Long's thunder".
Continued control over Louisiana
Long continued to maintain effective control of Louisiana while he was a senator, blurring the boundary between federal and state politics. Long chose his childhood friend, Oscar K. Allen, to succeed King in the January 1932 election. With the support of Long's voter base, Allen won easily, permitting Long to resign as governor and take his seat in the U.S. Senate in January 1932. Allen, widely viewed as a puppet, dutifully enacted Long's policies. When Long visited Louisiana, Allen would relinquish his office for the Senator, working instead at his receptionist's desk. Though he had no constitutional authority, Long continued to draft and press bills through the Louisiana State Legislature. One of the laws passed was what Long called "a tax on lying"—a 2 percent tax on newspaper advertising revenue.
In 1934, Long and James A. Noe, an independent oilman and member of the Louisiana State Senate from Ouachita Parish, formed the controversial Win or Lose Oil Company. The firm was established to obtain leases on state-owned lands so that its directors might collect bonuses and sublease the mineral rights to the major oil companies. Although ruled legal, these activities were done in secret, and the stockholders were unknown to the public. Long made a profit on the bonuses and the resale of those state leases and used the funds primarily for political purposes.
1935: Final year
Presidential ambitions
Popular support for Long's Share Our Wealth program raised the possibility of a 1936 presidential bid against incumbent Franklin D. Roosevelt. When questioned by the press, Long gave conflicting answers on his plans for 1936. Long's son Russell believed his father would have run on a third-party ticket. This is evidenced by Long's writing of a speculative book, My First Days in the White House, which laid out his plans for the presidency after the 1936 election.
In spring 1935, Long undertook a national speaking tour and regular radio appearances, attracting large crowds and increasing his stature. At a well-attended Long rally in Philadelphia, a former mayor told the press, "There are 250,000 Long votes" in this city. Regarding Roosevelt, Long boasted to the New York Times Arthur Krock: "He's scared of me. I can out-promise him, and he knows it."
As the 1936 election approached, the Roosevelt Administration grew increasingly concerned by Long's popularity. Democratic National Committee chairman James Farley commissioned a secret poll in early 1935. Farley's poll revealed that if Long ran on a third-party ticket, he would win about four million votes, 10% of the electorate. In a memo to Roosevelt, Farley expressed his concern that Long could split the vote, allowing the Republican nominee to win. Diplomat Edward M. House warned Roosevelt, "many people believe that he can do to your administration what Theodore Roosevelt did to the Taft Administration in '12". Many, including Hair, Williams, and Roosevelt, speculated that Long expected to lose in 1936, allowing the Republicans to take the White House. They believed the Republicans would worsen the Great Depression, deepening Long's appeal. According to Roosevelt, "That would bring the country to such a state by 1940 that Long thinks he would be made dictator."
Increased tensions in Louisiana
By 1935, Long's consolidation of power led to talk of armed opposition from his enemies in Louisiana. Opponents increasingly invoked the memory of the Battle of Liberty Place (1874), in which the White League staged an uprising against Louisiana's Reconstruction-era government. In January 1935, an anti-Long paramilitary organization called the Square Deal Association was formed. Its members included former governors John M. Parker and Ruffin Pleasant and New Orleans Mayor T. Semmes Walmsley. Standard Oil threatened to leave the state when Long finally passed the five-cent per barrel oil tax for which he had been impeached in 1929. Concerned Standard Oil employees formed a Square Deal association in Baton Rouge, organizing themselves in militia companies and demanding "direct action".
On January 25, 1935, these Square Dealers, now armed, seized the East Baton Rouge Parish courthouse. Long had Governor Allen execute emergency measures in Baton Rouge: he called in the National Guard, declared martial law, banned public gatherings of two or more persons, and forbade the publication of criticism of state officials. The Square Dealers left the courthouse, but there was a brief armed skirmish at the Baton Rouge Airport. Tear gas and live ammunition were fired; one person was wounded, but there were no fatalities. At a legal hearing, an alleged spy within the Square Dealers testified they were conspiring to assassinate Long.
In summer 1935, Long called two special legislative sessions in Louisiana; bills were passed in rapid-fire succession without being read or discussed. The new laws further centralized Long's control over the state by creating new Long-appointed state agencies: a state bond and tax board holding sole authority to approve loans to local governments, a new state printing board which could withhold "official printer" status from uncooperative newspapers, a new board of election supervisors which would appoint all poll watchers, and a State Board of Censors. They stripped away the remaining powers of the Mayor of New Orleans. Long boasted he had "taken over every board and commission in New Orleans except the Community Chest and the Red Cross". A September 7 special session passed 42 bills. The most extreme, likely aimed at Roosevelt and his federal agents, authorized Louisiana to fine and imprison anyone who infringed on the powers reserved to the state in the Tenth Amendment to the United States Constitution.
Assassination
On September 8, 1935, Long traveled to the State Capitol to pass a bill that would gerrymander the district of an opponent, Judge Benjamin Pavy, who had held his position for 28 years. At 9:20 p.m., just after passage of the bill effectively removing Pavy, Pavy's son-in-law, Carl Weiss, approached Long, and, according to the generally accepted version of events, fired a single shot with a handgun from four feet (1.2 m) away, striking Long in the torso. Long's bodyguards, nicknamed the "Cossacks" or "skullcrushers", then fired at Weiss with their pistols, killing him. An autopsy found Weiss had been shot at least 60 times. Long ran down a flight of stairs and across the capitol grounds, hailing a car to take him to Our Lady of the Lake Hospital. He was rushed to the operating room where surgery closed perforations in his intestines but failed to stop internal bleeding. Long died at 4:10 a.m. on September 10, 31 hours after being shot. According to different sources, his last words were either, "I wonder what will happen to my poor university boys", or "God, don't let me die. I have so much to do."
Over 200,000 people traveled to Baton Rouge to attend Long's September 12 funeral. His remains were buried on the grounds of the Capitol; a statue depicting Long was constructed on his grave. Although Long's allies alleged he was assassinated by political opponents, a federal probe found no evidence of conspiracy. Long's death brought relief to the Roosevelt Administration, which would win in a landslide in the 1936 election. Farley publicly admitted his apprehension of campaigning against Long: "I always laughed Huey off, but I did not feel that way about him." Roosevelt's close economic advisor Rexford Tugwell wrote that, "When he was gone it seemed that a beneficent peace had fallen on the land. Father Coughlin, Reno, Townsend, et al., were after all pygmies compared with Huey. He had been a major phenomenon." Tugwell also said that Roosevelt regarded Long's assassination as a "providential occurrence".
Evidence later surfaced that suggests Long was accidentally shot by his bodyguards. Proponents of this theory assert Long was caught in the crossfire as his bodyguards shot Weiss, and a bullet that ricocheted off the marble walls hit him.
Legacy
Politics
Long's assassination turned him into a legendary figure in parts of Louisiana. In 1938, Swedish sociologist Gunnar Myrdal encountered rural children who not only insisted Long was alive, but that he was president. Although no longer governing, Long's policies continued to be enacted in Louisiana by his political machine, which supported Roosevelt's re-election to prevent further investigation into their finances. The machine remained a powerful force in state politics until the 1960 elections. Within the Louisiana Democratic Party, Long set in motion two durable factions—"pro-Long" and "anti-Long"—which diverged meaningfully in terms of policies and voter support. For decades after his death, Long's political style inspired imitation among Louisiana politicians who borrowed his rhetoric and promises of social programs.
After Long's death, a family dynasty emerged: his brother Earl was elected lieutenant-governor in 1936 and governor in 1948 and 1956. Long's widow, Rose Long, replaced him in the Senate, and his son, Russell, was a U.S. senator from 1948 to 1987. As chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, Russell shaped the nation's tax laws, advocating low business taxes and passing legislation beneficial to the poor like the Earned Income Credit. Other relatives, including George, Gillis, and Speedy, have represented Louisiana in Congress.
Huey P. Newton, co-founder of the Black Panther Party, was named after Long.
Historical reputation
Academics and historians have found difficulty categorizing Long and his ideology. His platform has been compared to ideologies ranging from McCarthyism to European Fascism and Stalinism. When asked about his own philosophy, Long simply replied: "Oh, hell, say that I'm sui generis and let it go at that." Robert Penn Warren described him as a "remarkable set of contradictions".
A majority of academics, biographers, and writers who have examined Long view him negatively, typically as a demagogue or dictator. Reinhard H. Luthin said that he was the epitome of an American demagogue. David Kennedy wrote that Long's regime in Louisiana was "the closest thing to a dictatorship that America has ever known". Journalist Hodding Carter described him as "the first true dictator out of the soil of America" and his movement the "success of fascism in one American state". Peter Viereck categorized Long's movement as "chauvinist thought control"; Victor Ferkiss called it "incipient fascism".
One of the few biographers to praise Long was T. Harry Williams, who classified Long's ideas as neo-populist. He labeled Long a democratic "mass leader", rather than a demagogue. Besides Williams, intellectual Gore Vidal expressed admiration for Long, even naming him as his favorite contemporary U.S. politician. Long biographer Thomas O. Harris espoused a more nuanced view of Long: "neither saint nor devil, he was a complex and heterogenous mixture of good and bad, genius and craft, hypocrisy and candor, buffoonery and seriousness".
Media
In popular culture, Long has served as a template for multiple dictatorial politicians in novels. Notable works include Sinclair Lewis's novel It Can't Happen Here (1935), Robert Penn Warren's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel All the King's Men (1946), and Adria Locke Langley's 1945 novel A Lion Is in the Streets. The latter two were adapted into Academy Award-winning films. As well as two television docudramas, Long was the subject of a 1985 Ken Burns-directed documentary. In music, Randy Newman featured Long in two songs on the 1974 album Good Old Boys.
Long has been the subject of dozens of biographies and academic texts. In fact, more has been written about Long than any other Louisianan. Most notable is the 1969 biography Huey Long by Williams, which won both the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award. Alan Brinkley won the National Book Award in 1983 for Voices of Protest, a study of Long, Coughlin, and populist opposition to Roosevelt.
Works
Bibliography
Constitutions of the State of Louisiana, 1930
Every Man a King, 1933
My First Days in the White House, 1935
Discography
Long collaborated with composer Castro Carazo on the following songs:
"Darling of LSU", 1935
"Every Man a King", 1935
"The LSU Cadets March", 1935
"Touchdown for LSU", 1935
See also
List of United States Congress members killed or wounded in office
Charles Coughlin
Francis Townsend
Notes and references
Notes
References and citations
Works cited
1893 births
1935 deaths
20th-century American lawyers
20th-century American politicians
American political bosses from Louisiana
American social democrats
Anti-poverty advocates
Assassinated American politicians
Burials in Louisiana
Deaths by firearm in Louisiana
Democratic Party United States senators
Democratic Party state governors of the United States
Governors of Louisiana
History of United States isolationism
Impeached United States officials
Left-wing populism in the United States
Huey
Louisiana Democrats
Louisiana lawyers
Male murder victims
Members of the Louisiana Public Service Commission
Oklahoma Baptist University alumni
People from Winnfield, Louisiana
People murdered in Louisiana
Tulane University Law School alumni
Tulane University alumni
United States senators from Louisiana
University of Oklahoma alumni | false | [
"The 2001 New Orleans Bowl featured the North Texas Mean Green and the Colorado State Rams. It was the inaugural playing of the bowl game. North Texas became the first team in NCAA college football history to play in a bowl after starting their season 0–5. They were the Sun Belt Conference co-champions (5–1 in conference), which gave them bowl eligibility despite having an overall losing record (5–6).\n\nRunning back Brad Svoboda got Colorado State on the board first with a 2-yard touchdown run, to give them a 7–0 lead. Kent Naughton later connected on a 46-yard field goal to increase CSU's lead to 10–0. Quarterback Bradlee Van Pelt threw an 8-yard touchdown pass to wide receiver Jose Ochoa to give CSU a 17–0 lead. \n\nQuarterback Scott Hall threw a 5-yard touchdown pass to Dustin Dean to get North Texas on the scoreboard, 17–7. Bradlee Van Pelt rushed 6 yards for a touchdown, and a 24–7 Colorado State lead. Scott Hall threw a 42-yard touchdown pass to Ja'Mel Branch to cut the lead to 24–14. In the third quarter, Justin Gallimore recovered a blocked punt in the end zone for a touchdown and a 31–14 lead. \n \nIn the fourth quarter, Chad Dixon rushed for a 2-yard touchdown, to increase the lead to 38–14. Running back Michael Vomhof rushed 20 yards for a touchdown to increase the lead again to 45–14. Back-up quarterback Michael Bridges threw a 13-yard touchdown pass to Andy Blount, making the final score 45–20.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n USA Today Game Summary\n\nNew Orleans Bowl\nNew Orleans Bowl\nColorado State Rams football bowl games\nNorth Texas Mean Green football bowl games\nNew Orleans Bowl",
"Lead tin telluride, also referred to as PbSnTe or Pb1−xSnxTe, is a ternary alloy of lead, tin and tellurium, generally made by alloying either tin into lead telluride or lead into tin telluride. It is a IV-VI narrow band gap semiconductor material.\n\nThe band gap of Pb1−xSnxTe is tuned by varying the composition(x) in the material. SnTe can be alloyed with Pb (or PbTe with Sn) in order to tune the band gap from 0.29 eV (PbTe) to 0.18 eV (SnTe). It is important to note that unlike II-VI chalcogenides, e.g. cadmium, mercury and zinc chalcogenides, the band gap in Pb1−xSnxTe does not changes linearly between the two extremes. In contrast, as the composition (x) is increased, the band gap decreases, approaches zero in the concentration regime (0.32–0.65 corresponding to temperature 4-300 K, respectively) and further increases towards bulk band gap of SnTe. Therefore, the lead tin telluride alloys have narrower band gaps than their end point counterparts making lead tin telluride an ideal candidate for mid infrared, 3–14 μm opto-electronic application.\n\nProperties\nLead tin telluride is p-type semiconductor at 300 K. The hole concentration increases as the tin content is increased resulting in an increase in electrical conductivity. For composition range x = 0 to 0.1, electrical conductivity decreases with increase in temperature up to 500 K and increases beyond 500 K. For composition range, x ≥ 0.25, electrical conductivity decreases with increases in temperature.\n\nThe Seebeck coefficient of Pb1−xSnxTe decreases with increases in Sn content at 300 K.\n\nFor composition x > 0.25, thermal conductivity of Pb1−xSnxTe increases with increase in Sn content. Thermal conductivity values decreases with increase in temperature over the entire composition range, x > 0.\n\nFor Pb1−xSnxTe, the optimum temperature corresponding to maximum thermoelectric power factor increases with increase in composition x. The pseudo binary alloy of Lead tin telluride acts as a thermoelectric material over 400–700 K temperature range.\n\nLead tin telluride has a positive temperature coefficient i.e. for a given composition x, band gap increases with temperature. Therefore, temperature stability has to be maintained while working with lead tin telluride based laser. However, the advantage is that the operating wavelength of the laser can simply be tuned by varying the operating temperature.\n\nThe optical absorption coefficient of lead tin telluride is typically ~750 cm−1 as compared to ~50 cm−1 for the extrinsic semiconductors such as doped silicon. The higher optical coefficient value not only ensures higher sensitivity but also reduces the spacing required between individual detector elements to prevent optical cross talk making integrated circuit technology easily accessible.\n\nApplication\nDue to tunable narrow band gap and relatively higher operating temperature of lead tin telluride as compared to mercury cadmium telluride, it has been a material of choice for commercial applications in IR sources, band pass filters and IR detectors. It has found applications as photovoltaic devices for sensing radiation in 8-14 μm window.\n\nSingle Crystal Pb1−xSnxTe diode lasers have been employed for detection of gaseous pollutants like sulfur dioxide.\n\nLead tin tellurides have been used in thermoelectric devices.\n\nReferences \n\nTellurides\nLead alloys\nTin alloys\nIV-VI semiconductors"
]
|
[
"Huey Long",
"Increased tensions in Louisiana",
"What lead up to the increase in tensions?",
"By 1935, Long's most recent consolidation of personal power led to talk of armed opposition from his enemies. Opponents increasingly invoked"
]
| C_04be97353a2c41469cce24af4cbfcb97_0 | Are there any other interesting aspects about this article? | 2 | Besides the talk of armed opposition from Long's enemies, are there any other interesting aspects about this article? | Huey Long | By 1935, Long's most recent consolidation of personal power led to talk of armed opposition from his enemies. Opponents increasingly invoked the memory of the Battle of Liberty Place of 1874, in which the White League staged an uprising against Louisiana's Reconstruction-era government. In January 1935, an anti-Long paramilitary organization called the Square Deal Association was formed. Its members included former governors John M. Parker and Ruffin G. Pleasant and New Orleans Mayor T. Semmes Walmsley. On January 25, 200 armed Square Dealers took over the courthouse of East Baton Rouge Parish. Long had Governor Allen call out the National Guard, declare martial law, ban public gatherings of two or more persons, and forbid the publication of criticism of state officials. The Square Dealers left the courthouse, but there was a brief armed skirmish at the Baton Rouge Airport. Tear gas and live ammunition were fired; one person was wounded but there were no fatalities. In the summer of 1935, Long called for two more special sessions of the legislature; bills were passed in rapid-fire succession without being read or discussed. The new laws further centralized Long's control over the state by creating several new Long-appointed state agencies: a state bond and tax board holding sole authority to approve all loans to parish and municipal governments, a new state printing board which could withhold "official printer" status from uncooperative newspapers, a new board of election supervisors which would appoint all poll watchers, and a State Board of Censors. They also stripped away the remaining lucrative powers of the mayor of New Orleans to cripple the entrenched opposition. Long boasted that he had "taken over every board and commission in New Orleans except the Community Chest and the Red Cross." Long quarreled with former State Senator Henry E. Hardtner of La Salle Parish. While proceeding to Baton Rouge in August 1935 to confront the state government over a tax matter relating to his Urania Lumber Company, based in Urania, Hardtner, known as "the father of forestry in the South," was killed in a car-train accident. CANNOTANSWER | The new laws further centralized Long's control over the state by creating several new Long-appointed state agencies: | Huey Pierce Long Jr. (August 30, 1893September 10, 1935), nicknamed "the Kingfish", was an American politician who served as the 40th governor of Louisiana from 1928 to 1932 and as a United States Senator from 1932 until his assassination in 1935. He was a populist member of the Democratic Party and rose to national prominence during the Great Depression for his vocal criticism of President Franklin D. Roosevelt and his New Deal, which Long deemed insufficiently radical. As the political leader of Louisiana, he commanded wide networks of supporters and often took forceful action. A controversial figure, Long is celebrated as a populist champion of the poor or, conversely, denounced as a demagogue.
Long was born in the impoverished north of Louisiana in 1893. After working as a traveling salesman and briefly attending three colleges, he entered the bar in Louisiana. Following a short private legal career in which he represented poor plaintiffs, Long was elected to the Louisiana Public Service Commission. As Commissioner, he prosecuted large corporations such as Standard Oil, a lifelong target of his rhetorical attacks. After Long successfully argued before the U.S. Supreme Court, Chief Justice and former president William Howard Taft praised him as "the most brilliant lawyer who ever practiced before the United States Supreme Court".
After a failed 1924 campaign, Long used the sharp economic and class divisions in Louisiana to win the 1928 gubernatorial election. Once in office, he expanded social programs, organized massive public works projects, such as a modern highway system and the tallest capitol building in the nation, and proposed a cotton holiday. Through political maneuvering, Long became the political boss of Louisiana. He was impeached in 1929 for abuses of power, but the proceedings collapsed in the State Senate. His opponents argued his policies and methods were unconstitutional and dictatorial. At its climax, political opposition organized a minor insurrection.
Long was elected to the U.S. Senate in 1930 but did not assume his seat until 1932. He established himself as an isolationist, arguing that Standard Oil and Wall Street orchestrated American foreign policy. He was instrumental in securing Roosevelt's 1932 nomination but split with him in 1933, becoming a prominent critic of his New Deal. As an alternative, he proposed the Share Our Wealth program in 1934. To stimulate the economy, he advocated massive federal spending, a wealth tax, and wealth redistribution. These proposals drew wide support with millions joining local Share Our Wealth clubs. Poised for a 1936 presidential bid, Long was mortally wounded by a lone assassin in 1935. Although Long's movement faded, Roosevelt adopted many of his proposals in the Second New Deal, and Louisiana elections would be organized along anti- or pro-Long factions until the 1960s. He left behind a political dynasty that included his wife Senator Rose McConnell Long, his son Senator Russell B. Long, and his brother Governor Earl Long, among others.
Early life (1893–1915)
Childhood
Long was born on August 30, 1893, near Winnfield, a small town in north-central Louisiana, the seat of Winn Parish. Although Long often told followers he was born in a log cabin to an impoverished family, they lived in a "comfortable" farmhouse and were well-off compared to others in Winnfield. Winn Parish was impoverished, and its residents, mostly Southern Baptists, were often outsiders in Louisiana's political system. During the Civil War, Winn Parish had been a stronghold of Unionism in an otherwise Confederate state. At Louisiana's 1861 convention on secession, the delegate from Winn voted to remain in the Union saying: "Who wants to fight to keep the Negroes for the wealthy planters?" In the 1890s, the parish was a bastion of the Populist Party, and in the 1912 election, a plurality (35%) voted for the Socialist presidential candidate, Eugene V. Debs. Long embraced these populist sentiments.
One of nine children, Long was home schooled until age eleven. In the public system, he earned a reputation as an excellent student with a remarkable memory and convinced his teachers to let him skip seventh grade. At Winnfield High School, he and his friends formed a secret society, advertising their exclusivity by wearing a red ribbon. According to Long, his club's mission was "to run things, laying down certain rules the students would have to follow". The faculty learned of Long's antics and warned him to obey the school's rules. Long continued to rebel, writing and distributing a flyer that criticized his teachers and the necessity of a recently state-mandated fourth year of secondary education, for which he was expelled in 1910. Although Long successfully petitioned to fire the principal, he never returned to high school. As a student, Long proved a capable debater. At a state debate competition in Baton Rouge, he won a full-tuition scholarship to Louisiana State University (LSU). Because the scholarship did not cover textbooks or living expenses, his family could not afford for him to attend. Long was also unable to attend because he did not graduate from high school. Instead, he entered the workforce as a traveling salesman in the rural South.
Education and marriage
In September 1911, Long started attending seminary classes at Oklahoma Baptist University at the urging of his mother, a devout Baptist. Living with his brother George, Long attended for only one semester, rarely appearing at lectures. After deciding he was unsuited to preaching, Long focused on law. Borrowing one hundred dollars from his brother (which he later lost playing roulette in Oklahoma City), he attended the University of Oklahoma College of Law for a semester in 1912. To earn money while studying law part-time, he continued to work as a salesman. Of the four classes Long took, he received one incomplete and three C's. He later confessed he learned little because there was "too much excitement, all those gambling houses and everything".
Long met Rose McConnell at a baking contest he had promoted to sell Cottolene shortening. The two began a two-and-a-half-year courtship and married in April 1913 at the Gayoso Hotel in Memphis, Tennessee. On their wedding day, Long had no cash with him and had to borrow $10 from his fiancée to pay the officiant. Shortly after their marriage, Long revealed to his wife his aspirations to run for a statewide office, the governorship, the Senate, and ultimately the presidency. The Longs had a daughter named Rose (1917–2006) and two sons: Russell B. Long (1918–2003), who became a U.S. senator, and Palmer Reid Long (1921–2010), who became an oilman in Shreveport, Louisiana.
Long enrolled at Tulane University Law School in New Orleans in the fall of 1914. After a year of study that concentrated on the courses necessary for the bar exam, he successfully petitioned the Louisiana Supreme Court for permission to take the test before its scheduled June 1915 date. He was examined in May, passed, and received his license to practice. According to Long: "I came out of that courtroom running for office."
Legal career (1915–1923)
In 1915, Long established a private practice in Winnfield. He represented poor plaintiffs, usually in workers' compensation cases. Long avoided fighting in World War I by obtaining a draft deferment on the grounds that he was married and had a dependent child. He successfully defended from prosecution under the Espionage Act of 1917 the state senator who had loaned him the money to complete his legal studies, and later claimed he did not serve because, "I was not mad at anybody over there." In 1918, Long invested $1,050 () in a well that struck oil. The Standard Oil Company refused to accept any of the oil in its pipelines, costing Long his investment. This episode served as the catalyst for Long's lifelong hatred of Standard Oil.
That same year, Long entered the race to serve on the three-seat Louisiana Railroad Commission. According to historian William Ivy Hair, Long's political message:
... would be repeated until the end of his days: he was a young warrior of and for the plain people, battling the evil giants of Wall Street and their corporations; too much of America's wealth was concentrated in too few hands, and this unfairness was perpetuated by an educational system so stacked against the poor that (according to his statistics) only fourteen out of every thousand children obtained a college education. The way to begin rectifying these wrongs was to turn out of office the corrupt local flunkies of big business ... and elect instead true men of the people, such as [himself].
In the Democratic primary, Long polled second behind incumbent Burk Bridges. Since no candidate garnered a majority of the votes, a run-off election was held, for which Long campaigned tirelessly across northern Louisiana. The race was close: Long defeated Burk by just 636 votes. Although the returns revealed wide support for Long in rural areas, he performed poorly in urban areas. On the Commission, Long forced utilities to lower rates, ordered railroads to extend service to small towns, and demanded that Standard Oil cease the importation of Mexican crude oil and use more oil from Louisiana wells.
In the gubernatorial election of 1920, Long campaigned heavily for John M. Parker; today, he is often credited with helping Parker win northern parishes. After Parker was elected, the two became bitter rivals. Their break was largely caused by Long's demand and Parker's refusal to declare the state's oil pipelines public utilities. Long was infuriated when Parker allowed oil companies, led by Standard Oil's legal team, to assist in writing severance tax laws. Long denounced Parker as corporate "chattel". The feud climaxed in 1921, when Parker tried unsuccessfully to have Long ousted from the commission.
By 1922, Long had become chairman of the commission, now called the "Public Service Commission". That year, Long prosecuted the Cumberland Telephone & Telegraph Company for unfair rate increases; he successfully argued the case on appeal before the United States Supreme Court, which resulted in cash refunds to thousands of overcharged customers. After the decision, Chief Justice and former President William Howard Taft praised Long as "the most brilliant lawyer who ever practiced" before the court.
Gubernatorial campaigns (1924–1928)
1924 election
On August 30, 1923, Long announced his candidacy for the governorship of Louisiana. Long stumped throughout the state, personally distributing circulars and posters. He denounced Governor Parker as a corporate stooge, vilified Standard Oil, and assailed local political bosses.
He campaigned in rural areas disenfranchised by the state's political establishment, the "Old Regulars". Since the 1877 end of Republican-controlled Reconstruction government, they had controlled most of the state through alliances with local officials. With negligible support for Republicans, Louisiana was essentially a one party state under the Democratic Old Regulars. Holding mock elections in which they invoked the Lost Cause of the Confederacy, the Old Regulars presided over a corrupt government that largely benefited the planter class. Consequently, Louisiana was one of the least developed states: It had just 300 miles of paved roads and the lowest literacy rate.
Despite an enthusiastic campaign, Long came third in the primary and was eliminated. Although polls projected only a few thousand votes, he attracted almost 72,000, around 31% of the electorate, and carried 28 parishes—more than either opponent. Limited to sectional appeal, he performed best in the poor rural north.
The Ku Klux Klan's prominence in Louisiana was the campaign's primary issue. While the two other candidates either strongly opposed or supported the Klan, Long remained neutral, alienating both sides. He also failed to attract Roman Catholic voters, which limited his chances in the south of the state. In majority Catholic New Orleans, he polled just 12,000 votes (17%). Long blamed heavy rain on election day for suppressing voter turnout among his base in the north, where voters could not reach the polls over dirt roads that had turned to mud. It was the only election Long ever lost.
1928 election
Long spent the intervening four years building his reputation and political organization, particularly in the heavily Catholic urban south. Despite disagreeing with their politics, Long campaigned for Catholic U.S. Senators in 1924 and 1926. Government mismanagement during the Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 gained Long the support of Cajuns, whose land had been affected. He formally launched his second campaign for governor in 1927, using the slogan, "Every man a king, but no one wears a crown", a phrase adopted from Democratic presidential candidate William Jennings Bryan.
Long developed novel campaign techniques, including the use of sound trucks and radio commercials. His stance on race was unorthodox. According to T. Harry Williams, Long was "the first Southern mass leader to leave aside race baiting and appeals to the Southern tradition and the Southern past and address himself to the social and economic problems of the present". The campaign sometimes descended into brutality. When the 60-year-old incumbent governor called Long a liar during a chance encounter in the lobby of the Roosevelt Hotel, Long punched him in the face.
In the Democratic primary election, Long polled 126,842 votes: a plurality of 43.9 percent. His margin was the largest in state history, and no opponent chose to face him in a runoff. After earning the Democratic nomination, he easily defeated the Republican nominee in the general election with 96.1 percent of the vote. At age 35, Long was the youngest person ever elected governor of Louisiana.
Some fifteen thousand Louisianians traveled to Baton Rouge for Long's inauguration. He set up large tents, free drinks, and jazz bands on the capitol grounds, evoking Andrew Jackson's 1829 inaugural festivities. His victory was seen as a public backlash against the urban establishment; journalist Hodding Carter described it as a "fantastic vengeance upon the Sodom and Gomorrah that was called New Orleans". While previous elections were normally divided culturally and religiously, Long highlighted the sharp economic divide in the state and built a new coalition based on class. Long's strength, said the contemporary novelist Sherwood Anderson, relied on "the terrible South ... the beaten, ignorant, Bible-ridden, white South. Faulkner occasionally really touches it. It has yet to be paid for."
Louisiana Governorship (1928–1932)
First year
Once in office on May 21, 1928, Long moved quickly to consolidate power, firing hundreds of opponents in the state bureaucracy at all ranks from cabinet-level heads of departments to state road workers. Like previous governors, he filled the vacancies with patronage appointments from his network of political supporters. Every state employee who depended on Long for a job was expected to pay a portion of their salary at election time directly into his campaign fund.
Once his control over the state's political apparatus was strengthened, Long pushed several bills through the 1929 session of the Louisiana State Legislature to fulfill campaign promises. His bills met opposition from legislators, wealthy citizens, and the media, but Long used aggressive tactics to ensure passage. He would appear unannounced on the floor of both the House and Senate or in House committees, corralling reluctant representatives and state senators and bullying opponents. When an opposing legislator once suggested Long was unfamiliar with the Louisiana Constitution, he declared, "I'm the Constitution around here now."
One program Long approved was a free textbook program for schoolchildren. Long's free school books angered Catholics, who usually sent their children to private schools. Long assured them that the books would be granted directly to all children, regardless of whether they attended public school. Yet this assurance was criticized by conservative constitutionalists, who claimed it violated the separation of church and state and sued Long. The case went to the U.S. Supreme Court, which ruled in Long's favor.
Irritated by "immoral" gambling dens and brothels in New Orleans, Long sent the National Guard to raid these establishments with orders to "shoot without hesitation". Gambling equipment was burned, prostitutes were arrested, and over $25,000 () was confiscated for government funds. Local newspapers ran photos of National Guardsmen forcibly searching nude women. City authorities had not requested military force, and martial law had not been declared. The Louisiana attorney general denounced Long's actions as illegal but Long rebuked him saying: "Nobody asked him for his opinion."
Despite wide disapproval, Long had the Governor's Mansion, built in 1887, razed by convicts from the State Penitentiary under his personal supervision. In its place, Long had a much larger Georgian mansion built. It bore a strong resemblance to the White House; he reportedly wanted to be familiar with the residence when he became president.
Impeachment
In 1929, Long called a special legislative session to enact a five-cent per barrel tax on refined oil production to fund his social programs. The state's oil interests opposed the bill. Long declared in a radio address that any legislator who refused to support the tax had been "bought" by oil companies. Instead of persuading the legislature, the accusation infuriated many of its members. The "dynamite squad", a caucus of opponents led by freshman lawmakers Cecil Morgan and Ralph Norman Bauer, introduced an impeachment resolution against Long. Nineteen charges were listed, ranging from blasphemy to subornation of murder. Even Long's lieutenant governor, Paul Cyr, supported impeachment; he accused Long of nepotism and alleged he had made corrupt deals with a Texan oil company.
Concerned, Long tried to close the session. Pro-Long Speaker John B. Fournet called for a vote to adjourn. Despite most representatives opposing adjournment, the electronic voting board tallied 68 ayes and 13 nays. This sparked confusion; anti-Long representatives began chanting that the voting machine had been rigged. Some ran for the speaker's chair to call for a new vote but met resistance from their pro-Long colleagues, sparking a brawl later known as "Bloody Monday". In the scuffle, legislators threw inkwells, allegedly attacked others with brass knuckles, and Long's brother Earl bit a legislator's neck. Following the fight, the legislature voted to remain in session and proceed with impeachment. A trial in the house took place with dozens of witnesses, including a hula dancer who claimed that Long had been "frisky" with her. Impeached on eight of the 19 charges, Long was the first Louisiana governor charged in the state's history.
Long was frightened by the prospect of conviction, for it would force him from the governorship and permanently disqualify him from holding public office in Louisiana. He took his case to the people with a mass meeting in Baton Rouge, where he alleged that impeachment was a ploy by Standard Oil to thwart his programs. The House referred the charges to the Louisiana Senate, in which conviction required a two-thirds majority. Long produced a round robin statement signed by fifteen senators pledging to vote "not guilty" regardless of the evidence. The impeachment process, now futile, was suspended. It has been alleged that both sides used bribes to buy votes and that Long later rewarded the round robin signers with positions or other favors.
Following the failed trial, Long treated his opponents ruthlessly. He fired their relatives from state jobs and supported their challengers in elections. Long concluded that extra-legal means would be needed to accomplish his goals: "I used to try to get things done by saying 'please.' Now... I dynamite 'em out of my path." Receiving death threats, he surrounded himself with bodyguards. Now a resolute critic of the "lying" press, Long established his own newspaper in March 1930: the Louisiana Progress. The paper was extremely popular, widely distributed by policemen, highway workers, and government truckers.
Senate campaign
Shortly after the impeachment, Long—now nicknamed "The Kingfish" after an Amos 'n' Andy character—announced his candidacy for the U.S. Senate in the 1930 Democratic primary. He framed his campaign as a referendum. If he won, he presumed the public supported his programs over the opposition of the legislature. If he lost, he promised to resign.
His opponent was incumbent Joseph E. Ransdell, the Catholic senator whom Long endorsed in 1924. At 72 years old, Ransdell had been in the Senate since Long was age four. Aligned with the establishment, Ransdell had the support of all 18 of the state's daily newspapers. To combat this, Long purchased two new $30,000 sound trucks and distributed over two million circulars. Although promising not to make personal attacks, Long seized on Ransdell's age, calling him "Old Feather Duster". The campaign became increasingly vicious, The New York Times calling it "as amusing as it was depressing". Long critic Sam Irby, set to testify on Long's corruption to state authorities, was abducted by Long's bodyguards shortly before the election. Irby emerged after the election; he had been missing for four days. Surrounded by Long's guards, he gave a radio address in which he "confessed" that he had actually asked Long for protection. The New Orleans mayor labelled it "the most heinous public crime in Louisiana history".
Ultimately, on September 9, 1930, Long defeated Ransdell by 149,640 (57.3 percent) to 111,451 (42.7 percent). There were accusations of voter fraud against Long; voting records showed people voting in alphabetical order, among them celebrities like Charlie Chaplin, Jack Dempsey and Babe Ruth.
Although his Senate term began on March 4, 1931, Long completed most of his four-year term as governor, which did not end until May 1932. He declared that leaving the seat vacant would not hurt Louisiana: "[W]ith Ransdell as Senator, the seat was vacant anyway." By occupying the governorship until January 25, 1932, Long prevented Lieutenant Governor Cyr, who threatened to undo Long's reforms, from succeeding to the office. In October 1931, Cyr learned Long was in Mississippi and declared himself the state's legitimate governor. In response, Long ordered National Guard troops to surround the Capitol to block Cyr's "coup d'état" and petitioned the Louisiana Supreme Court. Long successfully argued that Cyr had vacated the office of lieutenant-governor when trying to assume the governorship and had the court eject Cyr.
Senator-elect
Now governor and senator-elect, Long returned to completing his legislative agenda with renewed strength. He continued his intimidating practice of presiding over the legislature, shouting "Shut up!" or "Sit down!" when legislators voiced their concerns. In a single night, Long passed 44 bills in just two hours: one every three minutes. He later explained his tactics: "The end justifies the means." Long endorsed pro-Long candidates and wooed others with favors; he often joked his legislature was the "finest collection of lawmakers money can buy". He organized and concentrated his power into a political machine: "a one-man" operation, according to Williams. He placed his brother Earl in charge of allotting patronage appointments to local politicians and signing state contracts with businessmen in exchange for loyalty. Long appointed allies to key government positions, such as giving Robert Maestri the office of Conservation Commissioner and making Oscar K. Allen head of the Louisiana Highway Commission. Maestri would deliberately neglect the regulation of energy companies in exchange for industry donations to Long's campaign fund, while Allen took direction from Earl on which construction and supply companies to contract for road work. Concerned by these tactics, Long's opponents charged he had become the virtual dictator of the state.
To address record low cotton prices amid a Great Depression surplus, Long proposed the major cotton-producing states mandate a 1932 "cotton holiday", which would ban cotton production for the entire year. He further proposed that the holiday be imposed internationally, which some nations, such as Egypt, supported. In 1931, Long convened the New Orleans Cotton Conference, attended by delegates from every major cotton-producing state. The delegates agreed to codify Long's proposal into law on the caveat that it would not come into effect until states producing three-quarters of U.S. cotton passed such laws. As the proposer, Louisiana unanimously passed the legislation. When conservative politicians in Texas—the largest cotton producer in the U.S.—rejected the measure, the holiday movement collapsed. Although traditional politicians would have been ruined by such a defeat, Long became a national figure and cemented his image as a champion of the poor. Senator Carter Glass, although a fervid critic of Long, credited him with first suggesting artificial scarcity as a solution to the depression.
Accomplishments in Louisiana
Long was unusual among southern populists in that he achieved tangible progress. Williams concluded "the secret of Long's power, in the final analysis, was not in his machine or his political dealings but in his record—he delivered something". Referencing Long's contributions to Louisiana, Robert Penn Warren, a professor at LSU during Long's term as governor, stated: "Dictators, always give something for what they get."
Long created a public works program that was unprecedented in the South, constructing roads, bridges, hospitals, schools, and state buildings. During his four years as governor, Long increased paved highways in Louisiana from and constructed of gravel roads. By 1936, the infrastructure program begun by Long had completed some of new roads, doubling Louisiana's road system. He built 111 bridges and started construction on the first bridge over the Mississippi entirely in Louisiana, the Huey P. Long Bridge. These projects provided thousands of jobs during the depression: Louisiana employed more highway workers than any other state. Long built a State Capitol, which at tall remains the tallest capitol, state or federal, in the United States. Long's infrastructure spending increased the state government's debt from $11 million in 1928 to $150 million in 1935.
Long was an ardent supporter of the state's flagship public university, Louisiana State University (LSU). Having been unable to attend, Long now regarded it as "his" university. He increased LSU's funding and intervened in the university's affairs, expelling seven students who criticized him in the school newspaper. He constructed new buildings, including a fieldhouse that reportedly contained the longest pool in the United States. Long founded an LSU Medical School in New Orleans. To raise the stature of the football program, he converted the school's military marching band into the flashy "Show Band of the South" and hired Costa Rican composer Castro Carazo as the band director. As well as nearly doubling the size of the stadium, he arranged for lowered train fares, so students could travel to away games. Long's contributions resulted in LSU gaining a class A accreditation from the Association of American Universities.
Long's night schools taught 100,000 adults to read. His provision of free textbooks contributed to a 20 percent increase in school enrollment. He modernized public health facilities and ensured adequate conditions for the mentally ill. He established Louisiana's first rehabilitation program for penitentiary inmates. Through tax reform, Long made the first $2,000 in property assessment free, waiving property taxes for half the state's homeowners. Historians have criticized other policies, like high consumer taxes on gasoline and cigarettes, a reduced mother's pension, and low teacher salaries.
U.S. Senate (1932–1935)
Senator
When Long arrived in the Senate, America was in the throes of the Great Depression. With this backdrop, Long made characteristically fiery speeches that denounced wealth inequality. He criticized the leaders of both parties for failing to address the crisis adequately, notably attacking conservative Senate Democratic Leader Joseph Robinson of Arkansas for his apparent closeness with President Herbert Hoover and big business.
In the 1932 presidential election, Long was a vocal supporter of New York Governor Franklin D. Roosevelt. At that year's Democratic National Convention, Long kept the delegations of several wavering Southern states in the Roosevelt camp. Due to this, Long expected to be featured prominently in Roosevelt's campaign but was disappointed with a peripheral speaking tour limited to four Midwestern states.
Not discouraged after being snubbed, Long found other venues for his populist message. He endorsed Senator Hattie Caraway of Arkansas, a widow and the underdog candidate in a crowded field and conducted a whirlwind, seven-day tour of that state. During the campaign, Long gave 39 speeches, traveled , and spoke to over 200,000 people. In an upset win, Caraway became the first woman elected to a full term in the Senate.
Returning to Washington, Long gave theatrical speeches which drew wide attention. Public viewing areas were crowded with onlookers, among them a young Lyndon B. Johnson, who later said he was "simply entranced" by Long. Long obstructed bills for weeks, launching hour-long filibusters and having the clerk read superfluous documents. Long's antics, one editorial claimed, had made the Senate "impotent". In May 1932, The Washington Post called for his resignation. Long's behavior and radical rhetoric did little to endear him to his fellow senators. None of his proposed bills, resolutions, or motions were passed during his three years in the Senate.
Roosevelt and the New Deal
During the first 100 days of Roosevelt's presidency in spring 1933, Long's attitude towards Roosevelt and the New Deal was tepid. Aware that Roosevelt had no intention of radically redistributing the country's wealth, Long became one of the few national politicians to oppose Roosevelt's New Deal policies from the left. He considered them inadequate in the face of the escalating economic crisis but still supported some of Roosevelt's programs in the Senate, explaining: "Whenever this administration has gone to the left I have voted with it, and whenever it has gone to the right I have voted against it."
Long opposed the National Recovery Act, claiming it favored industrialists. In an attempt to prevent its passage, Long held a lone filibuster, speaking for 15 hours and 30 minutes, the second longest filibuster at the time. He also criticized Social Security, calling it inadequate and expressing his concerns that states would administer it in a way discriminatory to blacks. In 1933, he was a leader of a three-week Senate filibuster against the Glass banking bill, which he later supported as the Glass–Steagall Act after provisions extended government deposit insurance to state banks as well as national banks.
Roosevelt considered Long a radical demagogue and stated that Long, along with General Douglas MacArthur, "was one of the two most dangerous men in America". In June 1933, in an effort to undermine Long's political dominance, Roosevelt cut him out of consultations on the distribution of federal funds and patronage in Louisiana and placed Long's opponents in charge of federal programs in the state. Roosevelt supported a Senate inquiry into the election of Long ally John H. Overton to the Senate in 1932. The Long machine was accused of election fraud and voter intimidation, but the inquiry came up empty, and Overton was seated. To discredit Long and damage his support base, Roosevelt had Long's finances investigated by the Internal Revenue Service in 1934. Although they failed to link Long to any illegality, some of his lieutenants were charged with income tax evasion. Roosevelt's son, Elliott, would later note that in this instance, his father "may have been the originator of the concept of employing the IRS as a weapon of political retribution".
Chaco War and foreign policy
On May 30, 1934, Long took to the Senate floor to debate the abrogation of the Platt amendment. But instead of debating the amendment, Long declared his support for Paraguay against Bolivia in the Chaco War. He maintained that U.S. President Rutherford B. Hayes had awarded the oil-rich Chaco region to Paraguay in 1878. He attested Standard Oil had corrupted the Bolivian government and organized the war and that Wall Street orchestrated American foreign policy in Latin America. For his speech, Long received praise in Paraguay: after capturing a Bolivian fort in July 1934, they renamed it Fort Long. Long's allegations were widely publicized in Latin American newspapers. This drew the concern of the State Department, who believed that Long was damaging the reputation of the United States. Throughout the summer of 1934, they waged a sustained public relations campaign against Long throughout Latin America. This speech and others established Long as one of the most ardent isolationists in the Senate. He further argued that American involvement in the Spanish–American War and the First World War had been deadly mistakes conducted on behalf of Wall Street. Consequently, Long demanded the immediate independence of the Philippines, which the United States had occupied since 1898. He also opposed American entry into the World Court.
Share Our Wealth
In March 1933, Long revealed a series of bills collectively known as "the Long plan" to redistribute wealth. Together, they would cap fortunes at $100 million, limit annual income to $1 million, and cap individual inheritances at $5 million.
In a nationwide February 1934 radio broadcast, Long introduced his Share Our Wealth plan. The legislation would use the wealth from the Long plan to guarantee every family a basic household grant of $5,000 and a minimum annual income of one-third of the average family homestead value and income. Long supplemented his plan with proposals for free college and vocational training, veterans' benefits, federal assistance to farmers, public works projects, greater federal economic regulation, a $30 monthly elderly pension, a month's vacation for every worker, a thirty-hour workweek, a $10 billion land reclamation project to end the Dust Bowl, and free medical service and a "war on disease" led by the Mayo brothers. These reforms, Long claimed, would end the Great Depression. The plans were widely criticized and labeled impossible by economists.
With the Senate unwilling to support his proposals, in February 1934 Long formed the Share Our Wealth Society, a national network of local clubs that operated in opposition to the Democratic Party and Roosevelt. By 1935, the society had over 7.5 million members in 27,000 clubs. Long's Senate office received an average of 60,000 letters a week, resulting in Long hiring 48 stenographers to type responses. Of the two trucks that delivered mail to the Senate, one was devoted solely to mail for Long. Long's newspaper, now renamed American Progress, averaged a circulation of 300,000, some issues reaching over 1.5 million. Long drew international attention: English writer H. G. Wells interviewed Long, noting he was "like a Winston Churchill who has never been at Harrow. He abounds in promises."
Some historians believe that pressure from Share Our Wealth contributed to Roosevelt's "turn to the left" in the Second New Deal (1935), which consisted of the Social Security Act, the Works Progress Administration, the National Labor Relations Board, Aid to Dependent Children, and the Wealth Tax Act of 1935. Roosevelt reportedly admitted in private to trying to "steal Long's thunder".
Continued control over Louisiana
Long continued to maintain effective control of Louisiana while he was a senator, blurring the boundary between federal and state politics. Long chose his childhood friend, Oscar K. Allen, to succeed King in the January 1932 election. With the support of Long's voter base, Allen won easily, permitting Long to resign as governor and take his seat in the U.S. Senate in January 1932. Allen, widely viewed as a puppet, dutifully enacted Long's policies. When Long visited Louisiana, Allen would relinquish his office for the Senator, working instead at his receptionist's desk. Though he had no constitutional authority, Long continued to draft and press bills through the Louisiana State Legislature. One of the laws passed was what Long called "a tax on lying"—a 2 percent tax on newspaper advertising revenue.
In 1934, Long and James A. Noe, an independent oilman and member of the Louisiana State Senate from Ouachita Parish, formed the controversial Win or Lose Oil Company. The firm was established to obtain leases on state-owned lands so that its directors might collect bonuses and sublease the mineral rights to the major oil companies. Although ruled legal, these activities were done in secret, and the stockholders were unknown to the public. Long made a profit on the bonuses and the resale of those state leases and used the funds primarily for political purposes.
1935: Final year
Presidential ambitions
Popular support for Long's Share Our Wealth program raised the possibility of a 1936 presidential bid against incumbent Franklin D. Roosevelt. When questioned by the press, Long gave conflicting answers on his plans for 1936. Long's son Russell believed his father would have run on a third-party ticket. This is evidenced by Long's writing of a speculative book, My First Days in the White House, which laid out his plans for the presidency after the 1936 election.
In spring 1935, Long undertook a national speaking tour and regular radio appearances, attracting large crowds and increasing his stature. At a well-attended Long rally in Philadelphia, a former mayor told the press, "There are 250,000 Long votes" in this city. Regarding Roosevelt, Long boasted to the New York Times Arthur Krock: "He's scared of me. I can out-promise him, and he knows it."
As the 1936 election approached, the Roosevelt Administration grew increasingly concerned by Long's popularity. Democratic National Committee chairman James Farley commissioned a secret poll in early 1935. Farley's poll revealed that if Long ran on a third-party ticket, he would win about four million votes, 10% of the electorate. In a memo to Roosevelt, Farley expressed his concern that Long could split the vote, allowing the Republican nominee to win. Diplomat Edward M. House warned Roosevelt, "many people believe that he can do to your administration what Theodore Roosevelt did to the Taft Administration in '12". Many, including Hair, Williams, and Roosevelt, speculated that Long expected to lose in 1936, allowing the Republicans to take the White House. They believed the Republicans would worsen the Great Depression, deepening Long's appeal. According to Roosevelt, "That would bring the country to such a state by 1940 that Long thinks he would be made dictator."
Increased tensions in Louisiana
By 1935, Long's consolidation of power led to talk of armed opposition from his enemies in Louisiana. Opponents increasingly invoked the memory of the Battle of Liberty Place (1874), in which the White League staged an uprising against Louisiana's Reconstruction-era government. In January 1935, an anti-Long paramilitary organization called the Square Deal Association was formed. Its members included former governors John M. Parker and Ruffin Pleasant and New Orleans Mayor T. Semmes Walmsley. Standard Oil threatened to leave the state when Long finally passed the five-cent per barrel oil tax for which he had been impeached in 1929. Concerned Standard Oil employees formed a Square Deal association in Baton Rouge, organizing themselves in militia companies and demanding "direct action".
On January 25, 1935, these Square Dealers, now armed, seized the East Baton Rouge Parish courthouse. Long had Governor Allen execute emergency measures in Baton Rouge: he called in the National Guard, declared martial law, banned public gatherings of two or more persons, and forbade the publication of criticism of state officials. The Square Dealers left the courthouse, but there was a brief armed skirmish at the Baton Rouge Airport. Tear gas and live ammunition were fired; one person was wounded, but there were no fatalities. At a legal hearing, an alleged spy within the Square Dealers testified they were conspiring to assassinate Long.
In summer 1935, Long called two special legislative sessions in Louisiana; bills were passed in rapid-fire succession without being read or discussed. The new laws further centralized Long's control over the state by creating new Long-appointed state agencies: a state bond and tax board holding sole authority to approve loans to local governments, a new state printing board which could withhold "official printer" status from uncooperative newspapers, a new board of election supervisors which would appoint all poll watchers, and a State Board of Censors. They stripped away the remaining powers of the Mayor of New Orleans. Long boasted he had "taken over every board and commission in New Orleans except the Community Chest and the Red Cross". A September 7 special session passed 42 bills. The most extreme, likely aimed at Roosevelt and his federal agents, authorized Louisiana to fine and imprison anyone who infringed on the powers reserved to the state in the Tenth Amendment to the United States Constitution.
Assassination
On September 8, 1935, Long traveled to the State Capitol to pass a bill that would gerrymander the district of an opponent, Judge Benjamin Pavy, who had held his position for 28 years. At 9:20 p.m., just after passage of the bill effectively removing Pavy, Pavy's son-in-law, Carl Weiss, approached Long, and, according to the generally accepted version of events, fired a single shot with a handgun from four feet (1.2 m) away, striking Long in the torso. Long's bodyguards, nicknamed the "Cossacks" or "skullcrushers", then fired at Weiss with their pistols, killing him. An autopsy found Weiss had been shot at least 60 times. Long ran down a flight of stairs and across the capitol grounds, hailing a car to take him to Our Lady of the Lake Hospital. He was rushed to the operating room where surgery closed perforations in his intestines but failed to stop internal bleeding. Long died at 4:10 a.m. on September 10, 31 hours after being shot. According to different sources, his last words were either, "I wonder what will happen to my poor university boys", or "God, don't let me die. I have so much to do."
Over 200,000 people traveled to Baton Rouge to attend Long's September 12 funeral. His remains were buried on the grounds of the Capitol; a statue depicting Long was constructed on his grave. Although Long's allies alleged he was assassinated by political opponents, a federal probe found no evidence of conspiracy. Long's death brought relief to the Roosevelt Administration, which would win in a landslide in the 1936 election. Farley publicly admitted his apprehension of campaigning against Long: "I always laughed Huey off, but I did not feel that way about him." Roosevelt's close economic advisor Rexford Tugwell wrote that, "When he was gone it seemed that a beneficent peace had fallen on the land. Father Coughlin, Reno, Townsend, et al., were after all pygmies compared with Huey. He had been a major phenomenon." Tugwell also said that Roosevelt regarded Long's assassination as a "providential occurrence".
Evidence later surfaced that suggests Long was accidentally shot by his bodyguards. Proponents of this theory assert Long was caught in the crossfire as his bodyguards shot Weiss, and a bullet that ricocheted off the marble walls hit him.
Legacy
Politics
Long's assassination turned him into a legendary figure in parts of Louisiana. In 1938, Swedish sociologist Gunnar Myrdal encountered rural children who not only insisted Long was alive, but that he was president. Although no longer governing, Long's policies continued to be enacted in Louisiana by his political machine, which supported Roosevelt's re-election to prevent further investigation into their finances. The machine remained a powerful force in state politics until the 1960 elections. Within the Louisiana Democratic Party, Long set in motion two durable factions—"pro-Long" and "anti-Long"—which diverged meaningfully in terms of policies and voter support. For decades after his death, Long's political style inspired imitation among Louisiana politicians who borrowed his rhetoric and promises of social programs.
After Long's death, a family dynasty emerged: his brother Earl was elected lieutenant-governor in 1936 and governor in 1948 and 1956. Long's widow, Rose Long, replaced him in the Senate, and his son, Russell, was a U.S. senator from 1948 to 1987. As chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, Russell shaped the nation's tax laws, advocating low business taxes and passing legislation beneficial to the poor like the Earned Income Credit. Other relatives, including George, Gillis, and Speedy, have represented Louisiana in Congress.
Huey P. Newton, co-founder of the Black Panther Party, was named after Long.
Historical reputation
Academics and historians have found difficulty categorizing Long and his ideology. His platform has been compared to ideologies ranging from McCarthyism to European Fascism and Stalinism. When asked about his own philosophy, Long simply replied: "Oh, hell, say that I'm sui generis and let it go at that." Robert Penn Warren described him as a "remarkable set of contradictions".
A majority of academics, biographers, and writers who have examined Long view him negatively, typically as a demagogue or dictator. Reinhard H. Luthin said that he was the epitome of an American demagogue. David Kennedy wrote that Long's regime in Louisiana was "the closest thing to a dictatorship that America has ever known". Journalist Hodding Carter described him as "the first true dictator out of the soil of America" and his movement the "success of fascism in one American state". Peter Viereck categorized Long's movement as "chauvinist thought control"; Victor Ferkiss called it "incipient fascism".
One of the few biographers to praise Long was T. Harry Williams, who classified Long's ideas as neo-populist. He labeled Long a democratic "mass leader", rather than a demagogue. Besides Williams, intellectual Gore Vidal expressed admiration for Long, even naming him as his favorite contemporary U.S. politician. Long biographer Thomas O. Harris espoused a more nuanced view of Long: "neither saint nor devil, he was a complex and heterogenous mixture of good and bad, genius and craft, hypocrisy and candor, buffoonery and seriousness".
Media
In popular culture, Long has served as a template for multiple dictatorial politicians in novels. Notable works include Sinclair Lewis's novel It Can't Happen Here (1935), Robert Penn Warren's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel All the King's Men (1946), and Adria Locke Langley's 1945 novel A Lion Is in the Streets. The latter two were adapted into Academy Award-winning films. As well as two television docudramas, Long was the subject of a 1985 Ken Burns-directed documentary. In music, Randy Newman featured Long in two songs on the 1974 album Good Old Boys.
Long has been the subject of dozens of biographies and academic texts. In fact, more has been written about Long than any other Louisianan. Most notable is the 1969 biography Huey Long by Williams, which won both the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award. Alan Brinkley won the National Book Award in 1983 for Voices of Protest, a study of Long, Coughlin, and populist opposition to Roosevelt.
Works
Bibliography
Constitutions of the State of Louisiana, 1930
Every Man a King, 1933
My First Days in the White House, 1935
Discography
Long collaborated with composer Castro Carazo on the following songs:
"Darling of LSU", 1935
"Every Man a King", 1935
"The LSU Cadets March", 1935
"Touchdown for LSU", 1935
See also
List of United States Congress members killed or wounded in office
Charles Coughlin
Francis Townsend
Notes and references
Notes
References and citations
Works cited
1893 births
1935 deaths
20th-century American lawyers
20th-century American politicians
American political bosses from Louisiana
American social democrats
Anti-poverty advocates
Assassinated American politicians
Burials in Louisiana
Deaths by firearm in Louisiana
Democratic Party United States senators
Democratic Party state governors of the United States
Governors of Louisiana
History of United States isolationism
Impeached United States officials
Left-wing populism in the United States
Huey
Louisiana Democrats
Louisiana lawyers
Male murder victims
Members of the Louisiana Public Service Commission
Oklahoma Baptist University alumni
People from Winnfield, Louisiana
People murdered in Louisiana
Tulane University Law School alumni
Tulane University alumni
United States senators from Louisiana
University of Oklahoma alumni | 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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"Huey Long",
"Increased tensions in Louisiana",
"What lead up to the increase in tensions?",
"By 1935, Long's most recent consolidation of personal power led to talk of armed opposition from his enemies. Opponents increasingly invoked",
"Are there any other interesting aspects about this article?",
"The new laws further centralized Long's control over the state by creating several new Long-appointed state agencies:"
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| C_04be97353a2c41469cce24af4cbfcb97_0 | What laws were implemented? | 3 | What laws were implemented that further centralized Long's control over the state? | Huey Long | By 1935, Long's most recent consolidation of personal power led to talk of armed opposition from his enemies. Opponents increasingly invoked the memory of the Battle of Liberty Place of 1874, in which the White League staged an uprising against Louisiana's Reconstruction-era government. In January 1935, an anti-Long paramilitary organization called the Square Deal Association was formed. Its members included former governors John M. Parker and Ruffin G. Pleasant and New Orleans Mayor T. Semmes Walmsley. On January 25, 200 armed Square Dealers took over the courthouse of East Baton Rouge Parish. Long had Governor Allen call out the National Guard, declare martial law, ban public gatherings of two or more persons, and forbid the publication of criticism of state officials. The Square Dealers left the courthouse, but there was a brief armed skirmish at the Baton Rouge Airport. Tear gas and live ammunition were fired; one person was wounded but there were no fatalities. In the summer of 1935, Long called for two more special sessions of the legislature; bills were passed in rapid-fire succession without being read or discussed. The new laws further centralized Long's control over the state by creating several new Long-appointed state agencies: a state bond and tax board holding sole authority to approve all loans to parish and municipal governments, a new state printing board which could withhold "official printer" status from uncooperative newspapers, a new board of election supervisors which would appoint all poll watchers, and a State Board of Censors. They also stripped away the remaining lucrative powers of the mayor of New Orleans to cripple the entrenched opposition. Long boasted that he had "taken over every board and commission in New Orleans except the Community Chest and the Red Cross." Long quarreled with former State Senator Henry E. Hardtner of La Salle Parish. While proceeding to Baton Rouge in August 1935 to confront the state government over a tax matter relating to his Urania Lumber Company, based in Urania, Hardtner, known as "the father of forestry in the South," was killed in a car-train accident. CANNOTANSWER | a state bond and tax board holding sole authority to approve all loans to parish and municipal governments, a new state printing board which could withhold " | Huey Pierce Long Jr. (August 30, 1893September 10, 1935), nicknamed "the Kingfish", was an American politician who served as the 40th governor of Louisiana from 1928 to 1932 and as a United States Senator from 1932 until his assassination in 1935. He was a populist member of the Democratic Party and rose to national prominence during the Great Depression for his vocal criticism of President Franklin D. Roosevelt and his New Deal, which Long deemed insufficiently radical. As the political leader of Louisiana, he commanded wide networks of supporters and often took forceful action. A controversial figure, Long is celebrated as a populist champion of the poor or, conversely, denounced as a demagogue.
Long was born in the impoverished north of Louisiana in 1893. After working as a traveling salesman and briefly attending three colleges, he entered the bar in Louisiana. Following a short private legal career in which he represented poor plaintiffs, Long was elected to the Louisiana Public Service Commission. As Commissioner, he prosecuted large corporations such as Standard Oil, a lifelong target of his rhetorical attacks. After Long successfully argued before the U.S. Supreme Court, Chief Justice and former president William Howard Taft praised him as "the most brilliant lawyer who ever practiced before the United States Supreme Court".
After a failed 1924 campaign, Long used the sharp economic and class divisions in Louisiana to win the 1928 gubernatorial election. Once in office, he expanded social programs, organized massive public works projects, such as a modern highway system and the tallest capitol building in the nation, and proposed a cotton holiday. Through political maneuvering, Long became the political boss of Louisiana. He was impeached in 1929 for abuses of power, but the proceedings collapsed in the State Senate. His opponents argued his policies and methods were unconstitutional and dictatorial. At its climax, political opposition organized a minor insurrection.
Long was elected to the U.S. Senate in 1930 but did not assume his seat until 1932. He established himself as an isolationist, arguing that Standard Oil and Wall Street orchestrated American foreign policy. He was instrumental in securing Roosevelt's 1932 nomination but split with him in 1933, becoming a prominent critic of his New Deal. As an alternative, he proposed the Share Our Wealth program in 1934. To stimulate the economy, he advocated massive federal spending, a wealth tax, and wealth redistribution. These proposals drew wide support with millions joining local Share Our Wealth clubs. Poised for a 1936 presidential bid, Long was mortally wounded by a lone assassin in 1935. Although Long's movement faded, Roosevelt adopted many of his proposals in the Second New Deal, and Louisiana elections would be organized along anti- or pro-Long factions until the 1960s. He left behind a political dynasty that included his wife Senator Rose McConnell Long, his son Senator Russell B. Long, and his brother Governor Earl Long, among others.
Early life (1893–1915)
Childhood
Long was born on August 30, 1893, near Winnfield, a small town in north-central Louisiana, the seat of Winn Parish. Although Long often told followers he was born in a log cabin to an impoverished family, they lived in a "comfortable" farmhouse and were well-off compared to others in Winnfield. Winn Parish was impoverished, and its residents, mostly Southern Baptists, were often outsiders in Louisiana's political system. During the Civil War, Winn Parish had been a stronghold of Unionism in an otherwise Confederate state. At Louisiana's 1861 convention on secession, the delegate from Winn voted to remain in the Union saying: "Who wants to fight to keep the Negroes for the wealthy planters?" In the 1890s, the parish was a bastion of the Populist Party, and in the 1912 election, a plurality (35%) voted for the Socialist presidential candidate, Eugene V. Debs. Long embraced these populist sentiments.
One of nine children, Long was home schooled until age eleven. In the public system, he earned a reputation as an excellent student with a remarkable memory and convinced his teachers to let him skip seventh grade. At Winnfield High School, he and his friends formed a secret society, advertising their exclusivity by wearing a red ribbon. According to Long, his club's mission was "to run things, laying down certain rules the students would have to follow". The faculty learned of Long's antics and warned him to obey the school's rules. Long continued to rebel, writing and distributing a flyer that criticized his teachers and the necessity of a recently state-mandated fourth year of secondary education, for which he was expelled in 1910. Although Long successfully petitioned to fire the principal, he never returned to high school. As a student, Long proved a capable debater. At a state debate competition in Baton Rouge, he won a full-tuition scholarship to Louisiana State University (LSU). Because the scholarship did not cover textbooks or living expenses, his family could not afford for him to attend. Long was also unable to attend because he did not graduate from high school. Instead, he entered the workforce as a traveling salesman in the rural South.
Education and marriage
In September 1911, Long started attending seminary classes at Oklahoma Baptist University at the urging of his mother, a devout Baptist. Living with his brother George, Long attended for only one semester, rarely appearing at lectures. After deciding he was unsuited to preaching, Long focused on law. Borrowing one hundred dollars from his brother (which he later lost playing roulette in Oklahoma City), he attended the University of Oklahoma College of Law for a semester in 1912. To earn money while studying law part-time, he continued to work as a salesman. Of the four classes Long took, he received one incomplete and three C's. He later confessed he learned little because there was "too much excitement, all those gambling houses and everything".
Long met Rose McConnell at a baking contest he had promoted to sell Cottolene shortening. The two began a two-and-a-half-year courtship and married in April 1913 at the Gayoso Hotel in Memphis, Tennessee. On their wedding day, Long had no cash with him and had to borrow $10 from his fiancée to pay the officiant. Shortly after their marriage, Long revealed to his wife his aspirations to run for a statewide office, the governorship, the Senate, and ultimately the presidency. The Longs had a daughter named Rose (1917–2006) and two sons: Russell B. Long (1918–2003), who became a U.S. senator, and Palmer Reid Long (1921–2010), who became an oilman in Shreveport, Louisiana.
Long enrolled at Tulane University Law School in New Orleans in the fall of 1914. After a year of study that concentrated on the courses necessary for the bar exam, he successfully petitioned the Louisiana Supreme Court for permission to take the test before its scheduled June 1915 date. He was examined in May, passed, and received his license to practice. According to Long: "I came out of that courtroom running for office."
Legal career (1915–1923)
In 1915, Long established a private practice in Winnfield. He represented poor plaintiffs, usually in workers' compensation cases. Long avoided fighting in World War I by obtaining a draft deferment on the grounds that he was married and had a dependent child. He successfully defended from prosecution under the Espionage Act of 1917 the state senator who had loaned him the money to complete his legal studies, and later claimed he did not serve because, "I was not mad at anybody over there." In 1918, Long invested $1,050 () in a well that struck oil. The Standard Oil Company refused to accept any of the oil in its pipelines, costing Long his investment. This episode served as the catalyst for Long's lifelong hatred of Standard Oil.
That same year, Long entered the race to serve on the three-seat Louisiana Railroad Commission. According to historian William Ivy Hair, Long's political message:
... would be repeated until the end of his days: he was a young warrior of and for the plain people, battling the evil giants of Wall Street and their corporations; too much of America's wealth was concentrated in too few hands, and this unfairness was perpetuated by an educational system so stacked against the poor that (according to his statistics) only fourteen out of every thousand children obtained a college education. The way to begin rectifying these wrongs was to turn out of office the corrupt local flunkies of big business ... and elect instead true men of the people, such as [himself].
In the Democratic primary, Long polled second behind incumbent Burk Bridges. Since no candidate garnered a majority of the votes, a run-off election was held, for which Long campaigned tirelessly across northern Louisiana. The race was close: Long defeated Burk by just 636 votes. Although the returns revealed wide support for Long in rural areas, he performed poorly in urban areas. On the Commission, Long forced utilities to lower rates, ordered railroads to extend service to small towns, and demanded that Standard Oil cease the importation of Mexican crude oil and use more oil from Louisiana wells.
In the gubernatorial election of 1920, Long campaigned heavily for John M. Parker; today, he is often credited with helping Parker win northern parishes. After Parker was elected, the two became bitter rivals. Their break was largely caused by Long's demand and Parker's refusal to declare the state's oil pipelines public utilities. Long was infuriated when Parker allowed oil companies, led by Standard Oil's legal team, to assist in writing severance tax laws. Long denounced Parker as corporate "chattel". The feud climaxed in 1921, when Parker tried unsuccessfully to have Long ousted from the commission.
By 1922, Long had become chairman of the commission, now called the "Public Service Commission". That year, Long prosecuted the Cumberland Telephone & Telegraph Company for unfair rate increases; he successfully argued the case on appeal before the United States Supreme Court, which resulted in cash refunds to thousands of overcharged customers. After the decision, Chief Justice and former President William Howard Taft praised Long as "the most brilliant lawyer who ever practiced" before the court.
Gubernatorial campaigns (1924–1928)
1924 election
On August 30, 1923, Long announced his candidacy for the governorship of Louisiana. Long stumped throughout the state, personally distributing circulars and posters. He denounced Governor Parker as a corporate stooge, vilified Standard Oil, and assailed local political bosses.
He campaigned in rural areas disenfranchised by the state's political establishment, the "Old Regulars". Since the 1877 end of Republican-controlled Reconstruction government, they had controlled most of the state through alliances with local officials. With negligible support for Republicans, Louisiana was essentially a one party state under the Democratic Old Regulars. Holding mock elections in which they invoked the Lost Cause of the Confederacy, the Old Regulars presided over a corrupt government that largely benefited the planter class. Consequently, Louisiana was one of the least developed states: It had just 300 miles of paved roads and the lowest literacy rate.
Despite an enthusiastic campaign, Long came third in the primary and was eliminated. Although polls projected only a few thousand votes, he attracted almost 72,000, around 31% of the electorate, and carried 28 parishes—more than either opponent. Limited to sectional appeal, he performed best in the poor rural north.
The Ku Klux Klan's prominence in Louisiana was the campaign's primary issue. While the two other candidates either strongly opposed or supported the Klan, Long remained neutral, alienating both sides. He also failed to attract Roman Catholic voters, which limited his chances in the south of the state. In majority Catholic New Orleans, he polled just 12,000 votes (17%). Long blamed heavy rain on election day for suppressing voter turnout among his base in the north, where voters could not reach the polls over dirt roads that had turned to mud. It was the only election Long ever lost.
1928 election
Long spent the intervening four years building his reputation and political organization, particularly in the heavily Catholic urban south. Despite disagreeing with their politics, Long campaigned for Catholic U.S. Senators in 1924 and 1926. Government mismanagement during the Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 gained Long the support of Cajuns, whose land had been affected. He formally launched his second campaign for governor in 1927, using the slogan, "Every man a king, but no one wears a crown", a phrase adopted from Democratic presidential candidate William Jennings Bryan.
Long developed novel campaign techniques, including the use of sound trucks and radio commercials. His stance on race was unorthodox. According to T. Harry Williams, Long was "the first Southern mass leader to leave aside race baiting and appeals to the Southern tradition and the Southern past and address himself to the social and economic problems of the present". The campaign sometimes descended into brutality. When the 60-year-old incumbent governor called Long a liar during a chance encounter in the lobby of the Roosevelt Hotel, Long punched him in the face.
In the Democratic primary election, Long polled 126,842 votes: a plurality of 43.9 percent. His margin was the largest in state history, and no opponent chose to face him in a runoff. After earning the Democratic nomination, he easily defeated the Republican nominee in the general election with 96.1 percent of the vote. At age 35, Long was the youngest person ever elected governor of Louisiana.
Some fifteen thousand Louisianians traveled to Baton Rouge for Long's inauguration. He set up large tents, free drinks, and jazz bands on the capitol grounds, evoking Andrew Jackson's 1829 inaugural festivities. His victory was seen as a public backlash against the urban establishment; journalist Hodding Carter described it as a "fantastic vengeance upon the Sodom and Gomorrah that was called New Orleans". While previous elections were normally divided culturally and religiously, Long highlighted the sharp economic divide in the state and built a new coalition based on class. Long's strength, said the contemporary novelist Sherwood Anderson, relied on "the terrible South ... the beaten, ignorant, Bible-ridden, white South. Faulkner occasionally really touches it. It has yet to be paid for."
Louisiana Governorship (1928–1932)
First year
Once in office on May 21, 1928, Long moved quickly to consolidate power, firing hundreds of opponents in the state bureaucracy at all ranks from cabinet-level heads of departments to state road workers. Like previous governors, he filled the vacancies with patronage appointments from his network of political supporters. Every state employee who depended on Long for a job was expected to pay a portion of their salary at election time directly into his campaign fund.
Once his control over the state's political apparatus was strengthened, Long pushed several bills through the 1929 session of the Louisiana State Legislature to fulfill campaign promises. His bills met opposition from legislators, wealthy citizens, and the media, but Long used aggressive tactics to ensure passage. He would appear unannounced on the floor of both the House and Senate or in House committees, corralling reluctant representatives and state senators and bullying opponents. When an opposing legislator once suggested Long was unfamiliar with the Louisiana Constitution, he declared, "I'm the Constitution around here now."
One program Long approved was a free textbook program for schoolchildren. Long's free school books angered Catholics, who usually sent their children to private schools. Long assured them that the books would be granted directly to all children, regardless of whether they attended public school. Yet this assurance was criticized by conservative constitutionalists, who claimed it violated the separation of church and state and sued Long. The case went to the U.S. Supreme Court, which ruled in Long's favor.
Irritated by "immoral" gambling dens and brothels in New Orleans, Long sent the National Guard to raid these establishments with orders to "shoot without hesitation". Gambling equipment was burned, prostitutes were arrested, and over $25,000 () was confiscated for government funds. Local newspapers ran photos of National Guardsmen forcibly searching nude women. City authorities had not requested military force, and martial law had not been declared. The Louisiana attorney general denounced Long's actions as illegal but Long rebuked him saying: "Nobody asked him for his opinion."
Despite wide disapproval, Long had the Governor's Mansion, built in 1887, razed by convicts from the State Penitentiary under his personal supervision. In its place, Long had a much larger Georgian mansion built. It bore a strong resemblance to the White House; he reportedly wanted to be familiar with the residence when he became president.
Impeachment
In 1929, Long called a special legislative session to enact a five-cent per barrel tax on refined oil production to fund his social programs. The state's oil interests opposed the bill. Long declared in a radio address that any legislator who refused to support the tax had been "bought" by oil companies. Instead of persuading the legislature, the accusation infuriated many of its members. The "dynamite squad", a caucus of opponents led by freshman lawmakers Cecil Morgan and Ralph Norman Bauer, introduced an impeachment resolution against Long. Nineteen charges were listed, ranging from blasphemy to subornation of murder. Even Long's lieutenant governor, Paul Cyr, supported impeachment; he accused Long of nepotism and alleged he had made corrupt deals with a Texan oil company.
Concerned, Long tried to close the session. Pro-Long Speaker John B. Fournet called for a vote to adjourn. Despite most representatives opposing adjournment, the electronic voting board tallied 68 ayes and 13 nays. This sparked confusion; anti-Long representatives began chanting that the voting machine had been rigged. Some ran for the speaker's chair to call for a new vote but met resistance from their pro-Long colleagues, sparking a brawl later known as "Bloody Monday". In the scuffle, legislators threw inkwells, allegedly attacked others with brass knuckles, and Long's brother Earl bit a legislator's neck. Following the fight, the legislature voted to remain in session and proceed with impeachment. A trial in the house took place with dozens of witnesses, including a hula dancer who claimed that Long had been "frisky" with her. Impeached on eight of the 19 charges, Long was the first Louisiana governor charged in the state's history.
Long was frightened by the prospect of conviction, for it would force him from the governorship and permanently disqualify him from holding public office in Louisiana. He took his case to the people with a mass meeting in Baton Rouge, where he alleged that impeachment was a ploy by Standard Oil to thwart his programs. The House referred the charges to the Louisiana Senate, in which conviction required a two-thirds majority. Long produced a round robin statement signed by fifteen senators pledging to vote "not guilty" regardless of the evidence. The impeachment process, now futile, was suspended. It has been alleged that both sides used bribes to buy votes and that Long later rewarded the round robin signers with positions or other favors.
Following the failed trial, Long treated his opponents ruthlessly. He fired their relatives from state jobs and supported their challengers in elections. Long concluded that extra-legal means would be needed to accomplish his goals: "I used to try to get things done by saying 'please.' Now... I dynamite 'em out of my path." Receiving death threats, he surrounded himself with bodyguards. Now a resolute critic of the "lying" press, Long established his own newspaper in March 1930: the Louisiana Progress. The paper was extremely popular, widely distributed by policemen, highway workers, and government truckers.
Senate campaign
Shortly after the impeachment, Long—now nicknamed "The Kingfish" after an Amos 'n' Andy character—announced his candidacy for the U.S. Senate in the 1930 Democratic primary. He framed his campaign as a referendum. If he won, he presumed the public supported his programs over the opposition of the legislature. If he lost, he promised to resign.
His opponent was incumbent Joseph E. Ransdell, the Catholic senator whom Long endorsed in 1924. At 72 years old, Ransdell had been in the Senate since Long was age four. Aligned with the establishment, Ransdell had the support of all 18 of the state's daily newspapers. To combat this, Long purchased two new $30,000 sound trucks and distributed over two million circulars. Although promising not to make personal attacks, Long seized on Ransdell's age, calling him "Old Feather Duster". The campaign became increasingly vicious, The New York Times calling it "as amusing as it was depressing". Long critic Sam Irby, set to testify on Long's corruption to state authorities, was abducted by Long's bodyguards shortly before the election. Irby emerged after the election; he had been missing for four days. Surrounded by Long's guards, he gave a radio address in which he "confessed" that he had actually asked Long for protection. The New Orleans mayor labelled it "the most heinous public crime in Louisiana history".
Ultimately, on September 9, 1930, Long defeated Ransdell by 149,640 (57.3 percent) to 111,451 (42.7 percent). There were accusations of voter fraud against Long; voting records showed people voting in alphabetical order, among them celebrities like Charlie Chaplin, Jack Dempsey and Babe Ruth.
Although his Senate term began on March 4, 1931, Long completed most of his four-year term as governor, which did not end until May 1932. He declared that leaving the seat vacant would not hurt Louisiana: "[W]ith Ransdell as Senator, the seat was vacant anyway." By occupying the governorship until January 25, 1932, Long prevented Lieutenant Governor Cyr, who threatened to undo Long's reforms, from succeeding to the office. In October 1931, Cyr learned Long was in Mississippi and declared himself the state's legitimate governor. In response, Long ordered National Guard troops to surround the Capitol to block Cyr's "coup d'état" and petitioned the Louisiana Supreme Court. Long successfully argued that Cyr had vacated the office of lieutenant-governor when trying to assume the governorship and had the court eject Cyr.
Senator-elect
Now governor and senator-elect, Long returned to completing his legislative agenda with renewed strength. He continued his intimidating practice of presiding over the legislature, shouting "Shut up!" or "Sit down!" when legislators voiced their concerns. In a single night, Long passed 44 bills in just two hours: one every three minutes. He later explained his tactics: "The end justifies the means." Long endorsed pro-Long candidates and wooed others with favors; he often joked his legislature was the "finest collection of lawmakers money can buy". He organized and concentrated his power into a political machine: "a one-man" operation, according to Williams. He placed his brother Earl in charge of allotting patronage appointments to local politicians and signing state contracts with businessmen in exchange for loyalty. Long appointed allies to key government positions, such as giving Robert Maestri the office of Conservation Commissioner and making Oscar K. Allen head of the Louisiana Highway Commission. Maestri would deliberately neglect the regulation of energy companies in exchange for industry donations to Long's campaign fund, while Allen took direction from Earl on which construction and supply companies to contract for road work. Concerned by these tactics, Long's opponents charged he had become the virtual dictator of the state.
To address record low cotton prices amid a Great Depression surplus, Long proposed the major cotton-producing states mandate a 1932 "cotton holiday", which would ban cotton production for the entire year. He further proposed that the holiday be imposed internationally, which some nations, such as Egypt, supported. In 1931, Long convened the New Orleans Cotton Conference, attended by delegates from every major cotton-producing state. The delegates agreed to codify Long's proposal into law on the caveat that it would not come into effect until states producing three-quarters of U.S. cotton passed such laws. As the proposer, Louisiana unanimously passed the legislation. When conservative politicians in Texas—the largest cotton producer in the U.S.—rejected the measure, the holiday movement collapsed. Although traditional politicians would have been ruined by such a defeat, Long became a national figure and cemented his image as a champion of the poor. Senator Carter Glass, although a fervid critic of Long, credited him with first suggesting artificial scarcity as a solution to the depression.
Accomplishments in Louisiana
Long was unusual among southern populists in that he achieved tangible progress. Williams concluded "the secret of Long's power, in the final analysis, was not in his machine or his political dealings but in his record—he delivered something". Referencing Long's contributions to Louisiana, Robert Penn Warren, a professor at LSU during Long's term as governor, stated: "Dictators, always give something for what they get."
Long created a public works program that was unprecedented in the South, constructing roads, bridges, hospitals, schools, and state buildings. During his four years as governor, Long increased paved highways in Louisiana from and constructed of gravel roads. By 1936, the infrastructure program begun by Long had completed some of new roads, doubling Louisiana's road system. He built 111 bridges and started construction on the first bridge over the Mississippi entirely in Louisiana, the Huey P. Long Bridge. These projects provided thousands of jobs during the depression: Louisiana employed more highway workers than any other state. Long built a State Capitol, which at tall remains the tallest capitol, state or federal, in the United States. Long's infrastructure spending increased the state government's debt from $11 million in 1928 to $150 million in 1935.
Long was an ardent supporter of the state's flagship public university, Louisiana State University (LSU). Having been unable to attend, Long now regarded it as "his" university. He increased LSU's funding and intervened in the university's affairs, expelling seven students who criticized him in the school newspaper. He constructed new buildings, including a fieldhouse that reportedly contained the longest pool in the United States. Long founded an LSU Medical School in New Orleans. To raise the stature of the football program, he converted the school's military marching band into the flashy "Show Band of the South" and hired Costa Rican composer Castro Carazo as the band director. As well as nearly doubling the size of the stadium, he arranged for lowered train fares, so students could travel to away games. Long's contributions resulted in LSU gaining a class A accreditation from the Association of American Universities.
Long's night schools taught 100,000 adults to read. His provision of free textbooks contributed to a 20 percent increase in school enrollment. He modernized public health facilities and ensured adequate conditions for the mentally ill. He established Louisiana's first rehabilitation program for penitentiary inmates. Through tax reform, Long made the first $2,000 in property assessment free, waiving property taxes for half the state's homeowners. Historians have criticized other policies, like high consumer taxes on gasoline and cigarettes, a reduced mother's pension, and low teacher salaries.
U.S. Senate (1932–1935)
Senator
When Long arrived in the Senate, America was in the throes of the Great Depression. With this backdrop, Long made characteristically fiery speeches that denounced wealth inequality. He criticized the leaders of both parties for failing to address the crisis adequately, notably attacking conservative Senate Democratic Leader Joseph Robinson of Arkansas for his apparent closeness with President Herbert Hoover and big business.
In the 1932 presidential election, Long was a vocal supporter of New York Governor Franklin D. Roosevelt. At that year's Democratic National Convention, Long kept the delegations of several wavering Southern states in the Roosevelt camp. Due to this, Long expected to be featured prominently in Roosevelt's campaign but was disappointed with a peripheral speaking tour limited to four Midwestern states.
Not discouraged after being snubbed, Long found other venues for his populist message. He endorsed Senator Hattie Caraway of Arkansas, a widow and the underdog candidate in a crowded field and conducted a whirlwind, seven-day tour of that state. During the campaign, Long gave 39 speeches, traveled , and spoke to over 200,000 people. In an upset win, Caraway became the first woman elected to a full term in the Senate.
Returning to Washington, Long gave theatrical speeches which drew wide attention. Public viewing areas were crowded with onlookers, among them a young Lyndon B. Johnson, who later said he was "simply entranced" by Long. Long obstructed bills for weeks, launching hour-long filibusters and having the clerk read superfluous documents. Long's antics, one editorial claimed, had made the Senate "impotent". In May 1932, The Washington Post called for his resignation. Long's behavior and radical rhetoric did little to endear him to his fellow senators. None of his proposed bills, resolutions, or motions were passed during his three years in the Senate.
Roosevelt and the New Deal
During the first 100 days of Roosevelt's presidency in spring 1933, Long's attitude towards Roosevelt and the New Deal was tepid. Aware that Roosevelt had no intention of radically redistributing the country's wealth, Long became one of the few national politicians to oppose Roosevelt's New Deal policies from the left. He considered them inadequate in the face of the escalating economic crisis but still supported some of Roosevelt's programs in the Senate, explaining: "Whenever this administration has gone to the left I have voted with it, and whenever it has gone to the right I have voted against it."
Long opposed the National Recovery Act, claiming it favored industrialists. In an attempt to prevent its passage, Long held a lone filibuster, speaking for 15 hours and 30 minutes, the second longest filibuster at the time. He also criticized Social Security, calling it inadequate and expressing his concerns that states would administer it in a way discriminatory to blacks. In 1933, he was a leader of a three-week Senate filibuster against the Glass banking bill, which he later supported as the Glass–Steagall Act after provisions extended government deposit insurance to state banks as well as national banks.
Roosevelt considered Long a radical demagogue and stated that Long, along with General Douglas MacArthur, "was one of the two most dangerous men in America". In June 1933, in an effort to undermine Long's political dominance, Roosevelt cut him out of consultations on the distribution of federal funds and patronage in Louisiana and placed Long's opponents in charge of federal programs in the state. Roosevelt supported a Senate inquiry into the election of Long ally John H. Overton to the Senate in 1932. The Long machine was accused of election fraud and voter intimidation, but the inquiry came up empty, and Overton was seated. To discredit Long and damage his support base, Roosevelt had Long's finances investigated by the Internal Revenue Service in 1934. Although they failed to link Long to any illegality, some of his lieutenants were charged with income tax evasion. Roosevelt's son, Elliott, would later note that in this instance, his father "may have been the originator of the concept of employing the IRS as a weapon of political retribution".
Chaco War and foreign policy
On May 30, 1934, Long took to the Senate floor to debate the abrogation of the Platt amendment. But instead of debating the amendment, Long declared his support for Paraguay against Bolivia in the Chaco War. He maintained that U.S. President Rutherford B. Hayes had awarded the oil-rich Chaco region to Paraguay in 1878. He attested Standard Oil had corrupted the Bolivian government and organized the war and that Wall Street orchestrated American foreign policy in Latin America. For his speech, Long received praise in Paraguay: after capturing a Bolivian fort in July 1934, they renamed it Fort Long. Long's allegations were widely publicized in Latin American newspapers. This drew the concern of the State Department, who believed that Long was damaging the reputation of the United States. Throughout the summer of 1934, they waged a sustained public relations campaign against Long throughout Latin America. This speech and others established Long as one of the most ardent isolationists in the Senate. He further argued that American involvement in the Spanish–American War and the First World War had been deadly mistakes conducted on behalf of Wall Street. Consequently, Long demanded the immediate independence of the Philippines, which the United States had occupied since 1898. He also opposed American entry into the World Court.
Share Our Wealth
In March 1933, Long revealed a series of bills collectively known as "the Long plan" to redistribute wealth. Together, they would cap fortunes at $100 million, limit annual income to $1 million, and cap individual inheritances at $5 million.
In a nationwide February 1934 radio broadcast, Long introduced his Share Our Wealth plan. The legislation would use the wealth from the Long plan to guarantee every family a basic household grant of $5,000 and a minimum annual income of one-third of the average family homestead value and income. Long supplemented his plan with proposals for free college and vocational training, veterans' benefits, federal assistance to farmers, public works projects, greater federal economic regulation, a $30 monthly elderly pension, a month's vacation for every worker, a thirty-hour workweek, a $10 billion land reclamation project to end the Dust Bowl, and free medical service and a "war on disease" led by the Mayo brothers. These reforms, Long claimed, would end the Great Depression. The plans were widely criticized and labeled impossible by economists.
With the Senate unwilling to support his proposals, in February 1934 Long formed the Share Our Wealth Society, a national network of local clubs that operated in opposition to the Democratic Party and Roosevelt. By 1935, the society had over 7.5 million members in 27,000 clubs. Long's Senate office received an average of 60,000 letters a week, resulting in Long hiring 48 stenographers to type responses. Of the two trucks that delivered mail to the Senate, one was devoted solely to mail for Long. Long's newspaper, now renamed American Progress, averaged a circulation of 300,000, some issues reaching over 1.5 million. Long drew international attention: English writer H. G. Wells interviewed Long, noting he was "like a Winston Churchill who has never been at Harrow. He abounds in promises."
Some historians believe that pressure from Share Our Wealth contributed to Roosevelt's "turn to the left" in the Second New Deal (1935), which consisted of the Social Security Act, the Works Progress Administration, the National Labor Relations Board, Aid to Dependent Children, and the Wealth Tax Act of 1935. Roosevelt reportedly admitted in private to trying to "steal Long's thunder".
Continued control over Louisiana
Long continued to maintain effective control of Louisiana while he was a senator, blurring the boundary between federal and state politics. Long chose his childhood friend, Oscar K. Allen, to succeed King in the January 1932 election. With the support of Long's voter base, Allen won easily, permitting Long to resign as governor and take his seat in the U.S. Senate in January 1932. Allen, widely viewed as a puppet, dutifully enacted Long's policies. When Long visited Louisiana, Allen would relinquish his office for the Senator, working instead at his receptionist's desk. Though he had no constitutional authority, Long continued to draft and press bills through the Louisiana State Legislature. One of the laws passed was what Long called "a tax on lying"—a 2 percent tax on newspaper advertising revenue.
In 1934, Long and James A. Noe, an independent oilman and member of the Louisiana State Senate from Ouachita Parish, formed the controversial Win or Lose Oil Company. The firm was established to obtain leases on state-owned lands so that its directors might collect bonuses and sublease the mineral rights to the major oil companies. Although ruled legal, these activities were done in secret, and the stockholders were unknown to the public. Long made a profit on the bonuses and the resale of those state leases and used the funds primarily for political purposes.
1935: Final year
Presidential ambitions
Popular support for Long's Share Our Wealth program raised the possibility of a 1936 presidential bid against incumbent Franklin D. Roosevelt. When questioned by the press, Long gave conflicting answers on his plans for 1936. Long's son Russell believed his father would have run on a third-party ticket. This is evidenced by Long's writing of a speculative book, My First Days in the White House, which laid out his plans for the presidency after the 1936 election.
In spring 1935, Long undertook a national speaking tour and regular radio appearances, attracting large crowds and increasing his stature. At a well-attended Long rally in Philadelphia, a former mayor told the press, "There are 250,000 Long votes" in this city. Regarding Roosevelt, Long boasted to the New York Times Arthur Krock: "He's scared of me. I can out-promise him, and he knows it."
As the 1936 election approached, the Roosevelt Administration grew increasingly concerned by Long's popularity. Democratic National Committee chairman James Farley commissioned a secret poll in early 1935. Farley's poll revealed that if Long ran on a third-party ticket, he would win about four million votes, 10% of the electorate. In a memo to Roosevelt, Farley expressed his concern that Long could split the vote, allowing the Republican nominee to win. Diplomat Edward M. House warned Roosevelt, "many people believe that he can do to your administration what Theodore Roosevelt did to the Taft Administration in '12". Many, including Hair, Williams, and Roosevelt, speculated that Long expected to lose in 1936, allowing the Republicans to take the White House. They believed the Republicans would worsen the Great Depression, deepening Long's appeal. According to Roosevelt, "That would bring the country to such a state by 1940 that Long thinks he would be made dictator."
Increased tensions in Louisiana
By 1935, Long's consolidation of power led to talk of armed opposition from his enemies in Louisiana. Opponents increasingly invoked the memory of the Battle of Liberty Place (1874), in which the White League staged an uprising against Louisiana's Reconstruction-era government. In January 1935, an anti-Long paramilitary organization called the Square Deal Association was formed. Its members included former governors John M. Parker and Ruffin Pleasant and New Orleans Mayor T. Semmes Walmsley. Standard Oil threatened to leave the state when Long finally passed the five-cent per barrel oil tax for which he had been impeached in 1929. Concerned Standard Oil employees formed a Square Deal association in Baton Rouge, organizing themselves in militia companies and demanding "direct action".
On January 25, 1935, these Square Dealers, now armed, seized the East Baton Rouge Parish courthouse. Long had Governor Allen execute emergency measures in Baton Rouge: he called in the National Guard, declared martial law, banned public gatherings of two or more persons, and forbade the publication of criticism of state officials. The Square Dealers left the courthouse, but there was a brief armed skirmish at the Baton Rouge Airport. Tear gas and live ammunition were fired; one person was wounded, but there were no fatalities. At a legal hearing, an alleged spy within the Square Dealers testified they were conspiring to assassinate Long.
In summer 1935, Long called two special legislative sessions in Louisiana; bills were passed in rapid-fire succession without being read or discussed. The new laws further centralized Long's control over the state by creating new Long-appointed state agencies: a state bond and tax board holding sole authority to approve loans to local governments, a new state printing board which could withhold "official printer" status from uncooperative newspapers, a new board of election supervisors which would appoint all poll watchers, and a State Board of Censors. They stripped away the remaining powers of the Mayor of New Orleans. Long boasted he had "taken over every board and commission in New Orleans except the Community Chest and the Red Cross". A September 7 special session passed 42 bills. The most extreme, likely aimed at Roosevelt and his federal agents, authorized Louisiana to fine and imprison anyone who infringed on the powers reserved to the state in the Tenth Amendment to the United States Constitution.
Assassination
On September 8, 1935, Long traveled to the State Capitol to pass a bill that would gerrymander the district of an opponent, Judge Benjamin Pavy, who had held his position for 28 years. At 9:20 p.m., just after passage of the bill effectively removing Pavy, Pavy's son-in-law, Carl Weiss, approached Long, and, according to the generally accepted version of events, fired a single shot with a handgun from four feet (1.2 m) away, striking Long in the torso. Long's bodyguards, nicknamed the "Cossacks" or "skullcrushers", then fired at Weiss with their pistols, killing him. An autopsy found Weiss had been shot at least 60 times. Long ran down a flight of stairs and across the capitol grounds, hailing a car to take him to Our Lady of the Lake Hospital. He was rushed to the operating room where surgery closed perforations in his intestines but failed to stop internal bleeding. Long died at 4:10 a.m. on September 10, 31 hours after being shot. According to different sources, his last words were either, "I wonder what will happen to my poor university boys", or "God, don't let me die. I have so much to do."
Over 200,000 people traveled to Baton Rouge to attend Long's September 12 funeral. His remains were buried on the grounds of the Capitol; a statue depicting Long was constructed on his grave. Although Long's allies alleged he was assassinated by political opponents, a federal probe found no evidence of conspiracy. Long's death brought relief to the Roosevelt Administration, which would win in a landslide in the 1936 election. Farley publicly admitted his apprehension of campaigning against Long: "I always laughed Huey off, but I did not feel that way about him." Roosevelt's close economic advisor Rexford Tugwell wrote that, "When he was gone it seemed that a beneficent peace had fallen on the land. Father Coughlin, Reno, Townsend, et al., were after all pygmies compared with Huey. He had been a major phenomenon." Tugwell also said that Roosevelt regarded Long's assassination as a "providential occurrence".
Evidence later surfaced that suggests Long was accidentally shot by his bodyguards. Proponents of this theory assert Long was caught in the crossfire as his bodyguards shot Weiss, and a bullet that ricocheted off the marble walls hit him.
Legacy
Politics
Long's assassination turned him into a legendary figure in parts of Louisiana. In 1938, Swedish sociologist Gunnar Myrdal encountered rural children who not only insisted Long was alive, but that he was president. Although no longer governing, Long's policies continued to be enacted in Louisiana by his political machine, which supported Roosevelt's re-election to prevent further investigation into their finances. The machine remained a powerful force in state politics until the 1960 elections. Within the Louisiana Democratic Party, Long set in motion two durable factions—"pro-Long" and "anti-Long"—which diverged meaningfully in terms of policies and voter support. For decades after his death, Long's political style inspired imitation among Louisiana politicians who borrowed his rhetoric and promises of social programs.
After Long's death, a family dynasty emerged: his brother Earl was elected lieutenant-governor in 1936 and governor in 1948 and 1956. Long's widow, Rose Long, replaced him in the Senate, and his son, Russell, was a U.S. senator from 1948 to 1987. As chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, Russell shaped the nation's tax laws, advocating low business taxes and passing legislation beneficial to the poor like the Earned Income Credit. Other relatives, including George, Gillis, and Speedy, have represented Louisiana in Congress.
Huey P. Newton, co-founder of the Black Panther Party, was named after Long.
Historical reputation
Academics and historians have found difficulty categorizing Long and his ideology. His platform has been compared to ideologies ranging from McCarthyism to European Fascism and Stalinism. When asked about his own philosophy, Long simply replied: "Oh, hell, say that I'm sui generis and let it go at that." Robert Penn Warren described him as a "remarkable set of contradictions".
A majority of academics, biographers, and writers who have examined Long view him negatively, typically as a demagogue or dictator. Reinhard H. Luthin said that he was the epitome of an American demagogue. David Kennedy wrote that Long's regime in Louisiana was "the closest thing to a dictatorship that America has ever known". Journalist Hodding Carter described him as "the first true dictator out of the soil of America" and his movement the "success of fascism in one American state". Peter Viereck categorized Long's movement as "chauvinist thought control"; Victor Ferkiss called it "incipient fascism".
One of the few biographers to praise Long was T. Harry Williams, who classified Long's ideas as neo-populist. He labeled Long a democratic "mass leader", rather than a demagogue. Besides Williams, intellectual Gore Vidal expressed admiration for Long, even naming him as his favorite contemporary U.S. politician. Long biographer Thomas O. Harris espoused a more nuanced view of Long: "neither saint nor devil, he was a complex and heterogenous mixture of good and bad, genius and craft, hypocrisy and candor, buffoonery and seriousness".
Media
In popular culture, Long has served as a template for multiple dictatorial politicians in novels. Notable works include Sinclair Lewis's novel It Can't Happen Here (1935), Robert Penn Warren's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel All the King's Men (1946), and Adria Locke Langley's 1945 novel A Lion Is in the Streets. The latter two were adapted into Academy Award-winning films. As well as two television docudramas, Long was the subject of a 1985 Ken Burns-directed documentary. In music, Randy Newman featured Long in two songs on the 1974 album Good Old Boys.
Long has been the subject of dozens of biographies and academic texts. In fact, more has been written about Long than any other Louisianan. Most notable is the 1969 biography Huey Long by Williams, which won both the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award. Alan Brinkley won the National Book Award in 1983 for Voices of Protest, a study of Long, Coughlin, and populist opposition to Roosevelt.
Works
Bibliography
Constitutions of the State of Louisiana, 1930
Every Man a King, 1933
My First Days in the White House, 1935
Discography
Long collaborated with composer Castro Carazo on the following songs:
"Darling of LSU", 1935
"Every Man a King", 1935
"The LSU Cadets March", 1935
"Touchdown for LSU", 1935
See also
List of United States Congress members killed or wounded in office
Charles Coughlin
Francis Townsend
Notes and references
Notes
References and citations
Works cited
1893 births
1935 deaths
20th-century American lawyers
20th-century American politicians
American political bosses from Louisiana
American social democrats
Anti-poverty advocates
Assassinated American politicians
Burials in Louisiana
Deaths by firearm in Louisiana
Democratic Party United States senators
Democratic Party state governors of the United States
Governors of Louisiana
History of United States isolationism
Impeached United States officials
Left-wing populism in the United States
Huey
Louisiana Democrats
Louisiana lawyers
Male murder victims
Members of the Louisiana Public Service Commission
Oklahoma Baptist University alumni
People from Winnfield, Louisiana
People murdered in Louisiana
Tulane University Law School alumni
Tulane University alumni
United States senators from Louisiana
University of Oklahoma alumni | false | [
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"Documents on sustainable development in Azerbaijan Republic In Azerbaijan, juridical base of realization of the concept of sustainable development has begun to be formed since the second half of 90s. More than 20 national laws on different aspects of sustainable development were officially adopted, including Laws ‘On Protection Of Plants’ (03.12.1996), ‘On Keeping Human Health’ (25.07.1997), ‘On Fishing’ (27.03.1998), ‘On Protection Of Environment’ (08.06.1999), ‘On Protecting Animal World’ (08.06.1999), ‘On Environmental Security’ (08.06.1999), ‘On Protection Of Atmospheric Air’ (03.03.2001), ‘On Obligatory Ecological Insurance’ (12.03.2002), ‘On Ecological Education and Enlightenment’ (10.12.2002), ‘On Environmentally Safe Agriculture’ (16.06.2008), etc. ‘Plan Of Complex Arrangements on Improvement of Ecological Situation In Azerbaijan Within 2006-2010’ have been implemented.\n\nMeasurements related to National Programs on ‘Environmentally Sustainable Socioeconomic Development of Azerbaijan Republic’ and ‘Restoration and Enlargement of Forests in Azerbaijan Republic’ (18.02.2003) are implemented. Programs of ‘Rational Use of Summer and Winter Pastures and Hayfields, and Prevention of Desertification’ (22.05.2004), ‘Poverty Reduction and Sustainable Development of Azerbaijan Republic for 2008-2015’ (15.09.2008) ratified by the president of the country, are also being carried out.\n\nEnvironment of Azerbaijan"
]
|
[
"Huey Long",
"Increased tensions in Louisiana",
"What lead up to the increase in tensions?",
"By 1935, Long's most recent consolidation of personal power led to talk of armed opposition from his enemies. Opponents increasingly invoked",
"Are there any other interesting aspects about this article?",
"The new laws further centralized Long's control over the state by creating several new Long-appointed state agencies:",
"What laws were implemented?",
"a state bond and tax board holding sole authority to approve all loans to parish and municipal governments, a new state printing board which could withhold \""
]
| C_04be97353a2c41469cce24af4cbfcb97_0 | Were there any other policies? | 4 | Aside from a state bond and tax board holding sole authority to approve all loans to parish and municipal governments, were there any other policies? | Huey Long | By 1935, Long's most recent consolidation of personal power led to talk of armed opposition from his enemies. Opponents increasingly invoked the memory of the Battle of Liberty Place of 1874, in which the White League staged an uprising against Louisiana's Reconstruction-era government. In January 1935, an anti-Long paramilitary organization called the Square Deal Association was formed. Its members included former governors John M. Parker and Ruffin G. Pleasant and New Orleans Mayor T. Semmes Walmsley. On January 25, 200 armed Square Dealers took over the courthouse of East Baton Rouge Parish. Long had Governor Allen call out the National Guard, declare martial law, ban public gatherings of two or more persons, and forbid the publication of criticism of state officials. The Square Dealers left the courthouse, but there was a brief armed skirmish at the Baton Rouge Airport. Tear gas and live ammunition were fired; one person was wounded but there were no fatalities. In the summer of 1935, Long called for two more special sessions of the legislature; bills were passed in rapid-fire succession without being read or discussed. The new laws further centralized Long's control over the state by creating several new Long-appointed state agencies: a state bond and tax board holding sole authority to approve all loans to parish and municipal governments, a new state printing board which could withhold "official printer" status from uncooperative newspapers, a new board of election supervisors which would appoint all poll watchers, and a State Board of Censors. They also stripped away the remaining lucrative powers of the mayor of New Orleans to cripple the entrenched opposition. Long boasted that he had "taken over every board and commission in New Orleans except the Community Chest and the Red Cross." Long quarreled with former State Senator Henry E. Hardtner of La Salle Parish. While proceeding to Baton Rouge in August 1935 to confront the state government over a tax matter relating to his Urania Lumber Company, based in Urania, Hardtner, known as "the father of forestry in the South," was killed in a car-train accident. CANNOTANSWER | printing board which could withhold "official printer" status from uncooperative newspapers, a new board of election supervisors which would | Huey Pierce Long Jr. (August 30, 1893September 10, 1935), nicknamed "the Kingfish", was an American politician who served as the 40th governor of Louisiana from 1928 to 1932 and as a United States Senator from 1932 until his assassination in 1935. He was a populist member of the Democratic Party and rose to national prominence during the Great Depression for his vocal criticism of President Franklin D. Roosevelt and his New Deal, which Long deemed insufficiently radical. As the political leader of Louisiana, he commanded wide networks of supporters and often took forceful action. A controversial figure, Long is celebrated as a populist champion of the poor or, conversely, denounced as a demagogue.
Long was born in the impoverished north of Louisiana in 1893. After working as a traveling salesman and briefly attending three colleges, he entered the bar in Louisiana. Following a short private legal career in which he represented poor plaintiffs, Long was elected to the Louisiana Public Service Commission. As Commissioner, he prosecuted large corporations such as Standard Oil, a lifelong target of his rhetorical attacks. After Long successfully argued before the U.S. Supreme Court, Chief Justice and former president William Howard Taft praised him as "the most brilliant lawyer who ever practiced before the United States Supreme Court".
After a failed 1924 campaign, Long used the sharp economic and class divisions in Louisiana to win the 1928 gubernatorial election. Once in office, he expanded social programs, organized massive public works projects, such as a modern highway system and the tallest capitol building in the nation, and proposed a cotton holiday. Through political maneuvering, Long became the political boss of Louisiana. He was impeached in 1929 for abuses of power, but the proceedings collapsed in the State Senate. His opponents argued his policies and methods were unconstitutional and dictatorial. At its climax, political opposition organized a minor insurrection.
Long was elected to the U.S. Senate in 1930 but did not assume his seat until 1932. He established himself as an isolationist, arguing that Standard Oil and Wall Street orchestrated American foreign policy. He was instrumental in securing Roosevelt's 1932 nomination but split with him in 1933, becoming a prominent critic of his New Deal. As an alternative, he proposed the Share Our Wealth program in 1934. To stimulate the economy, he advocated massive federal spending, a wealth tax, and wealth redistribution. These proposals drew wide support with millions joining local Share Our Wealth clubs. Poised for a 1936 presidential bid, Long was mortally wounded by a lone assassin in 1935. Although Long's movement faded, Roosevelt adopted many of his proposals in the Second New Deal, and Louisiana elections would be organized along anti- or pro-Long factions until the 1960s. He left behind a political dynasty that included his wife Senator Rose McConnell Long, his son Senator Russell B. Long, and his brother Governor Earl Long, among others.
Early life (1893–1915)
Childhood
Long was born on August 30, 1893, near Winnfield, a small town in north-central Louisiana, the seat of Winn Parish. Although Long often told followers he was born in a log cabin to an impoverished family, they lived in a "comfortable" farmhouse and were well-off compared to others in Winnfield. Winn Parish was impoverished, and its residents, mostly Southern Baptists, were often outsiders in Louisiana's political system. During the Civil War, Winn Parish had been a stronghold of Unionism in an otherwise Confederate state. At Louisiana's 1861 convention on secession, the delegate from Winn voted to remain in the Union saying: "Who wants to fight to keep the Negroes for the wealthy planters?" In the 1890s, the parish was a bastion of the Populist Party, and in the 1912 election, a plurality (35%) voted for the Socialist presidential candidate, Eugene V. Debs. Long embraced these populist sentiments.
One of nine children, Long was home schooled until age eleven. In the public system, he earned a reputation as an excellent student with a remarkable memory and convinced his teachers to let him skip seventh grade. At Winnfield High School, he and his friends formed a secret society, advertising their exclusivity by wearing a red ribbon. According to Long, his club's mission was "to run things, laying down certain rules the students would have to follow". The faculty learned of Long's antics and warned him to obey the school's rules. Long continued to rebel, writing and distributing a flyer that criticized his teachers and the necessity of a recently state-mandated fourth year of secondary education, for which he was expelled in 1910. Although Long successfully petitioned to fire the principal, he never returned to high school. As a student, Long proved a capable debater. At a state debate competition in Baton Rouge, he won a full-tuition scholarship to Louisiana State University (LSU). Because the scholarship did not cover textbooks or living expenses, his family could not afford for him to attend. Long was also unable to attend because he did not graduate from high school. Instead, he entered the workforce as a traveling salesman in the rural South.
Education and marriage
In September 1911, Long started attending seminary classes at Oklahoma Baptist University at the urging of his mother, a devout Baptist. Living with his brother George, Long attended for only one semester, rarely appearing at lectures. After deciding he was unsuited to preaching, Long focused on law. Borrowing one hundred dollars from his brother (which he later lost playing roulette in Oklahoma City), he attended the University of Oklahoma College of Law for a semester in 1912. To earn money while studying law part-time, he continued to work as a salesman. Of the four classes Long took, he received one incomplete and three C's. He later confessed he learned little because there was "too much excitement, all those gambling houses and everything".
Long met Rose McConnell at a baking contest he had promoted to sell Cottolene shortening. The two began a two-and-a-half-year courtship and married in April 1913 at the Gayoso Hotel in Memphis, Tennessee. On their wedding day, Long had no cash with him and had to borrow $10 from his fiancée to pay the officiant. Shortly after their marriage, Long revealed to his wife his aspirations to run for a statewide office, the governorship, the Senate, and ultimately the presidency. The Longs had a daughter named Rose (1917–2006) and two sons: Russell B. Long (1918–2003), who became a U.S. senator, and Palmer Reid Long (1921–2010), who became an oilman in Shreveport, Louisiana.
Long enrolled at Tulane University Law School in New Orleans in the fall of 1914. After a year of study that concentrated on the courses necessary for the bar exam, he successfully petitioned the Louisiana Supreme Court for permission to take the test before its scheduled June 1915 date. He was examined in May, passed, and received his license to practice. According to Long: "I came out of that courtroom running for office."
Legal career (1915–1923)
In 1915, Long established a private practice in Winnfield. He represented poor plaintiffs, usually in workers' compensation cases. Long avoided fighting in World War I by obtaining a draft deferment on the grounds that he was married and had a dependent child. He successfully defended from prosecution under the Espionage Act of 1917 the state senator who had loaned him the money to complete his legal studies, and later claimed he did not serve because, "I was not mad at anybody over there." In 1918, Long invested $1,050 () in a well that struck oil. The Standard Oil Company refused to accept any of the oil in its pipelines, costing Long his investment. This episode served as the catalyst for Long's lifelong hatred of Standard Oil.
That same year, Long entered the race to serve on the three-seat Louisiana Railroad Commission. According to historian William Ivy Hair, Long's political message:
... would be repeated until the end of his days: he was a young warrior of and for the plain people, battling the evil giants of Wall Street and their corporations; too much of America's wealth was concentrated in too few hands, and this unfairness was perpetuated by an educational system so stacked against the poor that (according to his statistics) only fourteen out of every thousand children obtained a college education. The way to begin rectifying these wrongs was to turn out of office the corrupt local flunkies of big business ... and elect instead true men of the people, such as [himself].
In the Democratic primary, Long polled second behind incumbent Burk Bridges. Since no candidate garnered a majority of the votes, a run-off election was held, for which Long campaigned tirelessly across northern Louisiana. The race was close: Long defeated Burk by just 636 votes. Although the returns revealed wide support for Long in rural areas, he performed poorly in urban areas. On the Commission, Long forced utilities to lower rates, ordered railroads to extend service to small towns, and demanded that Standard Oil cease the importation of Mexican crude oil and use more oil from Louisiana wells.
In the gubernatorial election of 1920, Long campaigned heavily for John M. Parker; today, he is often credited with helping Parker win northern parishes. After Parker was elected, the two became bitter rivals. Their break was largely caused by Long's demand and Parker's refusal to declare the state's oil pipelines public utilities. Long was infuriated when Parker allowed oil companies, led by Standard Oil's legal team, to assist in writing severance tax laws. Long denounced Parker as corporate "chattel". The feud climaxed in 1921, when Parker tried unsuccessfully to have Long ousted from the commission.
By 1922, Long had become chairman of the commission, now called the "Public Service Commission". That year, Long prosecuted the Cumberland Telephone & Telegraph Company for unfair rate increases; he successfully argued the case on appeal before the United States Supreme Court, which resulted in cash refunds to thousands of overcharged customers. After the decision, Chief Justice and former President William Howard Taft praised Long as "the most brilliant lawyer who ever practiced" before the court.
Gubernatorial campaigns (1924–1928)
1924 election
On August 30, 1923, Long announced his candidacy for the governorship of Louisiana. Long stumped throughout the state, personally distributing circulars and posters. He denounced Governor Parker as a corporate stooge, vilified Standard Oil, and assailed local political bosses.
He campaigned in rural areas disenfranchised by the state's political establishment, the "Old Regulars". Since the 1877 end of Republican-controlled Reconstruction government, they had controlled most of the state through alliances with local officials. With negligible support for Republicans, Louisiana was essentially a one party state under the Democratic Old Regulars. Holding mock elections in which they invoked the Lost Cause of the Confederacy, the Old Regulars presided over a corrupt government that largely benefited the planter class. Consequently, Louisiana was one of the least developed states: It had just 300 miles of paved roads and the lowest literacy rate.
Despite an enthusiastic campaign, Long came third in the primary and was eliminated. Although polls projected only a few thousand votes, he attracted almost 72,000, around 31% of the electorate, and carried 28 parishes—more than either opponent. Limited to sectional appeal, he performed best in the poor rural north.
The Ku Klux Klan's prominence in Louisiana was the campaign's primary issue. While the two other candidates either strongly opposed or supported the Klan, Long remained neutral, alienating both sides. He also failed to attract Roman Catholic voters, which limited his chances in the south of the state. In majority Catholic New Orleans, he polled just 12,000 votes (17%). Long blamed heavy rain on election day for suppressing voter turnout among his base in the north, where voters could not reach the polls over dirt roads that had turned to mud. It was the only election Long ever lost.
1928 election
Long spent the intervening four years building his reputation and political organization, particularly in the heavily Catholic urban south. Despite disagreeing with their politics, Long campaigned for Catholic U.S. Senators in 1924 and 1926. Government mismanagement during the Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 gained Long the support of Cajuns, whose land had been affected. He formally launched his second campaign for governor in 1927, using the slogan, "Every man a king, but no one wears a crown", a phrase adopted from Democratic presidential candidate William Jennings Bryan.
Long developed novel campaign techniques, including the use of sound trucks and radio commercials. His stance on race was unorthodox. According to T. Harry Williams, Long was "the first Southern mass leader to leave aside race baiting and appeals to the Southern tradition and the Southern past and address himself to the social and economic problems of the present". The campaign sometimes descended into brutality. When the 60-year-old incumbent governor called Long a liar during a chance encounter in the lobby of the Roosevelt Hotel, Long punched him in the face.
In the Democratic primary election, Long polled 126,842 votes: a plurality of 43.9 percent. His margin was the largest in state history, and no opponent chose to face him in a runoff. After earning the Democratic nomination, he easily defeated the Republican nominee in the general election with 96.1 percent of the vote. At age 35, Long was the youngest person ever elected governor of Louisiana.
Some fifteen thousand Louisianians traveled to Baton Rouge for Long's inauguration. He set up large tents, free drinks, and jazz bands on the capitol grounds, evoking Andrew Jackson's 1829 inaugural festivities. His victory was seen as a public backlash against the urban establishment; journalist Hodding Carter described it as a "fantastic vengeance upon the Sodom and Gomorrah that was called New Orleans". While previous elections were normally divided culturally and religiously, Long highlighted the sharp economic divide in the state and built a new coalition based on class. Long's strength, said the contemporary novelist Sherwood Anderson, relied on "the terrible South ... the beaten, ignorant, Bible-ridden, white South. Faulkner occasionally really touches it. It has yet to be paid for."
Louisiana Governorship (1928–1932)
First year
Once in office on May 21, 1928, Long moved quickly to consolidate power, firing hundreds of opponents in the state bureaucracy at all ranks from cabinet-level heads of departments to state road workers. Like previous governors, he filled the vacancies with patronage appointments from his network of political supporters. Every state employee who depended on Long for a job was expected to pay a portion of their salary at election time directly into his campaign fund.
Once his control over the state's political apparatus was strengthened, Long pushed several bills through the 1929 session of the Louisiana State Legislature to fulfill campaign promises. His bills met opposition from legislators, wealthy citizens, and the media, but Long used aggressive tactics to ensure passage. He would appear unannounced on the floor of both the House and Senate or in House committees, corralling reluctant representatives and state senators and bullying opponents. When an opposing legislator once suggested Long was unfamiliar with the Louisiana Constitution, he declared, "I'm the Constitution around here now."
One program Long approved was a free textbook program for schoolchildren. Long's free school books angered Catholics, who usually sent their children to private schools. Long assured them that the books would be granted directly to all children, regardless of whether they attended public school. Yet this assurance was criticized by conservative constitutionalists, who claimed it violated the separation of church and state and sued Long. The case went to the U.S. Supreme Court, which ruled in Long's favor.
Irritated by "immoral" gambling dens and brothels in New Orleans, Long sent the National Guard to raid these establishments with orders to "shoot without hesitation". Gambling equipment was burned, prostitutes were arrested, and over $25,000 () was confiscated for government funds. Local newspapers ran photos of National Guardsmen forcibly searching nude women. City authorities had not requested military force, and martial law had not been declared. The Louisiana attorney general denounced Long's actions as illegal but Long rebuked him saying: "Nobody asked him for his opinion."
Despite wide disapproval, Long had the Governor's Mansion, built in 1887, razed by convicts from the State Penitentiary under his personal supervision. In its place, Long had a much larger Georgian mansion built. It bore a strong resemblance to the White House; he reportedly wanted to be familiar with the residence when he became president.
Impeachment
In 1929, Long called a special legislative session to enact a five-cent per barrel tax on refined oil production to fund his social programs. The state's oil interests opposed the bill. Long declared in a radio address that any legislator who refused to support the tax had been "bought" by oil companies. Instead of persuading the legislature, the accusation infuriated many of its members. The "dynamite squad", a caucus of opponents led by freshman lawmakers Cecil Morgan and Ralph Norman Bauer, introduced an impeachment resolution against Long. Nineteen charges were listed, ranging from blasphemy to subornation of murder. Even Long's lieutenant governor, Paul Cyr, supported impeachment; he accused Long of nepotism and alleged he had made corrupt deals with a Texan oil company.
Concerned, Long tried to close the session. Pro-Long Speaker John B. Fournet called for a vote to adjourn. Despite most representatives opposing adjournment, the electronic voting board tallied 68 ayes and 13 nays. This sparked confusion; anti-Long representatives began chanting that the voting machine had been rigged. Some ran for the speaker's chair to call for a new vote but met resistance from their pro-Long colleagues, sparking a brawl later known as "Bloody Monday". In the scuffle, legislators threw inkwells, allegedly attacked others with brass knuckles, and Long's brother Earl bit a legislator's neck. Following the fight, the legislature voted to remain in session and proceed with impeachment. A trial in the house took place with dozens of witnesses, including a hula dancer who claimed that Long had been "frisky" with her. Impeached on eight of the 19 charges, Long was the first Louisiana governor charged in the state's history.
Long was frightened by the prospect of conviction, for it would force him from the governorship and permanently disqualify him from holding public office in Louisiana. He took his case to the people with a mass meeting in Baton Rouge, where he alleged that impeachment was a ploy by Standard Oil to thwart his programs. The House referred the charges to the Louisiana Senate, in which conviction required a two-thirds majority. Long produced a round robin statement signed by fifteen senators pledging to vote "not guilty" regardless of the evidence. The impeachment process, now futile, was suspended. It has been alleged that both sides used bribes to buy votes and that Long later rewarded the round robin signers with positions or other favors.
Following the failed trial, Long treated his opponents ruthlessly. He fired their relatives from state jobs and supported their challengers in elections. Long concluded that extra-legal means would be needed to accomplish his goals: "I used to try to get things done by saying 'please.' Now... I dynamite 'em out of my path." Receiving death threats, he surrounded himself with bodyguards. Now a resolute critic of the "lying" press, Long established his own newspaper in March 1930: the Louisiana Progress. The paper was extremely popular, widely distributed by policemen, highway workers, and government truckers.
Senate campaign
Shortly after the impeachment, Long—now nicknamed "The Kingfish" after an Amos 'n' Andy character—announced his candidacy for the U.S. Senate in the 1930 Democratic primary. He framed his campaign as a referendum. If he won, he presumed the public supported his programs over the opposition of the legislature. If he lost, he promised to resign.
His opponent was incumbent Joseph E. Ransdell, the Catholic senator whom Long endorsed in 1924. At 72 years old, Ransdell had been in the Senate since Long was age four. Aligned with the establishment, Ransdell had the support of all 18 of the state's daily newspapers. To combat this, Long purchased two new $30,000 sound trucks and distributed over two million circulars. Although promising not to make personal attacks, Long seized on Ransdell's age, calling him "Old Feather Duster". The campaign became increasingly vicious, The New York Times calling it "as amusing as it was depressing". Long critic Sam Irby, set to testify on Long's corruption to state authorities, was abducted by Long's bodyguards shortly before the election. Irby emerged after the election; he had been missing for four days. Surrounded by Long's guards, he gave a radio address in which he "confessed" that he had actually asked Long for protection. The New Orleans mayor labelled it "the most heinous public crime in Louisiana history".
Ultimately, on September 9, 1930, Long defeated Ransdell by 149,640 (57.3 percent) to 111,451 (42.7 percent). There were accusations of voter fraud against Long; voting records showed people voting in alphabetical order, among them celebrities like Charlie Chaplin, Jack Dempsey and Babe Ruth.
Although his Senate term began on March 4, 1931, Long completed most of his four-year term as governor, which did not end until May 1932. He declared that leaving the seat vacant would not hurt Louisiana: "[W]ith Ransdell as Senator, the seat was vacant anyway." By occupying the governorship until January 25, 1932, Long prevented Lieutenant Governor Cyr, who threatened to undo Long's reforms, from succeeding to the office. In October 1931, Cyr learned Long was in Mississippi and declared himself the state's legitimate governor. In response, Long ordered National Guard troops to surround the Capitol to block Cyr's "coup d'état" and petitioned the Louisiana Supreme Court. Long successfully argued that Cyr had vacated the office of lieutenant-governor when trying to assume the governorship and had the court eject Cyr.
Senator-elect
Now governor and senator-elect, Long returned to completing his legislative agenda with renewed strength. He continued his intimidating practice of presiding over the legislature, shouting "Shut up!" or "Sit down!" when legislators voiced their concerns. In a single night, Long passed 44 bills in just two hours: one every three minutes. He later explained his tactics: "The end justifies the means." Long endorsed pro-Long candidates and wooed others with favors; he often joked his legislature was the "finest collection of lawmakers money can buy". He organized and concentrated his power into a political machine: "a one-man" operation, according to Williams. He placed his brother Earl in charge of allotting patronage appointments to local politicians and signing state contracts with businessmen in exchange for loyalty. Long appointed allies to key government positions, such as giving Robert Maestri the office of Conservation Commissioner and making Oscar K. Allen head of the Louisiana Highway Commission. Maestri would deliberately neglect the regulation of energy companies in exchange for industry donations to Long's campaign fund, while Allen took direction from Earl on which construction and supply companies to contract for road work. Concerned by these tactics, Long's opponents charged he had become the virtual dictator of the state.
To address record low cotton prices amid a Great Depression surplus, Long proposed the major cotton-producing states mandate a 1932 "cotton holiday", which would ban cotton production for the entire year. He further proposed that the holiday be imposed internationally, which some nations, such as Egypt, supported. In 1931, Long convened the New Orleans Cotton Conference, attended by delegates from every major cotton-producing state. The delegates agreed to codify Long's proposal into law on the caveat that it would not come into effect until states producing three-quarters of U.S. cotton passed such laws. As the proposer, Louisiana unanimously passed the legislation. When conservative politicians in Texas—the largest cotton producer in the U.S.—rejected the measure, the holiday movement collapsed. Although traditional politicians would have been ruined by such a defeat, Long became a national figure and cemented his image as a champion of the poor. Senator Carter Glass, although a fervid critic of Long, credited him with first suggesting artificial scarcity as a solution to the depression.
Accomplishments in Louisiana
Long was unusual among southern populists in that he achieved tangible progress. Williams concluded "the secret of Long's power, in the final analysis, was not in his machine or his political dealings but in his record—he delivered something". Referencing Long's contributions to Louisiana, Robert Penn Warren, a professor at LSU during Long's term as governor, stated: "Dictators, always give something for what they get."
Long created a public works program that was unprecedented in the South, constructing roads, bridges, hospitals, schools, and state buildings. During his four years as governor, Long increased paved highways in Louisiana from and constructed of gravel roads. By 1936, the infrastructure program begun by Long had completed some of new roads, doubling Louisiana's road system. He built 111 bridges and started construction on the first bridge over the Mississippi entirely in Louisiana, the Huey P. Long Bridge. These projects provided thousands of jobs during the depression: Louisiana employed more highway workers than any other state. Long built a State Capitol, which at tall remains the tallest capitol, state or federal, in the United States. Long's infrastructure spending increased the state government's debt from $11 million in 1928 to $150 million in 1935.
Long was an ardent supporter of the state's flagship public university, Louisiana State University (LSU). Having been unable to attend, Long now regarded it as "his" university. He increased LSU's funding and intervened in the university's affairs, expelling seven students who criticized him in the school newspaper. He constructed new buildings, including a fieldhouse that reportedly contained the longest pool in the United States. Long founded an LSU Medical School in New Orleans. To raise the stature of the football program, he converted the school's military marching band into the flashy "Show Band of the South" and hired Costa Rican composer Castro Carazo as the band director. As well as nearly doubling the size of the stadium, he arranged for lowered train fares, so students could travel to away games. Long's contributions resulted in LSU gaining a class A accreditation from the Association of American Universities.
Long's night schools taught 100,000 adults to read. His provision of free textbooks contributed to a 20 percent increase in school enrollment. He modernized public health facilities and ensured adequate conditions for the mentally ill. He established Louisiana's first rehabilitation program for penitentiary inmates. Through tax reform, Long made the first $2,000 in property assessment free, waiving property taxes for half the state's homeowners. Historians have criticized other policies, like high consumer taxes on gasoline and cigarettes, a reduced mother's pension, and low teacher salaries.
U.S. Senate (1932–1935)
Senator
When Long arrived in the Senate, America was in the throes of the Great Depression. With this backdrop, Long made characteristically fiery speeches that denounced wealth inequality. He criticized the leaders of both parties for failing to address the crisis adequately, notably attacking conservative Senate Democratic Leader Joseph Robinson of Arkansas for his apparent closeness with President Herbert Hoover and big business.
In the 1932 presidential election, Long was a vocal supporter of New York Governor Franklin D. Roosevelt. At that year's Democratic National Convention, Long kept the delegations of several wavering Southern states in the Roosevelt camp. Due to this, Long expected to be featured prominently in Roosevelt's campaign but was disappointed with a peripheral speaking tour limited to four Midwestern states.
Not discouraged after being snubbed, Long found other venues for his populist message. He endorsed Senator Hattie Caraway of Arkansas, a widow and the underdog candidate in a crowded field and conducted a whirlwind, seven-day tour of that state. During the campaign, Long gave 39 speeches, traveled , and spoke to over 200,000 people. In an upset win, Caraway became the first woman elected to a full term in the Senate.
Returning to Washington, Long gave theatrical speeches which drew wide attention. Public viewing areas were crowded with onlookers, among them a young Lyndon B. Johnson, who later said he was "simply entranced" by Long. Long obstructed bills for weeks, launching hour-long filibusters and having the clerk read superfluous documents. Long's antics, one editorial claimed, had made the Senate "impotent". In May 1932, The Washington Post called for his resignation. Long's behavior and radical rhetoric did little to endear him to his fellow senators. None of his proposed bills, resolutions, or motions were passed during his three years in the Senate.
Roosevelt and the New Deal
During the first 100 days of Roosevelt's presidency in spring 1933, Long's attitude towards Roosevelt and the New Deal was tepid. Aware that Roosevelt had no intention of radically redistributing the country's wealth, Long became one of the few national politicians to oppose Roosevelt's New Deal policies from the left. He considered them inadequate in the face of the escalating economic crisis but still supported some of Roosevelt's programs in the Senate, explaining: "Whenever this administration has gone to the left I have voted with it, and whenever it has gone to the right I have voted against it."
Long opposed the National Recovery Act, claiming it favored industrialists. In an attempt to prevent its passage, Long held a lone filibuster, speaking for 15 hours and 30 minutes, the second longest filibuster at the time. He also criticized Social Security, calling it inadequate and expressing his concerns that states would administer it in a way discriminatory to blacks. In 1933, he was a leader of a three-week Senate filibuster against the Glass banking bill, which he later supported as the Glass–Steagall Act after provisions extended government deposit insurance to state banks as well as national banks.
Roosevelt considered Long a radical demagogue and stated that Long, along with General Douglas MacArthur, "was one of the two most dangerous men in America". In June 1933, in an effort to undermine Long's political dominance, Roosevelt cut him out of consultations on the distribution of federal funds and patronage in Louisiana and placed Long's opponents in charge of federal programs in the state. Roosevelt supported a Senate inquiry into the election of Long ally John H. Overton to the Senate in 1932. The Long machine was accused of election fraud and voter intimidation, but the inquiry came up empty, and Overton was seated. To discredit Long and damage his support base, Roosevelt had Long's finances investigated by the Internal Revenue Service in 1934. Although they failed to link Long to any illegality, some of his lieutenants were charged with income tax evasion. Roosevelt's son, Elliott, would later note that in this instance, his father "may have been the originator of the concept of employing the IRS as a weapon of political retribution".
Chaco War and foreign policy
On May 30, 1934, Long took to the Senate floor to debate the abrogation of the Platt amendment. But instead of debating the amendment, Long declared his support for Paraguay against Bolivia in the Chaco War. He maintained that U.S. President Rutherford B. Hayes had awarded the oil-rich Chaco region to Paraguay in 1878. He attested Standard Oil had corrupted the Bolivian government and organized the war and that Wall Street orchestrated American foreign policy in Latin America. For his speech, Long received praise in Paraguay: after capturing a Bolivian fort in July 1934, they renamed it Fort Long. Long's allegations were widely publicized in Latin American newspapers. This drew the concern of the State Department, who believed that Long was damaging the reputation of the United States. Throughout the summer of 1934, they waged a sustained public relations campaign against Long throughout Latin America. This speech and others established Long as one of the most ardent isolationists in the Senate. He further argued that American involvement in the Spanish–American War and the First World War had been deadly mistakes conducted on behalf of Wall Street. Consequently, Long demanded the immediate independence of the Philippines, which the United States had occupied since 1898. He also opposed American entry into the World Court.
Share Our Wealth
In March 1933, Long revealed a series of bills collectively known as "the Long plan" to redistribute wealth. Together, they would cap fortunes at $100 million, limit annual income to $1 million, and cap individual inheritances at $5 million.
In a nationwide February 1934 radio broadcast, Long introduced his Share Our Wealth plan. The legislation would use the wealth from the Long plan to guarantee every family a basic household grant of $5,000 and a minimum annual income of one-third of the average family homestead value and income. Long supplemented his plan with proposals for free college and vocational training, veterans' benefits, federal assistance to farmers, public works projects, greater federal economic regulation, a $30 monthly elderly pension, a month's vacation for every worker, a thirty-hour workweek, a $10 billion land reclamation project to end the Dust Bowl, and free medical service and a "war on disease" led by the Mayo brothers. These reforms, Long claimed, would end the Great Depression. The plans were widely criticized and labeled impossible by economists.
With the Senate unwilling to support his proposals, in February 1934 Long formed the Share Our Wealth Society, a national network of local clubs that operated in opposition to the Democratic Party and Roosevelt. By 1935, the society had over 7.5 million members in 27,000 clubs. Long's Senate office received an average of 60,000 letters a week, resulting in Long hiring 48 stenographers to type responses. Of the two trucks that delivered mail to the Senate, one was devoted solely to mail for Long. Long's newspaper, now renamed American Progress, averaged a circulation of 300,000, some issues reaching over 1.5 million. Long drew international attention: English writer H. G. Wells interviewed Long, noting he was "like a Winston Churchill who has never been at Harrow. He abounds in promises."
Some historians believe that pressure from Share Our Wealth contributed to Roosevelt's "turn to the left" in the Second New Deal (1935), which consisted of the Social Security Act, the Works Progress Administration, the National Labor Relations Board, Aid to Dependent Children, and the Wealth Tax Act of 1935. Roosevelt reportedly admitted in private to trying to "steal Long's thunder".
Continued control over Louisiana
Long continued to maintain effective control of Louisiana while he was a senator, blurring the boundary between federal and state politics. Long chose his childhood friend, Oscar K. Allen, to succeed King in the January 1932 election. With the support of Long's voter base, Allen won easily, permitting Long to resign as governor and take his seat in the U.S. Senate in January 1932. Allen, widely viewed as a puppet, dutifully enacted Long's policies. When Long visited Louisiana, Allen would relinquish his office for the Senator, working instead at his receptionist's desk. Though he had no constitutional authority, Long continued to draft and press bills through the Louisiana State Legislature. One of the laws passed was what Long called "a tax on lying"—a 2 percent tax on newspaper advertising revenue.
In 1934, Long and James A. Noe, an independent oilman and member of the Louisiana State Senate from Ouachita Parish, formed the controversial Win or Lose Oil Company. The firm was established to obtain leases on state-owned lands so that its directors might collect bonuses and sublease the mineral rights to the major oil companies. Although ruled legal, these activities were done in secret, and the stockholders were unknown to the public. Long made a profit on the bonuses and the resale of those state leases and used the funds primarily for political purposes.
1935: Final year
Presidential ambitions
Popular support for Long's Share Our Wealth program raised the possibility of a 1936 presidential bid against incumbent Franklin D. Roosevelt. When questioned by the press, Long gave conflicting answers on his plans for 1936. Long's son Russell believed his father would have run on a third-party ticket. This is evidenced by Long's writing of a speculative book, My First Days in the White House, which laid out his plans for the presidency after the 1936 election.
In spring 1935, Long undertook a national speaking tour and regular radio appearances, attracting large crowds and increasing his stature. At a well-attended Long rally in Philadelphia, a former mayor told the press, "There are 250,000 Long votes" in this city. Regarding Roosevelt, Long boasted to the New York Times Arthur Krock: "He's scared of me. I can out-promise him, and he knows it."
As the 1936 election approached, the Roosevelt Administration grew increasingly concerned by Long's popularity. Democratic National Committee chairman James Farley commissioned a secret poll in early 1935. Farley's poll revealed that if Long ran on a third-party ticket, he would win about four million votes, 10% of the electorate. In a memo to Roosevelt, Farley expressed his concern that Long could split the vote, allowing the Republican nominee to win. Diplomat Edward M. House warned Roosevelt, "many people believe that he can do to your administration what Theodore Roosevelt did to the Taft Administration in '12". Many, including Hair, Williams, and Roosevelt, speculated that Long expected to lose in 1936, allowing the Republicans to take the White House. They believed the Republicans would worsen the Great Depression, deepening Long's appeal. According to Roosevelt, "That would bring the country to such a state by 1940 that Long thinks he would be made dictator."
Increased tensions in Louisiana
By 1935, Long's consolidation of power led to talk of armed opposition from his enemies in Louisiana. Opponents increasingly invoked the memory of the Battle of Liberty Place (1874), in which the White League staged an uprising against Louisiana's Reconstruction-era government. In January 1935, an anti-Long paramilitary organization called the Square Deal Association was formed. Its members included former governors John M. Parker and Ruffin Pleasant and New Orleans Mayor T. Semmes Walmsley. Standard Oil threatened to leave the state when Long finally passed the five-cent per barrel oil tax for which he had been impeached in 1929. Concerned Standard Oil employees formed a Square Deal association in Baton Rouge, organizing themselves in militia companies and demanding "direct action".
On January 25, 1935, these Square Dealers, now armed, seized the East Baton Rouge Parish courthouse. Long had Governor Allen execute emergency measures in Baton Rouge: he called in the National Guard, declared martial law, banned public gatherings of two or more persons, and forbade the publication of criticism of state officials. The Square Dealers left the courthouse, but there was a brief armed skirmish at the Baton Rouge Airport. Tear gas and live ammunition were fired; one person was wounded, but there were no fatalities. At a legal hearing, an alleged spy within the Square Dealers testified they were conspiring to assassinate Long.
In summer 1935, Long called two special legislative sessions in Louisiana; bills were passed in rapid-fire succession without being read or discussed. The new laws further centralized Long's control over the state by creating new Long-appointed state agencies: a state bond and tax board holding sole authority to approve loans to local governments, a new state printing board which could withhold "official printer" status from uncooperative newspapers, a new board of election supervisors which would appoint all poll watchers, and a State Board of Censors. They stripped away the remaining powers of the Mayor of New Orleans. Long boasted he had "taken over every board and commission in New Orleans except the Community Chest and the Red Cross". A September 7 special session passed 42 bills. The most extreme, likely aimed at Roosevelt and his federal agents, authorized Louisiana to fine and imprison anyone who infringed on the powers reserved to the state in the Tenth Amendment to the United States Constitution.
Assassination
On September 8, 1935, Long traveled to the State Capitol to pass a bill that would gerrymander the district of an opponent, Judge Benjamin Pavy, who had held his position for 28 years. At 9:20 p.m., just after passage of the bill effectively removing Pavy, Pavy's son-in-law, Carl Weiss, approached Long, and, according to the generally accepted version of events, fired a single shot with a handgun from four feet (1.2 m) away, striking Long in the torso. Long's bodyguards, nicknamed the "Cossacks" or "skullcrushers", then fired at Weiss with their pistols, killing him. An autopsy found Weiss had been shot at least 60 times. Long ran down a flight of stairs and across the capitol grounds, hailing a car to take him to Our Lady of the Lake Hospital. He was rushed to the operating room where surgery closed perforations in his intestines but failed to stop internal bleeding. Long died at 4:10 a.m. on September 10, 31 hours after being shot. According to different sources, his last words were either, "I wonder what will happen to my poor university boys", or "God, don't let me die. I have so much to do."
Over 200,000 people traveled to Baton Rouge to attend Long's September 12 funeral. His remains were buried on the grounds of the Capitol; a statue depicting Long was constructed on his grave. Although Long's allies alleged he was assassinated by political opponents, a federal probe found no evidence of conspiracy. Long's death brought relief to the Roosevelt Administration, which would win in a landslide in the 1936 election. Farley publicly admitted his apprehension of campaigning against Long: "I always laughed Huey off, but I did not feel that way about him." Roosevelt's close economic advisor Rexford Tugwell wrote that, "When he was gone it seemed that a beneficent peace had fallen on the land. Father Coughlin, Reno, Townsend, et al., were after all pygmies compared with Huey. He had been a major phenomenon." Tugwell also said that Roosevelt regarded Long's assassination as a "providential occurrence".
Evidence later surfaced that suggests Long was accidentally shot by his bodyguards. Proponents of this theory assert Long was caught in the crossfire as his bodyguards shot Weiss, and a bullet that ricocheted off the marble walls hit him.
Legacy
Politics
Long's assassination turned him into a legendary figure in parts of Louisiana. In 1938, Swedish sociologist Gunnar Myrdal encountered rural children who not only insisted Long was alive, but that he was president. Although no longer governing, Long's policies continued to be enacted in Louisiana by his political machine, which supported Roosevelt's re-election to prevent further investigation into their finances. The machine remained a powerful force in state politics until the 1960 elections. Within the Louisiana Democratic Party, Long set in motion two durable factions—"pro-Long" and "anti-Long"—which diverged meaningfully in terms of policies and voter support. For decades after his death, Long's political style inspired imitation among Louisiana politicians who borrowed his rhetoric and promises of social programs.
After Long's death, a family dynasty emerged: his brother Earl was elected lieutenant-governor in 1936 and governor in 1948 and 1956. Long's widow, Rose Long, replaced him in the Senate, and his son, Russell, was a U.S. senator from 1948 to 1987. As chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, Russell shaped the nation's tax laws, advocating low business taxes and passing legislation beneficial to the poor like the Earned Income Credit. Other relatives, including George, Gillis, and Speedy, have represented Louisiana in Congress.
Huey P. Newton, co-founder of the Black Panther Party, was named after Long.
Historical reputation
Academics and historians have found difficulty categorizing Long and his ideology. His platform has been compared to ideologies ranging from McCarthyism to European Fascism and Stalinism. When asked about his own philosophy, Long simply replied: "Oh, hell, say that I'm sui generis and let it go at that." Robert Penn Warren described him as a "remarkable set of contradictions".
A majority of academics, biographers, and writers who have examined Long view him negatively, typically as a demagogue or dictator. Reinhard H. Luthin said that he was the epitome of an American demagogue. David Kennedy wrote that Long's regime in Louisiana was "the closest thing to a dictatorship that America has ever known". Journalist Hodding Carter described him as "the first true dictator out of the soil of America" and his movement the "success of fascism in one American state". Peter Viereck categorized Long's movement as "chauvinist thought control"; Victor Ferkiss called it "incipient fascism".
One of the few biographers to praise Long was T. Harry Williams, who classified Long's ideas as neo-populist. He labeled Long a democratic "mass leader", rather than a demagogue. Besides Williams, intellectual Gore Vidal expressed admiration for Long, even naming him as his favorite contemporary U.S. politician. Long biographer Thomas O. Harris espoused a more nuanced view of Long: "neither saint nor devil, he was a complex and heterogenous mixture of good and bad, genius and craft, hypocrisy and candor, buffoonery and seriousness".
Media
In popular culture, Long has served as a template for multiple dictatorial politicians in novels. Notable works include Sinclair Lewis's novel It Can't Happen Here (1935), Robert Penn Warren's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel All the King's Men (1946), and Adria Locke Langley's 1945 novel A Lion Is in the Streets. The latter two were adapted into Academy Award-winning films. As well as two television docudramas, Long was the subject of a 1985 Ken Burns-directed documentary. In music, Randy Newman featured Long in two songs on the 1974 album Good Old Boys.
Long has been the subject of dozens of biographies and academic texts. In fact, more has been written about Long than any other Louisianan. Most notable is the 1969 biography Huey Long by Williams, which won both the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award. Alan Brinkley won the National Book Award in 1983 for Voices of Protest, a study of Long, Coughlin, and populist opposition to Roosevelt.
Works
Bibliography
Constitutions of the State of Louisiana, 1930
Every Man a King, 1933
My First Days in the White House, 1935
Discography
Long collaborated with composer Castro Carazo on the following songs:
"Darling of LSU", 1935
"Every Man a King", 1935
"The LSU Cadets March", 1935
"Touchdown for LSU", 1935
See also
List of United States Congress members killed or wounded in office
Charles Coughlin
Francis Townsend
Notes and references
Notes
References and citations
Works cited
1893 births
1935 deaths
20th-century American lawyers
20th-century American politicians
American political bosses from Louisiana
American social democrats
Anti-poverty advocates
Assassinated American politicians
Burials in Louisiana
Deaths by firearm in Louisiana
Democratic Party United States senators
Democratic Party state governors of the United States
Governors of Louisiana
History of United States isolationism
Impeached United States officials
Left-wing populism in the United States
Huey
Louisiana Democrats
Louisiana lawyers
Male murder victims
Members of the Louisiana Public Service Commission
Oklahoma Baptist University alumni
People from Winnfield, Louisiana
People murdered in Louisiana
Tulane University Law School alumni
Tulane University alumni
United States senators from Louisiana
University of Oklahoma alumni | true | [
"Kuprai Amazai is a village in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province of Pakistan. This village was founded by migrants from Amazo Gharai Mardan (near Sawabi) in 1718. It got its name from its proximity to a large stone which looked like a human skull.. In Pashto, a human skull is called a Kooprai which was corrupted to Kupri over the years. The father (Baba) of this village migrated from District Mardan and his name was Ahmed Baba. The main tribes in Amazai are Pathans (Yousafzai, Tanoli), Mughals and Gujjars. The population is approximately 3500 and the predominant occupations are in agriculture.\n\nThere are two mosques (Sunni Islam) and a Hujra in Kupri. People come to Hujra and sit together and discuss their issues. The upper mosque is in the upper part of the village and the lower mosque in the lower. There is also a high school and three primary schools.\n\nThere are six sub-tribes in Kupri Amazai. The largest is Khair Muhammad Khel, also called Ganra Khoona. The second largest is Umbaras Khail. These sub-tribes have been further divided into sub-casts. The sub-casts of Khair Muhmmad Khel are Zaman Khel, Musa Khal. Zaman Khel were once very well known for their bravery. Each tribe have some prominent persons who sit together at Hujra to discuss the issues and define policies for the village. Everyone in the village have to follow these policies. Any person who deviates from these local policies are charged fine called Nagha in local language. Policies are prepared verbally and everybody keep remember these rules. \n\nAll villagers are very cooperative with each other in social works. Whenever any dispute arises between two persons, some respectable people resolve their conflicts through jirga. Jirga is the most common ethic of Pathans in which many disputes are resolved without any police or government intervention.\n\nVillages in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa",
"Slave insurance in the United States became an increasingly significant industry after the Act Prohibiting Importation of Slaves, a federal law which took effect in 1808, prevented any new slaves from being imported to the U.S. Existing slaves, especially skilled workers, therefore became more valuable, and were often rented out to businesses; slave owners insured against the death or loss of these rented-out slaves. Industries which rented insured skilled slaves from their owners included blacksmithing, carpentry, railroad construction, coal mining, and steamboat operations, and insured rented slaves also included firemen and cooks. Chinese slaves, called \"coolies\", were also insured.\n\nThe subject of slave insurance in the United States has become a matter of historical and legislative interest. In the history of slavery in the United States, a number of insurance companies wrote policies insuring slave owners against the loss, damage, or death of their slaves. The fact that a number of insurers continue the businesses that serviced these policies has brought attention to this history.\n\nAttorney Deadria Farmer-Pallmann discovered an 1852 circular that named insurers that serviced some of these policies. National Loan Fund Life Assurance Company distributed a circular entitled. \"A Method by Which Slave Owners May Be Protected From Loss\" which named The Merchants Bank and The Leather Manufactures Bank as institutions able to pay and adjust claims. Under a typical policy a slave could be insured for $500.00 with an annual premium of about $11.25.\n\nDisclosure legislation\nOn September 30, 2000 Governor Gray Davis of California signed two bills relating to slave insurance. One bill was written by former California State Senator Tom Hayden. The California legislature found that:\n\n[I]nsurance policies from the slavery era have been discovered in the archives of several insurance companies, documenting insurance coverage for slaveholders for damage to or death of their slaves, issued by a predecessor insurance firm. These documents provide the first evidence of ill-gotten profits from slavery, which profits in part capitalized insurers whose successors remain in existence today.\n\nThe California insurance commissioner has the power to request slave insurance policies from insurance companies doing business in California.\n\nA second bill, which is called UC Slavery Colloquium Bill (SB 111737) allows the University of California the option to hold a conference on the economics of slavery. Important organizations such as Jesse Jackson's Rainbow/PUSH and the NAACP supported these bills.\n\nIn California and other states calls have been made to verify any documents that showed profits from slavery on the part of capitalized insurers whose successors remain in existence today.\n\nPart of Governor Davis' Bill included: 13810 The Commissioner shall request and obtain information in the state regarding any records of slave-holder insurance. Next the Commissioner shall obtain the names of any slave holders or slaves described in the insurance records. Also each insurer licensed and doing business in the state must show any insurance policies issued to slave-holders that provided coverage for damage to or death to their slaves. Last any slaves whose ancestors' owners were compensated for damages by insurers are entitled to full disclosure. Articles 12810, 13811, 13812, 13813 part of the California Code of Regulations,Tile 10, Sections 2393-2398 implement the statute.\n\nWhile researching coal mining history, an author recently discovered additional information regarding the use of life insurance policies for coal mining slaves. \"These policies provided a risk-free opportunity for the owners to lease slaves; but it was far from risk-free for the slaves who were forced to work in the extremely hazardous conditions of the mines.\" Insurance companies even wrote policies on 12-year-old slaves who labored underground in the mines.\n\nSee also\nSklavenkasse\n\nSources\n\nReferences\n\nSlavery in the United States\nInsurance in the United States\nTypes of insurance\nEconomic history of the United States\nHistory of insurance"
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"Huey Long",
"Increased tensions in Louisiana",
"What lead up to the increase in tensions?",
"By 1935, Long's most recent consolidation of personal power led to talk of armed opposition from his enemies. Opponents increasingly invoked",
"Are there any other interesting aspects about this article?",
"The new laws further centralized Long's control over the state by creating several new Long-appointed state agencies:",
"What laws were implemented?",
"a state bond and tax board holding sole authority to approve all loans to parish and municipal governments, a new state printing board which could withhold \"",
"Were there any other policies?",
"printing board which could withhold \"official printer\" status from uncooperative newspapers, a new board of election supervisors which would"
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| C_04be97353a2c41469cce24af4cbfcb97_0 | What would the new board of election supervisors do? | 5 | What would the new board of election supervisors do? | Huey Long | By 1935, Long's most recent consolidation of personal power led to talk of armed opposition from his enemies. Opponents increasingly invoked the memory of the Battle of Liberty Place of 1874, in which the White League staged an uprising against Louisiana's Reconstruction-era government. In January 1935, an anti-Long paramilitary organization called the Square Deal Association was formed. Its members included former governors John M. Parker and Ruffin G. Pleasant and New Orleans Mayor T. Semmes Walmsley. On January 25, 200 armed Square Dealers took over the courthouse of East Baton Rouge Parish. Long had Governor Allen call out the National Guard, declare martial law, ban public gatherings of two or more persons, and forbid the publication of criticism of state officials. The Square Dealers left the courthouse, but there was a brief armed skirmish at the Baton Rouge Airport. Tear gas and live ammunition were fired; one person was wounded but there were no fatalities. In the summer of 1935, Long called for two more special sessions of the legislature; bills were passed in rapid-fire succession without being read or discussed. The new laws further centralized Long's control over the state by creating several new Long-appointed state agencies: a state bond and tax board holding sole authority to approve all loans to parish and municipal governments, a new state printing board which could withhold "official printer" status from uncooperative newspapers, a new board of election supervisors which would appoint all poll watchers, and a State Board of Censors. They also stripped away the remaining lucrative powers of the mayor of New Orleans to cripple the entrenched opposition. Long boasted that he had "taken over every board and commission in New Orleans except the Community Chest and the Red Cross." Long quarreled with former State Senator Henry E. Hardtner of La Salle Parish. While proceeding to Baton Rouge in August 1935 to confront the state government over a tax matter relating to his Urania Lumber Company, based in Urania, Hardtner, known as "the father of forestry in the South," was killed in a car-train accident. CANNOTANSWER | newspapers, a new board of election supervisors which would appoint all poll watchers, and a State Board of Censors. They also stripped away | Huey Pierce Long Jr. (August 30, 1893September 10, 1935), nicknamed "the Kingfish", was an American politician who served as the 40th governor of Louisiana from 1928 to 1932 and as a United States Senator from 1932 until his assassination in 1935. He was a populist member of the Democratic Party and rose to national prominence during the Great Depression for his vocal criticism of President Franklin D. Roosevelt and his New Deal, which Long deemed insufficiently radical. As the political leader of Louisiana, he commanded wide networks of supporters and often took forceful action. A controversial figure, Long is celebrated as a populist champion of the poor or, conversely, denounced as a demagogue.
Long was born in the impoverished north of Louisiana in 1893. After working as a traveling salesman and briefly attending three colleges, he entered the bar in Louisiana. Following a short private legal career in which he represented poor plaintiffs, Long was elected to the Louisiana Public Service Commission. As Commissioner, he prosecuted large corporations such as Standard Oil, a lifelong target of his rhetorical attacks. After Long successfully argued before the U.S. Supreme Court, Chief Justice and former president William Howard Taft praised him as "the most brilliant lawyer who ever practiced before the United States Supreme Court".
After a failed 1924 campaign, Long used the sharp economic and class divisions in Louisiana to win the 1928 gubernatorial election. Once in office, he expanded social programs, organized massive public works projects, such as a modern highway system and the tallest capitol building in the nation, and proposed a cotton holiday. Through political maneuvering, Long became the political boss of Louisiana. He was impeached in 1929 for abuses of power, but the proceedings collapsed in the State Senate. His opponents argued his policies and methods were unconstitutional and dictatorial. At its climax, political opposition organized a minor insurrection.
Long was elected to the U.S. Senate in 1930 but did not assume his seat until 1932. He established himself as an isolationist, arguing that Standard Oil and Wall Street orchestrated American foreign policy. He was instrumental in securing Roosevelt's 1932 nomination but split with him in 1933, becoming a prominent critic of his New Deal. As an alternative, he proposed the Share Our Wealth program in 1934. To stimulate the economy, he advocated massive federal spending, a wealth tax, and wealth redistribution. These proposals drew wide support with millions joining local Share Our Wealth clubs. Poised for a 1936 presidential bid, Long was mortally wounded by a lone assassin in 1935. Although Long's movement faded, Roosevelt adopted many of his proposals in the Second New Deal, and Louisiana elections would be organized along anti- or pro-Long factions until the 1960s. He left behind a political dynasty that included his wife Senator Rose McConnell Long, his son Senator Russell B. Long, and his brother Governor Earl Long, among others.
Early life (1893–1915)
Childhood
Long was born on August 30, 1893, near Winnfield, a small town in north-central Louisiana, the seat of Winn Parish. Although Long often told followers he was born in a log cabin to an impoverished family, they lived in a "comfortable" farmhouse and were well-off compared to others in Winnfield. Winn Parish was impoverished, and its residents, mostly Southern Baptists, were often outsiders in Louisiana's political system. During the Civil War, Winn Parish had been a stronghold of Unionism in an otherwise Confederate state. At Louisiana's 1861 convention on secession, the delegate from Winn voted to remain in the Union saying: "Who wants to fight to keep the Negroes for the wealthy planters?" In the 1890s, the parish was a bastion of the Populist Party, and in the 1912 election, a plurality (35%) voted for the Socialist presidential candidate, Eugene V. Debs. Long embraced these populist sentiments.
One of nine children, Long was home schooled until age eleven. In the public system, he earned a reputation as an excellent student with a remarkable memory and convinced his teachers to let him skip seventh grade. At Winnfield High School, he and his friends formed a secret society, advertising their exclusivity by wearing a red ribbon. According to Long, his club's mission was "to run things, laying down certain rules the students would have to follow". The faculty learned of Long's antics and warned him to obey the school's rules. Long continued to rebel, writing and distributing a flyer that criticized his teachers and the necessity of a recently state-mandated fourth year of secondary education, for which he was expelled in 1910. Although Long successfully petitioned to fire the principal, he never returned to high school. As a student, Long proved a capable debater. At a state debate competition in Baton Rouge, he won a full-tuition scholarship to Louisiana State University (LSU). Because the scholarship did not cover textbooks or living expenses, his family could not afford for him to attend. Long was also unable to attend because he did not graduate from high school. Instead, he entered the workforce as a traveling salesman in the rural South.
Education and marriage
In September 1911, Long started attending seminary classes at Oklahoma Baptist University at the urging of his mother, a devout Baptist. Living with his brother George, Long attended for only one semester, rarely appearing at lectures. After deciding he was unsuited to preaching, Long focused on law. Borrowing one hundred dollars from his brother (which he later lost playing roulette in Oklahoma City), he attended the University of Oklahoma College of Law for a semester in 1912. To earn money while studying law part-time, he continued to work as a salesman. Of the four classes Long took, he received one incomplete and three C's. He later confessed he learned little because there was "too much excitement, all those gambling houses and everything".
Long met Rose McConnell at a baking contest he had promoted to sell Cottolene shortening. The two began a two-and-a-half-year courtship and married in April 1913 at the Gayoso Hotel in Memphis, Tennessee. On their wedding day, Long had no cash with him and had to borrow $10 from his fiancée to pay the officiant. Shortly after their marriage, Long revealed to his wife his aspirations to run for a statewide office, the governorship, the Senate, and ultimately the presidency. The Longs had a daughter named Rose (1917–2006) and two sons: Russell B. Long (1918–2003), who became a U.S. senator, and Palmer Reid Long (1921–2010), who became an oilman in Shreveport, Louisiana.
Long enrolled at Tulane University Law School in New Orleans in the fall of 1914. After a year of study that concentrated on the courses necessary for the bar exam, he successfully petitioned the Louisiana Supreme Court for permission to take the test before its scheduled June 1915 date. He was examined in May, passed, and received his license to practice. According to Long: "I came out of that courtroom running for office."
Legal career (1915–1923)
In 1915, Long established a private practice in Winnfield. He represented poor plaintiffs, usually in workers' compensation cases. Long avoided fighting in World War I by obtaining a draft deferment on the grounds that he was married and had a dependent child. He successfully defended from prosecution under the Espionage Act of 1917 the state senator who had loaned him the money to complete his legal studies, and later claimed he did not serve because, "I was not mad at anybody over there." In 1918, Long invested $1,050 () in a well that struck oil. The Standard Oil Company refused to accept any of the oil in its pipelines, costing Long his investment. This episode served as the catalyst for Long's lifelong hatred of Standard Oil.
That same year, Long entered the race to serve on the three-seat Louisiana Railroad Commission. According to historian William Ivy Hair, Long's political message:
... would be repeated until the end of his days: he was a young warrior of and for the plain people, battling the evil giants of Wall Street and their corporations; too much of America's wealth was concentrated in too few hands, and this unfairness was perpetuated by an educational system so stacked against the poor that (according to his statistics) only fourteen out of every thousand children obtained a college education. The way to begin rectifying these wrongs was to turn out of office the corrupt local flunkies of big business ... and elect instead true men of the people, such as [himself].
In the Democratic primary, Long polled second behind incumbent Burk Bridges. Since no candidate garnered a majority of the votes, a run-off election was held, for which Long campaigned tirelessly across northern Louisiana. The race was close: Long defeated Burk by just 636 votes. Although the returns revealed wide support for Long in rural areas, he performed poorly in urban areas. On the Commission, Long forced utilities to lower rates, ordered railroads to extend service to small towns, and demanded that Standard Oil cease the importation of Mexican crude oil and use more oil from Louisiana wells.
In the gubernatorial election of 1920, Long campaigned heavily for John M. Parker; today, he is often credited with helping Parker win northern parishes. After Parker was elected, the two became bitter rivals. Their break was largely caused by Long's demand and Parker's refusal to declare the state's oil pipelines public utilities. Long was infuriated when Parker allowed oil companies, led by Standard Oil's legal team, to assist in writing severance tax laws. Long denounced Parker as corporate "chattel". The feud climaxed in 1921, when Parker tried unsuccessfully to have Long ousted from the commission.
By 1922, Long had become chairman of the commission, now called the "Public Service Commission". That year, Long prosecuted the Cumberland Telephone & Telegraph Company for unfair rate increases; he successfully argued the case on appeal before the United States Supreme Court, which resulted in cash refunds to thousands of overcharged customers. After the decision, Chief Justice and former President William Howard Taft praised Long as "the most brilliant lawyer who ever practiced" before the court.
Gubernatorial campaigns (1924–1928)
1924 election
On August 30, 1923, Long announced his candidacy for the governorship of Louisiana. Long stumped throughout the state, personally distributing circulars and posters. He denounced Governor Parker as a corporate stooge, vilified Standard Oil, and assailed local political bosses.
He campaigned in rural areas disenfranchised by the state's political establishment, the "Old Regulars". Since the 1877 end of Republican-controlled Reconstruction government, they had controlled most of the state through alliances with local officials. With negligible support for Republicans, Louisiana was essentially a one party state under the Democratic Old Regulars. Holding mock elections in which they invoked the Lost Cause of the Confederacy, the Old Regulars presided over a corrupt government that largely benefited the planter class. Consequently, Louisiana was one of the least developed states: It had just 300 miles of paved roads and the lowest literacy rate.
Despite an enthusiastic campaign, Long came third in the primary and was eliminated. Although polls projected only a few thousand votes, he attracted almost 72,000, around 31% of the electorate, and carried 28 parishes—more than either opponent. Limited to sectional appeal, he performed best in the poor rural north.
The Ku Klux Klan's prominence in Louisiana was the campaign's primary issue. While the two other candidates either strongly opposed or supported the Klan, Long remained neutral, alienating both sides. He also failed to attract Roman Catholic voters, which limited his chances in the south of the state. In majority Catholic New Orleans, he polled just 12,000 votes (17%). Long blamed heavy rain on election day for suppressing voter turnout among his base in the north, where voters could not reach the polls over dirt roads that had turned to mud. It was the only election Long ever lost.
1928 election
Long spent the intervening four years building his reputation and political organization, particularly in the heavily Catholic urban south. Despite disagreeing with their politics, Long campaigned for Catholic U.S. Senators in 1924 and 1926. Government mismanagement during the Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 gained Long the support of Cajuns, whose land had been affected. He formally launched his second campaign for governor in 1927, using the slogan, "Every man a king, but no one wears a crown", a phrase adopted from Democratic presidential candidate William Jennings Bryan.
Long developed novel campaign techniques, including the use of sound trucks and radio commercials. His stance on race was unorthodox. According to T. Harry Williams, Long was "the first Southern mass leader to leave aside race baiting and appeals to the Southern tradition and the Southern past and address himself to the social and economic problems of the present". The campaign sometimes descended into brutality. When the 60-year-old incumbent governor called Long a liar during a chance encounter in the lobby of the Roosevelt Hotel, Long punched him in the face.
In the Democratic primary election, Long polled 126,842 votes: a plurality of 43.9 percent. His margin was the largest in state history, and no opponent chose to face him in a runoff. After earning the Democratic nomination, he easily defeated the Republican nominee in the general election with 96.1 percent of the vote. At age 35, Long was the youngest person ever elected governor of Louisiana.
Some fifteen thousand Louisianians traveled to Baton Rouge for Long's inauguration. He set up large tents, free drinks, and jazz bands on the capitol grounds, evoking Andrew Jackson's 1829 inaugural festivities. His victory was seen as a public backlash against the urban establishment; journalist Hodding Carter described it as a "fantastic vengeance upon the Sodom and Gomorrah that was called New Orleans". While previous elections were normally divided culturally and religiously, Long highlighted the sharp economic divide in the state and built a new coalition based on class. Long's strength, said the contemporary novelist Sherwood Anderson, relied on "the terrible South ... the beaten, ignorant, Bible-ridden, white South. Faulkner occasionally really touches it. It has yet to be paid for."
Louisiana Governorship (1928–1932)
First year
Once in office on May 21, 1928, Long moved quickly to consolidate power, firing hundreds of opponents in the state bureaucracy at all ranks from cabinet-level heads of departments to state road workers. Like previous governors, he filled the vacancies with patronage appointments from his network of political supporters. Every state employee who depended on Long for a job was expected to pay a portion of their salary at election time directly into his campaign fund.
Once his control over the state's political apparatus was strengthened, Long pushed several bills through the 1929 session of the Louisiana State Legislature to fulfill campaign promises. His bills met opposition from legislators, wealthy citizens, and the media, but Long used aggressive tactics to ensure passage. He would appear unannounced on the floor of both the House and Senate or in House committees, corralling reluctant representatives and state senators and bullying opponents. When an opposing legislator once suggested Long was unfamiliar with the Louisiana Constitution, he declared, "I'm the Constitution around here now."
One program Long approved was a free textbook program for schoolchildren. Long's free school books angered Catholics, who usually sent their children to private schools. Long assured them that the books would be granted directly to all children, regardless of whether they attended public school. Yet this assurance was criticized by conservative constitutionalists, who claimed it violated the separation of church and state and sued Long. The case went to the U.S. Supreme Court, which ruled in Long's favor.
Irritated by "immoral" gambling dens and brothels in New Orleans, Long sent the National Guard to raid these establishments with orders to "shoot without hesitation". Gambling equipment was burned, prostitutes were arrested, and over $25,000 () was confiscated for government funds. Local newspapers ran photos of National Guardsmen forcibly searching nude women. City authorities had not requested military force, and martial law had not been declared. The Louisiana attorney general denounced Long's actions as illegal but Long rebuked him saying: "Nobody asked him for his opinion."
Despite wide disapproval, Long had the Governor's Mansion, built in 1887, razed by convicts from the State Penitentiary under his personal supervision. In its place, Long had a much larger Georgian mansion built. It bore a strong resemblance to the White House; he reportedly wanted to be familiar with the residence when he became president.
Impeachment
In 1929, Long called a special legislative session to enact a five-cent per barrel tax on refined oil production to fund his social programs. The state's oil interests opposed the bill. Long declared in a radio address that any legislator who refused to support the tax had been "bought" by oil companies. Instead of persuading the legislature, the accusation infuriated many of its members. The "dynamite squad", a caucus of opponents led by freshman lawmakers Cecil Morgan and Ralph Norman Bauer, introduced an impeachment resolution against Long. Nineteen charges were listed, ranging from blasphemy to subornation of murder. Even Long's lieutenant governor, Paul Cyr, supported impeachment; he accused Long of nepotism and alleged he had made corrupt deals with a Texan oil company.
Concerned, Long tried to close the session. Pro-Long Speaker John B. Fournet called for a vote to adjourn. Despite most representatives opposing adjournment, the electronic voting board tallied 68 ayes and 13 nays. This sparked confusion; anti-Long representatives began chanting that the voting machine had been rigged. Some ran for the speaker's chair to call for a new vote but met resistance from their pro-Long colleagues, sparking a brawl later known as "Bloody Monday". In the scuffle, legislators threw inkwells, allegedly attacked others with brass knuckles, and Long's brother Earl bit a legislator's neck. Following the fight, the legislature voted to remain in session and proceed with impeachment. A trial in the house took place with dozens of witnesses, including a hula dancer who claimed that Long had been "frisky" with her. Impeached on eight of the 19 charges, Long was the first Louisiana governor charged in the state's history.
Long was frightened by the prospect of conviction, for it would force him from the governorship and permanently disqualify him from holding public office in Louisiana. He took his case to the people with a mass meeting in Baton Rouge, where he alleged that impeachment was a ploy by Standard Oil to thwart his programs. The House referred the charges to the Louisiana Senate, in which conviction required a two-thirds majority. Long produced a round robin statement signed by fifteen senators pledging to vote "not guilty" regardless of the evidence. The impeachment process, now futile, was suspended. It has been alleged that both sides used bribes to buy votes and that Long later rewarded the round robin signers with positions or other favors.
Following the failed trial, Long treated his opponents ruthlessly. He fired their relatives from state jobs and supported their challengers in elections. Long concluded that extra-legal means would be needed to accomplish his goals: "I used to try to get things done by saying 'please.' Now... I dynamite 'em out of my path." Receiving death threats, he surrounded himself with bodyguards. Now a resolute critic of the "lying" press, Long established his own newspaper in March 1930: the Louisiana Progress. The paper was extremely popular, widely distributed by policemen, highway workers, and government truckers.
Senate campaign
Shortly after the impeachment, Long—now nicknamed "The Kingfish" after an Amos 'n' Andy character—announced his candidacy for the U.S. Senate in the 1930 Democratic primary. He framed his campaign as a referendum. If he won, he presumed the public supported his programs over the opposition of the legislature. If he lost, he promised to resign.
His opponent was incumbent Joseph E. Ransdell, the Catholic senator whom Long endorsed in 1924. At 72 years old, Ransdell had been in the Senate since Long was age four. Aligned with the establishment, Ransdell had the support of all 18 of the state's daily newspapers. To combat this, Long purchased two new $30,000 sound trucks and distributed over two million circulars. Although promising not to make personal attacks, Long seized on Ransdell's age, calling him "Old Feather Duster". The campaign became increasingly vicious, The New York Times calling it "as amusing as it was depressing". Long critic Sam Irby, set to testify on Long's corruption to state authorities, was abducted by Long's bodyguards shortly before the election. Irby emerged after the election; he had been missing for four days. Surrounded by Long's guards, he gave a radio address in which he "confessed" that he had actually asked Long for protection. The New Orleans mayor labelled it "the most heinous public crime in Louisiana history".
Ultimately, on September 9, 1930, Long defeated Ransdell by 149,640 (57.3 percent) to 111,451 (42.7 percent). There were accusations of voter fraud against Long; voting records showed people voting in alphabetical order, among them celebrities like Charlie Chaplin, Jack Dempsey and Babe Ruth.
Although his Senate term began on March 4, 1931, Long completed most of his four-year term as governor, which did not end until May 1932. He declared that leaving the seat vacant would not hurt Louisiana: "[W]ith Ransdell as Senator, the seat was vacant anyway." By occupying the governorship until January 25, 1932, Long prevented Lieutenant Governor Cyr, who threatened to undo Long's reforms, from succeeding to the office. In October 1931, Cyr learned Long was in Mississippi and declared himself the state's legitimate governor. In response, Long ordered National Guard troops to surround the Capitol to block Cyr's "coup d'état" and petitioned the Louisiana Supreme Court. Long successfully argued that Cyr had vacated the office of lieutenant-governor when trying to assume the governorship and had the court eject Cyr.
Senator-elect
Now governor and senator-elect, Long returned to completing his legislative agenda with renewed strength. He continued his intimidating practice of presiding over the legislature, shouting "Shut up!" or "Sit down!" when legislators voiced their concerns. In a single night, Long passed 44 bills in just two hours: one every three minutes. He later explained his tactics: "The end justifies the means." Long endorsed pro-Long candidates and wooed others with favors; he often joked his legislature was the "finest collection of lawmakers money can buy". He organized and concentrated his power into a political machine: "a one-man" operation, according to Williams. He placed his brother Earl in charge of allotting patronage appointments to local politicians and signing state contracts with businessmen in exchange for loyalty. Long appointed allies to key government positions, such as giving Robert Maestri the office of Conservation Commissioner and making Oscar K. Allen head of the Louisiana Highway Commission. Maestri would deliberately neglect the regulation of energy companies in exchange for industry donations to Long's campaign fund, while Allen took direction from Earl on which construction and supply companies to contract for road work. Concerned by these tactics, Long's opponents charged he had become the virtual dictator of the state.
To address record low cotton prices amid a Great Depression surplus, Long proposed the major cotton-producing states mandate a 1932 "cotton holiday", which would ban cotton production for the entire year. He further proposed that the holiday be imposed internationally, which some nations, such as Egypt, supported. In 1931, Long convened the New Orleans Cotton Conference, attended by delegates from every major cotton-producing state. The delegates agreed to codify Long's proposal into law on the caveat that it would not come into effect until states producing three-quarters of U.S. cotton passed such laws. As the proposer, Louisiana unanimously passed the legislation. When conservative politicians in Texas—the largest cotton producer in the U.S.—rejected the measure, the holiday movement collapsed. Although traditional politicians would have been ruined by such a defeat, Long became a national figure and cemented his image as a champion of the poor. Senator Carter Glass, although a fervid critic of Long, credited him with first suggesting artificial scarcity as a solution to the depression.
Accomplishments in Louisiana
Long was unusual among southern populists in that he achieved tangible progress. Williams concluded "the secret of Long's power, in the final analysis, was not in his machine or his political dealings but in his record—he delivered something". Referencing Long's contributions to Louisiana, Robert Penn Warren, a professor at LSU during Long's term as governor, stated: "Dictators, always give something for what they get."
Long created a public works program that was unprecedented in the South, constructing roads, bridges, hospitals, schools, and state buildings. During his four years as governor, Long increased paved highways in Louisiana from and constructed of gravel roads. By 1936, the infrastructure program begun by Long had completed some of new roads, doubling Louisiana's road system. He built 111 bridges and started construction on the first bridge over the Mississippi entirely in Louisiana, the Huey P. Long Bridge. These projects provided thousands of jobs during the depression: Louisiana employed more highway workers than any other state. Long built a State Capitol, which at tall remains the tallest capitol, state or federal, in the United States. Long's infrastructure spending increased the state government's debt from $11 million in 1928 to $150 million in 1935.
Long was an ardent supporter of the state's flagship public university, Louisiana State University (LSU). Having been unable to attend, Long now regarded it as "his" university. He increased LSU's funding and intervened in the university's affairs, expelling seven students who criticized him in the school newspaper. He constructed new buildings, including a fieldhouse that reportedly contained the longest pool in the United States. Long founded an LSU Medical School in New Orleans. To raise the stature of the football program, he converted the school's military marching band into the flashy "Show Band of the South" and hired Costa Rican composer Castro Carazo as the band director. As well as nearly doubling the size of the stadium, he arranged for lowered train fares, so students could travel to away games. Long's contributions resulted in LSU gaining a class A accreditation from the Association of American Universities.
Long's night schools taught 100,000 adults to read. His provision of free textbooks contributed to a 20 percent increase in school enrollment. He modernized public health facilities and ensured adequate conditions for the mentally ill. He established Louisiana's first rehabilitation program for penitentiary inmates. Through tax reform, Long made the first $2,000 in property assessment free, waiving property taxes for half the state's homeowners. Historians have criticized other policies, like high consumer taxes on gasoline and cigarettes, a reduced mother's pension, and low teacher salaries.
U.S. Senate (1932–1935)
Senator
When Long arrived in the Senate, America was in the throes of the Great Depression. With this backdrop, Long made characteristically fiery speeches that denounced wealth inequality. He criticized the leaders of both parties for failing to address the crisis adequately, notably attacking conservative Senate Democratic Leader Joseph Robinson of Arkansas for his apparent closeness with President Herbert Hoover and big business.
In the 1932 presidential election, Long was a vocal supporter of New York Governor Franklin D. Roosevelt. At that year's Democratic National Convention, Long kept the delegations of several wavering Southern states in the Roosevelt camp. Due to this, Long expected to be featured prominently in Roosevelt's campaign but was disappointed with a peripheral speaking tour limited to four Midwestern states.
Not discouraged after being snubbed, Long found other venues for his populist message. He endorsed Senator Hattie Caraway of Arkansas, a widow and the underdog candidate in a crowded field and conducted a whirlwind, seven-day tour of that state. During the campaign, Long gave 39 speeches, traveled , and spoke to over 200,000 people. In an upset win, Caraway became the first woman elected to a full term in the Senate.
Returning to Washington, Long gave theatrical speeches which drew wide attention. Public viewing areas were crowded with onlookers, among them a young Lyndon B. Johnson, who later said he was "simply entranced" by Long. Long obstructed bills for weeks, launching hour-long filibusters and having the clerk read superfluous documents. Long's antics, one editorial claimed, had made the Senate "impotent". In May 1932, The Washington Post called for his resignation. Long's behavior and radical rhetoric did little to endear him to his fellow senators. None of his proposed bills, resolutions, or motions were passed during his three years in the Senate.
Roosevelt and the New Deal
During the first 100 days of Roosevelt's presidency in spring 1933, Long's attitude towards Roosevelt and the New Deal was tepid. Aware that Roosevelt had no intention of radically redistributing the country's wealth, Long became one of the few national politicians to oppose Roosevelt's New Deal policies from the left. He considered them inadequate in the face of the escalating economic crisis but still supported some of Roosevelt's programs in the Senate, explaining: "Whenever this administration has gone to the left I have voted with it, and whenever it has gone to the right I have voted against it."
Long opposed the National Recovery Act, claiming it favored industrialists. In an attempt to prevent its passage, Long held a lone filibuster, speaking for 15 hours and 30 minutes, the second longest filibuster at the time. He also criticized Social Security, calling it inadequate and expressing his concerns that states would administer it in a way discriminatory to blacks. In 1933, he was a leader of a three-week Senate filibuster against the Glass banking bill, which he later supported as the Glass–Steagall Act after provisions extended government deposit insurance to state banks as well as national banks.
Roosevelt considered Long a radical demagogue and stated that Long, along with General Douglas MacArthur, "was one of the two most dangerous men in America". In June 1933, in an effort to undermine Long's political dominance, Roosevelt cut him out of consultations on the distribution of federal funds and patronage in Louisiana and placed Long's opponents in charge of federal programs in the state. Roosevelt supported a Senate inquiry into the election of Long ally John H. Overton to the Senate in 1932. The Long machine was accused of election fraud and voter intimidation, but the inquiry came up empty, and Overton was seated. To discredit Long and damage his support base, Roosevelt had Long's finances investigated by the Internal Revenue Service in 1934. Although they failed to link Long to any illegality, some of his lieutenants were charged with income tax evasion. Roosevelt's son, Elliott, would later note that in this instance, his father "may have been the originator of the concept of employing the IRS as a weapon of political retribution".
Chaco War and foreign policy
On May 30, 1934, Long took to the Senate floor to debate the abrogation of the Platt amendment. But instead of debating the amendment, Long declared his support for Paraguay against Bolivia in the Chaco War. He maintained that U.S. President Rutherford B. Hayes had awarded the oil-rich Chaco region to Paraguay in 1878. He attested Standard Oil had corrupted the Bolivian government and organized the war and that Wall Street orchestrated American foreign policy in Latin America. For his speech, Long received praise in Paraguay: after capturing a Bolivian fort in July 1934, they renamed it Fort Long. Long's allegations were widely publicized in Latin American newspapers. This drew the concern of the State Department, who believed that Long was damaging the reputation of the United States. Throughout the summer of 1934, they waged a sustained public relations campaign against Long throughout Latin America. This speech and others established Long as one of the most ardent isolationists in the Senate. He further argued that American involvement in the Spanish–American War and the First World War had been deadly mistakes conducted on behalf of Wall Street. Consequently, Long demanded the immediate independence of the Philippines, which the United States had occupied since 1898. He also opposed American entry into the World Court.
Share Our Wealth
In March 1933, Long revealed a series of bills collectively known as "the Long plan" to redistribute wealth. Together, they would cap fortunes at $100 million, limit annual income to $1 million, and cap individual inheritances at $5 million.
In a nationwide February 1934 radio broadcast, Long introduced his Share Our Wealth plan. The legislation would use the wealth from the Long plan to guarantee every family a basic household grant of $5,000 and a minimum annual income of one-third of the average family homestead value and income. Long supplemented his plan with proposals for free college and vocational training, veterans' benefits, federal assistance to farmers, public works projects, greater federal economic regulation, a $30 monthly elderly pension, a month's vacation for every worker, a thirty-hour workweek, a $10 billion land reclamation project to end the Dust Bowl, and free medical service and a "war on disease" led by the Mayo brothers. These reforms, Long claimed, would end the Great Depression. The plans were widely criticized and labeled impossible by economists.
With the Senate unwilling to support his proposals, in February 1934 Long formed the Share Our Wealth Society, a national network of local clubs that operated in opposition to the Democratic Party and Roosevelt. By 1935, the society had over 7.5 million members in 27,000 clubs. Long's Senate office received an average of 60,000 letters a week, resulting in Long hiring 48 stenographers to type responses. Of the two trucks that delivered mail to the Senate, one was devoted solely to mail for Long. Long's newspaper, now renamed American Progress, averaged a circulation of 300,000, some issues reaching over 1.5 million. Long drew international attention: English writer H. G. Wells interviewed Long, noting he was "like a Winston Churchill who has never been at Harrow. He abounds in promises."
Some historians believe that pressure from Share Our Wealth contributed to Roosevelt's "turn to the left" in the Second New Deal (1935), which consisted of the Social Security Act, the Works Progress Administration, the National Labor Relations Board, Aid to Dependent Children, and the Wealth Tax Act of 1935. Roosevelt reportedly admitted in private to trying to "steal Long's thunder".
Continued control over Louisiana
Long continued to maintain effective control of Louisiana while he was a senator, blurring the boundary between federal and state politics. Long chose his childhood friend, Oscar K. Allen, to succeed King in the January 1932 election. With the support of Long's voter base, Allen won easily, permitting Long to resign as governor and take his seat in the U.S. Senate in January 1932. Allen, widely viewed as a puppet, dutifully enacted Long's policies. When Long visited Louisiana, Allen would relinquish his office for the Senator, working instead at his receptionist's desk. Though he had no constitutional authority, Long continued to draft and press bills through the Louisiana State Legislature. One of the laws passed was what Long called "a tax on lying"—a 2 percent tax on newspaper advertising revenue.
In 1934, Long and James A. Noe, an independent oilman and member of the Louisiana State Senate from Ouachita Parish, formed the controversial Win or Lose Oil Company. The firm was established to obtain leases on state-owned lands so that its directors might collect bonuses and sublease the mineral rights to the major oil companies. Although ruled legal, these activities were done in secret, and the stockholders were unknown to the public. Long made a profit on the bonuses and the resale of those state leases and used the funds primarily for political purposes.
1935: Final year
Presidential ambitions
Popular support for Long's Share Our Wealth program raised the possibility of a 1936 presidential bid against incumbent Franklin D. Roosevelt. When questioned by the press, Long gave conflicting answers on his plans for 1936. Long's son Russell believed his father would have run on a third-party ticket. This is evidenced by Long's writing of a speculative book, My First Days in the White House, which laid out his plans for the presidency after the 1936 election.
In spring 1935, Long undertook a national speaking tour and regular radio appearances, attracting large crowds and increasing his stature. At a well-attended Long rally in Philadelphia, a former mayor told the press, "There are 250,000 Long votes" in this city. Regarding Roosevelt, Long boasted to the New York Times Arthur Krock: "He's scared of me. I can out-promise him, and he knows it."
As the 1936 election approached, the Roosevelt Administration grew increasingly concerned by Long's popularity. Democratic National Committee chairman James Farley commissioned a secret poll in early 1935. Farley's poll revealed that if Long ran on a third-party ticket, he would win about four million votes, 10% of the electorate. In a memo to Roosevelt, Farley expressed his concern that Long could split the vote, allowing the Republican nominee to win. Diplomat Edward M. House warned Roosevelt, "many people believe that he can do to your administration what Theodore Roosevelt did to the Taft Administration in '12". Many, including Hair, Williams, and Roosevelt, speculated that Long expected to lose in 1936, allowing the Republicans to take the White House. They believed the Republicans would worsen the Great Depression, deepening Long's appeal. According to Roosevelt, "That would bring the country to such a state by 1940 that Long thinks he would be made dictator."
Increased tensions in Louisiana
By 1935, Long's consolidation of power led to talk of armed opposition from his enemies in Louisiana. Opponents increasingly invoked the memory of the Battle of Liberty Place (1874), in which the White League staged an uprising against Louisiana's Reconstruction-era government. In January 1935, an anti-Long paramilitary organization called the Square Deal Association was formed. Its members included former governors John M. Parker and Ruffin Pleasant and New Orleans Mayor T. Semmes Walmsley. Standard Oil threatened to leave the state when Long finally passed the five-cent per barrel oil tax for which he had been impeached in 1929. Concerned Standard Oil employees formed a Square Deal association in Baton Rouge, organizing themselves in militia companies and demanding "direct action".
On January 25, 1935, these Square Dealers, now armed, seized the East Baton Rouge Parish courthouse. Long had Governor Allen execute emergency measures in Baton Rouge: he called in the National Guard, declared martial law, banned public gatherings of two or more persons, and forbade the publication of criticism of state officials. The Square Dealers left the courthouse, but there was a brief armed skirmish at the Baton Rouge Airport. Tear gas and live ammunition were fired; one person was wounded, but there were no fatalities. At a legal hearing, an alleged spy within the Square Dealers testified they were conspiring to assassinate Long.
In summer 1935, Long called two special legislative sessions in Louisiana; bills were passed in rapid-fire succession without being read or discussed. The new laws further centralized Long's control over the state by creating new Long-appointed state agencies: a state bond and tax board holding sole authority to approve loans to local governments, a new state printing board which could withhold "official printer" status from uncooperative newspapers, a new board of election supervisors which would appoint all poll watchers, and a State Board of Censors. They stripped away the remaining powers of the Mayor of New Orleans. Long boasted he had "taken over every board and commission in New Orleans except the Community Chest and the Red Cross". A September 7 special session passed 42 bills. The most extreme, likely aimed at Roosevelt and his federal agents, authorized Louisiana to fine and imprison anyone who infringed on the powers reserved to the state in the Tenth Amendment to the United States Constitution.
Assassination
On September 8, 1935, Long traveled to the State Capitol to pass a bill that would gerrymander the district of an opponent, Judge Benjamin Pavy, who had held his position for 28 years. At 9:20 p.m., just after passage of the bill effectively removing Pavy, Pavy's son-in-law, Carl Weiss, approached Long, and, according to the generally accepted version of events, fired a single shot with a handgun from four feet (1.2 m) away, striking Long in the torso. Long's bodyguards, nicknamed the "Cossacks" or "skullcrushers", then fired at Weiss with their pistols, killing him. An autopsy found Weiss had been shot at least 60 times. Long ran down a flight of stairs and across the capitol grounds, hailing a car to take him to Our Lady of the Lake Hospital. He was rushed to the operating room where surgery closed perforations in his intestines but failed to stop internal bleeding. Long died at 4:10 a.m. on September 10, 31 hours after being shot. According to different sources, his last words were either, "I wonder what will happen to my poor university boys", or "God, don't let me die. I have so much to do."
Over 200,000 people traveled to Baton Rouge to attend Long's September 12 funeral. His remains were buried on the grounds of the Capitol; a statue depicting Long was constructed on his grave. Although Long's allies alleged he was assassinated by political opponents, a federal probe found no evidence of conspiracy. Long's death brought relief to the Roosevelt Administration, which would win in a landslide in the 1936 election. Farley publicly admitted his apprehension of campaigning against Long: "I always laughed Huey off, but I did not feel that way about him." Roosevelt's close economic advisor Rexford Tugwell wrote that, "When he was gone it seemed that a beneficent peace had fallen on the land. Father Coughlin, Reno, Townsend, et al., were after all pygmies compared with Huey. He had been a major phenomenon." Tugwell also said that Roosevelt regarded Long's assassination as a "providential occurrence".
Evidence later surfaced that suggests Long was accidentally shot by his bodyguards. Proponents of this theory assert Long was caught in the crossfire as his bodyguards shot Weiss, and a bullet that ricocheted off the marble walls hit him.
Legacy
Politics
Long's assassination turned him into a legendary figure in parts of Louisiana. In 1938, Swedish sociologist Gunnar Myrdal encountered rural children who not only insisted Long was alive, but that he was president. Although no longer governing, Long's policies continued to be enacted in Louisiana by his political machine, which supported Roosevelt's re-election to prevent further investigation into their finances. The machine remained a powerful force in state politics until the 1960 elections. Within the Louisiana Democratic Party, Long set in motion two durable factions—"pro-Long" and "anti-Long"—which diverged meaningfully in terms of policies and voter support. For decades after his death, Long's political style inspired imitation among Louisiana politicians who borrowed his rhetoric and promises of social programs.
After Long's death, a family dynasty emerged: his brother Earl was elected lieutenant-governor in 1936 and governor in 1948 and 1956. Long's widow, Rose Long, replaced him in the Senate, and his son, Russell, was a U.S. senator from 1948 to 1987. As chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, Russell shaped the nation's tax laws, advocating low business taxes and passing legislation beneficial to the poor like the Earned Income Credit. Other relatives, including George, Gillis, and Speedy, have represented Louisiana in Congress.
Huey P. Newton, co-founder of the Black Panther Party, was named after Long.
Historical reputation
Academics and historians have found difficulty categorizing Long and his ideology. His platform has been compared to ideologies ranging from McCarthyism to European Fascism and Stalinism. When asked about his own philosophy, Long simply replied: "Oh, hell, say that I'm sui generis and let it go at that." Robert Penn Warren described him as a "remarkable set of contradictions".
A majority of academics, biographers, and writers who have examined Long view him negatively, typically as a demagogue or dictator. Reinhard H. Luthin said that he was the epitome of an American demagogue. David Kennedy wrote that Long's regime in Louisiana was "the closest thing to a dictatorship that America has ever known". Journalist Hodding Carter described him as "the first true dictator out of the soil of America" and his movement the "success of fascism in one American state". Peter Viereck categorized Long's movement as "chauvinist thought control"; Victor Ferkiss called it "incipient fascism".
One of the few biographers to praise Long was T. Harry Williams, who classified Long's ideas as neo-populist. He labeled Long a democratic "mass leader", rather than a demagogue. Besides Williams, intellectual Gore Vidal expressed admiration for Long, even naming him as his favorite contemporary U.S. politician. Long biographer Thomas O. Harris espoused a more nuanced view of Long: "neither saint nor devil, he was a complex and heterogenous mixture of good and bad, genius and craft, hypocrisy and candor, buffoonery and seriousness".
Media
In popular culture, Long has served as a template for multiple dictatorial politicians in novels. Notable works include Sinclair Lewis's novel It Can't Happen Here (1935), Robert Penn Warren's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel All the King's Men (1946), and Adria Locke Langley's 1945 novel A Lion Is in the Streets. The latter two were adapted into Academy Award-winning films. As well as two television docudramas, Long was the subject of a 1985 Ken Burns-directed documentary. In music, Randy Newman featured Long in two songs on the 1974 album Good Old Boys.
Long has been the subject of dozens of biographies and academic texts. In fact, more has been written about Long than any other Louisianan. Most notable is the 1969 biography Huey Long by Williams, which won both the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award. Alan Brinkley won the National Book Award in 1983 for Voices of Protest, a study of Long, Coughlin, and populist opposition to Roosevelt.
Works
Bibliography
Constitutions of the State of Louisiana, 1930
Every Man a King, 1933
My First Days in the White House, 1935
Discography
Long collaborated with composer Castro Carazo on the following songs:
"Darling of LSU", 1935
"Every Man a King", 1935
"The LSU Cadets March", 1935
"Touchdown for LSU", 1935
See also
List of United States Congress members killed or wounded in office
Charles Coughlin
Francis Townsend
Notes and references
Notes
References and citations
Works cited
1893 births
1935 deaths
20th-century American lawyers
20th-century American politicians
American political bosses from Louisiana
American social democrats
Anti-poverty advocates
Assassinated American politicians
Burials in Louisiana
Deaths by firearm in Louisiana
Democratic Party United States senators
Democratic Party state governors of the United States
Governors of Louisiana
History of United States isolationism
Impeached United States officials
Left-wing populism in the United States
Huey
Louisiana Democrats
Louisiana lawyers
Male murder victims
Members of the Louisiana Public Service Commission
Oklahoma Baptist University alumni
People from Winnfield, Louisiana
People murdered in Louisiana
Tulane University Law School alumni
Tulane University alumni
United States senators from Louisiana
University of Oklahoma alumni | false | [
"The 1998 San Francisco Board of Supervisors elections occurred on November 3, 1998. Five of the eleven seats were contested. Five incumbents, two of which were appointed by Mayor Willie Brown, were up for election.\n\nThis election was the last using at-large seats, a system that effectively reduces representation of minority points of view. Subsequent Board of Supervisors elections were to district seats through a plan ratified by the voters in 1996.\n\nMunicipal elections in California are officially non-partisan, though most candidates in San Francisco do receive funding and support from various political parties.\n\n\nResults \nEach voter is allowed to cast at most five votes.\n\nExternal links \nCity and County of San Francisco Department of Elections\n\nSan Francisco Board of Supervisors\nBoard of Supervisors 1998\nElections Board of Supervisors\nSan Francisco Board of Supervisors\nSan Francisco Board of Supervisors election",
"The 2020 Orange County Board of Supervisors elections was held on March 3, 2020 as part of the primary election on March 3, 2020. Two of the five seats of the Orange County, California Board of Supervisors were up for election.\n\nCounty elections in California are officially nonpartisan. A two-round system was to be used for the election, starting with the first round in March; followed by a runoff in November between the top-two candidates in each district. Runoffs are held if no candidate receives a majority in each district.\n\nDistrict 1\nDistrict 1 takes in western Orange County, including Santa Ana, Westminster, Garden Grove and parts of Fountain Valley. The incumbent is Andrew Do, who was re-elected with 50.2% of the vote in 2016.\n\nCandidates\nSergio Contreras, Westminster city councilman\nAndrew Do, incumbent supervisor\nKim Bernice Nguyen, Garden Grove city councilwoman\nMiguel A. Pulido, mayor of Santa Ana\n\nGeneral election\n\nEndorsements\n\nResults\n\nRunoff\n\nEndorsements\n\nResults\n\nDistrict 3\nDistrict 3 encompasses central Orange County, taking in Irvine, Orange, Tustin, Villa Park, Yorba Linda, and eastern Anaheim. The incumbent is Donald P. Wagner, who was elected with 42.0% of the vote in 2019.\n\nCandidates\nAshleigh Aitken, attorney and member of the Orange County Fair Board\nDonald P. Wagner, incumbent supervisor\n\nGeneral election\n\nResults\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\nOfficial campaign websites of first district candidates\nSergio Contreras for Supervisor\nAndrew Do for Supervisor\n\nOfficial campaign websites of third district candidates\nAshleigh Aitken for Supervisor \nDonald Wagner for Supervisor\n\nOrange County Board of Supervisors\nOrange County Board of Supervisors 2020\nOrange County Board of Supervisors"
]
|
[
"Huey Long",
"Increased tensions in Louisiana",
"What lead up to the increase in tensions?",
"By 1935, Long's most recent consolidation of personal power led to talk of armed opposition from his enemies. Opponents increasingly invoked",
"Are there any other interesting aspects about this article?",
"The new laws further centralized Long's control over the state by creating several new Long-appointed state agencies:",
"What laws were implemented?",
"a state bond and tax board holding sole authority to approve all loans to parish and municipal governments, a new state printing board which could withhold \"",
"Were there any other policies?",
"printing board which could withhold \"official printer\" status from uncooperative newspapers, a new board of election supervisors which would",
"What would the new board of election supervisors do?",
"newspapers, a new board of election supervisors which would appoint all poll watchers, and a State Board of Censors. They also stripped away"
]
| C_04be97353a2c41469cce24af4cbfcb97_0 | What did they strip away? | 6 | What did the new board of election supervisors strip away? | Huey Long | By 1935, Long's most recent consolidation of personal power led to talk of armed opposition from his enemies. Opponents increasingly invoked the memory of the Battle of Liberty Place of 1874, in which the White League staged an uprising against Louisiana's Reconstruction-era government. In January 1935, an anti-Long paramilitary organization called the Square Deal Association was formed. Its members included former governors John M. Parker and Ruffin G. Pleasant and New Orleans Mayor T. Semmes Walmsley. On January 25, 200 armed Square Dealers took over the courthouse of East Baton Rouge Parish. Long had Governor Allen call out the National Guard, declare martial law, ban public gatherings of two or more persons, and forbid the publication of criticism of state officials. The Square Dealers left the courthouse, but there was a brief armed skirmish at the Baton Rouge Airport. Tear gas and live ammunition were fired; one person was wounded but there were no fatalities. In the summer of 1935, Long called for two more special sessions of the legislature; bills were passed in rapid-fire succession without being read or discussed. The new laws further centralized Long's control over the state by creating several new Long-appointed state agencies: a state bond and tax board holding sole authority to approve all loans to parish and municipal governments, a new state printing board which could withhold "official printer" status from uncooperative newspapers, a new board of election supervisors which would appoint all poll watchers, and a State Board of Censors. They also stripped away the remaining lucrative powers of the mayor of New Orleans to cripple the entrenched opposition. Long boasted that he had "taken over every board and commission in New Orleans except the Community Chest and the Red Cross." Long quarreled with former State Senator Henry E. Hardtner of La Salle Parish. While proceeding to Baton Rouge in August 1935 to confront the state government over a tax matter relating to his Urania Lumber Company, based in Urania, Hardtner, known as "the father of forestry in the South," was killed in a car-train accident. CANNOTANSWER | They also stripped away the remaining lucrative powers of the mayor of New Orleans to cripple | Huey Pierce Long Jr. (August 30, 1893September 10, 1935), nicknamed "the Kingfish", was an American politician who served as the 40th governor of Louisiana from 1928 to 1932 and as a United States Senator from 1932 until his assassination in 1935. He was a populist member of the Democratic Party and rose to national prominence during the Great Depression for his vocal criticism of President Franklin D. Roosevelt and his New Deal, which Long deemed insufficiently radical. As the political leader of Louisiana, he commanded wide networks of supporters and often took forceful action. A controversial figure, Long is celebrated as a populist champion of the poor or, conversely, denounced as a demagogue.
Long was born in the impoverished north of Louisiana in 1893. After working as a traveling salesman and briefly attending three colleges, he entered the bar in Louisiana. Following a short private legal career in which he represented poor plaintiffs, Long was elected to the Louisiana Public Service Commission. As Commissioner, he prosecuted large corporations such as Standard Oil, a lifelong target of his rhetorical attacks. After Long successfully argued before the U.S. Supreme Court, Chief Justice and former president William Howard Taft praised him as "the most brilliant lawyer who ever practiced before the United States Supreme Court".
After a failed 1924 campaign, Long used the sharp economic and class divisions in Louisiana to win the 1928 gubernatorial election. Once in office, he expanded social programs, organized massive public works projects, such as a modern highway system and the tallest capitol building in the nation, and proposed a cotton holiday. Through political maneuvering, Long became the political boss of Louisiana. He was impeached in 1929 for abuses of power, but the proceedings collapsed in the State Senate. His opponents argued his policies and methods were unconstitutional and dictatorial. At its climax, political opposition organized a minor insurrection.
Long was elected to the U.S. Senate in 1930 but did not assume his seat until 1932. He established himself as an isolationist, arguing that Standard Oil and Wall Street orchestrated American foreign policy. He was instrumental in securing Roosevelt's 1932 nomination but split with him in 1933, becoming a prominent critic of his New Deal. As an alternative, he proposed the Share Our Wealth program in 1934. To stimulate the economy, he advocated massive federal spending, a wealth tax, and wealth redistribution. These proposals drew wide support with millions joining local Share Our Wealth clubs. Poised for a 1936 presidential bid, Long was mortally wounded by a lone assassin in 1935. Although Long's movement faded, Roosevelt adopted many of his proposals in the Second New Deal, and Louisiana elections would be organized along anti- or pro-Long factions until the 1960s. He left behind a political dynasty that included his wife Senator Rose McConnell Long, his son Senator Russell B. Long, and his brother Governor Earl Long, among others.
Early life (1893–1915)
Childhood
Long was born on August 30, 1893, near Winnfield, a small town in north-central Louisiana, the seat of Winn Parish. Although Long often told followers he was born in a log cabin to an impoverished family, they lived in a "comfortable" farmhouse and were well-off compared to others in Winnfield. Winn Parish was impoverished, and its residents, mostly Southern Baptists, were often outsiders in Louisiana's political system. During the Civil War, Winn Parish had been a stronghold of Unionism in an otherwise Confederate state. At Louisiana's 1861 convention on secession, the delegate from Winn voted to remain in the Union saying: "Who wants to fight to keep the Negroes for the wealthy planters?" In the 1890s, the parish was a bastion of the Populist Party, and in the 1912 election, a plurality (35%) voted for the Socialist presidential candidate, Eugene V. Debs. Long embraced these populist sentiments.
One of nine children, Long was home schooled until age eleven. In the public system, he earned a reputation as an excellent student with a remarkable memory and convinced his teachers to let him skip seventh grade. At Winnfield High School, he and his friends formed a secret society, advertising their exclusivity by wearing a red ribbon. According to Long, his club's mission was "to run things, laying down certain rules the students would have to follow". The faculty learned of Long's antics and warned him to obey the school's rules. Long continued to rebel, writing and distributing a flyer that criticized his teachers and the necessity of a recently state-mandated fourth year of secondary education, for which he was expelled in 1910. Although Long successfully petitioned to fire the principal, he never returned to high school. As a student, Long proved a capable debater. At a state debate competition in Baton Rouge, he won a full-tuition scholarship to Louisiana State University (LSU). Because the scholarship did not cover textbooks or living expenses, his family could not afford for him to attend. Long was also unable to attend because he did not graduate from high school. Instead, he entered the workforce as a traveling salesman in the rural South.
Education and marriage
In September 1911, Long started attending seminary classes at Oklahoma Baptist University at the urging of his mother, a devout Baptist. Living with his brother George, Long attended for only one semester, rarely appearing at lectures. After deciding he was unsuited to preaching, Long focused on law. Borrowing one hundred dollars from his brother (which he later lost playing roulette in Oklahoma City), he attended the University of Oklahoma College of Law for a semester in 1912. To earn money while studying law part-time, he continued to work as a salesman. Of the four classes Long took, he received one incomplete and three C's. He later confessed he learned little because there was "too much excitement, all those gambling houses and everything".
Long met Rose McConnell at a baking contest he had promoted to sell Cottolene shortening. The two began a two-and-a-half-year courtship and married in April 1913 at the Gayoso Hotel in Memphis, Tennessee. On their wedding day, Long had no cash with him and had to borrow $10 from his fiancée to pay the officiant. Shortly after their marriage, Long revealed to his wife his aspirations to run for a statewide office, the governorship, the Senate, and ultimately the presidency. The Longs had a daughter named Rose (1917–2006) and two sons: Russell B. Long (1918–2003), who became a U.S. senator, and Palmer Reid Long (1921–2010), who became an oilman in Shreveport, Louisiana.
Long enrolled at Tulane University Law School in New Orleans in the fall of 1914. After a year of study that concentrated on the courses necessary for the bar exam, he successfully petitioned the Louisiana Supreme Court for permission to take the test before its scheduled June 1915 date. He was examined in May, passed, and received his license to practice. According to Long: "I came out of that courtroom running for office."
Legal career (1915–1923)
In 1915, Long established a private practice in Winnfield. He represented poor plaintiffs, usually in workers' compensation cases. Long avoided fighting in World War I by obtaining a draft deferment on the grounds that he was married and had a dependent child. He successfully defended from prosecution under the Espionage Act of 1917 the state senator who had loaned him the money to complete his legal studies, and later claimed he did not serve because, "I was not mad at anybody over there." In 1918, Long invested $1,050 () in a well that struck oil. The Standard Oil Company refused to accept any of the oil in its pipelines, costing Long his investment. This episode served as the catalyst for Long's lifelong hatred of Standard Oil.
That same year, Long entered the race to serve on the three-seat Louisiana Railroad Commission. According to historian William Ivy Hair, Long's political message:
... would be repeated until the end of his days: he was a young warrior of and for the plain people, battling the evil giants of Wall Street and their corporations; too much of America's wealth was concentrated in too few hands, and this unfairness was perpetuated by an educational system so stacked against the poor that (according to his statistics) only fourteen out of every thousand children obtained a college education. The way to begin rectifying these wrongs was to turn out of office the corrupt local flunkies of big business ... and elect instead true men of the people, such as [himself].
In the Democratic primary, Long polled second behind incumbent Burk Bridges. Since no candidate garnered a majority of the votes, a run-off election was held, for which Long campaigned tirelessly across northern Louisiana. The race was close: Long defeated Burk by just 636 votes. Although the returns revealed wide support for Long in rural areas, he performed poorly in urban areas. On the Commission, Long forced utilities to lower rates, ordered railroads to extend service to small towns, and demanded that Standard Oil cease the importation of Mexican crude oil and use more oil from Louisiana wells.
In the gubernatorial election of 1920, Long campaigned heavily for John M. Parker; today, he is often credited with helping Parker win northern parishes. After Parker was elected, the two became bitter rivals. Their break was largely caused by Long's demand and Parker's refusal to declare the state's oil pipelines public utilities. Long was infuriated when Parker allowed oil companies, led by Standard Oil's legal team, to assist in writing severance tax laws. Long denounced Parker as corporate "chattel". The feud climaxed in 1921, when Parker tried unsuccessfully to have Long ousted from the commission.
By 1922, Long had become chairman of the commission, now called the "Public Service Commission". That year, Long prosecuted the Cumberland Telephone & Telegraph Company for unfair rate increases; he successfully argued the case on appeal before the United States Supreme Court, which resulted in cash refunds to thousands of overcharged customers. After the decision, Chief Justice and former President William Howard Taft praised Long as "the most brilliant lawyer who ever practiced" before the court.
Gubernatorial campaigns (1924–1928)
1924 election
On August 30, 1923, Long announced his candidacy for the governorship of Louisiana. Long stumped throughout the state, personally distributing circulars and posters. He denounced Governor Parker as a corporate stooge, vilified Standard Oil, and assailed local political bosses.
He campaigned in rural areas disenfranchised by the state's political establishment, the "Old Regulars". Since the 1877 end of Republican-controlled Reconstruction government, they had controlled most of the state through alliances with local officials. With negligible support for Republicans, Louisiana was essentially a one party state under the Democratic Old Regulars. Holding mock elections in which they invoked the Lost Cause of the Confederacy, the Old Regulars presided over a corrupt government that largely benefited the planter class. Consequently, Louisiana was one of the least developed states: It had just 300 miles of paved roads and the lowest literacy rate.
Despite an enthusiastic campaign, Long came third in the primary and was eliminated. Although polls projected only a few thousand votes, he attracted almost 72,000, around 31% of the electorate, and carried 28 parishes—more than either opponent. Limited to sectional appeal, he performed best in the poor rural north.
The Ku Klux Klan's prominence in Louisiana was the campaign's primary issue. While the two other candidates either strongly opposed or supported the Klan, Long remained neutral, alienating both sides. He also failed to attract Roman Catholic voters, which limited his chances in the south of the state. In majority Catholic New Orleans, he polled just 12,000 votes (17%). Long blamed heavy rain on election day for suppressing voter turnout among his base in the north, where voters could not reach the polls over dirt roads that had turned to mud. It was the only election Long ever lost.
1928 election
Long spent the intervening four years building his reputation and political organization, particularly in the heavily Catholic urban south. Despite disagreeing with their politics, Long campaigned for Catholic U.S. Senators in 1924 and 1926. Government mismanagement during the Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 gained Long the support of Cajuns, whose land had been affected. He formally launched his second campaign for governor in 1927, using the slogan, "Every man a king, but no one wears a crown", a phrase adopted from Democratic presidential candidate William Jennings Bryan.
Long developed novel campaign techniques, including the use of sound trucks and radio commercials. His stance on race was unorthodox. According to T. Harry Williams, Long was "the first Southern mass leader to leave aside race baiting and appeals to the Southern tradition and the Southern past and address himself to the social and economic problems of the present". The campaign sometimes descended into brutality. When the 60-year-old incumbent governor called Long a liar during a chance encounter in the lobby of the Roosevelt Hotel, Long punched him in the face.
In the Democratic primary election, Long polled 126,842 votes: a plurality of 43.9 percent. His margin was the largest in state history, and no opponent chose to face him in a runoff. After earning the Democratic nomination, he easily defeated the Republican nominee in the general election with 96.1 percent of the vote. At age 35, Long was the youngest person ever elected governor of Louisiana.
Some fifteen thousand Louisianians traveled to Baton Rouge for Long's inauguration. He set up large tents, free drinks, and jazz bands on the capitol grounds, evoking Andrew Jackson's 1829 inaugural festivities. His victory was seen as a public backlash against the urban establishment; journalist Hodding Carter described it as a "fantastic vengeance upon the Sodom and Gomorrah that was called New Orleans". While previous elections were normally divided culturally and religiously, Long highlighted the sharp economic divide in the state and built a new coalition based on class. Long's strength, said the contemporary novelist Sherwood Anderson, relied on "the terrible South ... the beaten, ignorant, Bible-ridden, white South. Faulkner occasionally really touches it. It has yet to be paid for."
Louisiana Governorship (1928–1932)
First year
Once in office on May 21, 1928, Long moved quickly to consolidate power, firing hundreds of opponents in the state bureaucracy at all ranks from cabinet-level heads of departments to state road workers. Like previous governors, he filled the vacancies with patronage appointments from his network of political supporters. Every state employee who depended on Long for a job was expected to pay a portion of their salary at election time directly into his campaign fund.
Once his control over the state's political apparatus was strengthened, Long pushed several bills through the 1929 session of the Louisiana State Legislature to fulfill campaign promises. His bills met opposition from legislators, wealthy citizens, and the media, but Long used aggressive tactics to ensure passage. He would appear unannounced on the floor of both the House and Senate or in House committees, corralling reluctant representatives and state senators and bullying opponents. When an opposing legislator once suggested Long was unfamiliar with the Louisiana Constitution, he declared, "I'm the Constitution around here now."
One program Long approved was a free textbook program for schoolchildren. Long's free school books angered Catholics, who usually sent their children to private schools. Long assured them that the books would be granted directly to all children, regardless of whether they attended public school. Yet this assurance was criticized by conservative constitutionalists, who claimed it violated the separation of church and state and sued Long. The case went to the U.S. Supreme Court, which ruled in Long's favor.
Irritated by "immoral" gambling dens and brothels in New Orleans, Long sent the National Guard to raid these establishments with orders to "shoot without hesitation". Gambling equipment was burned, prostitutes were arrested, and over $25,000 () was confiscated for government funds. Local newspapers ran photos of National Guardsmen forcibly searching nude women. City authorities had not requested military force, and martial law had not been declared. The Louisiana attorney general denounced Long's actions as illegal but Long rebuked him saying: "Nobody asked him for his opinion."
Despite wide disapproval, Long had the Governor's Mansion, built in 1887, razed by convicts from the State Penitentiary under his personal supervision. In its place, Long had a much larger Georgian mansion built. It bore a strong resemblance to the White House; he reportedly wanted to be familiar with the residence when he became president.
Impeachment
In 1929, Long called a special legislative session to enact a five-cent per barrel tax on refined oil production to fund his social programs. The state's oil interests opposed the bill. Long declared in a radio address that any legislator who refused to support the tax had been "bought" by oil companies. Instead of persuading the legislature, the accusation infuriated many of its members. The "dynamite squad", a caucus of opponents led by freshman lawmakers Cecil Morgan and Ralph Norman Bauer, introduced an impeachment resolution against Long. Nineteen charges were listed, ranging from blasphemy to subornation of murder. Even Long's lieutenant governor, Paul Cyr, supported impeachment; he accused Long of nepotism and alleged he had made corrupt deals with a Texan oil company.
Concerned, Long tried to close the session. Pro-Long Speaker John B. Fournet called for a vote to adjourn. Despite most representatives opposing adjournment, the electronic voting board tallied 68 ayes and 13 nays. This sparked confusion; anti-Long representatives began chanting that the voting machine had been rigged. Some ran for the speaker's chair to call for a new vote but met resistance from their pro-Long colleagues, sparking a brawl later known as "Bloody Monday". In the scuffle, legislators threw inkwells, allegedly attacked others with brass knuckles, and Long's brother Earl bit a legislator's neck. Following the fight, the legislature voted to remain in session and proceed with impeachment. A trial in the house took place with dozens of witnesses, including a hula dancer who claimed that Long had been "frisky" with her. Impeached on eight of the 19 charges, Long was the first Louisiana governor charged in the state's history.
Long was frightened by the prospect of conviction, for it would force him from the governorship and permanently disqualify him from holding public office in Louisiana. He took his case to the people with a mass meeting in Baton Rouge, where he alleged that impeachment was a ploy by Standard Oil to thwart his programs. The House referred the charges to the Louisiana Senate, in which conviction required a two-thirds majority. Long produced a round robin statement signed by fifteen senators pledging to vote "not guilty" regardless of the evidence. The impeachment process, now futile, was suspended. It has been alleged that both sides used bribes to buy votes and that Long later rewarded the round robin signers with positions or other favors.
Following the failed trial, Long treated his opponents ruthlessly. He fired their relatives from state jobs and supported their challengers in elections. Long concluded that extra-legal means would be needed to accomplish his goals: "I used to try to get things done by saying 'please.' Now... I dynamite 'em out of my path." Receiving death threats, he surrounded himself with bodyguards. Now a resolute critic of the "lying" press, Long established his own newspaper in March 1930: the Louisiana Progress. The paper was extremely popular, widely distributed by policemen, highway workers, and government truckers.
Senate campaign
Shortly after the impeachment, Long—now nicknamed "The Kingfish" after an Amos 'n' Andy character—announced his candidacy for the U.S. Senate in the 1930 Democratic primary. He framed his campaign as a referendum. If he won, he presumed the public supported his programs over the opposition of the legislature. If he lost, he promised to resign.
His opponent was incumbent Joseph E. Ransdell, the Catholic senator whom Long endorsed in 1924. At 72 years old, Ransdell had been in the Senate since Long was age four. Aligned with the establishment, Ransdell had the support of all 18 of the state's daily newspapers. To combat this, Long purchased two new $30,000 sound trucks and distributed over two million circulars. Although promising not to make personal attacks, Long seized on Ransdell's age, calling him "Old Feather Duster". The campaign became increasingly vicious, The New York Times calling it "as amusing as it was depressing". Long critic Sam Irby, set to testify on Long's corruption to state authorities, was abducted by Long's bodyguards shortly before the election. Irby emerged after the election; he had been missing for four days. Surrounded by Long's guards, he gave a radio address in which he "confessed" that he had actually asked Long for protection. The New Orleans mayor labelled it "the most heinous public crime in Louisiana history".
Ultimately, on September 9, 1930, Long defeated Ransdell by 149,640 (57.3 percent) to 111,451 (42.7 percent). There were accusations of voter fraud against Long; voting records showed people voting in alphabetical order, among them celebrities like Charlie Chaplin, Jack Dempsey and Babe Ruth.
Although his Senate term began on March 4, 1931, Long completed most of his four-year term as governor, which did not end until May 1932. He declared that leaving the seat vacant would not hurt Louisiana: "[W]ith Ransdell as Senator, the seat was vacant anyway." By occupying the governorship until January 25, 1932, Long prevented Lieutenant Governor Cyr, who threatened to undo Long's reforms, from succeeding to the office. In October 1931, Cyr learned Long was in Mississippi and declared himself the state's legitimate governor. In response, Long ordered National Guard troops to surround the Capitol to block Cyr's "coup d'état" and petitioned the Louisiana Supreme Court. Long successfully argued that Cyr had vacated the office of lieutenant-governor when trying to assume the governorship and had the court eject Cyr.
Senator-elect
Now governor and senator-elect, Long returned to completing his legislative agenda with renewed strength. He continued his intimidating practice of presiding over the legislature, shouting "Shut up!" or "Sit down!" when legislators voiced their concerns. In a single night, Long passed 44 bills in just two hours: one every three minutes. He later explained his tactics: "The end justifies the means." Long endorsed pro-Long candidates and wooed others with favors; he often joked his legislature was the "finest collection of lawmakers money can buy". He organized and concentrated his power into a political machine: "a one-man" operation, according to Williams. He placed his brother Earl in charge of allotting patronage appointments to local politicians and signing state contracts with businessmen in exchange for loyalty. Long appointed allies to key government positions, such as giving Robert Maestri the office of Conservation Commissioner and making Oscar K. Allen head of the Louisiana Highway Commission. Maestri would deliberately neglect the regulation of energy companies in exchange for industry donations to Long's campaign fund, while Allen took direction from Earl on which construction and supply companies to contract for road work. Concerned by these tactics, Long's opponents charged he had become the virtual dictator of the state.
To address record low cotton prices amid a Great Depression surplus, Long proposed the major cotton-producing states mandate a 1932 "cotton holiday", which would ban cotton production for the entire year. He further proposed that the holiday be imposed internationally, which some nations, such as Egypt, supported. In 1931, Long convened the New Orleans Cotton Conference, attended by delegates from every major cotton-producing state. The delegates agreed to codify Long's proposal into law on the caveat that it would not come into effect until states producing three-quarters of U.S. cotton passed such laws. As the proposer, Louisiana unanimously passed the legislation. When conservative politicians in Texas—the largest cotton producer in the U.S.—rejected the measure, the holiday movement collapsed. Although traditional politicians would have been ruined by such a defeat, Long became a national figure and cemented his image as a champion of the poor. Senator Carter Glass, although a fervid critic of Long, credited him with first suggesting artificial scarcity as a solution to the depression.
Accomplishments in Louisiana
Long was unusual among southern populists in that he achieved tangible progress. Williams concluded "the secret of Long's power, in the final analysis, was not in his machine or his political dealings but in his record—he delivered something". Referencing Long's contributions to Louisiana, Robert Penn Warren, a professor at LSU during Long's term as governor, stated: "Dictators, always give something for what they get."
Long created a public works program that was unprecedented in the South, constructing roads, bridges, hospitals, schools, and state buildings. During his four years as governor, Long increased paved highways in Louisiana from and constructed of gravel roads. By 1936, the infrastructure program begun by Long had completed some of new roads, doubling Louisiana's road system. He built 111 bridges and started construction on the first bridge over the Mississippi entirely in Louisiana, the Huey P. Long Bridge. These projects provided thousands of jobs during the depression: Louisiana employed more highway workers than any other state. Long built a State Capitol, which at tall remains the tallest capitol, state or federal, in the United States. Long's infrastructure spending increased the state government's debt from $11 million in 1928 to $150 million in 1935.
Long was an ardent supporter of the state's flagship public university, Louisiana State University (LSU). Having been unable to attend, Long now regarded it as "his" university. He increased LSU's funding and intervened in the university's affairs, expelling seven students who criticized him in the school newspaper. He constructed new buildings, including a fieldhouse that reportedly contained the longest pool in the United States. Long founded an LSU Medical School in New Orleans. To raise the stature of the football program, he converted the school's military marching band into the flashy "Show Band of the South" and hired Costa Rican composer Castro Carazo as the band director. As well as nearly doubling the size of the stadium, he arranged for lowered train fares, so students could travel to away games. Long's contributions resulted in LSU gaining a class A accreditation from the Association of American Universities.
Long's night schools taught 100,000 adults to read. His provision of free textbooks contributed to a 20 percent increase in school enrollment. He modernized public health facilities and ensured adequate conditions for the mentally ill. He established Louisiana's first rehabilitation program for penitentiary inmates. Through tax reform, Long made the first $2,000 in property assessment free, waiving property taxes for half the state's homeowners. Historians have criticized other policies, like high consumer taxes on gasoline and cigarettes, a reduced mother's pension, and low teacher salaries.
U.S. Senate (1932–1935)
Senator
When Long arrived in the Senate, America was in the throes of the Great Depression. With this backdrop, Long made characteristically fiery speeches that denounced wealth inequality. He criticized the leaders of both parties for failing to address the crisis adequately, notably attacking conservative Senate Democratic Leader Joseph Robinson of Arkansas for his apparent closeness with President Herbert Hoover and big business.
In the 1932 presidential election, Long was a vocal supporter of New York Governor Franklin D. Roosevelt. At that year's Democratic National Convention, Long kept the delegations of several wavering Southern states in the Roosevelt camp. Due to this, Long expected to be featured prominently in Roosevelt's campaign but was disappointed with a peripheral speaking tour limited to four Midwestern states.
Not discouraged after being snubbed, Long found other venues for his populist message. He endorsed Senator Hattie Caraway of Arkansas, a widow and the underdog candidate in a crowded field and conducted a whirlwind, seven-day tour of that state. During the campaign, Long gave 39 speeches, traveled , and spoke to over 200,000 people. In an upset win, Caraway became the first woman elected to a full term in the Senate.
Returning to Washington, Long gave theatrical speeches which drew wide attention. Public viewing areas were crowded with onlookers, among them a young Lyndon B. Johnson, who later said he was "simply entranced" by Long. Long obstructed bills for weeks, launching hour-long filibusters and having the clerk read superfluous documents. Long's antics, one editorial claimed, had made the Senate "impotent". In May 1932, The Washington Post called for his resignation. Long's behavior and radical rhetoric did little to endear him to his fellow senators. None of his proposed bills, resolutions, or motions were passed during his three years in the Senate.
Roosevelt and the New Deal
During the first 100 days of Roosevelt's presidency in spring 1933, Long's attitude towards Roosevelt and the New Deal was tepid. Aware that Roosevelt had no intention of radically redistributing the country's wealth, Long became one of the few national politicians to oppose Roosevelt's New Deal policies from the left. He considered them inadequate in the face of the escalating economic crisis but still supported some of Roosevelt's programs in the Senate, explaining: "Whenever this administration has gone to the left I have voted with it, and whenever it has gone to the right I have voted against it."
Long opposed the National Recovery Act, claiming it favored industrialists. In an attempt to prevent its passage, Long held a lone filibuster, speaking for 15 hours and 30 minutes, the second longest filibuster at the time. He also criticized Social Security, calling it inadequate and expressing his concerns that states would administer it in a way discriminatory to blacks. In 1933, he was a leader of a three-week Senate filibuster against the Glass banking bill, which he later supported as the Glass–Steagall Act after provisions extended government deposit insurance to state banks as well as national banks.
Roosevelt considered Long a radical demagogue and stated that Long, along with General Douglas MacArthur, "was one of the two most dangerous men in America". In June 1933, in an effort to undermine Long's political dominance, Roosevelt cut him out of consultations on the distribution of federal funds and patronage in Louisiana and placed Long's opponents in charge of federal programs in the state. Roosevelt supported a Senate inquiry into the election of Long ally John H. Overton to the Senate in 1932. The Long machine was accused of election fraud and voter intimidation, but the inquiry came up empty, and Overton was seated. To discredit Long and damage his support base, Roosevelt had Long's finances investigated by the Internal Revenue Service in 1934. Although they failed to link Long to any illegality, some of his lieutenants were charged with income tax evasion. Roosevelt's son, Elliott, would later note that in this instance, his father "may have been the originator of the concept of employing the IRS as a weapon of political retribution".
Chaco War and foreign policy
On May 30, 1934, Long took to the Senate floor to debate the abrogation of the Platt amendment. But instead of debating the amendment, Long declared his support for Paraguay against Bolivia in the Chaco War. He maintained that U.S. President Rutherford B. Hayes had awarded the oil-rich Chaco region to Paraguay in 1878. He attested Standard Oil had corrupted the Bolivian government and organized the war and that Wall Street orchestrated American foreign policy in Latin America. For his speech, Long received praise in Paraguay: after capturing a Bolivian fort in July 1934, they renamed it Fort Long. Long's allegations were widely publicized in Latin American newspapers. This drew the concern of the State Department, who believed that Long was damaging the reputation of the United States. Throughout the summer of 1934, they waged a sustained public relations campaign against Long throughout Latin America. This speech and others established Long as one of the most ardent isolationists in the Senate. He further argued that American involvement in the Spanish–American War and the First World War had been deadly mistakes conducted on behalf of Wall Street. Consequently, Long demanded the immediate independence of the Philippines, which the United States had occupied since 1898. He also opposed American entry into the World Court.
Share Our Wealth
In March 1933, Long revealed a series of bills collectively known as "the Long plan" to redistribute wealth. Together, they would cap fortunes at $100 million, limit annual income to $1 million, and cap individual inheritances at $5 million.
In a nationwide February 1934 radio broadcast, Long introduced his Share Our Wealth plan. The legislation would use the wealth from the Long plan to guarantee every family a basic household grant of $5,000 and a minimum annual income of one-third of the average family homestead value and income. Long supplemented his plan with proposals for free college and vocational training, veterans' benefits, federal assistance to farmers, public works projects, greater federal economic regulation, a $30 monthly elderly pension, a month's vacation for every worker, a thirty-hour workweek, a $10 billion land reclamation project to end the Dust Bowl, and free medical service and a "war on disease" led by the Mayo brothers. These reforms, Long claimed, would end the Great Depression. The plans were widely criticized and labeled impossible by economists.
With the Senate unwilling to support his proposals, in February 1934 Long formed the Share Our Wealth Society, a national network of local clubs that operated in opposition to the Democratic Party and Roosevelt. By 1935, the society had over 7.5 million members in 27,000 clubs. Long's Senate office received an average of 60,000 letters a week, resulting in Long hiring 48 stenographers to type responses. Of the two trucks that delivered mail to the Senate, one was devoted solely to mail for Long. Long's newspaper, now renamed American Progress, averaged a circulation of 300,000, some issues reaching over 1.5 million. Long drew international attention: English writer H. G. Wells interviewed Long, noting he was "like a Winston Churchill who has never been at Harrow. He abounds in promises."
Some historians believe that pressure from Share Our Wealth contributed to Roosevelt's "turn to the left" in the Second New Deal (1935), which consisted of the Social Security Act, the Works Progress Administration, the National Labor Relations Board, Aid to Dependent Children, and the Wealth Tax Act of 1935. Roosevelt reportedly admitted in private to trying to "steal Long's thunder".
Continued control over Louisiana
Long continued to maintain effective control of Louisiana while he was a senator, blurring the boundary between federal and state politics. Long chose his childhood friend, Oscar K. Allen, to succeed King in the January 1932 election. With the support of Long's voter base, Allen won easily, permitting Long to resign as governor and take his seat in the U.S. Senate in January 1932. Allen, widely viewed as a puppet, dutifully enacted Long's policies. When Long visited Louisiana, Allen would relinquish his office for the Senator, working instead at his receptionist's desk. Though he had no constitutional authority, Long continued to draft and press bills through the Louisiana State Legislature. One of the laws passed was what Long called "a tax on lying"—a 2 percent tax on newspaper advertising revenue.
In 1934, Long and James A. Noe, an independent oilman and member of the Louisiana State Senate from Ouachita Parish, formed the controversial Win or Lose Oil Company. The firm was established to obtain leases on state-owned lands so that its directors might collect bonuses and sublease the mineral rights to the major oil companies. Although ruled legal, these activities were done in secret, and the stockholders were unknown to the public. Long made a profit on the bonuses and the resale of those state leases and used the funds primarily for political purposes.
1935: Final year
Presidential ambitions
Popular support for Long's Share Our Wealth program raised the possibility of a 1936 presidential bid against incumbent Franklin D. Roosevelt. When questioned by the press, Long gave conflicting answers on his plans for 1936. Long's son Russell believed his father would have run on a third-party ticket. This is evidenced by Long's writing of a speculative book, My First Days in the White House, which laid out his plans for the presidency after the 1936 election.
In spring 1935, Long undertook a national speaking tour and regular radio appearances, attracting large crowds and increasing his stature. At a well-attended Long rally in Philadelphia, a former mayor told the press, "There are 250,000 Long votes" in this city. Regarding Roosevelt, Long boasted to the New York Times Arthur Krock: "He's scared of me. I can out-promise him, and he knows it."
As the 1936 election approached, the Roosevelt Administration grew increasingly concerned by Long's popularity. Democratic National Committee chairman James Farley commissioned a secret poll in early 1935. Farley's poll revealed that if Long ran on a third-party ticket, he would win about four million votes, 10% of the electorate. In a memo to Roosevelt, Farley expressed his concern that Long could split the vote, allowing the Republican nominee to win. Diplomat Edward M. House warned Roosevelt, "many people believe that he can do to your administration what Theodore Roosevelt did to the Taft Administration in '12". Many, including Hair, Williams, and Roosevelt, speculated that Long expected to lose in 1936, allowing the Republicans to take the White House. They believed the Republicans would worsen the Great Depression, deepening Long's appeal. According to Roosevelt, "That would bring the country to such a state by 1940 that Long thinks he would be made dictator."
Increased tensions in Louisiana
By 1935, Long's consolidation of power led to talk of armed opposition from his enemies in Louisiana. Opponents increasingly invoked the memory of the Battle of Liberty Place (1874), in which the White League staged an uprising against Louisiana's Reconstruction-era government. In January 1935, an anti-Long paramilitary organization called the Square Deal Association was formed. Its members included former governors John M. Parker and Ruffin Pleasant and New Orleans Mayor T. Semmes Walmsley. Standard Oil threatened to leave the state when Long finally passed the five-cent per barrel oil tax for which he had been impeached in 1929. Concerned Standard Oil employees formed a Square Deal association in Baton Rouge, organizing themselves in militia companies and demanding "direct action".
On January 25, 1935, these Square Dealers, now armed, seized the East Baton Rouge Parish courthouse. Long had Governor Allen execute emergency measures in Baton Rouge: he called in the National Guard, declared martial law, banned public gatherings of two or more persons, and forbade the publication of criticism of state officials. The Square Dealers left the courthouse, but there was a brief armed skirmish at the Baton Rouge Airport. Tear gas and live ammunition were fired; one person was wounded, but there were no fatalities. At a legal hearing, an alleged spy within the Square Dealers testified they were conspiring to assassinate Long.
In summer 1935, Long called two special legislative sessions in Louisiana; bills were passed in rapid-fire succession without being read or discussed. The new laws further centralized Long's control over the state by creating new Long-appointed state agencies: a state bond and tax board holding sole authority to approve loans to local governments, a new state printing board which could withhold "official printer" status from uncooperative newspapers, a new board of election supervisors which would appoint all poll watchers, and a State Board of Censors. They stripped away the remaining powers of the Mayor of New Orleans. Long boasted he had "taken over every board and commission in New Orleans except the Community Chest and the Red Cross". A September 7 special session passed 42 bills. The most extreme, likely aimed at Roosevelt and his federal agents, authorized Louisiana to fine and imprison anyone who infringed on the powers reserved to the state in the Tenth Amendment to the United States Constitution.
Assassination
On September 8, 1935, Long traveled to the State Capitol to pass a bill that would gerrymander the district of an opponent, Judge Benjamin Pavy, who had held his position for 28 years. At 9:20 p.m., just after passage of the bill effectively removing Pavy, Pavy's son-in-law, Carl Weiss, approached Long, and, according to the generally accepted version of events, fired a single shot with a handgun from four feet (1.2 m) away, striking Long in the torso. Long's bodyguards, nicknamed the "Cossacks" or "skullcrushers", then fired at Weiss with their pistols, killing him. An autopsy found Weiss had been shot at least 60 times. Long ran down a flight of stairs and across the capitol grounds, hailing a car to take him to Our Lady of the Lake Hospital. He was rushed to the operating room where surgery closed perforations in his intestines but failed to stop internal bleeding. Long died at 4:10 a.m. on September 10, 31 hours after being shot. According to different sources, his last words were either, "I wonder what will happen to my poor university boys", or "God, don't let me die. I have so much to do."
Over 200,000 people traveled to Baton Rouge to attend Long's September 12 funeral. His remains were buried on the grounds of the Capitol; a statue depicting Long was constructed on his grave. Although Long's allies alleged he was assassinated by political opponents, a federal probe found no evidence of conspiracy. Long's death brought relief to the Roosevelt Administration, which would win in a landslide in the 1936 election. Farley publicly admitted his apprehension of campaigning against Long: "I always laughed Huey off, but I did not feel that way about him." Roosevelt's close economic advisor Rexford Tugwell wrote that, "When he was gone it seemed that a beneficent peace had fallen on the land. Father Coughlin, Reno, Townsend, et al., were after all pygmies compared with Huey. He had been a major phenomenon." Tugwell also said that Roosevelt regarded Long's assassination as a "providential occurrence".
Evidence later surfaced that suggests Long was accidentally shot by his bodyguards. Proponents of this theory assert Long was caught in the crossfire as his bodyguards shot Weiss, and a bullet that ricocheted off the marble walls hit him.
Legacy
Politics
Long's assassination turned him into a legendary figure in parts of Louisiana. In 1938, Swedish sociologist Gunnar Myrdal encountered rural children who not only insisted Long was alive, but that he was president. Although no longer governing, Long's policies continued to be enacted in Louisiana by his political machine, which supported Roosevelt's re-election to prevent further investigation into their finances. The machine remained a powerful force in state politics until the 1960 elections. Within the Louisiana Democratic Party, Long set in motion two durable factions—"pro-Long" and "anti-Long"—which diverged meaningfully in terms of policies and voter support. For decades after his death, Long's political style inspired imitation among Louisiana politicians who borrowed his rhetoric and promises of social programs.
After Long's death, a family dynasty emerged: his brother Earl was elected lieutenant-governor in 1936 and governor in 1948 and 1956. Long's widow, Rose Long, replaced him in the Senate, and his son, Russell, was a U.S. senator from 1948 to 1987. As chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, Russell shaped the nation's tax laws, advocating low business taxes and passing legislation beneficial to the poor like the Earned Income Credit. Other relatives, including George, Gillis, and Speedy, have represented Louisiana in Congress.
Huey P. Newton, co-founder of the Black Panther Party, was named after Long.
Historical reputation
Academics and historians have found difficulty categorizing Long and his ideology. His platform has been compared to ideologies ranging from McCarthyism to European Fascism and Stalinism. When asked about his own philosophy, Long simply replied: "Oh, hell, say that I'm sui generis and let it go at that." Robert Penn Warren described him as a "remarkable set of contradictions".
A majority of academics, biographers, and writers who have examined Long view him negatively, typically as a demagogue or dictator. Reinhard H. Luthin said that he was the epitome of an American demagogue. David Kennedy wrote that Long's regime in Louisiana was "the closest thing to a dictatorship that America has ever known". Journalist Hodding Carter described him as "the first true dictator out of the soil of America" and his movement the "success of fascism in one American state". Peter Viereck categorized Long's movement as "chauvinist thought control"; Victor Ferkiss called it "incipient fascism".
One of the few biographers to praise Long was T. Harry Williams, who classified Long's ideas as neo-populist. He labeled Long a democratic "mass leader", rather than a demagogue. Besides Williams, intellectual Gore Vidal expressed admiration for Long, even naming him as his favorite contemporary U.S. politician. Long biographer Thomas O. Harris espoused a more nuanced view of Long: "neither saint nor devil, he was a complex and heterogenous mixture of good and bad, genius and craft, hypocrisy and candor, buffoonery and seriousness".
Media
In popular culture, Long has served as a template for multiple dictatorial politicians in novels. Notable works include Sinclair Lewis's novel It Can't Happen Here (1935), Robert Penn Warren's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel All the King's Men (1946), and Adria Locke Langley's 1945 novel A Lion Is in the Streets. The latter two were adapted into Academy Award-winning films. As well as two television docudramas, Long was the subject of a 1985 Ken Burns-directed documentary. In music, Randy Newman featured Long in two songs on the 1974 album Good Old Boys.
Long has been the subject of dozens of biographies and academic texts. In fact, more has been written about Long than any other Louisianan. Most notable is the 1969 biography Huey Long by Williams, which won both the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award. Alan Brinkley won the National Book Award in 1983 for Voices of Protest, a study of Long, Coughlin, and populist opposition to Roosevelt.
Works
Bibliography
Constitutions of the State of Louisiana, 1930
Every Man a King, 1933
My First Days in the White House, 1935
Discography
Long collaborated with composer Castro Carazo on the following songs:
"Darling of LSU", 1935
"Every Man a King", 1935
"The LSU Cadets March", 1935
"Touchdown for LSU", 1935
See also
List of United States Congress members killed or wounded in office
Charles Coughlin
Francis Townsend
Notes and references
Notes
References and citations
Works cited
1893 births
1935 deaths
20th-century American lawyers
20th-century American politicians
American political bosses from Louisiana
American social democrats
Anti-poverty advocates
Assassinated American politicians
Burials in Louisiana
Deaths by firearm in Louisiana
Democratic Party United States senators
Democratic Party state governors of the United States
Governors of Louisiana
History of United States isolationism
Impeached United States officials
Left-wing populism in the United States
Huey
Louisiana Democrats
Louisiana lawyers
Male murder victims
Members of the Louisiana Public Service Commission
Oklahoma Baptist University alumni
People from Winnfield, Louisiana
People murdered in Louisiana
Tulane University Law School alumni
Tulane University alumni
United States senators from Louisiana
University of Oklahoma alumni | false | [
"Strip the Cosmos is a documentary science television series narrated by Eric Loren. Aired by the Science Channel, it premiered on November 12, 2014.\n\nContent\nStrip The Cosmos builds upon a concept introduced in an earlier show, Strip the City — in which layers of a city were \"stripped\" away with computer-generated imagery to reveal what lay beneath them — and applies it to the universe as a whole. The series \"strips\" away layers of objects such as stars, planets, moons, comets, and black holes to reveal their interiors layer by layer and create a better understanding of how they originated, what makes them up, and how they work, with commentary by experts in astronomy and astrophysics. The series also describes space missions intended to expand human understanding of the universe.\n\nEpisode list\n\nSeason 1 (2014)\nSOURCES Windfall Films Strip the Cosmos Series 1 Episode 1 Secrets of the Black Hole Accessed 31 October 2021Windfall Films Strip the Cosmos Series 1 Episode 3 Killer Asteroids Accessed 31 October 2021Windfall Films Strip the Cosmos Series 1 Episode 5 Alien Worlds Accessed 31 October 2021\n\nSeason 2 (2017)\nSOURCES Windfall Films Strip the Cosmos Series 2 Episode 1 Secrets of the Black Hole Accessed 31 October 2021Windfall Films Strip the Cosmos Series 2 Episode 3 Hunt for the Big Bang Accessed 31 October 2021Windfall Films Strip the Cosmos Series 2 Episode 5 Mystery of the Hidden Universe Accessed 31 October 2021\n\nSeason 3 (2018)\nSOURCES Windfall Films Strip the Cosmos Series 3 Episode 1 Mystery of the Alien Asteroid Accessed 31 October 2021Windfall Films Strip the Cosmos Series 3 Episode 3 The Moon's Dark Secret Accessed 31 October 2021Windfall Films Strip the Cosmos Series 3 Episode 5 Secret History of the Solar System Accessed 31 October 2021Windfall Films Strip the Cosmos Series 3 Episode 7 Secrets of the Alien Megastructure Accessed 31 October 2021Windfall Films Strip the Cosmos Series 3 Episode 9 Pluto's Strange Secrets Revealed Accessed 31 October 2021\n\nSeason 4 (2020)\n\nSOURCES Windfall Films ‘’Strip the Cosmos’’ Series 4 Episode 1 Mission to Mars Accessed 1 November 2021Windfall Films ‘’Strip the Cosmos’’ Series 4 Episode 3 Life and Death of the Milky Way Accessed 1 November 2021Films ‘’Strip the Cosmos’’ Series 4 Episode 5 Secrets of the Asteroids Accessed 1 November 2021[ https://www.windfallfilms.com/show/18349/mystery-of-the-dead-planets.aspx Windfall Films ‘’Strip the Cosmos’’ Series 4 Episode 7 Mystery of the Dead Planets Accessed 1 November 2021]\n\nSee also\nAlien Planet\nCosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey\nExtreme Universe\nHow the Universe Works\nInto the Universe with Stephen Hawking\nKillers of the Cosmos\nMars: The Secret Science\nThe Planets and Beyond\nSpace's Deepest Secrets\nStrip the City\nThrough the Wormhole\nThe Universe\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\nWindfall Films Strip the Cosmos\n\n2014 American television series debuts\n2010s American documentary television series\n2020s American documentary television series\nDocumentary television series about astronomy\nScience Channel original programming",
"Science for the Satanic Citizen is a 1990 album by Leæther Strip, released by Zoth Ommog. It incorporates a number of samples from films, including Hellraiser.\n\nTrack listing\n \"Zyklon B\"\n \"G.A.W.M.\"\n \"Rotation (Axis Off)\"\n \"Satanic Citizen\"\n \"What's Hell Really Like?\"\n \"Law of Jante\"\nCD bonus tracks:\n \"Cast-away\"\n \"Torment Me\"\n\n\"The Law of Jante\" is Leæther Strip's first (and only until his 2005 comeback) song in Danish. It features a reading of the Jante Law from Aksel Sandemose's book En flygtning krydser sit spor.\n\nReferences\n\n1990 albums\nLeæther Strip albums\nZoth Ommog Records albums"
]
|
[
"Rise Against",
"The Sufferer & the Witness (2006-07)"
]
| C_0c7f0e87c0c54176b23a5d8831e46cbb_0 | What is The Sufferer and the Witness? | 1 | What is The Sufferer and the Witness? | Rise Against | After a year and a half of touring, Rise Against reconvened at the Blasting Room to record their fourth album, The Sufferer & the Witness. The band members were dissatisfied with Richardson's contributions to Siren Song of the Counter Culture, as he produced a more polished and heavier album than their previous works. As a result, they decided to return to Stevenson and Livermore, whom they felt had accurately captured the raw punk sound they strove for on Revolutions per Minute. Unlike the stressful recording sessions for Siren Song of the Counter Culture, the band had a much more enjoyable time with The Sufferer & the Witness, as they no longer sought the approval of Geffen executives. According to McIlrath: "It went great, the songs just flowed out of us. There were really few questions and the song lyrics would just come out of us, it went really well and everyone really liked them." The Sufferer & the Witness was released on July 4, 2006. The album sold 48,327 copies in its first week of release in the United States, and peaked at number ten on the Billboard 200. The Sufferer & the Witness also charted in seven other countries, including number five on the Canadian Albums Chart, making it the band's first album to chart outside of the United States. It was certified gold in three countries, and platinum by Music Canada. The album was well received by critics, who praised the production value, and noted how Rise Against was able to mature in their sound and simultaneously retain their punk roots. Three songs from The Sufferer & the Witness were released as singles: "Ready to Fall", "Prayer of the Refugee", and "The Good Left Undone". These three songs also charted on the Modern Rock Tracks chart, with "Prayer of the Refugee" and "The Good Left Undone" in particular peaking within the top ten. Rise Against supported the album with The Sufferer & the Witness Tour throughout the second half of 2006 and all of 2007. The band was a headliner on the 2006 Warped Tour, during which author and filmmaker Davy Rothbart recorded several of the band's live performances, and interviewed some of their fans. This footage was used in the Rise Against DVD documentary Generation Lost. In 2007, the band released the EP This Is Noise, and participated in a tour with My Chemical Romance. Prior to this tour, Chasse left the band, citing touring fatigue as the reason for his departure; Zach Blair of the band Only Crime joined shortly thereafter, as Rise Against's fifth different guitarist. At the time he received the call about joining Rise Against, Blair was a construction worker living paycheck to paycheck. CANNOTANSWER | their fourth album, The Sufferer & the Witness. | Rise Against is an American punk rock band from Chicago, formed in 1999. The group's current line-up comprises vocalist/rhythm guitarist Tim McIlrath, lead guitarist Zach Blair, bassist Joe Principe and drummer Brandon Barnes. Rooted in hardcore punk and melodic hardcore, Rise Against's music emphasizes melody, catchy hooks, an aggressive sound and playstyle, and rapid tempos. Lyrically, the band is known for their outspoken social commentary, covering a wide range of topics such as political injustice, animal rights, humanitarianism, and environmentalism.
The band spent its first four years signed to the independent record label Fat Wreck Chords, on which they released two studio albums, The Unraveling (2001) and Revolutions per Minute (2003). Both the albums were met with underground success, and in 2003 the band signed with the major label Dreamworks, which was absorbed by Geffen. Rise Against's major label debut Siren Song of the Counter Culture (2004) brought the band mainstream success, largely in part to the popularity of the singles "Give It All" and "Swing Life Away". The band's next album, The Sufferer & the Witness (2006), peaked at number ten on the Billboard 200 in the United States, and was Rise Against's first album to chart in countries outside of North America.
With the release of Appeal to Reason (2008), Rise Against's music shifted toward a more accessible and radio-friendly sound, with greater emphasis on production value. The album's third single, "Savior", broke the record for the most consecutive weeks spent on both the Hot Rock Songs and Alternative Songs charts. Rise Against's popularity grew with the release of Endgame (2011), which peaked at number two on the Billboard 200, and charted highly worldwide. The band's 7th and 8th albums, The Black Market (2014) and Wolves (2017) continued the trend of commercial success, and both peaked with the top ten on the Billboard 200.
Rise Against is also known for their advocacy of progressivism, supporting organizations such as Amnesty International and the It Gets Better Project. The band actively promotes animal rights and most of the members are straight edge, PETA supporters and vegetarians.
History
Early years (1999-2003)
Rise Against was formed in 1999, by bassist Joe Principe and guitarist Dan Wleklinski. Before Rise Against, Principe and Wleklinski were members of the Chicago punk rock band 88 Fingers Louie. This band toured and recorded to moderate success, but disbanded on two separate occasions in the late 1990s. Following the second breakup, Principe and Wleklinski decided to form a new band called Transistor Revolt, and recruited drummer Tony Tintari, guitarist Kevin White, and lead vocalist Tim McIlrath. Principe met McIlrath in Indianapolis while attending a Sick of It All concert, and recalled seeing him perform with his previous band Baxter. Impressed with McIlrath's gritty vocals, Principe gave him a seven track demo he had recorded, and invited him to join the nascent band. McIlrath accepted the invitation, and dropped out of Northeastern Illinois University.
The initial jam sessions were problematic, as McIlrath was unaccustomed to Principe's and Wleklinski's fast-paced style of play. McIlrath described these early sessions as "the meeting of different worlds and worlds colliding", and noted how many of his friends questioned the future of the band. Despite these early issues, they were able to self-publish the extended play (EP) Transistor Revolt in 2000. The EP attracted the attention of the local punk community, as well as Fat Mike, the lead vocalist of NOFX and co-founder of the independent record label Fat Wreck Chords. Fat Mike offered to sign the band to a recording contract, with the stipulation that they change their name. He gave some suggestions, like Jimmy Cracked Corn And The I Don't Cares, although none of the band members liked them. Tintari suggested Rise Against, to which the band agreed upon.
After signing with Fat Wreck Chords, Tintari and White left the band. The remaining members then spent the next few months looking for another drummer capable of playing double-time beats at a rapid pace. During this period, the band Good Riddance found their new drummer, and sent Rise Against the audition tape of their number two choice, Brandon Barnes. A mutual friend gave Barnes' phone number to Principe, and after listening to Transistor Revolt, Barnes accepted the band's invitation.
With their new lineup finalized, Rise Against began work on their debut studio album, The Unraveling. Recording sessions took place in late 2000, at Sonic Iguana Studios in Lafayette. Wleklinski served as an assistant engineer under producer Mass Giorgini, and later remarked on the grueling workdays: "12-hour days for 4 of those weeks, and then 22-24 hours per day during that last week of tracking. These were the times of 'If you don't play it right, you have to play it again,' not 'That was good enough, I'll edit it so it's on time." The Unraveling was released on April 24, 2001. Although the album failed to reach any record charts, it did receive positive reviews from critics, who commended the raw and unadulterated music. To promote the album, Rise Against toured extensively throughout North America and Europe. While on tour, Wleklinski left the band due to several complaints from McIlrath. Rumor spread that Wleklinski was fired because of his long hair, although McIlrath derided these claims. Phillip Hill stood in as the lead guitarist while on tour, after which White returned as a replacement.
Less than a year later, White left the band for a second time, and was replaced by Todd Mohney, McIlrath's roommate and former bandmate. When it came time to record their second album, Revolutions per Minute, McIlrath noted that the band was suffering from an "identity crisis". Fat Wreck Chords was known for a specific pop punk sound, and Rise Against wanted to find a producer that could highlight the heavier side of their music. They decided on Bill Stevenson—the former drummer of the punk band Descendents—and Jason Livermore to produce the album. Revolutions per Minute was recorded at the Blasting Room in Fort Collins, from November to December 2002. The band members developed a strong rapport with Stevenson and Livermore, and the two parties would eventually collaborate on four of next five Rise Against albums.
Revolutions per Minute was released on April 8, 2003. Like The Unraveling, it failed to reach any major record charts, but did reach number thirty-five on the Independent Albums chart in the United States. Critics praised the album for its impassioned lyrics and unique blend of hardcore punk and melodic hardcore; Brian Hiatt of Rolling Stone called Revolutions per Minute "easily among the finest punk records of the past decade". To support the album, Rise Against traveled with other Fat Wreck Chord bands like Anti-Flag, None More Black, and No Use for a Name on North American and Japan based tours, and participated in the 2003 Warped Tour in North America. When asked about the band's early years with Fat Wreck Chords, Principe said: "Our goal was to be on Fat Wreck Chords and just sell enough records so that when we were home from tour, we wouldn't have to get jobs...Of course, that was all before we had families and children and numerous responsibilities. That was the beauty. And then the longer we did it things just kept coming our way."
Rising popularity (2004–2007)
Rise Against's extensive touring schedule helped to establish an early fanbase, and attracted the attention of major record labels, including Dreamworks Records. The general consensus among Fat Wreck Chords musicians was that major record labels sacrifice musical integrity in exchange for commercial profit. Rise Against held the same belief, but eventually came to the conclusion that unlike other labels, DreamWorks supported their politically charged lyrics. According to McIlrath: "Their faith in what we do and the fact that they cared about stuff we cared about was an eye-opener." The band signed with Dreamworks in September 2003, and was given complete creative control to record their major record label debut album, Siren Song of the Counter Culture.
The band went into the album with the assumption that Dreamworks was going to drop them at any moment, so they wanted to take advantage of the opportunity by working with their "dream producer". They chose Garth Richardson, who was known for his work with heavier sounding bands like Rage Against the Machine and Sick of It All. While writing songs for the album, Rise Against's lineup once again changed; Mohney quit, and was replaced by Chris Chasse of the band Reach the Sky. The recording sessions for Siren Song of the Counter Culture were marred by numerous distractions and inconveniences, the biggest of which was the transition from Dreamworks to Geffen Records. In November 2003, Dreamworks was acquired by Universal Music Group, and eventually merged with Geffen. The transition period between labels left Rise Against without an A&R representative, and little acknowledgement from Geffen executives.
Siren Song of the Counter Culture was released on August 10, 2004. For the first six months, the album sold poorly, and attracted little fanfare. Rise Against's incessant touring resulted in greater exposure and an eventual increase in sales. It became the band's first album to reach the Billboard 200, peaking at number 136, and was certified gold by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), denoting shipments of 500,000 copies. Siren Song of the Counter Culture was praised for its lyrical content, but drew some criticism for a lack of individually memorable songs and perceived overproduction. Three songs from the album were released as singles: "Give It All", "Swing Life Away", and "Life Less Frightening". All three songs charted on the Modern Rock Tracks chart in the United States. "Give It All" and "Swing Life Away" in particular are credited as the band's breakthrough singles, helping Rise Against achieve mainstream appeal.
After a year and a half of touring, Rise Against reconvened at the Blasting Room to record their fourth album, The Sufferer & the Witness. The band members were dissatisfied with Richardson's contributions to Siren Song of the Counter Culture, as he produced a more polished and heavier album than their previous works. As a result, they decided to return to Stevenson and Livermore, whom they felt had accurately captured the raw punk sound they strove for on Revolutions per Minute. Unlike the stressful recording sessions for Siren Song of the Counter Culture, the band had a much more enjoyable time with The Sufferer & the Witness, as they no longer sought the approval of Geffen executives. According to McIlrath: "It went great, the songs just flowed out of us. There were really few questions and the song lyrics would just come out of us, it went really well and everyone really liked them."
The Sufferer & the Witness was released on July 4, 2006. The album sold 48,327 copies in its first week of release in the United States, and peaked at number ten on the Billboard 200. The Sufferer & the Witness also charted in seven other countries, including number five on the Canadian Albums Chart, making it the band's first album to chart outside of the United States. It was certified gold in three countries, and platinum by Music Canada. The album was well received by critics, who praised the production value, and noted how Rise Against was able to mature in their sound and simultaneously retain their punk roots.
Three songs from The Sufferer & the Witness were released as singles: "Ready to Fall", "Prayer of the Refugee", and "The Good Left Undone". These three songs also charted on the Modern Rock Tracks chart, with "Prayer of the Refugee" and "The Good Left Undone" in particular peaking within the top ten. Rise Against supported the album with The Sufferer & the Witness Tour throughout the second half of 2006 and all of 2007. The band was a headliner on the 2006 Warped Tour, during which author and filmmaker Davy Rothbart recorded several of the band's live performances, and interviewed some of their fans. This footage was used in the Rise Against DVD documentary Generation Lost. Prior to a 2007 tour with My Chemical Romance, Chasse left the band, citing touring fatigue as the reason for his departure; Zach Blair of the band Only Crime joined shortly thereafter, as Rise Against's fifth different guitarist. At the time he received the call about joining Rise Against, Blair was a construction worker living paycheck to paycheck.
International success (2008–2013)
McIlrath and Principe had been writing songs for a new album throughout The Sufferer & Witness tour, and in December 2007, the band members went to the Blasting Room to record their fifth studio album Appeal to Reason. This was the third Rise Against album to be produced by Stevenson and Livermore, and the band members had grown accustomed to the duo's work style. According to McIlrath: "[Stevenson's] got such a work ethic, just an amazing work ethic, and Livermore too, and the whole studio, all the people that work there." Blair went into the album with the goal to fit in seamlessly with the other band members, or as he put it "If you listen to every record this band had out, you could tell that Zach Blair played on this record". He took influence from how Nels Cline sounded on the album Sky Blue Sky when he joined Wilco. Blair was already well acquainted with Stevenson before joining Rise Against, as he and Stevenson were in Only Crime. Stevenson helped Blair replicate the sound of past Rise Against guitarists.
Appeal to Reason was released on October 7, 2008. It was the first Rise Against album to be released by Interscope Records. In the United States, the album peaked at number three on the Billboard 200, making it Rise Against's highest charting album at the time. The album sold 64,000 copies in its first week of release, and by December 2010, it had sold 482,000 copies. Rise Against's popularity continued to grow internationally, with Appeal to Reason charting highly in several countries including number one in Canadian Albums Chart. Appeal to Reason marked a musical shift for Rise Against to a more mainstream and radio-friendly sound, which led to division among critical opinions. Some critics commended the album's more radio-friendly sound, while other critics found the music to be stale, and bemoaned Rise Against for abandoning their punk roots.
Like with the previous two albums, three songs from Appeal to Reason were released as singles: "Re-Education (Through Labor)", "Audience of One", and "Savior". All three songs charted highly on the Modern Rock Tracks chart; "Savior" in particular held the record for the most consecutive weeks spent on both the Hot Rock Songs and Modern Rock Tracks charts, with sixty-three and sixty-five weeks respectively. In the midst of Appeal to Reason singles, Rise Against also released three EPs in 2009, including a short split album with Anti-Flag.
To promote the album, Rise Against embarked on the Appeal To Reason Tour, which began with United States-based tour with Thrice, Alkaline Trio, and The Gaslight Anthem. Rise Against then co-headlined a 2009 tour with Rancid throughout the summer months, which was followed by a short tour of the United Kingdom in November, supported by the bands Thursday and Poison the Well. Some of the 2009 performances were recorded and compiled in the 2010 DVD Another Station: Another Mile. These performances were interspersed with interviews of the band members about the process of recording an album.
Rise Against finished recording their sixth studio album, Endgame, in January 2011, after recording some last-minute guest vocals. The lyrics of the album focus on real world events, such as Hurricane Katrina and the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. According to McIlrath, although the lyrics discuss grim topics, they actually take on a positive view and were written from the perspective of: "What if the place on the other side of this transition is a place we'd all rather be living in?" On January 12, 2011, Rise Against announced the release date of Endgame as March 15, 2011. Although Spin Magazine labeled Endgame as a concept album, on January 7, 2011, McIlrath tweeted a clarifying message stating that "the record is not a concept record and, fret not, has absolutely nothing to do with the Dixie Chicks." The first single from the album, "Help Is on the Way", debuted on KROQ on January 17. A second song from the album, "Architects", was debuted and released digitally on February 15. As a promotion effort, the band embarked on a short tour of South America in February and then a month-long tour of Europe in March. Upon returning to the United States, the band announced a U.S. spring tour with Bad Religion and Four Year Strong.
Endgame is notable for being the first album to establish Rise Against's stance on homophobia with the third song on the album, "Make It Stop (September's Children)," which references the September 2010 suicides of teenagers in the LGBT community. Upon the album's release, the band put a message on their website inviting listeners to apply the songs' messages to current events, in addition to those on which they were originally based.
On May 10, 2011, the band released a 7" split vinyl with Face to Face. The 7" features 2 songs, with each band covering a song by the other band. In August 2011, Rise Against made appearances at the Reading and Leeds Festivals. The band was the main support act for the Foo Fighters' fall US tour 2011. Rise Against supported the Foo Fighters on 9 dates in September, with Mariachi El Bronx as the opening act. After this, the band announced a tour of Canada throughout October 2011, supported by Flogging Molly and Black Pacific. The tour consisted of nine dates. Rise Against contributed a cover of "Ballad of Hollis Brown" to Chimes of Freedom, a tribute album of Bob Dylan songs produced in February 2012 to commemorate Amnesty International's 50th anniversary.
Rise Against embarked on a two-leg US tour with A Day to Remember and The Menzingers in the spring of 2012. Leg one ended with the band launching another European tour. The band continued back to Europe for the summer months while doing a slew of festivals along the way. To end 2012, the band announced the return to the US with a fall tour with Gaslight Anthem and Hot Water Music. The tour included two shows in Arizona, which the band had not played since 2009 due to the Sound Strike. On January 2, 2013, vocalist Tim McIlrath told Rolling Stone that Rise Against was "focusing on recharging [their] batteries" after two years of touring in support of Endgame. In March 2013, Rise Against played their first ever performances on African soil when they performed in South Africa for the Durban, Johannesburg and Cape Town legs of RAMFest, where they headlined the festival along with the UK band Bring Me the Horizon.
Recent years (2014–present)
The extensive touring schedule surrounding Endgame took a toll on the band members, and in 2013 they decided to take a year long hiatus. According to Blair: "You're constantly gone. You don't feel like you live anywhere". He also discussed how the other three band members lives had evolved, and were away from their families for months on end. "It's an interesting thing to kind of realize that and kind of get out of the bubble, get out of the bus, and go 'Oh, geez, we actually have lives outside of what we do.'" In January 2014, the band members reconvened at the Blasting Room to record Rise Against's seventh album The Black Market. The band members used new recording techniques, such as greater usage of analog signals on a Kemper amplifier, and an Evertune bridge to keep the guitars in tune. As McIlrath put it: "I want the songs to feel a certain way. I want the songs to hit the guy and the girl who don't really care about guitar tones."
The Black Market was released on July 15, 2014. In the United States, the album entered at number three on the Billboard 200 and sold 53,000 copies in its first week. It was their fourth consecutive album to debut within the top ten on the Billboard 200, and it spent eleven weeks on the chart. The Black Market was an international success, in particular in Canada, where it became Rise Against's third consecutive album to reach number one. Reviews were generally positive; critics praised the more introspective lyrics, but often bemoaned the music as formulaic and stale. To promote the album, Rise Against toured throughout 2014 and 2015 with several other rock bands, such as Emily's Army, Touché Amoré, and Killswitch Engage.
On April 18, 2017, the band posted a new mysterious website which appeared to show a cryptic tracklist, song length and an announcement date "4.20.2017" for the new album.
On April 20, 2017, Rise Against announced the title of their new album Wolves which was released on June 9, 2017 via Virgin Records. The album's lead single, "The Violence", was released on April 20, 2017. To promote the album, the band announced a headlining North American tour in fall 2017 with Pierce the Veil and White Lung supporting.
On March 29, 2018, the band's Instagram account published a video announcing a project entitled The Ghost Note Symphonies, Vol. 1. A later announcement described the album as having "the songs stripped down, with alternate instrumentation, unique orchestration and a surprise or two" and announced a release date of July 27, 2018. The band released an acoustic version of "House on Fire" from Wolves as a single for the album on May 18 and an acoustic version of "Like the Angel" from Revolutions per Minute on June 8.
On September 16, 2020 the band released a new song called "Broken Dreams, Inc." which was taken from the DC Comics Dark Nights: Death Metal soundtrack.
The band's ninth studio album Nowhere Generation was released on June 4, 2021. The band debuted the album's title track on March 17, 2021.
Artistry
Musical style
Critics have described Rise Against's musical style as punk rock, hardcore punk and melodic hardcore. The band's songs emphasize melody, catchy hooks, aggressive movements, and rapid-paced tempo. Guitarists McIlrath and Blair focus on speed riffing and multi-layered choruses, while bassist Principe uses aggressive picking to lock in with the snare and kick of the drums. Likewise, drummer Barnes follows the guitars, stating: "Sometimes I'll do it naturally, or we'll talk about different ways to accent things - fills from the snare or toms, or some big crashes." The band members have noted the influence of several punk bands, in particular Black Flag and Minor Threat. McIlrath commented: "We're emulating Minor Threat and Black Flag. Who knows, maybe if Ian MacKaye was wearing eyeliner then I would be." Other bands that have influenced Rise Against include 7 Seconds, AFI, Bad Brains, Bad Religion, Cave In, Dead Kennedys, Fugazi, Jawbreaker, Los Crudos, Nirvana, Pennywise, Rage Against the Machine, Ramones, Refused, and Social Distortion.
During the early part of its career, Rise Against's music was characterized by a gritty combination of hardcore punk and melodic hardcore. The Unraveling accentuated a raw punk sound, while Revolutions per Minute featured an overall darker tone. According to Principe: "The Unraveling was more of us just trying to figure out how we functioned as a band and what type of band we wanted to be. It all just came together with [Revolutions per Minute], my songwriting style and Tim's, it really meshes well together and I think it shows on that record. Although this darker tone carried into Siren Song of the Counter Culture, McIlrath specially mentioned that The Sufferer & the Witness was an attempt to return to Rise Against's punk roots. Corey Apar of AllMusic wrote "[The Sufferer & the Witness] is basically one shout-along, mosh-worthy song after another". In early Rise Against songs, McIlrath would often shift between clean vocals and screaming vocals.
With the release of Appeal to Reason, Rise Against's music took a noticeable turn toward a more accessible and radio-friendly sound, with greater emphasis on production value. The New York Times reviewer Jon Pareles felt Appeal to Reason was more tune-oriented than the band's previous material, while Davey Boy of Sputnikmusic wrote how Endgame was "slickly produced to enhance the melodic nature of songs". Principe believes the shift in sound resulted from the longevity of the Rise Against. He explained that the band members grew as musicians, and wanted to challenge themselves with new musical directions. For example, at the insistence of Blair, Rise Against began to incorporate more guitar solos into their music. McIlrath's screaming vocals became less prevalent in Appeal to Reason, a trend that would continue in subsequent albums.
Lyrics
Rise Against is known for their outspoken social commentary, which often permeates their lyrics. Throughout the years, the band has discussed a wide range of topics, including animal rights, economic injustice, environmental disasters, forced displacement, homophobia, and modern warfare. Political corruption is another subject commonly found in their lyrics, and as a result, Rise Against is often labeled as a "political band". Some journalists have stated that the band has specifically targeted the Republican administrations of George W. Bush and Donald Trump, while promoting liberal ideologies.
As the band's primary lyricist, McIlrath is wary of the political label. "In this sort of current climate of music, we stand out simply because I think there are bands that are avoiding the question. So, it makes us sort of an anomaly and I think that's where we get the tag 'protest music' or 'political punk rock'". He also noted how the band's lyrics discuss these topics in general terms, instead of delving into the specifics. In a 2006 interview, McIlrath said: "I think that a lot of the problems we deal with today in the world are the ones that have been plaguing society for centuries and probably will be here a hundred years from now...There's a bigger picture than just the Bush administration and specific problems of 2006, and I want people to relate to that, even if they're listening to [our music] 10 years from now." Principe noted the band does not attempt to preach their beliefs, but instead encourage listeners to become involved, and learn about pertinent issues affecting society.
Not all Rise Against songs discuss controversial topics. More personal stories about broken relationships and forgiveness are common lyrical themes, as is the concept of self-reflection. The Unraveling is an early example of this style of songwriting, as the majority of the album's songs focus on friendships and memories. It was not until Revolutions per Minute that McIlrath began to integrate social issues into their music. Despite the grim subject matter, Rise Against songs are often hopeful in nature, a decision the band conscientiously made from the very beginning. Will Rausch of PopMatters wrote: "Unlike typical emo rants filled with despondency and arm chair philosophy, [Rise Against] songs deal with the reality that life sucks, but we must move on."
Videography
Rise Against will often produce an accompanying music video for a single. These videos typically either tell a narrative or feature documentary-like footage. This documentary style of filming can be seen in the music videos for "Ready to Fall", "Re-Education (Through Labor)", "Ballad of Hollis Brown", and "I Don't Want to Be Here Anymore". These videos juxtapose footage of the band playing the song and footage of a certain societal issue such as gun violence or animal abuse, overlaid with damning facts about the issue. For example, the video "Ballad of Hollis Brown" is about the dangers of industrialized farming and poverty in the United States, and features interviews with farmers who are struggling to stay afloat.
Rise Against's narrative videos are also usually political in nature. In the video for "Prayer of the Refugee" the band destroys products in a retail store, with intermittent shots of foreign workers making the store products. The goal was for the video to showcase how conventional business models allow for various human rights violations. Some narrative videos follow the song's lyric thread, such as in the Hurricane Katrina based video for "Help Is on the Way", while other videos are used to enforce the song's message, such as the band's anti-homophobic stance in the "Make It Stop (September's Children)" video.
Discussing the "Ready to Fall" video and need for politicized music videos, McIlrath said: "We looked at it from the perspective of hijacking the airwaves. If they're gonna give us three and a half minutes of airtime on TV that means we can play anything, we can make a video that would be intense even on mute". Rise Against has garnered some controversy for their music videos, particularly for perceived violent themes. The video for "Re-Education (Through Labor)" features the Chicago sect of the Moped Army planting and detonating bombs throughout the city. Some viewers saw this as an act of condoning terrorism. The video for "The Violence", which was to feature the detonation of busts of the forty-three United States Presidents on a plot of farmland, was prohibited by the farm's board of directors for "anti-government themes".
Politics and ethics
Their video for the single "Ready to Fall" contains footage of factory farming, rodeos, and sport hunting, as well as deforestation, melting ice caps, and forest fires. The group has called the video the most important video they have ever made. In February 2012 the band released a cover of the Bob Dylan song "Ballad of Hollis Brown" as part of a benefit for Amnesty International. In addition to being vegetarians, all the members of Rise Against, with the exception of Brandon Barnes, are straight edge; that is, they refrain from consuming alcohol or using drugs.
In addition to their support of animal rights, the band has voiced their support for Democratic and libertarian causes. During the 2004 United States presidential election, the band was part of Punkvoter, a political activist group, and appeared on the Rock Against Bush, Vol. 1 compilation. The Rock Against Bush project raised over $1 million for then presidential candidate John Kerry. During the 2008 presidential election, the band members endorsed Barack Obama. In a news bulletin in early 2009, the band stated: "Few things are more exciting than watching Bush finally release America as his eight year hostage."
Vans shoes
On May 23, 2007, Rise Against announced their endorsement of a new line of Vans shoes that would be "completely vegan in consideration to [their] animal rights efforts". In response to criticism spawning from rumors of Vans' use of sweatshops, Rise Against released a statement to address the matter on both their MySpace profile and website saying,
Band members
Current members
Tim McIlrath – lead vocals (1999–present), rhythm guitar (2002–present)
Joe Principe – bass guitar, backing vocals (1999–present)
Brandon Barnes – drums, percussion (2000–present)
Zach Blair – lead guitar, backing vocals (2007–present)
Former members
Dan Wleklinski – lead guitar, backing vocals (1999–2001), rhythm guitar (2000–2001)
Kevin White – rhythm guitar, backing vocals (1999–2000, 2001–2002), lead guitar (2001–2002)
Tony Tintari – drums, percussion (1999–2000)
Todd Mohney – lead guitar, backing vocals (2002–2004)
Chris Chasse – lead guitar, backing vocals (2004–2007)
Timeline
Discography
The Unraveling (2001)
Revolutions per Minute (2003)
Siren Song of the Counter Culture (2004)
The Sufferer & the Witness (2006)
Appeal to Reason (2008)
Endgame (2011)
The Black Market (2014)
Wolves (2017)
Nowhere Generation (2021)
References
Notes
Footnotes
External links
1999 establishments in Illinois
Hardcore punk groups from Illinois
Fat Wreck Chords artists
Interscope Records artists
DGC Records artists
Geffen Records artists
Melodic hardcore groups
Punk rock groups from Illinois
Sony Music Publishing artists
Musical groups established in 1999
Musical groups from Chicago
Political music groups | true | [
"\"Ready to Fall\" is the first single by the punk rock band Rise Against from their fourth studio album, The Sufferer & The Witness (2006).\n\nAn acoustic version of this song was performed live on the CJZN Radio station in Victoria, British Columbia, on January 18, 2007, before a Billy Talent concert featuring Rise Against, Anti-Flag, and Moneen.\n\nComposition and reception\n\"Ready to Fall\" was the first single from The Sufferer & The Witness, Rise Against's follow-up to its 2004 breakthrough album Siren Song of the Counter Culture For The Sufferer & the Witness, Rise Against's members sought to return to their punk roots. McIlrath commented: \"It's definitely more of a punk rock record ... We haven't 'grown or matured' as such, we've just really executed what we've been trying to nail with the last few records.\" Like most of the songs from The Sufferer & The Witness, \"Ready to Fall\" is characterized as hardcore punk and melodic hardcore. with a midtempo beat. \"Ready to Fall\" features a complex song structure, with controlled verses that lead into an intense chorus and screaming vocals, while a continuous bassline plays in the background. The vocals and instrumentation are noticeably heavier than most of the songs on the album.\n\n\"Ready to Fall\" was released on May 30, as the first single from The Sufferer & The Witness. It was released as a CD and 7\" single; the B-side features a live performance of \"State of the Union\", take from the album Siren Song of the Counter Culture. Commercially, \"Ready to Fall\" peaked at number thirteen on the Billboard Alternative Songs chart, the bands' highest charting single at the time.\n\n\"Ready to Fall\" received positive reviews from critics, several of whom described the chorus as \"compelling\". Davey Boy of Sputnikmusic further praised the song for its controlled verses and intense bridge. Scott Heisel of Alternative Press and Corey Apar of AllMusic noted how \"Ready to Fall\" emulated Rise Against's older style of music. Heisel in particular said the song was \"guaranteed to start circle pits wherever played\".\n\nMusic video\nThe accompanying music video was directed by Kevin Kerslake.\n\nMade in 2006, the video is about pollution, environmental destruction, and animal rights. The video is 3 minutes and 51 seconds long. It cuts between shots of the band playing, wild animals, and footage related to the three issues listed. This includes mining, forest clearing, desertification, oil, and melting of polar ice, as well as animals who are dead or dying as a result of those practices. It shows footage of hunters, rodeos, animal experimentation, the capture and slaughter of wild dolphins, and animals in captivity. Finally, it features video from several areas of animal agriculture including eggs, fishing, and meat. At the end of the video, lead singer Tim McIlrath says, \"Every action has a reaction. We've got one planet, one chance.\"\n\nAs well as the version played on television there was another, more graphic, 'uncut' version created. This was never released officially but is available on certain websites such as Vimeo. The video is focused more on animal rights and serves a testimony to veganism. Rise Against is an active supporter of PETA, an animal rights organization, and the band members are all active vegetarians.\n\nThe video was filmed at Brandywine Falls Provincial Park in British Columbia. Much of the footage of animals in both film clips is from the documentary Earthlings.\n\nCredits and personnel\nCredits adapted from the liner notes of The Sufferer & the Witness.\n\nRise Against\n Tim McIlrath – lead vocals, rhythm guitar\n Chris Chasse – lead guitar, backing vocals\n Joe Principe – bass guitar, backing vocals\n Brandon Barnes – drums\n\nAdditional personnel\nChad Price - backing vocals\n\nProduction\n Bill Stevenson, Jason Livermore – producers\n Bill Stevenson, Jason Livermore – audio engineering\n Chris Lord-Alge – mixing\n Ted Jensen – mastering\n\nChart performance\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n \n\nRise Against songs\n2006 singles\nSongs written by Tim McIlrath\nSongs written by Joe Principe\nSongs written by Brandon Barnes\nMelodic hardcore songs",
"The Sufferer & the Witness is the fourth studio album by American punk rock band Rise Against, released on July 4, 2006. A melodic hardcore album, it comprises thirteen tracks that focus on melody, catchy hooks, and rapid-paced tempo. Social and political issues as well as the concept of self-reflection constitute the majority of the lyrical content.\n\nDissatisfied with Siren Song of the Counter Culture (2004) producer Garth Richardson, the band members decided to record their next album with Bill Stevenson and Jason Livermore, the duo that worked on their 2003 album Revolutions per Minute. The Sufferer & the Witness sold 48,327 copies in its first week of release, and charted in seven countries, including the United States where it entered at position ten on the Billboard 200. Critical appraisal was mainly positive, with reviewers complimenting Rise Against's ability to mature in its sound while simultaneously retain its punk roots. Reviewers also highlighted the vocals of singer Tim McIlrath and the production of Stevenson and Livermore.\n\nThree songs from The Sufferer & the Witness were released as singles: \"Ready to Fall\", \"Prayer of the Refugee\", and \"The Good Left Undone\". All three songs charted on the Modern Rock Tracks chart in the United States, and accompanying music videos were produced. Rise Against supported the album with The Sufferer & the Witness Tour throughout the second half of 2006 and all of 2007. During the tour, guitarist Chris Chasse left the band and was replaced by Zach Blair.\n\nBackground and production\nIn August 2004, Rise Against released its major record label debut album Siren Song of the Counter Culture. A sleeper hit in the United States, it was certified gold by the Recording Industry Association of America, denoting shipments of 500,000 copies.Siren Song of the Counter Culture success was largely due to the breakthrough single \"Swing Life Away\", an acoustic ballad that starkly contrasted the band's typical hardcore oeuvre. To promote the album, Rise Against embarked on an extensive touring schedule that concluded in December 2005. The next month, the band members reconvened and began work on their fourth album The Suffer & the Witness.\n\nDuring the recording sessions for Siren Song of the Counter Culture, the band members became dissatisfied with the contributions from producer Garth Richardson, as he did not fully understand their musical background in punk rock. Richardson was better known for his work with heavier-sounding bands like Mudvayne and Rage Against the Machine, and as a result, the album sounded more polished and heavier than Rise Against's previous raw material. Combined with the numerous distractions and inconveniences that plagued the recording sessions, lead vocalist Tim McIlrath views Siren Song of the Counter Culture as the album that \"got away from us\". When it came time to record The Sufferer & the Witness, the band members decided to return to Bill Stevenson and Jason Livermore, who produced their 2003 album Revolutions per Minute. The members developed a strong rapport with the duo while recording that album, particularly Stevenson, whom McIlrath described as their \"musical soul mate\".\n\nBy December 2005, five songs had been written for The Suffer & the Witness. The rest of the songs were written in January 2006, in a practice space in West Side, Chicago. McIlrath noted that the band procrastinated writing the songs for several weeks, leaving them with only a three-week period to write the entire album. The band was not affected by this added pressure however; according to McIlrath: \"It went great, the songs just flowed out of us. There were really few questions and the song lyrics would just come out of us, it went really well and everyone really liked them.\" Unlike the stressful recording sessions for Siren Song of the Counter Culture, the band members had a much more enjoyable time with The Suffer & the Witness, as they no longer sought the approval of their parent company Geffen Records.\n\nComposition\n\nMusic\nFor The Sufferer & the Witness, Rise Against's members sought to return to their punk roots. McIlrath commented: \"It's definitely more of a punk rock record...We haven't 'grown or matured' as such, we've just really executed what we've been trying to nail with the last few records.\" Critics have characterized the album's music as melodic hardcore. Many of the album's songs focus on melody, catchy hooks, and rapid-paced tempo; to this extent, Corey Apar of AllMusic wrote, \"this record is basically one shout-along, mosh-worthy song after another\".\n\nThe opening song \"Chamber the Cartridge\" begins with a marching drum beat, while \"Injection\" uses double time tempo and a driving guitar riff. \"Ready to Fall\" features a complex song structure, with controlled verses that lead into an intense chorus and screaming vocals, while a continuous bassline plays in the background. The fourth song, \"Bricks\", is only ninety seconds long, and is played at a frenetic pace with influences of hardcore punk. \"Prayer of the Refugee\" uses a similar structure to \"Ready to Fall\", as slow verses are contrasted with more upbeat choruses; it includes one of the few instances of a guitar solo on the album, which is played during the bridge. \"Drones\" features what PopMatters Will Rausch describes as a \"mile-a-minute mentality\", a rapidly-paced song fused with rolling basslines.\n\nThe eighth song, \"The Approaching Curve\", is one of the two major stylistic deviations on the album. McIlrath delivers spoken word lyrics during the verses, and switches to singing during the chorus. Emily Schambra of the band Holy Roman Empire provides backing vocals. \"Worth Dying For\" features a different verse-chorus form than previous songs, as the uptempo verse section contrasts the slow and methodical chorus. \"Roadside\" is another stylistic deviation, as it pairs undistored guitars with a piano and minimal string instrumentation. Schambra provides backing vocals for this song as well. \"The Good Left Undone\" returns to a faster pace, and has been described as an \"anthemic\" song. The final song, \"Survive\", begins with a moody guitar riff and crashing cymbals, before transitioning into rapid-paced drumming and guitar shredding.\n\nLyrics\n\nSocial and political issues, namely injustice, constitute much of the lyrical content on The Sufferer & the Witness. The lyrics often discuss these topics in general terms, instead of delving into the specifics. According to McIlrath: \"I think that a lot of the problems we deal with today in the world are the ones that have been plaguing society for centuries and probably will be here a hundred years from now...There's a bigger picture than just the Bush administration and specific problems of 2006, and I want people to relate to that, even if they're listening to it 10 years from now.\" This style of songwriting is seen in \"Chamber the Cartridge\", which rallies against apathy toward any societal issue, and \"Bricks\", which deals with war and resistance in universal terms.\n\nAnother major lyrical theme revolves around the concept of self-reflection. \"Worth Dying For\" is about the frustrating search for a worthwhile cause, while \"The Approaching Curve\" and \"Roadside\" discuss the impact of troubled relationships. Some songs on the album use metaphors to further the lyrical narrative. \"Injection\" compares an everlasting love for someone to pharmaceutical drugs, while the bar fight setting in \"Behind Closed Doors\" is used to demonstrate man's inhumanity to one another. Despite the grim subject matter, the album's lyrics are often hopeful in nature. This is best exemplified in \"Survive\", with its uplifting and motivational lyrics such as \"we've all been sorry, we've all been hurt...but how we survive is what makes us who we are\".\n\nRelease\nThe Sufferer & the Witness was originally scheduled for a June 20 release, although this date was pushed back to July 4. This new date coincided with Independence Day in the United States, which McIlrath noted was purely coincidental. In the United States, the album entered the Billboard 200 at number ten, and sold 48,327 copies in its first week. It sold over 140,000 copies by August 2006, and was certified gold by the Recording Industry Association of America in August 2008. In Canada, the album debuted at number five on the Canadian Albums Chart, and was certified platinum by Music Canada, denoting shipments of 100,000 copies.\n\nThe Sufferer & the Witness was Rise Against's first album to chart in countries outside of North America. The album peaked at number twenty-one in Australia, and was certified gold by the Australian Recording Industry Association, denoting shipments of 35,000 copies. It was similarly certified gold by Bundesverband Musikindustrie for shipping 100,000 copies in Germany. In the UK, it peaked at number 171 on the UK Albums Chart, and sold 58,243 copies by June 2017. The album also reached number seventy-five in Austria and number ninety-eight in Switzerland.\n\nThree songs from The Sufferer & the Witness were released as singles: \"Ready to Fall\", \"Prayer of the Refugee\", and \"The Good Left Undone\". All three singles charted on the Modern Rock Tracks chart, peaking at number thirteen, seven, and six respectively. Accompanying music videos were shot for all three songs. The \"Ready to Fall\" video deals with animal rights and deforestation, and uses footage from the 2005 documentary film Earthlings. In the video for \"Prayer of the Refugee\", the band performs in a retail store, with intermittent shots of foreign workers making the store products. By contrast, the video for \"The Good Left Undone\" does not have a political message. It features the band performing underground in the dirt, and was their first video to use computer graphics.\n\nRise Against supported the album with The Sufferer & the Witness Tour throughout the second half of 2006 and all of 2007. The band was a headliner on the 2006 Warped Tour in North America, and in late 2006, the band co-headlined a tour with Thursday which included the bands Circa Survive and Billy Talent. While on the Warped Tour, author and filmmaker Davy Rothbart recorded several of the band's live performances, and interviewed some of their fans. This footage was used in the Rise Against DVD documentary Generation Lost. The following year, Rise Against participated in Taste of Chaos 2007, and supported My Chemical Romance as openers on the first half of their arena tour. Prior to the tour with My Chemical Romance, guitarist Chris Chasse left the band, citing a rigorous tour schedule as the reason for his departure. Zach Blair of the band Only Crime joined Rise Against soon afterward.\n\nReception\n\nCritical appraisal was mainly positive, with several critics highlighting the music as the album's strongest component. Corey Apar of AllMusic praised the music's \"sincerity and passion\" and described it as \"maturing within the realms of major-label hardcore revivalism, while still remaining relevant and exciting\". Davey Boy of Sputnikmusic noted that it was the first album he ever gave a perfect score, stating that \"Possibly the best thing about it is how Rise Against have achieved the difficult task of not selling out their origins, yet furthering all facets of their music to become a little more mainstream.\" The Dallas Morning News gave a more negative review. Critic Mike Daniel wrote how the songs lacked definition, the in-song transitions were awkward, and the distortion often overshadowed McIlrath's vocals.\n\nThe two songs with major stylistic deviations—\"The Approaching Curve\" and \"Roadside\"—were thoroughly discussed by critics. Punknews' Aubin Paul wrote that \"The Approaching Curve\" had powerful choruses and a tight instrumental section, while Boy said the spoken word lyrics perfectly emphasized the melodic chorus. Rausch disagreed with these assessments, calling the song \"less than effective\". Rausch did appreciate \"Roadside\", as did Boy, who felt Schambra's backing vocals made the song more compelling. Scott Heisel of Alternative Press noted similarities between \"Roadside\" and \"Outside\" by Staind.\n\nMcIlrath's vocals were praised by several critics. Rausch commented he was able to alternate between singing and screaming on key, while Paul felt his voice conveyed abject despondency and earnest hope. Other critics agreed with Paul's assessment, calling McIlrath's vocal delivery \"palpable\", \"passionate\", and \"ragged\". Boy felt that the minimal use of screaming vocals heightened their overall impact, and noted that listeners who do not like screaming will still enjoy the album. By contrast, Christine Leonard of Fast Forward Weekly felt that McIlrath's harsh vocals undermined the political lyrics more than accentuated them.\n\nDiscussing the lyrics, Boy felt they were simple and to the point, but ultimately effective, while Ryan found the conflict-laden imagery redundant. Ryan noted: \"McIlrath's thematic heavy-handedness is nothing new, but it'd be nice to see less obvious terms.\" Several critics highlighted the production of Stevenson and Livermore. In particular, Paul wrote: \"It's flawlessly recorded, but never sterile, and in many ways, Stevenson demonstrates how he is really the fifth member of any band he produces...Listening to Sufferer, it becomes clear how wrong any other producer would be for this band\".\n\nTrack listing\nAll lyrics written by Tim McIlrath; all music composed by Rise Against, unless otherwise noted.\n\nPersonnel\nCredits adapted from the liner notes of The Sufferer & the Witness.\n\nRise Against\n Tim McIlrath – lead vocals, rhythm guitar\n Joe Principe – bass guitar, backing vocals\n Chris Chasse – lead guitar, backing vocals\n Brandon Barnes – drums, percussion\n\nAdditional musicians\n Chad Price – backing vocals\n Emily Schambra – backing vocals\n Andrea Glass – cello\n\nProduction\n Bill Stevenson – production, engineering\n Jason Livermore – production, engineering\n Andrew Berlin – additional engineering\n Johnny Schou – additional engineering\n Chris Lord-Alge – mixing\n Ted Jensen – mastering\n Andrew Berlin, Christopher Jak, and Johnny Schou – piano arrangement\n\nCharts and certifications\n\nReferences\n\n2006 albums\nAlbums produced by Bill Stevenson (musician)\nGeffen Records albums\nRise Against albums"
]
|
[
"Rise Against",
"The Sufferer & the Witness (2006-07)",
"What is The Sufferer and the Witness?",
"their fourth album, The Sufferer & the Witness."
]
| C_0c7f0e87c0c54176b23a5d8831e46cbb_0 | What were some songs on the album? | 2 | What were some songs on the album The Sufferer & the Witness? | Rise Against | After a year and a half of touring, Rise Against reconvened at the Blasting Room to record their fourth album, The Sufferer & the Witness. The band members were dissatisfied with Richardson's contributions to Siren Song of the Counter Culture, as he produced a more polished and heavier album than their previous works. As a result, they decided to return to Stevenson and Livermore, whom they felt had accurately captured the raw punk sound they strove for on Revolutions per Minute. Unlike the stressful recording sessions for Siren Song of the Counter Culture, the band had a much more enjoyable time with The Sufferer & the Witness, as they no longer sought the approval of Geffen executives. According to McIlrath: "It went great, the songs just flowed out of us. There were really few questions and the song lyrics would just come out of us, it went really well and everyone really liked them." The Sufferer & the Witness was released on July 4, 2006. The album sold 48,327 copies in its first week of release in the United States, and peaked at number ten on the Billboard 200. The Sufferer & the Witness also charted in seven other countries, including number five on the Canadian Albums Chart, making it the band's first album to chart outside of the United States. It was certified gold in three countries, and platinum by Music Canada. The album was well received by critics, who praised the production value, and noted how Rise Against was able to mature in their sound and simultaneously retain their punk roots. Three songs from The Sufferer & the Witness were released as singles: "Ready to Fall", "Prayer of the Refugee", and "The Good Left Undone". These three songs also charted on the Modern Rock Tracks chart, with "Prayer of the Refugee" and "The Good Left Undone" in particular peaking within the top ten. Rise Against supported the album with The Sufferer & the Witness Tour throughout the second half of 2006 and all of 2007. The band was a headliner on the 2006 Warped Tour, during which author and filmmaker Davy Rothbart recorded several of the band's live performances, and interviewed some of their fans. This footage was used in the Rise Against DVD documentary Generation Lost. In 2007, the band released the EP This Is Noise, and participated in a tour with My Chemical Romance. Prior to this tour, Chasse left the band, citing touring fatigue as the reason for his departure; Zach Blair of the band Only Crime joined shortly thereafter, as Rise Against's fifth different guitarist. At the time he received the call about joining Rise Against, Blair was a construction worker living paycheck to paycheck. CANNOTANSWER | "Ready to Fall", "Prayer of the Refugee", and "The Good Left Undone". | Rise Against is an American punk rock band from Chicago, formed in 1999. The group's current line-up comprises vocalist/rhythm guitarist Tim McIlrath, lead guitarist Zach Blair, bassist Joe Principe and drummer Brandon Barnes. Rooted in hardcore punk and melodic hardcore, Rise Against's music emphasizes melody, catchy hooks, an aggressive sound and playstyle, and rapid tempos. Lyrically, the band is known for their outspoken social commentary, covering a wide range of topics such as political injustice, animal rights, humanitarianism, and environmentalism.
The band spent its first four years signed to the independent record label Fat Wreck Chords, on which they released two studio albums, The Unraveling (2001) and Revolutions per Minute (2003). Both the albums were met with underground success, and in 2003 the band signed with the major label Dreamworks, which was absorbed by Geffen. Rise Against's major label debut Siren Song of the Counter Culture (2004) brought the band mainstream success, largely in part to the popularity of the singles "Give It All" and "Swing Life Away". The band's next album, The Sufferer & the Witness (2006), peaked at number ten on the Billboard 200 in the United States, and was Rise Against's first album to chart in countries outside of North America.
With the release of Appeal to Reason (2008), Rise Against's music shifted toward a more accessible and radio-friendly sound, with greater emphasis on production value. The album's third single, "Savior", broke the record for the most consecutive weeks spent on both the Hot Rock Songs and Alternative Songs charts. Rise Against's popularity grew with the release of Endgame (2011), which peaked at number two on the Billboard 200, and charted highly worldwide. The band's 7th and 8th albums, The Black Market (2014) and Wolves (2017) continued the trend of commercial success, and both peaked with the top ten on the Billboard 200.
Rise Against is also known for their advocacy of progressivism, supporting organizations such as Amnesty International and the It Gets Better Project. The band actively promotes animal rights and most of the members are straight edge, PETA supporters and vegetarians.
History
Early years (1999-2003)
Rise Against was formed in 1999, by bassist Joe Principe and guitarist Dan Wleklinski. Before Rise Against, Principe and Wleklinski were members of the Chicago punk rock band 88 Fingers Louie. This band toured and recorded to moderate success, but disbanded on two separate occasions in the late 1990s. Following the second breakup, Principe and Wleklinski decided to form a new band called Transistor Revolt, and recruited drummer Tony Tintari, guitarist Kevin White, and lead vocalist Tim McIlrath. Principe met McIlrath in Indianapolis while attending a Sick of It All concert, and recalled seeing him perform with his previous band Baxter. Impressed with McIlrath's gritty vocals, Principe gave him a seven track demo he had recorded, and invited him to join the nascent band. McIlrath accepted the invitation, and dropped out of Northeastern Illinois University.
The initial jam sessions were problematic, as McIlrath was unaccustomed to Principe's and Wleklinski's fast-paced style of play. McIlrath described these early sessions as "the meeting of different worlds and worlds colliding", and noted how many of his friends questioned the future of the band. Despite these early issues, they were able to self-publish the extended play (EP) Transistor Revolt in 2000. The EP attracted the attention of the local punk community, as well as Fat Mike, the lead vocalist of NOFX and co-founder of the independent record label Fat Wreck Chords. Fat Mike offered to sign the band to a recording contract, with the stipulation that they change their name. He gave some suggestions, like Jimmy Cracked Corn And The I Don't Cares, although none of the band members liked them. Tintari suggested Rise Against, to which the band agreed upon.
After signing with Fat Wreck Chords, Tintari and White left the band. The remaining members then spent the next few months looking for another drummer capable of playing double-time beats at a rapid pace. During this period, the band Good Riddance found their new drummer, and sent Rise Against the audition tape of their number two choice, Brandon Barnes. A mutual friend gave Barnes' phone number to Principe, and after listening to Transistor Revolt, Barnes accepted the band's invitation.
With their new lineup finalized, Rise Against began work on their debut studio album, The Unraveling. Recording sessions took place in late 2000, at Sonic Iguana Studios in Lafayette. Wleklinski served as an assistant engineer under producer Mass Giorgini, and later remarked on the grueling workdays: "12-hour days for 4 of those weeks, and then 22-24 hours per day during that last week of tracking. These were the times of 'If you don't play it right, you have to play it again,' not 'That was good enough, I'll edit it so it's on time." The Unraveling was released on April 24, 2001. Although the album failed to reach any record charts, it did receive positive reviews from critics, who commended the raw and unadulterated music. To promote the album, Rise Against toured extensively throughout North America and Europe. While on tour, Wleklinski left the band due to several complaints from McIlrath. Rumor spread that Wleklinski was fired because of his long hair, although McIlrath derided these claims. Phillip Hill stood in as the lead guitarist while on tour, after which White returned as a replacement.
Less than a year later, White left the band for a second time, and was replaced by Todd Mohney, McIlrath's roommate and former bandmate. When it came time to record their second album, Revolutions per Minute, McIlrath noted that the band was suffering from an "identity crisis". Fat Wreck Chords was known for a specific pop punk sound, and Rise Against wanted to find a producer that could highlight the heavier side of their music. They decided on Bill Stevenson—the former drummer of the punk band Descendents—and Jason Livermore to produce the album. Revolutions per Minute was recorded at the Blasting Room in Fort Collins, from November to December 2002. The band members developed a strong rapport with Stevenson and Livermore, and the two parties would eventually collaborate on four of next five Rise Against albums.
Revolutions per Minute was released on April 8, 2003. Like The Unraveling, it failed to reach any major record charts, but did reach number thirty-five on the Independent Albums chart in the United States. Critics praised the album for its impassioned lyrics and unique blend of hardcore punk and melodic hardcore; Brian Hiatt of Rolling Stone called Revolutions per Minute "easily among the finest punk records of the past decade". To support the album, Rise Against traveled with other Fat Wreck Chord bands like Anti-Flag, None More Black, and No Use for a Name on North American and Japan based tours, and participated in the 2003 Warped Tour in North America. When asked about the band's early years with Fat Wreck Chords, Principe said: "Our goal was to be on Fat Wreck Chords and just sell enough records so that when we were home from tour, we wouldn't have to get jobs...Of course, that was all before we had families and children and numerous responsibilities. That was the beauty. And then the longer we did it things just kept coming our way."
Rising popularity (2004–2007)
Rise Against's extensive touring schedule helped to establish an early fanbase, and attracted the attention of major record labels, including Dreamworks Records. The general consensus among Fat Wreck Chords musicians was that major record labels sacrifice musical integrity in exchange for commercial profit. Rise Against held the same belief, but eventually came to the conclusion that unlike other labels, DreamWorks supported their politically charged lyrics. According to McIlrath: "Their faith in what we do and the fact that they cared about stuff we cared about was an eye-opener." The band signed with Dreamworks in September 2003, and was given complete creative control to record their major record label debut album, Siren Song of the Counter Culture.
The band went into the album with the assumption that Dreamworks was going to drop them at any moment, so they wanted to take advantage of the opportunity by working with their "dream producer". They chose Garth Richardson, who was known for his work with heavier sounding bands like Rage Against the Machine and Sick of It All. While writing songs for the album, Rise Against's lineup once again changed; Mohney quit, and was replaced by Chris Chasse of the band Reach the Sky. The recording sessions for Siren Song of the Counter Culture were marred by numerous distractions and inconveniences, the biggest of which was the transition from Dreamworks to Geffen Records. In November 2003, Dreamworks was acquired by Universal Music Group, and eventually merged with Geffen. The transition period between labels left Rise Against without an A&R representative, and little acknowledgement from Geffen executives.
Siren Song of the Counter Culture was released on August 10, 2004. For the first six months, the album sold poorly, and attracted little fanfare. Rise Against's incessant touring resulted in greater exposure and an eventual increase in sales. It became the band's first album to reach the Billboard 200, peaking at number 136, and was certified gold by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), denoting shipments of 500,000 copies. Siren Song of the Counter Culture was praised for its lyrical content, but drew some criticism for a lack of individually memorable songs and perceived overproduction. Three songs from the album were released as singles: "Give It All", "Swing Life Away", and "Life Less Frightening". All three songs charted on the Modern Rock Tracks chart in the United States. "Give It All" and "Swing Life Away" in particular are credited as the band's breakthrough singles, helping Rise Against achieve mainstream appeal.
After a year and a half of touring, Rise Against reconvened at the Blasting Room to record their fourth album, The Sufferer & the Witness. The band members were dissatisfied with Richardson's contributions to Siren Song of the Counter Culture, as he produced a more polished and heavier album than their previous works. As a result, they decided to return to Stevenson and Livermore, whom they felt had accurately captured the raw punk sound they strove for on Revolutions per Minute. Unlike the stressful recording sessions for Siren Song of the Counter Culture, the band had a much more enjoyable time with The Sufferer & the Witness, as they no longer sought the approval of Geffen executives. According to McIlrath: "It went great, the songs just flowed out of us. There were really few questions and the song lyrics would just come out of us, it went really well and everyone really liked them."
The Sufferer & the Witness was released on July 4, 2006. The album sold 48,327 copies in its first week of release in the United States, and peaked at number ten on the Billboard 200. The Sufferer & the Witness also charted in seven other countries, including number five on the Canadian Albums Chart, making it the band's first album to chart outside of the United States. It was certified gold in three countries, and platinum by Music Canada. The album was well received by critics, who praised the production value, and noted how Rise Against was able to mature in their sound and simultaneously retain their punk roots.
Three songs from The Sufferer & the Witness were released as singles: "Ready to Fall", "Prayer of the Refugee", and "The Good Left Undone". These three songs also charted on the Modern Rock Tracks chart, with "Prayer of the Refugee" and "The Good Left Undone" in particular peaking within the top ten. Rise Against supported the album with The Sufferer & the Witness Tour throughout the second half of 2006 and all of 2007. The band was a headliner on the 2006 Warped Tour, during which author and filmmaker Davy Rothbart recorded several of the band's live performances, and interviewed some of their fans. This footage was used in the Rise Against DVD documentary Generation Lost. Prior to a 2007 tour with My Chemical Romance, Chasse left the band, citing touring fatigue as the reason for his departure; Zach Blair of the band Only Crime joined shortly thereafter, as Rise Against's fifth different guitarist. At the time he received the call about joining Rise Against, Blair was a construction worker living paycheck to paycheck.
International success (2008–2013)
McIlrath and Principe had been writing songs for a new album throughout The Sufferer & Witness tour, and in December 2007, the band members went to the Blasting Room to record their fifth studio album Appeal to Reason. This was the third Rise Against album to be produced by Stevenson and Livermore, and the band members had grown accustomed to the duo's work style. According to McIlrath: "[Stevenson's] got such a work ethic, just an amazing work ethic, and Livermore too, and the whole studio, all the people that work there." Blair went into the album with the goal to fit in seamlessly with the other band members, or as he put it "If you listen to every record this band had out, you could tell that Zach Blair played on this record". He took influence from how Nels Cline sounded on the album Sky Blue Sky when he joined Wilco. Blair was already well acquainted with Stevenson before joining Rise Against, as he and Stevenson were in Only Crime. Stevenson helped Blair replicate the sound of past Rise Against guitarists.
Appeal to Reason was released on October 7, 2008. It was the first Rise Against album to be released by Interscope Records. In the United States, the album peaked at number three on the Billboard 200, making it Rise Against's highest charting album at the time. The album sold 64,000 copies in its first week of release, and by December 2010, it had sold 482,000 copies. Rise Against's popularity continued to grow internationally, with Appeal to Reason charting highly in several countries including number one in Canadian Albums Chart. Appeal to Reason marked a musical shift for Rise Against to a more mainstream and radio-friendly sound, which led to division among critical opinions. Some critics commended the album's more radio-friendly sound, while other critics found the music to be stale, and bemoaned Rise Against for abandoning their punk roots.
Like with the previous two albums, three songs from Appeal to Reason were released as singles: "Re-Education (Through Labor)", "Audience of One", and "Savior". All three songs charted highly on the Modern Rock Tracks chart; "Savior" in particular held the record for the most consecutive weeks spent on both the Hot Rock Songs and Modern Rock Tracks charts, with sixty-three and sixty-five weeks respectively. In the midst of Appeal to Reason singles, Rise Against also released three EPs in 2009, including a short split album with Anti-Flag.
To promote the album, Rise Against embarked on the Appeal To Reason Tour, which began with United States-based tour with Thrice, Alkaline Trio, and The Gaslight Anthem. Rise Against then co-headlined a 2009 tour with Rancid throughout the summer months, which was followed by a short tour of the United Kingdom in November, supported by the bands Thursday and Poison the Well. Some of the 2009 performances were recorded and compiled in the 2010 DVD Another Station: Another Mile. These performances were interspersed with interviews of the band members about the process of recording an album.
Rise Against finished recording their sixth studio album, Endgame, in January 2011, after recording some last-minute guest vocals. The lyrics of the album focus on real world events, such as Hurricane Katrina and the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. According to McIlrath, although the lyrics discuss grim topics, they actually take on a positive view and were written from the perspective of: "What if the place on the other side of this transition is a place we'd all rather be living in?" On January 12, 2011, Rise Against announced the release date of Endgame as March 15, 2011. Although Spin Magazine labeled Endgame as a concept album, on January 7, 2011, McIlrath tweeted a clarifying message stating that "the record is not a concept record and, fret not, has absolutely nothing to do with the Dixie Chicks." The first single from the album, "Help Is on the Way", debuted on KROQ on January 17. A second song from the album, "Architects", was debuted and released digitally on February 15. As a promotion effort, the band embarked on a short tour of South America in February and then a month-long tour of Europe in March. Upon returning to the United States, the band announced a U.S. spring tour with Bad Religion and Four Year Strong.
Endgame is notable for being the first album to establish Rise Against's stance on homophobia with the third song on the album, "Make It Stop (September's Children)," which references the September 2010 suicides of teenagers in the LGBT community. Upon the album's release, the band put a message on their website inviting listeners to apply the songs' messages to current events, in addition to those on which they were originally based.
On May 10, 2011, the band released a 7" split vinyl with Face to Face. The 7" features 2 songs, with each band covering a song by the other band. In August 2011, Rise Against made appearances at the Reading and Leeds Festivals. The band was the main support act for the Foo Fighters' fall US tour 2011. Rise Against supported the Foo Fighters on 9 dates in September, with Mariachi El Bronx as the opening act. After this, the band announced a tour of Canada throughout October 2011, supported by Flogging Molly and Black Pacific. The tour consisted of nine dates. Rise Against contributed a cover of "Ballad of Hollis Brown" to Chimes of Freedom, a tribute album of Bob Dylan songs produced in February 2012 to commemorate Amnesty International's 50th anniversary.
Rise Against embarked on a two-leg US tour with A Day to Remember and The Menzingers in the spring of 2012. Leg one ended with the band launching another European tour. The band continued back to Europe for the summer months while doing a slew of festivals along the way. To end 2012, the band announced the return to the US with a fall tour with Gaslight Anthem and Hot Water Music. The tour included two shows in Arizona, which the band had not played since 2009 due to the Sound Strike. On January 2, 2013, vocalist Tim McIlrath told Rolling Stone that Rise Against was "focusing on recharging [their] batteries" after two years of touring in support of Endgame. In March 2013, Rise Against played their first ever performances on African soil when they performed in South Africa for the Durban, Johannesburg and Cape Town legs of RAMFest, where they headlined the festival along with the UK band Bring Me the Horizon.
Recent years (2014–present)
The extensive touring schedule surrounding Endgame took a toll on the band members, and in 2013 they decided to take a year long hiatus. According to Blair: "You're constantly gone. You don't feel like you live anywhere". He also discussed how the other three band members lives had evolved, and were away from their families for months on end. "It's an interesting thing to kind of realize that and kind of get out of the bubble, get out of the bus, and go 'Oh, geez, we actually have lives outside of what we do.'" In January 2014, the band members reconvened at the Blasting Room to record Rise Against's seventh album The Black Market. The band members used new recording techniques, such as greater usage of analog signals on a Kemper amplifier, and an Evertune bridge to keep the guitars in tune. As McIlrath put it: "I want the songs to feel a certain way. I want the songs to hit the guy and the girl who don't really care about guitar tones."
The Black Market was released on July 15, 2014. In the United States, the album entered at number three on the Billboard 200 and sold 53,000 copies in its first week. It was their fourth consecutive album to debut within the top ten on the Billboard 200, and it spent eleven weeks on the chart. The Black Market was an international success, in particular in Canada, where it became Rise Against's third consecutive album to reach number one. Reviews were generally positive; critics praised the more introspective lyrics, but often bemoaned the music as formulaic and stale. To promote the album, Rise Against toured throughout 2014 and 2015 with several other rock bands, such as Emily's Army, Touché Amoré, and Killswitch Engage.
On April 18, 2017, the band posted a new mysterious website which appeared to show a cryptic tracklist, song length and an announcement date "4.20.2017" for the new album.
On April 20, 2017, Rise Against announced the title of their new album Wolves which was released on June 9, 2017 via Virgin Records. The album's lead single, "The Violence", was released on April 20, 2017. To promote the album, the band announced a headlining North American tour in fall 2017 with Pierce the Veil and White Lung supporting.
On March 29, 2018, the band's Instagram account published a video announcing a project entitled The Ghost Note Symphonies, Vol. 1. A later announcement described the album as having "the songs stripped down, with alternate instrumentation, unique orchestration and a surprise or two" and announced a release date of July 27, 2018. The band released an acoustic version of "House on Fire" from Wolves as a single for the album on May 18 and an acoustic version of "Like the Angel" from Revolutions per Minute on June 8.
On September 16, 2020 the band released a new song called "Broken Dreams, Inc." which was taken from the DC Comics Dark Nights: Death Metal soundtrack.
The band's ninth studio album Nowhere Generation was released on June 4, 2021. The band debuted the album's title track on March 17, 2021.
Artistry
Musical style
Critics have described Rise Against's musical style as punk rock, hardcore punk and melodic hardcore. The band's songs emphasize melody, catchy hooks, aggressive movements, and rapid-paced tempo. Guitarists McIlrath and Blair focus on speed riffing and multi-layered choruses, while bassist Principe uses aggressive picking to lock in with the snare and kick of the drums. Likewise, drummer Barnes follows the guitars, stating: "Sometimes I'll do it naturally, or we'll talk about different ways to accent things - fills from the snare or toms, or some big crashes." The band members have noted the influence of several punk bands, in particular Black Flag and Minor Threat. McIlrath commented: "We're emulating Minor Threat and Black Flag. Who knows, maybe if Ian MacKaye was wearing eyeliner then I would be." Other bands that have influenced Rise Against include 7 Seconds, AFI, Bad Brains, Bad Religion, Cave In, Dead Kennedys, Fugazi, Jawbreaker, Los Crudos, Nirvana, Pennywise, Rage Against the Machine, Ramones, Refused, and Social Distortion.
During the early part of its career, Rise Against's music was characterized by a gritty combination of hardcore punk and melodic hardcore. The Unraveling accentuated a raw punk sound, while Revolutions per Minute featured an overall darker tone. According to Principe: "The Unraveling was more of us just trying to figure out how we functioned as a band and what type of band we wanted to be. It all just came together with [Revolutions per Minute], my songwriting style and Tim's, it really meshes well together and I think it shows on that record. Although this darker tone carried into Siren Song of the Counter Culture, McIlrath specially mentioned that The Sufferer & the Witness was an attempt to return to Rise Against's punk roots. Corey Apar of AllMusic wrote "[The Sufferer & the Witness] is basically one shout-along, mosh-worthy song after another". In early Rise Against songs, McIlrath would often shift between clean vocals and screaming vocals.
With the release of Appeal to Reason, Rise Against's music took a noticeable turn toward a more accessible and radio-friendly sound, with greater emphasis on production value. The New York Times reviewer Jon Pareles felt Appeal to Reason was more tune-oriented than the band's previous material, while Davey Boy of Sputnikmusic wrote how Endgame was "slickly produced to enhance the melodic nature of songs". Principe believes the shift in sound resulted from the longevity of the Rise Against. He explained that the band members grew as musicians, and wanted to challenge themselves with new musical directions. For example, at the insistence of Blair, Rise Against began to incorporate more guitar solos into their music. McIlrath's screaming vocals became less prevalent in Appeal to Reason, a trend that would continue in subsequent albums.
Lyrics
Rise Against is known for their outspoken social commentary, which often permeates their lyrics. Throughout the years, the band has discussed a wide range of topics, including animal rights, economic injustice, environmental disasters, forced displacement, homophobia, and modern warfare. Political corruption is another subject commonly found in their lyrics, and as a result, Rise Against is often labeled as a "political band". Some journalists have stated that the band has specifically targeted the Republican administrations of George W. Bush and Donald Trump, while promoting liberal ideologies.
As the band's primary lyricist, McIlrath is wary of the political label. "In this sort of current climate of music, we stand out simply because I think there are bands that are avoiding the question. So, it makes us sort of an anomaly and I think that's where we get the tag 'protest music' or 'political punk rock'". He also noted how the band's lyrics discuss these topics in general terms, instead of delving into the specifics. In a 2006 interview, McIlrath said: "I think that a lot of the problems we deal with today in the world are the ones that have been plaguing society for centuries and probably will be here a hundred years from now...There's a bigger picture than just the Bush administration and specific problems of 2006, and I want people to relate to that, even if they're listening to [our music] 10 years from now." Principe noted the band does not attempt to preach their beliefs, but instead encourage listeners to become involved, and learn about pertinent issues affecting society.
Not all Rise Against songs discuss controversial topics. More personal stories about broken relationships and forgiveness are common lyrical themes, as is the concept of self-reflection. The Unraveling is an early example of this style of songwriting, as the majority of the album's songs focus on friendships and memories. It was not until Revolutions per Minute that McIlrath began to integrate social issues into their music. Despite the grim subject matter, Rise Against songs are often hopeful in nature, a decision the band conscientiously made from the very beginning. Will Rausch of PopMatters wrote: "Unlike typical emo rants filled with despondency and arm chair philosophy, [Rise Against] songs deal with the reality that life sucks, but we must move on."
Videography
Rise Against will often produce an accompanying music video for a single. These videos typically either tell a narrative or feature documentary-like footage. This documentary style of filming can be seen in the music videos for "Ready to Fall", "Re-Education (Through Labor)", "Ballad of Hollis Brown", and "I Don't Want to Be Here Anymore". These videos juxtapose footage of the band playing the song and footage of a certain societal issue such as gun violence or animal abuse, overlaid with damning facts about the issue. For example, the video "Ballad of Hollis Brown" is about the dangers of industrialized farming and poverty in the United States, and features interviews with farmers who are struggling to stay afloat.
Rise Against's narrative videos are also usually political in nature. In the video for "Prayer of the Refugee" the band destroys products in a retail store, with intermittent shots of foreign workers making the store products. The goal was for the video to showcase how conventional business models allow for various human rights violations. Some narrative videos follow the song's lyric thread, such as in the Hurricane Katrina based video for "Help Is on the Way", while other videos are used to enforce the song's message, such as the band's anti-homophobic stance in the "Make It Stop (September's Children)" video.
Discussing the "Ready to Fall" video and need for politicized music videos, McIlrath said: "We looked at it from the perspective of hijacking the airwaves. If they're gonna give us three and a half minutes of airtime on TV that means we can play anything, we can make a video that would be intense even on mute". Rise Against has garnered some controversy for their music videos, particularly for perceived violent themes. The video for "Re-Education (Through Labor)" features the Chicago sect of the Moped Army planting and detonating bombs throughout the city. Some viewers saw this as an act of condoning terrorism. The video for "The Violence", which was to feature the detonation of busts of the forty-three United States Presidents on a plot of farmland, was prohibited by the farm's board of directors for "anti-government themes".
Politics and ethics
Their video for the single "Ready to Fall" contains footage of factory farming, rodeos, and sport hunting, as well as deforestation, melting ice caps, and forest fires. The group has called the video the most important video they have ever made. In February 2012 the band released a cover of the Bob Dylan song "Ballad of Hollis Brown" as part of a benefit for Amnesty International. In addition to being vegetarians, all the members of Rise Against, with the exception of Brandon Barnes, are straight edge; that is, they refrain from consuming alcohol or using drugs.
In addition to their support of animal rights, the band has voiced their support for Democratic and libertarian causes. During the 2004 United States presidential election, the band was part of Punkvoter, a political activist group, and appeared on the Rock Against Bush, Vol. 1 compilation. The Rock Against Bush project raised over $1 million for then presidential candidate John Kerry. During the 2008 presidential election, the band members endorsed Barack Obama. In a news bulletin in early 2009, the band stated: "Few things are more exciting than watching Bush finally release America as his eight year hostage."
Vans shoes
On May 23, 2007, Rise Against announced their endorsement of a new line of Vans shoes that would be "completely vegan in consideration to [their] animal rights efforts". In response to criticism spawning from rumors of Vans' use of sweatshops, Rise Against released a statement to address the matter on both their MySpace profile and website saying,
Band members
Current members
Tim McIlrath – lead vocals (1999–present), rhythm guitar (2002–present)
Joe Principe – bass guitar, backing vocals (1999–present)
Brandon Barnes – drums, percussion (2000–present)
Zach Blair – lead guitar, backing vocals (2007–present)
Former members
Dan Wleklinski – lead guitar, backing vocals (1999–2001), rhythm guitar (2000–2001)
Kevin White – rhythm guitar, backing vocals (1999–2000, 2001–2002), lead guitar (2001–2002)
Tony Tintari – drums, percussion (1999–2000)
Todd Mohney – lead guitar, backing vocals (2002–2004)
Chris Chasse – lead guitar, backing vocals (2004–2007)
Timeline
Discography
The Unraveling (2001)
Revolutions per Minute (2003)
Siren Song of the Counter Culture (2004)
The Sufferer & the Witness (2006)
Appeal to Reason (2008)
Endgame (2011)
The Black Market (2014)
Wolves (2017)
Nowhere Generation (2021)
References
Notes
Footnotes
External links
1999 establishments in Illinois
Hardcore punk groups from Illinois
Fat Wreck Chords artists
Interscope Records artists
DGC Records artists
Geffen Records artists
Melodic hardcore groups
Punk rock groups from Illinois
Sony Music Publishing artists
Musical groups established in 1999
Musical groups from Chicago
Political music groups | true | [
"Future Memories is the seventh studio album by German artist ATB, released on May 1, 2009.\n\nJust like Two Worlds (2000) and Trilogy (2007) before it, this album also features two CDs. The first CD consists of dance songs, while the second one features chill-out tunes. Similarly to Trilogy, Future Memories also features 26 tracks in total and is released in two different versions: a normal one with two CDs, and a limited edition, which includes a DVD.\n\nOn the iTunes version of the album there are two bonus tracks, a full-length club remix of \"L.A. Nights\" and a 12-minute minimix featuring most songs from the album. This minimix was used to promote the album on YouTube.\n\nOverview\nATB made almost all announcements concerning this new album on his MySpace blog. The first thing he said was that the album would not be promoted in the old-fashioned way, and a single would not be released before the album. Instead, there would be three tracks released at the same time (two of which are \"What About Us\" and \"L.A. Nights\") to represent the main album, and all three of them were going to have their own music videos. Also, four tracks on the album were going to have more than 160 beats per minute (bpm), rare in ATB's songs, but they were not anything close to the hardcore genre. The reason for some of the songs' high bpm was that for the first time in ATB's repertoire, he has incorporated drum and bass elements into some of the songs such as \"What About Us\" and \"My Everything\".\n\nThe opening to the song \"Gravity\" is similar melodically to the opening track on ATB's first album Movin' Melodies, entitled \"The First Tones\".\n\nOn March 30, 2009, ATB published a preview on YouTube that featured 10 selected tracks from the album, including \"What About Us\", \"My Everything\", \"Summervibes with 9PM\" and others.\n\nMany singers and artists collaborated with ATB on this album, including Josh Gallahan, Haley Gibby (from Summer of Space), Betsie Larkin, Aruna, Tiff Lacey, Roberta Carter-Harrison (from Wild Strawberries), Apple&Stone, Jades and Flanders.\n\nTrack listing\nATB announced the official track list on March 27, 2009, on his MySpace blog.\n\nCharts and certifications\n\nCharts\n\nCertifications\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n \n Future Memories cover\n ATB's MySpace Blog\n ATB's official website\n\n2009 albums\nATB albums",
"\"What Are They Doing in Heaven?\" is a Christian hymn written in 1901 by American Methodist minister Charles Albert Tindley. , it has become popular enough to have been included in 16 hymnals.\n\nThe song has sometimes been recorded under the titles \"What Are They Doing?\" and \"What Are They Doing in Heaven Today?\". The question mark is often omitted. The song may also be known by its first line, \"I am thinking of friends whom I used to know\".\n\nThe song consists of four verses and a refrain, each four lines long. In both the verses and the refrain, the first three lines rhyme, and the fourth is \"What are they doing now?\" or some small variant of that. The author reflects on friends who were burdened in life by care, or by disease, or by poverty; and wonders what they might now be doing in Heaven, without giving his answer.\n\nThe first known recording of the song is the 1928 one by Washington Phillips (18801954; vocals and zither), in gospel blues style. Phillips' recording was used in the soundtrack of the 2005 film Elizabethtown. The song has since been recorded many times in a wide variety of styles, including gospel and bluegrass; sometimes attributed to Phillips or to \"anonymous\" or to \"traditional\".\n\nRecordings \n\n 1928Washington Phillips, 78rpm single Columbia 14404-D\n 1934Mitchell's Christian Singers, 78rpm singles Perfect 326, Banner 33433, Conqueror 8431, and Melotone 13400 \n 1938Golden Gate Quartet, 78rpm singles Bluebird 7994 and Montgomery 7866 \n The Southernaires, radio broadcast \n 1946Pilgrim Travelers\n 1948The Lilly Brothers, 78rpm single Page 505\n 1948The Southern Harmonizers, 78 rpm single Specialty 301 \n 1950The Mello-Tones, 78rpm single Columbia 39051 \n 1950-53Silvertone Singers\n 1952The Dixie Hummingbirds, 45rpm single Peacock Records 5-1594 \n 1957Harry and Jeanie West on the album Favorite Gospel Songs \n 1960Sister Rosetta Tharpe on the album Gospels in Rhythm \n 1962The Fairfield Four on the album The Bells Are Tolling \n 1964The Staple Singers on the album This Little Light \n 196692Marion Williams\n 1971The Downtown Sister New Heaven on the album Gospels And Spirituals \n 1983Slim & the Supreme Angels on the album Glory to His Name \n 1992Tom Hanway on the album Tom Hanway and Blue Horizon \n 1994Martin Simpson on the album A Closer Walk with Thee \n 1995The Pfister Sisters on the album The Pfister Sisters \n 1996Michelle Lanchester, Bernice Johnson Reagon and Yasmeen on the album Wade in the Water: African American Sacred Music Traditions \n 1996Little Jimmy Scott on the album Heaven \n 2000Last Forever on the album Trainfare Home \n 2000Margaret Allison and the Angelic Gospel Singers on the album Home in the Rock \n 2002Jorma Kaukonen on the album Blue Country Heart\n 2003Bill Gaither feat. Gloria Gaither and Babbie Mason on the album Heaven \n 2003The Immortal Lee County Killers on the album Love Is a Charm of Powerful Trouble \n 2003Mike \"Sport\" Murphy on the album Uncle \n 2006Riley Baugus on the album Long Steel Rail \n 2006Joanne Blum on the album Even More Love \n 2006Cabin Fever NW on the album The Door Is Always Open \n 2006Jessy Dixon on the album Get Away Jordan \n 2006Vince Gill on the album Voice of the Spirit, Gospel of the South \n 2006The Be Good Tanyas on the album Hello Love\n 2006Boxcar Preachers on the album Auto-Body Experience \n 2006Judy Cook on the album If You Sing Songs ... \n 2006The Great Gospel Crew on the album The Greatest Gospel Music \n 2007John Reischman and The Jaybirds on the album Stellar Jays \n 2008Murry Hammond on the album I Don't Know Where I'm Going but I'm on My Way \n 2009Jim Byrnes on the album My Walking Stick \n 2009The Habit on the album The Habit \n 2010Buddy Greene on the album A Few More Years \n 2011The Bright Wings Chorus on the album '' \n 2011Dead Rock West on the album Bright Morning Stars \n 2013The Quiet American on the album Wild Bill Jones 2013Marcy Marxer on the album Things Are Coming My Way \n 2013Mogwai on the album Les Revenants 2013Mavis Staples on the album One True Vine 2013Colin Stetson feat. Justin Vernon on the album New History Warfare, Vol. 3: To See More Light \n 2014Béla Fleck and Abigail Washburn on the album Béla Fleck and Abigail Washburn''\n\nReferences \n\nAmerican Christian hymns\nBlues songs\nGospel songs\nSongs about death\nSongs about Heaven\nHymns by Charles Albert Tindley\n1901 songs\nWashington Phillips songs\nColumbia Records singles\nPace Jubilee Singers songs\n20th-century hymns"
]
|
[
"Rise Against",
"The Sufferer & the Witness (2006-07)",
"What is The Sufferer and the Witness?",
"their fourth album, The Sufferer & the Witness.",
"What were some songs on the album?",
"\"Ready to Fall\", \"Prayer of the Refugee\", and \"The Good Left Undone\"."
]
| C_0c7f0e87c0c54176b23a5d8831e46cbb_0 | Was the album popular? | 3 | Was the album The Sufferer & the Witness popular? | Rise Against | After a year and a half of touring, Rise Against reconvened at the Blasting Room to record their fourth album, The Sufferer & the Witness. The band members were dissatisfied with Richardson's contributions to Siren Song of the Counter Culture, as he produced a more polished and heavier album than their previous works. As a result, they decided to return to Stevenson and Livermore, whom they felt had accurately captured the raw punk sound they strove for on Revolutions per Minute. Unlike the stressful recording sessions for Siren Song of the Counter Culture, the band had a much more enjoyable time with The Sufferer & the Witness, as they no longer sought the approval of Geffen executives. According to McIlrath: "It went great, the songs just flowed out of us. There were really few questions and the song lyrics would just come out of us, it went really well and everyone really liked them." The Sufferer & the Witness was released on July 4, 2006. The album sold 48,327 copies in its first week of release in the United States, and peaked at number ten on the Billboard 200. The Sufferer & the Witness also charted in seven other countries, including number five on the Canadian Albums Chart, making it the band's first album to chart outside of the United States. It was certified gold in three countries, and platinum by Music Canada. The album was well received by critics, who praised the production value, and noted how Rise Against was able to mature in their sound and simultaneously retain their punk roots. Three songs from The Sufferer & the Witness were released as singles: "Ready to Fall", "Prayer of the Refugee", and "The Good Left Undone". These three songs also charted on the Modern Rock Tracks chart, with "Prayer of the Refugee" and "The Good Left Undone" in particular peaking within the top ten. Rise Against supported the album with The Sufferer & the Witness Tour throughout the second half of 2006 and all of 2007. The band was a headliner on the 2006 Warped Tour, during which author and filmmaker Davy Rothbart recorded several of the band's live performances, and interviewed some of their fans. This footage was used in the Rise Against DVD documentary Generation Lost. In 2007, the band released the EP This Is Noise, and participated in a tour with My Chemical Romance. Prior to this tour, Chasse left the band, citing touring fatigue as the reason for his departure; Zach Blair of the band Only Crime joined shortly thereafter, as Rise Against's fifth different guitarist. At the time he received the call about joining Rise Against, Blair was a construction worker living paycheck to paycheck. CANNOTANSWER | The Good Left Undone" in particular peaking within the top ten. | Rise Against is an American punk rock band from Chicago, formed in 1999. The group's current line-up comprises vocalist/rhythm guitarist Tim McIlrath, lead guitarist Zach Blair, bassist Joe Principe and drummer Brandon Barnes. Rooted in hardcore punk and melodic hardcore, Rise Against's music emphasizes melody, catchy hooks, an aggressive sound and playstyle, and rapid tempos. Lyrically, the band is known for their outspoken social commentary, covering a wide range of topics such as political injustice, animal rights, humanitarianism, and environmentalism.
The band spent its first four years signed to the independent record label Fat Wreck Chords, on which they released two studio albums, The Unraveling (2001) and Revolutions per Minute (2003). Both the albums were met with underground success, and in 2003 the band signed with the major label Dreamworks, which was absorbed by Geffen. Rise Against's major label debut Siren Song of the Counter Culture (2004) brought the band mainstream success, largely in part to the popularity of the singles "Give It All" and "Swing Life Away". The band's next album, The Sufferer & the Witness (2006), peaked at number ten on the Billboard 200 in the United States, and was Rise Against's first album to chart in countries outside of North America.
With the release of Appeal to Reason (2008), Rise Against's music shifted toward a more accessible and radio-friendly sound, with greater emphasis on production value. The album's third single, "Savior", broke the record for the most consecutive weeks spent on both the Hot Rock Songs and Alternative Songs charts. Rise Against's popularity grew with the release of Endgame (2011), which peaked at number two on the Billboard 200, and charted highly worldwide. The band's 7th and 8th albums, The Black Market (2014) and Wolves (2017) continued the trend of commercial success, and both peaked with the top ten on the Billboard 200.
Rise Against is also known for their advocacy of progressivism, supporting organizations such as Amnesty International and the It Gets Better Project. The band actively promotes animal rights and most of the members are straight edge, PETA supporters and vegetarians.
History
Early years (1999-2003)
Rise Against was formed in 1999, by bassist Joe Principe and guitarist Dan Wleklinski. Before Rise Against, Principe and Wleklinski were members of the Chicago punk rock band 88 Fingers Louie. This band toured and recorded to moderate success, but disbanded on two separate occasions in the late 1990s. Following the second breakup, Principe and Wleklinski decided to form a new band called Transistor Revolt, and recruited drummer Tony Tintari, guitarist Kevin White, and lead vocalist Tim McIlrath. Principe met McIlrath in Indianapolis while attending a Sick of It All concert, and recalled seeing him perform with his previous band Baxter. Impressed with McIlrath's gritty vocals, Principe gave him a seven track demo he had recorded, and invited him to join the nascent band. McIlrath accepted the invitation, and dropped out of Northeastern Illinois University.
The initial jam sessions were problematic, as McIlrath was unaccustomed to Principe's and Wleklinski's fast-paced style of play. McIlrath described these early sessions as "the meeting of different worlds and worlds colliding", and noted how many of his friends questioned the future of the band. Despite these early issues, they were able to self-publish the extended play (EP) Transistor Revolt in 2000. The EP attracted the attention of the local punk community, as well as Fat Mike, the lead vocalist of NOFX and co-founder of the independent record label Fat Wreck Chords. Fat Mike offered to sign the band to a recording contract, with the stipulation that they change their name. He gave some suggestions, like Jimmy Cracked Corn And The I Don't Cares, although none of the band members liked them. Tintari suggested Rise Against, to which the band agreed upon.
After signing with Fat Wreck Chords, Tintari and White left the band. The remaining members then spent the next few months looking for another drummer capable of playing double-time beats at a rapid pace. During this period, the band Good Riddance found their new drummer, and sent Rise Against the audition tape of their number two choice, Brandon Barnes. A mutual friend gave Barnes' phone number to Principe, and after listening to Transistor Revolt, Barnes accepted the band's invitation.
With their new lineup finalized, Rise Against began work on their debut studio album, The Unraveling. Recording sessions took place in late 2000, at Sonic Iguana Studios in Lafayette. Wleklinski served as an assistant engineer under producer Mass Giorgini, and later remarked on the grueling workdays: "12-hour days for 4 of those weeks, and then 22-24 hours per day during that last week of tracking. These were the times of 'If you don't play it right, you have to play it again,' not 'That was good enough, I'll edit it so it's on time." The Unraveling was released on April 24, 2001. Although the album failed to reach any record charts, it did receive positive reviews from critics, who commended the raw and unadulterated music. To promote the album, Rise Against toured extensively throughout North America and Europe. While on tour, Wleklinski left the band due to several complaints from McIlrath. Rumor spread that Wleklinski was fired because of his long hair, although McIlrath derided these claims. Phillip Hill stood in as the lead guitarist while on tour, after which White returned as a replacement.
Less than a year later, White left the band for a second time, and was replaced by Todd Mohney, McIlrath's roommate and former bandmate. When it came time to record their second album, Revolutions per Minute, McIlrath noted that the band was suffering from an "identity crisis". Fat Wreck Chords was known for a specific pop punk sound, and Rise Against wanted to find a producer that could highlight the heavier side of their music. They decided on Bill Stevenson—the former drummer of the punk band Descendents—and Jason Livermore to produce the album. Revolutions per Minute was recorded at the Blasting Room in Fort Collins, from November to December 2002. The band members developed a strong rapport with Stevenson and Livermore, and the two parties would eventually collaborate on four of next five Rise Against albums.
Revolutions per Minute was released on April 8, 2003. Like The Unraveling, it failed to reach any major record charts, but did reach number thirty-five on the Independent Albums chart in the United States. Critics praised the album for its impassioned lyrics and unique blend of hardcore punk and melodic hardcore; Brian Hiatt of Rolling Stone called Revolutions per Minute "easily among the finest punk records of the past decade". To support the album, Rise Against traveled with other Fat Wreck Chord bands like Anti-Flag, None More Black, and No Use for a Name on North American and Japan based tours, and participated in the 2003 Warped Tour in North America. When asked about the band's early years with Fat Wreck Chords, Principe said: "Our goal was to be on Fat Wreck Chords and just sell enough records so that when we were home from tour, we wouldn't have to get jobs...Of course, that was all before we had families and children and numerous responsibilities. That was the beauty. And then the longer we did it things just kept coming our way."
Rising popularity (2004–2007)
Rise Against's extensive touring schedule helped to establish an early fanbase, and attracted the attention of major record labels, including Dreamworks Records. The general consensus among Fat Wreck Chords musicians was that major record labels sacrifice musical integrity in exchange for commercial profit. Rise Against held the same belief, but eventually came to the conclusion that unlike other labels, DreamWorks supported their politically charged lyrics. According to McIlrath: "Their faith in what we do and the fact that they cared about stuff we cared about was an eye-opener." The band signed with Dreamworks in September 2003, and was given complete creative control to record their major record label debut album, Siren Song of the Counter Culture.
The band went into the album with the assumption that Dreamworks was going to drop them at any moment, so they wanted to take advantage of the opportunity by working with their "dream producer". They chose Garth Richardson, who was known for his work with heavier sounding bands like Rage Against the Machine and Sick of It All. While writing songs for the album, Rise Against's lineup once again changed; Mohney quit, and was replaced by Chris Chasse of the band Reach the Sky. The recording sessions for Siren Song of the Counter Culture were marred by numerous distractions and inconveniences, the biggest of which was the transition from Dreamworks to Geffen Records. In November 2003, Dreamworks was acquired by Universal Music Group, and eventually merged with Geffen. The transition period between labels left Rise Against without an A&R representative, and little acknowledgement from Geffen executives.
Siren Song of the Counter Culture was released on August 10, 2004. For the first six months, the album sold poorly, and attracted little fanfare. Rise Against's incessant touring resulted in greater exposure and an eventual increase in sales. It became the band's first album to reach the Billboard 200, peaking at number 136, and was certified gold by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), denoting shipments of 500,000 copies. Siren Song of the Counter Culture was praised for its lyrical content, but drew some criticism for a lack of individually memorable songs and perceived overproduction. Three songs from the album were released as singles: "Give It All", "Swing Life Away", and "Life Less Frightening". All three songs charted on the Modern Rock Tracks chart in the United States. "Give It All" and "Swing Life Away" in particular are credited as the band's breakthrough singles, helping Rise Against achieve mainstream appeal.
After a year and a half of touring, Rise Against reconvened at the Blasting Room to record their fourth album, The Sufferer & the Witness. The band members were dissatisfied with Richardson's contributions to Siren Song of the Counter Culture, as he produced a more polished and heavier album than their previous works. As a result, they decided to return to Stevenson and Livermore, whom they felt had accurately captured the raw punk sound they strove for on Revolutions per Minute. Unlike the stressful recording sessions for Siren Song of the Counter Culture, the band had a much more enjoyable time with The Sufferer & the Witness, as they no longer sought the approval of Geffen executives. According to McIlrath: "It went great, the songs just flowed out of us. There were really few questions and the song lyrics would just come out of us, it went really well and everyone really liked them."
The Sufferer & the Witness was released on July 4, 2006. The album sold 48,327 copies in its first week of release in the United States, and peaked at number ten on the Billboard 200. The Sufferer & the Witness also charted in seven other countries, including number five on the Canadian Albums Chart, making it the band's first album to chart outside of the United States. It was certified gold in three countries, and platinum by Music Canada. The album was well received by critics, who praised the production value, and noted how Rise Against was able to mature in their sound and simultaneously retain their punk roots.
Three songs from The Sufferer & the Witness were released as singles: "Ready to Fall", "Prayer of the Refugee", and "The Good Left Undone". These three songs also charted on the Modern Rock Tracks chart, with "Prayer of the Refugee" and "The Good Left Undone" in particular peaking within the top ten. Rise Against supported the album with The Sufferer & the Witness Tour throughout the second half of 2006 and all of 2007. The band was a headliner on the 2006 Warped Tour, during which author and filmmaker Davy Rothbart recorded several of the band's live performances, and interviewed some of their fans. This footage was used in the Rise Against DVD documentary Generation Lost. Prior to a 2007 tour with My Chemical Romance, Chasse left the band, citing touring fatigue as the reason for his departure; Zach Blair of the band Only Crime joined shortly thereafter, as Rise Against's fifth different guitarist. At the time he received the call about joining Rise Against, Blair was a construction worker living paycheck to paycheck.
International success (2008–2013)
McIlrath and Principe had been writing songs for a new album throughout The Sufferer & Witness tour, and in December 2007, the band members went to the Blasting Room to record their fifth studio album Appeal to Reason. This was the third Rise Against album to be produced by Stevenson and Livermore, and the band members had grown accustomed to the duo's work style. According to McIlrath: "[Stevenson's] got such a work ethic, just an amazing work ethic, and Livermore too, and the whole studio, all the people that work there." Blair went into the album with the goal to fit in seamlessly with the other band members, or as he put it "If you listen to every record this band had out, you could tell that Zach Blair played on this record". He took influence from how Nels Cline sounded on the album Sky Blue Sky when he joined Wilco. Blair was already well acquainted with Stevenson before joining Rise Against, as he and Stevenson were in Only Crime. Stevenson helped Blair replicate the sound of past Rise Against guitarists.
Appeal to Reason was released on October 7, 2008. It was the first Rise Against album to be released by Interscope Records. In the United States, the album peaked at number three on the Billboard 200, making it Rise Against's highest charting album at the time. The album sold 64,000 copies in its first week of release, and by December 2010, it had sold 482,000 copies. Rise Against's popularity continued to grow internationally, with Appeal to Reason charting highly in several countries including number one in Canadian Albums Chart. Appeal to Reason marked a musical shift for Rise Against to a more mainstream and radio-friendly sound, which led to division among critical opinions. Some critics commended the album's more radio-friendly sound, while other critics found the music to be stale, and bemoaned Rise Against for abandoning their punk roots.
Like with the previous two albums, three songs from Appeal to Reason were released as singles: "Re-Education (Through Labor)", "Audience of One", and "Savior". All three songs charted highly on the Modern Rock Tracks chart; "Savior" in particular held the record for the most consecutive weeks spent on both the Hot Rock Songs and Modern Rock Tracks charts, with sixty-three and sixty-five weeks respectively. In the midst of Appeal to Reason singles, Rise Against also released three EPs in 2009, including a short split album with Anti-Flag.
To promote the album, Rise Against embarked on the Appeal To Reason Tour, which began with United States-based tour with Thrice, Alkaline Trio, and The Gaslight Anthem. Rise Against then co-headlined a 2009 tour with Rancid throughout the summer months, which was followed by a short tour of the United Kingdom in November, supported by the bands Thursday and Poison the Well. Some of the 2009 performances were recorded and compiled in the 2010 DVD Another Station: Another Mile. These performances were interspersed with interviews of the band members about the process of recording an album.
Rise Against finished recording their sixth studio album, Endgame, in January 2011, after recording some last-minute guest vocals. The lyrics of the album focus on real world events, such as Hurricane Katrina and the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. According to McIlrath, although the lyrics discuss grim topics, they actually take on a positive view and were written from the perspective of: "What if the place on the other side of this transition is a place we'd all rather be living in?" On January 12, 2011, Rise Against announced the release date of Endgame as March 15, 2011. Although Spin Magazine labeled Endgame as a concept album, on January 7, 2011, McIlrath tweeted a clarifying message stating that "the record is not a concept record and, fret not, has absolutely nothing to do with the Dixie Chicks." The first single from the album, "Help Is on the Way", debuted on KROQ on January 17. A second song from the album, "Architects", was debuted and released digitally on February 15. As a promotion effort, the band embarked on a short tour of South America in February and then a month-long tour of Europe in March. Upon returning to the United States, the band announced a U.S. spring tour with Bad Religion and Four Year Strong.
Endgame is notable for being the first album to establish Rise Against's stance on homophobia with the third song on the album, "Make It Stop (September's Children)," which references the September 2010 suicides of teenagers in the LGBT community. Upon the album's release, the band put a message on their website inviting listeners to apply the songs' messages to current events, in addition to those on which they were originally based.
On May 10, 2011, the band released a 7" split vinyl with Face to Face. The 7" features 2 songs, with each band covering a song by the other band. In August 2011, Rise Against made appearances at the Reading and Leeds Festivals. The band was the main support act for the Foo Fighters' fall US tour 2011. Rise Against supported the Foo Fighters on 9 dates in September, with Mariachi El Bronx as the opening act. After this, the band announced a tour of Canada throughout October 2011, supported by Flogging Molly and Black Pacific. The tour consisted of nine dates. Rise Against contributed a cover of "Ballad of Hollis Brown" to Chimes of Freedom, a tribute album of Bob Dylan songs produced in February 2012 to commemorate Amnesty International's 50th anniversary.
Rise Against embarked on a two-leg US tour with A Day to Remember and The Menzingers in the spring of 2012. Leg one ended with the band launching another European tour. The band continued back to Europe for the summer months while doing a slew of festivals along the way. To end 2012, the band announced the return to the US with a fall tour with Gaslight Anthem and Hot Water Music. The tour included two shows in Arizona, which the band had not played since 2009 due to the Sound Strike. On January 2, 2013, vocalist Tim McIlrath told Rolling Stone that Rise Against was "focusing on recharging [their] batteries" after two years of touring in support of Endgame. In March 2013, Rise Against played their first ever performances on African soil when they performed in South Africa for the Durban, Johannesburg and Cape Town legs of RAMFest, where they headlined the festival along with the UK band Bring Me the Horizon.
Recent years (2014–present)
The extensive touring schedule surrounding Endgame took a toll on the band members, and in 2013 they decided to take a year long hiatus. According to Blair: "You're constantly gone. You don't feel like you live anywhere". He also discussed how the other three band members lives had evolved, and were away from their families for months on end. "It's an interesting thing to kind of realize that and kind of get out of the bubble, get out of the bus, and go 'Oh, geez, we actually have lives outside of what we do.'" In January 2014, the band members reconvened at the Blasting Room to record Rise Against's seventh album The Black Market. The band members used new recording techniques, such as greater usage of analog signals on a Kemper amplifier, and an Evertune bridge to keep the guitars in tune. As McIlrath put it: "I want the songs to feel a certain way. I want the songs to hit the guy and the girl who don't really care about guitar tones."
The Black Market was released on July 15, 2014. In the United States, the album entered at number three on the Billboard 200 and sold 53,000 copies in its first week. It was their fourth consecutive album to debut within the top ten on the Billboard 200, and it spent eleven weeks on the chart. The Black Market was an international success, in particular in Canada, where it became Rise Against's third consecutive album to reach number one. Reviews were generally positive; critics praised the more introspective lyrics, but often bemoaned the music as formulaic and stale. To promote the album, Rise Against toured throughout 2014 and 2015 with several other rock bands, such as Emily's Army, Touché Amoré, and Killswitch Engage.
On April 18, 2017, the band posted a new mysterious website which appeared to show a cryptic tracklist, song length and an announcement date "4.20.2017" for the new album.
On April 20, 2017, Rise Against announced the title of their new album Wolves which was released on June 9, 2017 via Virgin Records. The album's lead single, "The Violence", was released on April 20, 2017. To promote the album, the band announced a headlining North American tour in fall 2017 with Pierce the Veil and White Lung supporting.
On March 29, 2018, the band's Instagram account published a video announcing a project entitled The Ghost Note Symphonies, Vol. 1. A later announcement described the album as having "the songs stripped down, with alternate instrumentation, unique orchestration and a surprise or two" and announced a release date of July 27, 2018. The band released an acoustic version of "House on Fire" from Wolves as a single for the album on May 18 and an acoustic version of "Like the Angel" from Revolutions per Minute on June 8.
On September 16, 2020 the band released a new song called "Broken Dreams, Inc." which was taken from the DC Comics Dark Nights: Death Metal soundtrack.
The band's ninth studio album Nowhere Generation was released on June 4, 2021. The band debuted the album's title track on March 17, 2021.
Artistry
Musical style
Critics have described Rise Against's musical style as punk rock, hardcore punk and melodic hardcore. The band's songs emphasize melody, catchy hooks, aggressive movements, and rapid-paced tempo. Guitarists McIlrath and Blair focus on speed riffing and multi-layered choruses, while bassist Principe uses aggressive picking to lock in with the snare and kick of the drums. Likewise, drummer Barnes follows the guitars, stating: "Sometimes I'll do it naturally, or we'll talk about different ways to accent things - fills from the snare or toms, or some big crashes." The band members have noted the influence of several punk bands, in particular Black Flag and Minor Threat. McIlrath commented: "We're emulating Minor Threat and Black Flag. Who knows, maybe if Ian MacKaye was wearing eyeliner then I would be." Other bands that have influenced Rise Against include 7 Seconds, AFI, Bad Brains, Bad Religion, Cave In, Dead Kennedys, Fugazi, Jawbreaker, Los Crudos, Nirvana, Pennywise, Rage Against the Machine, Ramones, Refused, and Social Distortion.
During the early part of its career, Rise Against's music was characterized by a gritty combination of hardcore punk and melodic hardcore. The Unraveling accentuated a raw punk sound, while Revolutions per Minute featured an overall darker tone. According to Principe: "The Unraveling was more of us just trying to figure out how we functioned as a band and what type of band we wanted to be. It all just came together with [Revolutions per Minute], my songwriting style and Tim's, it really meshes well together and I think it shows on that record. Although this darker tone carried into Siren Song of the Counter Culture, McIlrath specially mentioned that The Sufferer & the Witness was an attempt to return to Rise Against's punk roots. Corey Apar of AllMusic wrote "[The Sufferer & the Witness] is basically one shout-along, mosh-worthy song after another". In early Rise Against songs, McIlrath would often shift between clean vocals and screaming vocals.
With the release of Appeal to Reason, Rise Against's music took a noticeable turn toward a more accessible and radio-friendly sound, with greater emphasis on production value. The New York Times reviewer Jon Pareles felt Appeal to Reason was more tune-oriented than the band's previous material, while Davey Boy of Sputnikmusic wrote how Endgame was "slickly produced to enhance the melodic nature of songs". Principe believes the shift in sound resulted from the longevity of the Rise Against. He explained that the band members grew as musicians, and wanted to challenge themselves with new musical directions. For example, at the insistence of Blair, Rise Against began to incorporate more guitar solos into their music. McIlrath's screaming vocals became less prevalent in Appeal to Reason, a trend that would continue in subsequent albums.
Lyrics
Rise Against is known for their outspoken social commentary, which often permeates their lyrics. Throughout the years, the band has discussed a wide range of topics, including animal rights, economic injustice, environmental disasters, forced displacement, homophobia, and modern warfare. Political corruption is another subject commonly found in their lyrics, and as a result, Rise Against is often labeled as a "political band". Some journalists have stated that the band has specifically targeted the Republican administrations of George W. Bush and Donald Trump, while promoting liberal ideologies.
As the band's primary lyricist, McIlrath is wary of the political label. "In this sort of current climate of music, we stand out simply because I think there are bands that are avoiding the question. So, it makes us sort of an anomaly and I think that's where we get the tag 'protest music' or 'political punk rock'". He also noted how the band's lyrics discuss these topics in general terms, instead of delving into the specifics. In a 2006 interview, McIlrath said: "I think that a lot of the problems we deal with today in the world are the ones that have been plaguing society for centuries and probably will be here a hundred years from now...There's a bigger picture than just the Bush administration and specific problems of 2006, and I want people to relate to that, even if they're listening to [our music] 10 years from now." Principe noted the band does not attempt to preach their beliefs, but instead encourage listeners to become involved, and learn about pertinent issues affecting society.
Not all Rise Against songs discuss controversial topics. More personal stories about broken relationships and forgiveness are common lyrical themes, as is the concept of self-reflection. The Unraveling is an early example of this style of songwriting, as the majority of the album's songs focus on friendships and memories. It was not until Revolutions per Minute that McIlrath began to integrate social issues into their music. Despite the grim subject matter, Rise Against songs are often hopeful in nature, a decision the band conscientiously made from the very beginning. Will Rausch of PopMatters wrote: "Unlike typical emo rants filled with despondency and arm chair philosophy, [Rise Against] songs deal with the reality that life sucks, but we must move on."
Videography
Rise Against will often produce an accompanying music video for a single. These videos typically either tell a narrative or feature documentary-like footage. This documentary style of filming can be seen in the music videos for "Ready to Fall", "Re-Education (Through Labor)", "Ballad of Hollis Brown", and "I Don't Want to Be Here Anymore". These videos juxtapose footage of the band playing the song and footage of a certain societal issue such as gun violence or animal abuse, overlaid with damning facts about the issue. For example, the video "Ballad of Hollis Brown" is about the dangers of industrialized farming and poverty in the United States, and features interviews with farmers who are struggling to stay afloat.
Rise Against's narrative videos are also usually political in nature. In the video for "Prayer of the Refugee" the band destroys products in a retail store, with intermittent shots of foreign workers making the store products. The goal was for the video to showcase how conventional business models allow for various human rights violations. Some narrative videos follow the song's lyric thread, such as in the Hurricane Katrina based video for "Help Is on the Way", while other videos are used to enforce the song's message, such as the band's anti-homophobic stance in the "Make It Stop (September's Children)" video.
Discussing the "Ready to Fall" video and need for politicized music videos, McIlrath said: "We looked at it from the perspective of hijacking the airwaves. If they're gonna give us three and a half minutes of airtime on TV that means we can play anything, we can make a video that would be intense even on mute". Rise Against has garnered some controversy for their music videos, particularly for perceived violent themes. The video for "Re-Education (Through Labor)" features the Chicago sect of the Moped Army planting and detonating bombs throughout the city. Some viewers saw this as an act of condoning terrorism. The video for "The Violence", which was to feature the detonation of busts of the forty-three United States Presidents on a plot of farmland, was prohibited by the farm's board of directors for "anti-government themes".
Politics and ethics
Their video for the single "Ready to Fall" contains footage of factory farming, rodeos, and sport hunting, as well as deforestation, melting ice caps, and forest fires. The group has called the video the most important video they have ever made. In February 2012 the band released a cover of the Bob Dylan song "Ballad of Hollis Brown" as part of a benefit for Amnesty International. In addition to being vegetarians, all the members of Rise Against, with the exception of Brandon Barnes, are straight edge; that is, they refrain from consuming alcohol or using drugs.
In addition to their support of animal rights, the band has voiced their support for Democratic and libertarian causes. During the 2004 United States presidential election, the band was part of Punkvoter, a political activist group, and appeared on the Rock Against Bush, Vol. 1 compilation. The Rock Against Bush project raised over $1 million for then presidential candidate John Kerry. During the 2008 presidential election, the band members endorsed Barack Obama. In a news bulletin in early 2009, the band stated: "Few things are more exciting than watching Bush finally release America as his eight year hostage."
Vans shoes
On May 23, 2007, Rise Against announced their endorsement of a new line of Vans shoes that would be "completely vegan in consideration to [their] animal rights efforts". In response to criticism spawning from rumors of Vans' use of sweatshops, Rise Against released a statement to address the matter on both their MySpace profile and website saying,
Band members
Current members
Tim McIlrath – lead vocals (1999–present), rhythm guitar (2002–present)
Joe Principe – bass guitar, backing vocals (1999–present)
Brandon Barnes – drums, percussion (2000–present)
Zach Blair – lead guitar, backing vocals (2007–present)
Former members
Dan Wleklinski – lead guitar, backing vocals (1999–2001), rhythm guitar (2000–2001)
Kevin White – rhythm guitar, backing vocals (1999–2000, 2001–2002), lead guitar (2001–2002)
Tony Tintari – drums, percussion (1999–2000)
Todd Mohney – lead guitar, backing vocals (2002–2004)
Chris Chasse – lead guitar, backing vocals (2004–2007)
Timeline
Discography
The Unraveling (2001)
Revolutions per Minute (2003)
Siren Song of the Counter Culture (2004)
The Sufferer & the Witness (2006)
Appeal to Reason (2008)
Endgame (2011)
The Black Market (2014)
Wolves (2017)
Nowhere Generation (2021)
References
Notes
Footnotes
External links
1999 establishments in Illinois
Hardcore punk groups from Illinois
Fat Wreck Chords artists
Interscope Records artists
DGC Records artists
Geffen Records artists
Melodic hardcore groups
Punk rock groups from Illinois
Sony Music Publishing artists
Musical groups established in 1999
Musical groups from Chicago
Political music groups | true | [
"Chembakame is a Malayalam musical album released in 2006. Franco, Madhu Balakrishnan, Asha G Menon, Vidhu Prathap and Jyotsna are the singers and Shyam Dharman was the composer. Raju Raghavan wrote lyrics for the songs. The album was a runaway success and even made challenge to the popular film songs released at that time, being on the top for ten months. The album was released by Satyam Audios.\n\nTrack listing\n\nRecording and release\nThe album was released on March 31, 2006 by Satyam Audios.\n\nReception\nChempakame got well acclaimed by its release. It was telecasted by local television channels and also among popular Malayalam television channels. It became widely popular among Kerala audience.\n\nTrivia\nChembakame is considered as the most successful musical album ever released in Malayalam. The album released in 2006 and broke all the records in musical CD business. The songs Sundariye Vaa and Chembakame are still the favourites and default songs in mobile of youth in Kerala\n\nReferences\n\n2006 albums",
"Wyne Su Khine Thein (; born 24 December 1986) is a Burmese singer and actress. She is best known for her pleasant voice. Her debut album Mat Lout Sayar was released in 2009 and it was popular among audiences.\n\nEarly life and education\nWyne Su was born on 24 December 1986 in Yangon, Myanmar to parents Thein Htay and May Yee Aung. She attended high school at Basic Education High School No. 1 Dagon. She graduated with a degree B.A English from Dagon University.\n\nCareer\nWyne began her art work career in 2004. She has acted in over 130 films. Her debut album Mat Lout Sayar was released in 2009 and it was popular among audiences. Her second album Myet Hlae was released in 2011 and it also gained popularity. Then she became one of the most popular female singers in Myanmar. Her third album Ar Bwar was released in 2013. Her fourth album Khar Cha Nay Ya Tal was released in 2015. Her fifth album Gar was released in 2016. Her sixth album Mal Thida was released in 2017. Her seventh album Nwar Kyaung Thu was released in 2019.\n\nDiscography\n\nSolo Album\nMat Lout Sayar (မက်လောက်စရာ) (2009)\nMyet Hlae (မျက်လှည့်) (2011)\nAr Bwar (အာဘွား) (2013)\nGar (ဂါ) (2016)\nMal Thida (မယ်သီတာ-EP) (2017)\nNwar Kyaung Thu (နွားကျောင်းသူ) (2019)\n\nDuo Album\nKhar Cha Nay Ya Tal (ခါချနေရတယ်) (2015)\n\nFilmography\n\nKaba Sone Hti (2005)\nYadana (2006)\n\nConcerts\n\nList of awards and nominations received by Wine Su Khaing Thein\n\nCity FM awards \n\n|-\n| 2010\n| rowspan= \"5\"| Wine Su Khaing Thein\n| Best Selling Studio Music Album Female Vocalist of the Year \n| \n|-\n| rowspan= \"2\"| 2013\n| Most Popular Female Vocalist of the Year\n| \n|-\n| The Best Selling Studio Music Album Female Vocalist of the Year\n| \n|-\n| 2014\n| The Best Selling Studio Music Album Female Vocalist of the Year\n| \n|-\n| 2015\n| The Best Selling Studio Music Album Female Vocalist of the Year \n| \n|-\n| 2016\n| H&M Production\n| The Best Selling Studio Music Album Production of the Year\n| \n|-\n| 2020\n| Wine Su Khaing Thein \n| Most Popular Female Vocalist of the Year\n|\n\nShwe FM awards\n\n|-\n| rowspan= \"2\"| 2011\n| rowspan= \"5\"| Wine Su Khaing Thein\n| Best Couple song award\n| \n|-\n| Best Vocalist award\n| \n|-\n| 2013\n| Best Dress award\n| \n|-\n| 2016\n| Best Best Couple Song award \n| \n|-\n| 2020\n| Most Popular Song award\n| \n|-\n\nPadamyar FM awards\n\n|-\n| 2011\n| Herself\n| Artist of the Year\n| \n|-\n\nMyanmar Music awards\n\n|-\n| 2014\n| Herself\n| I Love Artist Award of Monsoon\n| \n|-\n\nJoox Myanmar Music awards\n\n|-\n| 2020\n| Herself\n| Joox Top 10 Artists of the Year \n| \n|-\n\nPersonal life\nWyne was married to Oakar Myint Kyu in 2014 and divorced in 2016.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n\nLiving people\n1986 births\n21st-century Burmese actresses\n21st-century Burmese women singers\nBurmese pop singers\nPeople from Yangon"
]
|
[
"Rise Against",
"The Sufferer & the Witness (2006-07)",
"What is The Sufferer and the Witness?",
"their fourth album, The Sufferer & the Witness.",
"What were some songs on the album?",
"\"Ready to Fall\", \"Prayer of the Refugee\", and \"The Good Left Undone\".",
"Was the album popular?",
"The Good Left Undone\" in particular peaking within the top ten."
]
| C_0c7f0e87c0c54176b23a5d8831e46cbb_0 | Did the album sell well? | 4 | Did the album The Sufferer & the Witness sell well? | Rise Against | After a year and a half of touring, Rise Against reconvened at the Blasting Room to record their fourth album, The Sufferer & the Witness. The band members were dissatisfied with Richardson's contributions to Siren Song of the Counter Culture, as he produced a more polished and heavier album than their previous works. As a result, they decided to return to Stevenson and Livermore, whom they felt had accurately captured the raw punk sound they strove for on Revolutions per Minute. Unlike the stressful recording sessions for Siren Song of the Counter Culture, the band had a much more enjoyable time with The Sufferer & the Witness, as they no longer sought the approval of Geffen executives. According to McIlrath: "It went great, the songs just flowed out of us. There were really few questions and the song lyrics would just come out of us, it went really well and everyone really liked them." The Sufferer & the Witness was released on July 4, 2006. The album sold 48,327 copies in its first week of release in the United States, and peaked at number ten on the Billboard 200. The Sufferer & the Witness also charted in seven other countries, including number five on the Canadian Albums Chart, making it the band's first album to chart outside of the United States. It was certified gold in three countries, and platinum by Music Canada. The album was well received by critics, who praised the production value, and noted how Rise Against was able to mature in their sound and simultaneously retain their punk roots. Three songs from The Sufferer & the Witness were released as singles: "Ready to Fall", "Prayer of the Refugee", and "The Good Left Undone". These three songs also charted on the Modern Rock Tracks chart, with "Prayer of the Refugee" and "The Good Left Undone" in particular peaking within the top ten. Rise Against supported the album with The Sufferer & the Witness Tour throughout the second half of 2006 and all of 2007. The band was a headliner on the 2006 Warped Tour, during which author and filmmaker Davy Rothbart recorded several of the band's live performances, and interviewed some of their fans. This footage was used in the Rise Against DVD documentary Generation Lost. In 2007, the band released the EP This Is Noise, and participated in a tour with My Chemical Romance. Prior to this tour, Chasse left the band, citing touring fatigue as the reason for his departure; Zach Blair of the band Only Crime joined shortly thereafter, as Rise Against's fifth different guitarist. At the time he received the call about joining Rise Against, Blair was a construction worker living paycheck to paycheck. CANNOTANSWER | CANNOTANSWER | Rise Against is an American punk rock band from Chicago, formed in 1999. The group's current line-up comprises vocalist/rhythm guitarist Tim McIlrath, lead guitarist Zach Blair, bassist Joe Principe and drummer Brandon Barnes. Rooted in hardcore punk and melodic hardcore, Rise Against's music emphasizes melody, catchy hooks, an aggressive sound and playstyle, and rapid tempos. Lyrically, the band is known for their outspoken social commentary, covering a wide range of topics such as political injustice, animal rights, humanitarianism, and environmentalism.
The band spent its first four years signed to the independent record label Fat Wreck Chords, on which they released two studio albums, The Unraveling (2001) and Revolutions per Minute (2003). Both the albums were met with underground success, and in 2003 the band signed with the major label Dreamworks, which was absorbed by Geffen. Rise Against's major label debut Siren Song of the Counter Culture (2004) brought the band mainstream success, largely in part to the popularity of the singles "Give It All" and "Swing Life Away". The band's next album, The Sufferer & the Witness (2006), peaked at number ten on the Billboard 200 in the United States, and was Rise Against's first album to chart in countries outside of North America.
With the release of Appeal to Reason (2008), Rise Against's music shifted toward a more accessible and radio-friendly sound, with greater emphasis on production value. The album's third single, "Savior", broke the record for the most consecutive weeks spent on both the Hot Rock Songs and Alternative Songs charts. Rise Against's popularity grew with the release of Endgame (2011), which peaked at number two on the Billboard 200, and charted highly worldwide. The band's 7th and 8th albums, The Black Market (2014) and Wolves (2017) continued the trend of commercial success, and both peaked with the top ten on the Billboard 200.
Rise Against is also known for their advocacy of progressivism, supporting organizations such as Amnesty International and the It Gets Better Project. The band actively promotes animal rights and most of the members are straight edge, PETA supporters and vegetarians.
History
Early years (1999-2003)
Rise Against was formed in 1999, by bassist Joe Principe and guitarist Dan Wleklinski. Before Rise Against, Principe and Wleklinski were members of the Chicago punk rock band 88 Fingers Louie. This band toured and recorded to moderate success, but disbanded on two separate occasions in the late 1990s. Following the second breakup, Principe and Wleklinski decided to form a new band called Transistor Revolt, and recruited drummer Tony Tintari, guitarist Kevin White, and lead vocalist Tim McIlrath. Principe met McIlrath in Indianapolis while attending a Sick of It All concert, and recalled seeing him perform with his previous band Baxter. Impressed with McIlrath's gritty vocals, Principe gave him a seven track demo he had recorded, and invited him to join the nascent band. McIlrath accepted the invitation, and dropped out of Northeastern Illinois University.
The initial jam sessions were problematic, as McIlrath was unaccustomed to Principe's and Wleklinski's fast-paced style of play. McIlrath described these early sessions as "the meeting of different worlds and worlds colliding", and noted how many of his friends questioned the future of the band. Despite these early issues, they were able to self-publish the extended play (EP) Transistor Revolt in 2000. The EP attracted the attention of the local punk community, as well as Fat Mike, the lead vocalist of NOFX and co-founder of the independent record label Fat Wreck Chords. Fat Mike offered to sign the band to a recording contract, with the stipulation that they change their name. He gave some suggestions, like Jimmy Cracked Corn And The I Don't Cares, although none of the band members liked them. Tintari suggested Rise Against, to which the band agreed upon.
After signing with Fat Wreck Chords, Tintari and White left the band. The remaining members then spent the next few months looking for another drummer capable of playing double-time beats at a rapid pace. During this period, the band Good Riddance found their new drummer, and sent Rise Against the audition tape of their number two choice, Brandon Barnes. A mutual friend gave Barnes' phone number to Principe, and after listening to Transistor Revolt, Barnes accepted the band's invitation.
With their new lineup finalized, Rise Against began work on their debut studio album, The Unraveling. Recording sessions took place in late 2000, at Sonic Iguana Studios in Lafayette. Wleklinski served as an assistant engineer under producer Mass Giorgini, and later remarked on the grueling workdays: "12-hour days for 4 of those weeks, and then 22-24 hours per day during that last week of tracking. These were the times of 'If you don't play it right, you have to play it again,' not 'That was good enough, I'll edit it so it's on time." The Unraveling was released on April 24, 2001. Although the album failed to reach any record charts, it did receive positive reviews from critics, who commended the raw and unadulterated music. To promote the album, Rise Against toured extensively throughout North America and Europe. While on tour, Wleklinski left the band due to several complaints from McIlrath. Rumor spread that Wleklinski was fired because of his long hair, although McIlrath derided these claims. Phillip Hill stood in as the lead guitarist while on tour, after which White returned as a replacement.
Less than a year later, White left the band for a second time, and was replaced by Todd Mohney, McIlrath's roommate and former bandmate. When it came time to record their second album, Revolutions per Minute, McIlrath noted that the band was suffering from an "identity crisis". Fat Wreck Chords was known for a specific pop punk sound, and Rise Against wanted to find a producer that could highlight the heavier side of their music. They decided on Bill Stevenson—the former drummer of the punk band Descendents—and Jason Livermore to produce the album. Revolutions per Minute was recorded at the Blasting Room in Fort Collins, from November to December 2002. The band members developed a strong rapport with Stevenson and Livermore, and the two parties would eventually collaborate on four of next five Rise Against albums.
Revolutions per Minute was released on April 8, 2003. Like The Unraveling, it failed to reach any major record charts, but did reach number thirty-five on the Independent Albums chart in the United States. Critics praised the album for its impassioned lyrics and unique blend of hardcore punk and melodic hardcore; Brian Hiatt of Rolling Stone called Revolutions per Minute "easily among the finest punk records of the past decade". To support the album, Rise Against traveled with other Fat Wreck Chord bands like Anti-Flag, None More Black, and No Use for a Name on North American and Japan based tours, and participated in the 2003 Warped Tour in North America. When asked about the band's early years with Fat Wreck Chords, Principe said: "Our goal was to be on Fat Wreck Chords and just sell enough records so that when we were home from tour, we wouldn't have to get jobs...Of course, that was all before we had families and children and numerous responsibilities. That was the beauty. And then the longer we did it things just kept coming our way."
Rising popularity (2004–2007)
Rise Against's extensive touring schedule helped to establish an early fanbase, and attracted the attention of major record labels, including Dreamworks Records. The general consensus among Fat Wreck Chords musicians was that major record labels sacrifice musical integrity in exchange for commercial profit. Rise Against held the same belief, but eventually came to the conclusion that unlike other labels, DreamWorks supported their politically charged lyrics. According to McIlrath: "Their faith in what we do and the fact that they cared about stuff we cared about was an eye-opener." The band signed with Dreamworks in September 2003, and was given complete creative control to record their major record label debut album, Siren Song of the Counter Culture.
The band went into the album with the assumption that Dreamworks was going to drop them at any moment, so they wanted to take advantage of the opportunity by working with their "dream producer". They chose Garth Richardson, who was known for his work with heavier sounding bands like Rage Against the Machine and Sick of It All. While writing songs for the album, Rise Against's lineup once again changed; Mohney quit, and was replaced by Chris Chasse of the band Reach the Sky. The recording sessions for Siren Song of the Counter Culture were marred by numerous distractions and inconveniences, the biggest of which was the transition from Dreamworks to Geffen Records. In November 2003, Dreamworks was acquired by Universal Music Group, and eventually merged with Geffen. The transition period between labels left Rise Against without an A&R representative, and little acknowledgement from Geffen executives.
Siren Song of the Counter Culture was released on August 10, 2004. For the first six months, the album sold poorly, and attracted little fanfare. Rise Against's incessant touring resulted in greater exposure and an eventual increase in sales. It became the band's first album to reach the Billboard 200, peaking at number 136, and was certified gold by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), denoting shipments of 500,000 copies. Siren Song of the Counter Culture was praised for its lyrical content, but drew some criticism for a lack of individually memorable songs and perceived overproduction. Three songs from the album were released as singles: "Give It All", "Swing Life Away", and "Life Less Frightening". All three songs charted on the Modern Rock Tracks chart in the United States. "Give It All" and "Swing Life Away" in particular are credited as the band's breakthrough singles, helping Rise Against achieve mainstream appeal.
After a year and a half of touring, Rise Against reconvened at the Blasting Room to record their fourth album, The Sufferer & the Witness. The band members were dissatisfied with Richardson's contributions to Siren Song of the Counter Culture, as he produced a more polished and heavier album than their previous works. As a result, they decided to return to Stevenson and Livermore, whom they felt had accurately captured the raw punk sound they strove for on Revolutions per Minute. Unlike the stressful recording sessions for Siren Song of the Counter Culture, the band had a much more enjoyable time with The Sufferer & the Witness, as they no longer sought the approval of Geffen executives. According to McIlrath: "It went great, the songs just flowed out of us. There were really few questions and the song lyrics would just come out of us, it went really well and everyone really liked them."
The Sufferer & the Witness was released on July 4, 2006. The album sold 48,327 copies in its first week of release in the United States, and peaked at number ten on the Billboard 200. The Sufferer & the Witness also charted in seven other countries, including number five on the Canadian Albums Chart, making it the band's first album to chart outside of the United States. It was certified gold in three countries, and platinum by Music Canada. The album was well received by critics, who praised the production value, and noted how Rise Against was able to mature in their sound and simultaneously retain their punk roots.
Three songs from The Sufferer & the Witness were released as singles: "Ready to Fall", "Prayer of the Refugee", and "The Good Left Undone". These three songs also charted on the Modern Rock Tracks chart, with "Prayer of the Refugee" and "The Good Left Undone" in particular peaking within the top ten. Rise Against supported the album with The Sufferer & the Witness Tour throughout the second half of 2006 and all of 2007. The band was a headliner on the 2006 Warped Tour, during which author and filmmaker Davy Rothbart recorded several of the band's live performances, and interviewed some of their fans. This footage was used in the Rise Against DVD documentary Generation Lost. Prior to a 2007 tour with My Chemical Romance, Chasse left the band, citing touring fatigue as the reason for his departure; Zach Blair of the band Only Crime joined shortly thereafter, as Rise Against's fifth different guitarist. At the time he received the call about joining Rise Against, Blair was a construction worker living paycheck to paycheck.
International success (2008–2013)
McIlrath and Principe had been writing songs for a new album throughout The Sufferer & Witness tour, and in December 2007, the band members went to the Blasting Room to record their fifth studio album Appeal to Reason. This was the third Rise Against album to be produced by Stevenson and Livermore, and the band members had grown accustomed to the duo's work style. According to McIlrath: "[Stevenson's] got such a work ethic, just an amazing work ethic, and Livermore too, and the whole studio, all the people that work there." Blair went into the album with the goal to fit in seamlessly with the other band members, or as he put it "If you listen to every record this band had out, you could tell that Zach Blair played on this record". He took influence from how Nels Cline sounded on the album Sky Blue Sky when he joined Wilco. Blair was already well acquainted with Stevenson before joining Rise Against, as he and Stevenson were in Only Crime. Stevenson helped Blair replicate the sound of past Rise Against guitarists.
Appeal to Reason was released on October 7, 2008. It was the first Rise Against album to be released by Interscope Records. In the United States, the album peaked at number three on the Billboard 200, making it Rise Against's highest charting album at the time. The album sold 64,000 copies in its first week of release, and by December 2010, it had sold 482,000 copies. Rise Against's popularity continued to grow internationally, with Appeal to Reason charting highly in several countries including number one in Canadian Albums Chart. Appeal to Reason marked a musical shift for Rise Against to a more mainstream and radio-friendly sound, which led to division among critical opinions. Some critics commended the album's more radio-friendly sound, while other critics found the music to be stale, and bemoaned Rise Against for abandoning their punk roots.
Like with the previous two albums, three songs from Appeal to Reason were released as singles: "Re-Education (Through Labor)", "Audience of One", and "Savior". All three songs charted highly on the Modern Rock Tracks chart; "Savior" in particular held the record for the most consecutive weeks spent on both the Hot Rock Songs and Modern Rock Tracks charts, with sixty-three and sixty-five weeks respectively. In the midst of Appeal to Reason singles, Rise Against also released three EPs in 2009, including a short split album with Anti-Flag.
To promote the album, Rise Against embarked on the Appeal To Reason Tour, which began with United States-based tour with Thrice, Alkaline Trio, and The Gaslight Anthem. Rise Against then co-headlined a 2009 tour with Rancid throughout the summer months, which was followed by a short tour of the United Kingdom in November, supported by the bands Thursday and Poison the Well. Some of the 2009 performances were recorded and compiled in the 2010 DVD Another Station: Another Mile. These performances were interspersed with interviews of the band members about the process of recording an album.
Rise Against finished recording their sixth studio album, Endgame, in January 2011, after recording some last-minute guest vocals. The lyrics of the album focus on real world events, such as Hurricane Katrina and the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. According to McIlrath, although the lyrics discuss grim topics, they actually take on a positive view and were written from the perspective of: "What if the place on the other side of this transition is a place we'd all rather be living in?" On January 12, 2011, Rise Against announced the release date of Endgame as March 15, 2011. Although Spin Magazine labeled Endgame as a concept album, on January 7, 2011, McIlrath tweeted a clarifying message stating that "the record is not a concept record and, fret not, has absolutely nothing to do with the Dixie Chicks." The first single from the album, "Help Is on the Way", debuted on KROQ on January 17. A second song from the album, "Architects", was debuted and released digitally on February 15. As a promotion effort, the band embarked on a short tour of South America in February and then a month-long tour of Europe in March. Upon returning to the United States, the band announced a U.S. spring tour with Bad Religion and Four Year Strong.
Endgame is notable for being the first album to establish Rise Against's stance on homophobia with the third song on the album, "Make It Stop (September's Children)," which references the September 2010 suicides of teenagers in the LGBT community. Upon the album's release, the band put a message on their website inviting listeners to apply the songs' messages to current events, in addition to those on which they were originally based.
On May 10, 2011, the band released a 7" split vinyl with Face to Face. The 7" features 2 songs, with each band covering a song by the other band. In August 2011, Rise Against made appearances at the Reading and Leeds Festivals. The band was the main support act for the Foo Fighters' fall US tour 2011. Rise Against supported the Foo Fighters on 9 dates in September, with Mariachi El Bronx as the opening act. After this, the band announced a tour of Canada throughout October 2011, supported by Flogging Molly and Black Pacific. The tour consisted of nine dates. Rise Against contributed a cover of "Ballad of Hollis Brown" to Chimes of Freedom, a tribute album of Bob Dylan songs produced in February 2012 to commemorate Amnesty International's 50th anniversary.
Rise Against embarked on a two-leg US tour with A Day to Remember and The Menzingers in the spring of 2012. Leg one ended with the band launching another European tour. The band continued back to Europe for the summer months while doing a slew of festivals along the way. To end 2012, the band announced the return to the US with a fall tour with Gaslight Anthem and Hot Water Music. The tour included two shows in Arizona, which the band had not played since 2009 due to the Sound Strike. On January 2, 2013, vocalist Tim McIlrath told Rolling Stone that Rise Against was "focusing on recharging [their] batteries" after two years of touring in support of Endgame. In March 2013, Rise Against played their first ever performances on African soil when they performed in South Africa for the Durban, Johannesburg and Cape Town legs of RAMFest, where they headlined the festival along with the UK band Bring Me the Horizon.
Recent years (2014–present)
The extensive touring schedule surrounding Endgame took a toll on the band members, and in 2013 they decided to take a year long hiatus. According to Blair: "You're constantly gone. You don't feel like you live anywhere". He also discussed how the other three band members lives had evolved, and were away from their families for months on end. "It's an interesting thing to kind of realize that and kind of get out of the bubble, get out of the bus, and go 'Oh, geez, we actually have lives outside of what we do.'" In January 2014, the band members reconvened at the Blasting Room to record Rise Against's seventh album The Black Market. The band members used new recording techniques, such as greater usage of analog signals on a Kemper amplifier, and an Evertune bridge to keep the guitars in tune. As McIlrath put it: "I want the songs to feel a certain way. I want the songs to hit the guy and the girl who don't really care about guitar tones."
The Black Market was released on July 15, 2014. In the United States, the album entered at number three on the Billboard 200 and sold 53,000 copies in its first week. It was their fourth consecutive album to debut within the top ten on the Billboard 200, and it spent eleven weeks on the chart. The Black Market was an international success, in particular in Canada, where it became Rise Against's third consecutive album to reach number one. Reviews were generally positive; critics praised the more introspective lyrics, but often bemoaned the music as formulaic and stale. To promote the album, Rise Against toured throughout 2014 and 2015 with several other rock bands, such as Emily's Army, Touché Amoré, and Killswitch Engage.
On April 18, 2017, the band posted a new mysterious website which appeared to show a cryptic tracklist, song length and an announcement date "4.20.2017" for the new album.
On April 20, 2017, Rise Against announced the title of their new album Wolves which was released on June 9, 2017 via Virgin Records. The album's lead single, "The Violence", was released on April 20, 2017. To promote the album, the band announced a headlining North American tour in fall 2017 with Pierce the Veil and White Lung supporting.
On March 29, 2018, the band's Instagram account published a video announcing a project entitled The Ghost Note Symphonies, Vol. 1. A later announcement described the album as having "the songs stripped down, with alternate instrumentation, unique orchestration and a surprise or two" and announced a release date of July 27, 2018. The band released an acoustic version of "House on Fire" from Wolves as a single for the album on May 18 and an acoustic version of "Like the Angel" from Revolutions per Minute on June 8.
On September 16, 2020 the band released a new song called "Broken Dreams, Inc." which was taken from the DC Comics Dark Nights: Death Metal soundtrack.
The band's ninth studio album Nowhere Generation was released on June 4, 2021. The band debuted the album's title track on March 17, 2021.
Artistry
Musical style
Critics have described Rise Against's musical style as punk rock, hardcore punk and melodic hardcore. The band's songs emphasize melody, catchy hooks, aggressive movements, and rapid-paced tempo. Guitarists McIlrath and Blair focus on speed riffing and multi-layered choruses, while bassist Principe uses aggressive picking to lock in with the snare and kick of the drums. Likewise, drummer Barnes follows the guitars, stating: "Sometimes I'll do it naturally, or we'll talk about different ways to accent things - fills from the snare or toms, or some big crashes." The band members have noted the influence of several punk bands, in particular Black Flag and Minor Threat. McIlrath commented: "We're emulating Minor Threat and Black Flag. Who knows, maybe if Ian MacKaye was wearing eyeliner then I would be." Other bands that have influenced Rise Against include 7 Seconds, AFI, Bad Brains, Bad Religion, Cave In, Dead Kennedys, Fugazi, Jawbreaker, Los Crudos, Nirvana, Pennywise, Rage Against the Machine, Ramones, Refused, and Social Distortion.
During the early part of its career, Rise Against's music was characterized by a gritty combination of hardcore punk and melodic hardcore. The Unraveling accentuated a raw punk sound, while Revolutions per Minute featured an overall darker tone. According to Principe: "The Unraveling was more of us just trying to figure out how we functioned as a band and what type of band we wanted to be. It all just came together with [Revolutions per Minute], my songwriting style and Tim's, it really meshes well together and I think it shows on that record. Although this darker tone carried into Siren Song of the Counter Culture, McIlrath specially mentioned that The Sufferer & the Witness was an attempt to return to Rise Against's punk roots. Corey Apar of AllMusic wrote "[The Sufferer & the Witness] is basically one shout-along, mosh-worthy song after another". In early Rise Against songs, McIlrath would often shift between clean vocals and screaming vocals.
With the release of Appeal to Reason, Rise Against's music took a noticeable turn toward a more accessible and radio-friendly sound, with greater emphasis on production value. The New York Times reviewer Jon Pareles felt Appeal to Reason was more tune-oriented than the band's previous material, while Davey Boy of Sputnikmusic wrote how Endgame was "slickly produced to enhance the melodic nature of songs". Principe believes the shift in sound resulted from the longevity of the Rise Against. He explained that the band members grew as musicians, and wanted to challenge themselves with new musical directions. For example, at the insistence of Blair, Rise Against began to incorporate more guitar solos into their music. McIlrath's screaming vocals became less prevalent in Appeal to Reason, a trend that would continue in subsequent albums.
Lyrics
Rise Against is known for their outspoken social commentary, which often permeates their lyrics. Throughout the years, the band has discussed a wide range of topics, including animal rights, economic injustice, environmental disasters, forced displacement, homophobia, and modern warfare. Political corruption is another subject commonly found in their lyrics, and as a result, Rise Against is often labeled as a "political band". Some journalists have stated that the band has specifically targeted the Republican administrations of George W. Bush and Donald Trump, while promoting liberal ideologies.
As the band's primary lyricist, McIlrath is wary of the political label. "In this sort of current climate of music, we stand out simply because I think there are bands that are avoiding the question. So, it makes us sort of an anomaly and I think that's where we get the tag 'protest music' or 'political punk rock'". He also noted how the band's lyrics discuss these topics in general terms, instead of delving into the specifics. In a 2006 interview, McIlrath said: "I think that a lot of the problems we deal with today in the world are the ones that have been plaguing society for centuries and probably will be here a hundred years from now...There's a bigger picture than just the Bush administration and specific problems of 2006, and I want people to relate to that, even if they're listening to [our music] 10 years from now." Principe noted the band does not attempt to preach their beliefs, but instead encourage listeners to become involved, and learn about pertinent issues affecting society.
Not all Rise Against songs discuss controversial topics. More personal stories about broken relationships and forgiveness are common lyrical themes, as is the concept of self-reflection. The Unraveling is an early example of this style of songwriting, as the majority of the album's songs focus on friendships and memories. It was not until Revolutions per Minute that McIlrath began to integrate social issues into their music. Despite the grim subject matter, Rise Against songs are often hopeful in nature, a decision the band conscientiously made from the very beginning. Will Rausch of PopMatters wrote: "Unlike typical emo rants filled with despondency and arm chair philosophy, [Rise Against] songs deal with the reality that life sucks, but we must move on."
Videography
Rise Against will often produce an accompanying music video for a single. These videos typically either tell a narrative or feature documentary-like footage. This documentary style of filming can be seen in the music videos for "Ready to Fall", "Re-Education (Through Labor)", "Ballad of Hollis Brown", and "I Don't Want to Be Here Anymore". These videos juxtapose footage of the band playing the song and footage of a certain societal issue such as gun violence or animal abuse, overlaid with damning facts about the issue. For example, the video "Ballad of Hollis Brown" is about the dangers of industrialized farming and poverty in the United States, and features interviews with farmers who are struggling to stay afloat.
Rise Against's narrative videos are also usually political in nature. In the video for "Prayer of the Refugee" the band destroys products in a retail store, with intermittent shots of foreign workers making the store products. The goal was for the video to showcase how conventional business models allow for various human rights violations. Some narrative videos follow the song's lyric thread, such as in the Hurricane Katrina based video for "Help Is on the Way", while other videos are used to enforce the song's message, such as the band's anti-homophobic stance in the "Make It Stop (September's Children)" video.
Discussing the "Ready to Fall" video and need for politicized music videos, McIlrath said: "We looked at it from the perspective of hijacking the airwaves. If they're gonna give us three and a half minutes of airtime on TV that means we can play anything, we can make a video that would be intense even on mute". Rise Against has garnered some controversy for their music videos, particularly for perceived violent themes. The video for "Re-Education (Through Labor)" features the Chicago sect of the Moped Army planting and detonating bombs throughout the city. Some viewers saw this as an act of condoning terrorism. The video for "The Violence", which was to feature the detonation of busts of the forty-three United States Presidents on a plot of farmland, was prohibited by the farm's board of directors for "anti-government themes".
Politics and ethics
Their video for the single "Ready to Fall" contains footage of factory farming, rodeos, and sport hunting, as well as deforestation, melting ice caps, and forest fires. The group has called the video the most important video they have ever made. In February 2012 the band released a cover of the Bob Dylan song "Ballad of Hollis Brown" as part of a benefit for Amnesty International. In addition to being vegetarians, all the members of Rise Against, with the exception of Brandon Barnes, are straight edge; that is, they refrain from consuming alcohol or using drugs.
In addition to their support of animal rights, the band has voiced their support for Democratic and libertarian causes. During the 2004 United States presidential election, the band was part of Punkvoter, a political activist group, and appeared on the Rock Against Bush, Vol. 1 compilation. The Rock Against Bush project raised over $1 million for then presidential candidate John Kerry. During the 2008 presidential election, the band members endorsed Barack Obama. In a news bulletin in early 2009, the band stated: "Few things are more exciting than watching Bush finally release America as his eight year hostage."
Vans shoes
On May 23, 2007, Rise Against announced their endorsement of a new line of Vans shoes that would be "completely vegan in consideration to [their] animal rights efforts". In response to criticism spawning from rumors of Vans' use of sweatshops, Rise Against released a statement to address the matter on both their MySpace profile and website saying,
Band members
Current members
Tim McIlrath – lead vocals (1999–present), rhythm guitar (2002–present)
Joe Principe – bass guitar, backing vocals (1999–present)
Brandon Barnes – drums, percussion (2000–present)
Zach Blair – lead guitar, backing vocals (2007–present)
Former members
Dan Wleklinski – lead guitar, backing vocals (1999–2001), rhythm guitar (2000–2001)
Kevin White – rhythm guitar, backing vocals (1999–2000, 2001–2002), lead guitar (2001–2002)
Tony Tintari – drums, percussion (1999–2000)
Todd Mohney – lead guitar, backing vocals (2002–2004)
Chris Chasse – lead guitar, backing vocals (2004–2007)
Timeline
Discography
The Unraveling (2001)
Revolutions per Minute (2003)
Siren Song of the Counter Culture (2004)
The Sufferer & the Witness (2006)
Appeal to Reason (2008)
Endgame (2011)
The Black Market (2014)
Wolves (2017)
Nowhere Generation (2021)
References
Notes
Footnotes
External links
1999 establishments in Illinois
Hardcore punk groups from Illinois
Fat Wreck Chords artists
Interscope Records artists
DGC Records artists
Geffen Records artists
Melodic hardcore groups
Punk rock groups from Illinois
Sony Music Publishing artists
Musical groups established in 1999
Musical groups from Chicago
Political music groups | false | [
"Politics of the Business is the third album by American hip hop producer Prince Paul. This album is considered to be a concept album similar to A Prince Among Thieves. The concept for this album, however, is the concept of following-up a concept album that did not sell too well (that album being A Prince Among Thieves). The album features guest appearances from Ice-T, DJ Jazzy Jeff, MF Doom, Biz Markie, Chuck D, Dave Chappelle, Chris Rock, and more.\n\nTrack listing\n\nPersonnel\n\nReferences\n\n2003 albums\nPrince Paul (producer) albums\nAlbums produced by Prince Paul (producer)\nConcept albums",
"Destination Universe is the second studio album by Material Issue, released on Mercury Records in 1992. The new album was not as well received by critics as the debut album, nor did it sell as well. The album included the single \"What Girls Want\" and was, like their debut album, produced by Jeff Murphy.\n\nTrack listing\nAll songs written by Jim Ellison \n\"What Girls Want\" - 3:55\n\"When I Get This Way (Over You)\" - 4:09\n\"Next Big Thing\" - 3:12\n\"Who Needs Love\" - 2:52\n\"Destination You\" - 2:49\n\"Everything\" - 3:48\n\"Ballad of a Lonely Man\" - 3:27\n\"Girl from Out of This World\" - 3:56\n\"So Easy to Love Somebody\" - 2:49\n\"Don't You Think I Know\" - 3:47\n\"The Loneliest Heart\" - 2:38\n\"Whole Lotta You\" - 2:52\n\"If Ever You Should Fall\" 2:41\n\nReferences\n\n1992 albums\nMercury Records albums\nMaterial Issue albums"
]
|
[
"Beyoncé",
"Voice and songwriting"
]
| C_1128b8d67bcb48feb77ec450ae614b45_1 | what happened with voice and songwriting? | 1 | What happened with Beyonce's voice and songwriting? | Beyoncé | Jody Rosen highlights her tone and timbre as particularly distinctive, describing her voice as "one of the most compelling instruments in popular music". Her vocal abilities mean she is identified as the centerpiece of Destiny's Child. Jon Pareles of The New York Times commented that her voice is "velvety yet tart, with an insistent flutter and reserves of soul belting". Rosen notes that the hip hop era highly influenced Beyonce's unique rhythmic vocal style, but also finds her quite traditionalist in her use of balladry, gospel and falsetto. Other critics praise her range and power, with Chris Richards of The Washington Post saying she was "capable of punctuating any beat with goose-bump-inducing whispers or full-bore diva-roars." Beyonce's music is generally R&B, but she also incorporates pop, soul and funk into her songs. 4 demonstrated Beyonce's exploration of 1990s-style R&B, as well as further use of soul and hip hop than compared to previous releases. While she almost exclusively releases English songs, Beyonce recorded several Spanish songs for Irreemplazable (re-recordings of songs from B'Day for a Spanish-language audience), and the re-release of B'Day. To record these, Beyonce was coached phonetically by American record producer Rudy Perez. She has received co-writing credits for most of the songs recorded with Destiny's Child and her solo efforts. Her early songs were personally driven and female-empowerment themed compositions like "Independent Women" and "Survivor", but after the start of her relationship with Jay-Z, she transitioned to more man-tending anthems such as "Cater 2 U". Beyonce has also received co-producing credits for most of the records in which she has been involved, especially during her solo efforts. However, she does not formulate beats herself, but typically comes up with melodies and ideas during production, sharing them with producers. In 2001, she became the first black woman and second female lyricist to win the Pop Songwriter of the Year award at the American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers Pop Music Awards. Beyonce was the third woman to have writing credits on three number one songs ("Irreplaceable", "Grillz" and "Check on It") in the same year, after Carole King in 1971 and Mariah Carey in 1991. She is tied with American lyricist Diane Warren at third with nine song-writing credits on number-one singles. (The latter wrote her 9/11-motivated song "I Was Here" for 4.) In May 2011, Billboard magazine listed Beyonce at number 17 on their list of the "Top 20 Hot 100 Songwriters", for having co-written eight singles that hit number one on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. She was one of only three women on that list, along with Alicia Keys and Taylor Swift. CANNOTANSWER | Jody Rosen highlights her tone and timbre as particularly distinctive, describing her voice as "one of the most compelling instruments in popular music | Beyoncé Giselle Knowles-Carter ( ; born September 4, 1981) is an American singer, songwriter, and actress. Born and raised in Houston, Texas, Beyoncé performed in various singing and dancing competitions as a child. She rose to fame in the late 1990s as the lead singer of Destiny's Child, one of the best-selling girl groups of all time. Their hiatus saw the release of her debut solo album Dangerously in Love (2003), which featured the US Billboard Hot 100 number-one singles "Crazy in Love" and "Baby Boy".
Following the 2006 disbanding of Destiny's Child, she released her second solo album, B'Day, which contained singles "Irreplaceable" and "Beautiful Liar". Beyoncé also starred in multiple films such as The Pink Panther (2006), Dreamgirls (2006), Obsessed (2009), and The Lion King (2019). Her marriage to Jay-Z and her portrayal of Etta James in Cadillac Records (2008) influenced her third album, I Am... Sasha Fierce (2008), which earned a record-setting six Grammy Awards in 2010. It spawned the successful singles "If I Were a Boy", "Single Ladies", and "Halo".
After splitting from her manager and father Mathew Knowles in 2010, Beyoncé released her musically diverse fourth album 4 in 2011. She later achieved universal acclaim for her sonically experimental visual albums, Beyoncé (2013) and Lemonade (2016), the latter of which was the world's best-selling album of 2016 and the most acclaimed album of her career, exploring themes of infidelity and womanism. In 2018, she released Everything Is Love, a collaborative album with her husband, Jay-Z, as the Carters. As a featured artist, Beyoncé topped the Billboard Hot 100 with the remixes of "Perfect" by Ed Sheeran in 2017 and "Savage" by Megan Thee Stallion in 2020. The same year, she released the musical film and visual album Black Is King to widespread acclaim.
Beyoncé is one of the world's best-selling recording artists, having sold 120 million records worldwide. She is the first solo artist to have their first six studio albums debut at number one on the Billboard 200. Her success during the 2000s was recognized with the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA)'s Top Certified Artist of the Decade as well as Billboard Top Female Artist of the Decade. Beyoncé's accolades include 28 Grammy Awards, 26 MTV Video Music Awards (including the Michael Jackson Video Vanguard Award in 2014), 24 NAACP Image Awards, 31 BET Awards, and 17 Soul Train Music Awards; all of which are more than any other singer. In 2014, Billboard named her the highest-earning black musician of all time, while in 2020, she was included on Times list of 100 women who defined the last century.
Life and career
1981–1996: Early life and career beginnings
Beyonce Giselle Knowles was born on September 4, 1981, in Houston, Texas, to Celestine "Tina" Knowles (née Beyonce), a hairdresser and salon owner, and Mathew Knowles, a Xerox sales manager; Tina is Louisiana Creole, and Mathew is African American. Beyonce's younger sister Solange Knowles is also a singer and a former backup dancer for Destiny's Child. Solange and Beyoncé are the first sisters to have both had No. 1 albums.
Beyoncé's maternal grandparents, Lumas Beyince, and Agnez Dereon (daughter of Odilia Broussard and Eugene DeRouen), were French-speaking Louisiana Creoles, with roots in New Iberia. Beyoncé is considered a Creole, passed on to her by her grandparents. Through her mother, Beyoncé is a descendant of many French aristocrats from the southwest of France, including the family of the Viscounts de Béarn since the 9th century, and the Viscounts de Belzunce. She is also a descendant of Jean-Vincent d'Abbadie de Saint-Castin, a French nobleman and military leader who fought along the indigenous Abenaki against the British in Acadia and of Acadian leader Joseph Broussard. Her fourth great-grandmother, Marie-Françoise Trahan, was born in 1774 in Bangor, located on Belle Île, France. Trahan was a daughter of Acadians who had taken refuge on Belle Île after the British deportation. The Estates of Brittany had divided the lands of Belle Île to distribute them among 78 other Acadian families and the already settled inhabitants. The Trahan family lived on Belle Île for over ten years before immigrating to Louisiana, where she married a Broussard descendant. Beyoncé researched her ancestry and discovered that she is descended from a slave owner who married his slave.
Beyoncé was raised Catholic and attended St. Mary's Montessori School in Houston, where she enrolled in dance classes. Her singing was discovered when dance instructor Darlette Johnson began humming a song and she finished it, able to hit the high-pitched notes. Beyoncé's interest in music and performing continued after winning a school talent show at age seven, singing John Lennon's "Imagine" to beat 15/16-year-olds. In the fall of 1990, Beyoncé enrolled in Parker Elementary School, a music magnet school in Houston, where she would perform with the school's choir. She also attended the High School for the Performing and Visual Arts and later Alief Elsik High School. Beyoncé was also a member of the choir at St. John's United Methodist Church as a soloist for two years.
When Beyoncé was eight, she met LaTavia Roberson at an audition for an all-girl entertainment group. They were placed into a group called Girl's Tyme with three other girls, and rapped and danced on the talent show circuit in Houston. After seeing the group, R&B producer Arne Frager brought them to his Northern California studio and placed them in Star Search, the largest talent show on national TV at the time. Girl's Tyme failed to win, and Beyoncé later said the song they performed was not good. In 1995, Beyoncé's father resigned from his job to manage the group. The move reduced Beyoncé's family's income by half, and her parents were forced to move into separated apartments. Mathew cut the original line-up to four and the group continued performing as an opening act for other established R&B girl groups. The girls auditioned before record labels and were finally signed to Elektra Records, moving to Atlanta Records briefly to work on their first recording, only to be cut by the company. This put further strain on the family, and Beyoncé's parents separated. On October 5, 1995, Dwayne Wiggins's Grass Roots Entertainment signed the group. In 1996, the girls began recording their debut album under an agreement with Sony Music, the Knowles family reunited, and shortly after, the group got a contract with Columbia Records.
1997–2002: Destiny's Child
The group changed their name to Destiny's Child in 1996, based upon a passage in the Book of Isaiah. In 1997, Destiny's Child released their major label debut song "Killing Time" on the soundtrack to the 1997 film Men in Black. In November, the group released their debut single and first major hit, "No, No, No". They released their self-titled debut album in February 1998, which established the group as a viable act in the music industry, with moderate sales and winning the group three Soul Train Lady of Soul Awards for Best R&B/Soul Album of the Year, Best R&B/Soul or Rap New Artist, and Best R&B/Soul Single for "No, No, No". The group released their Multi-Platinum second album The Writing's on the Wall in 1999. The record features some of the group's most widely known songs such as "Bills, Bills, Bills", the group's first number-one single, "Jumpin' Jumpin' and "Say My Name", which became their most successful song at the time, and would remain one of their signature songs. "Say My Name" won the Best R&B Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocals and the Best R&B Song at the 43rd Annual Grammy Awards. The Writing's on the Wall sold more than eight million copies worldwide. During this time, Beyoncé recorded a duet with Marc Nelson, an original member of Boyz II Men, on the song "After All Is Said and Done" for the soundtrack to the 1999 film, The Best Man.
LeToya Luckett and Roberson became unhappy with Mathew's managing of the band and eventually were replaced by Farrah Franklin and Michelle Williams. Beyoncé experienced depression following the split with Luckett and Roberson after being publicly blamed by the media, critics, and blogs for its cause. Her long-standing boyfriend left her at this time. The depression was so severe it lasted for a couple of years, during which she occasionally kept herself in her bedroom for days and refused to eat anything. Beyoncé stated that she struggled to speak about her depression because Destiny's Child had just won their first Grammy Award, and she feared no one would take her seriously. Beyoncé would later speak of her mother as the person who helped her fight it. Franklin was then dismissed, leaving just Beyoncé, Rowland, and Williams.
The remaining band members recorded "Independent Women Part I", which appeared on the soundtrack to the 2000 film Charlie's Angels. It became their best-charting single, topping the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 chart for eleven consecutive weeks. In early 2001, while Destiny's Child was completing their third album, Beyoncé landed a major role in the MTV made-for-television film, Carmen: A Hip Hopera, starring alongside American actor Mekhi Phifer. Set in Philadelphia, the film is a modern interpretation of the 19th-century opera Carmen by French composer Georges Bizet. When the third album Survivor was released in May 2001, Luckett and Roberson filed a lawsuit claiming that the songs were aimed at them. The album debuted at number one on the U.S. Billboard 200, with first-week sales of 663,000 copies sold. The album spawned other number-one hits, "Bootylicious" and the title track, "Survivor", the latter of which earned the group a Grammy Award for Best R&B Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocals. After releasing their holiday album 8 Days of Christmas in October 2001, the group announced a hiatus to further pursue solo careers.
In July 2002, Beyoncé made her theatrical film debut, playing Foxxy Cleopatra alongside Mike Myers in the comedy film Austin Powers in Goldmember, which spent its first weekend atop the U.S. box office and grossed $73 million. Beyoncé released "Work It Out" as the lead single from its soundtrack album which entered the top ten in the UK, Norway, and Belgium. In 2003, Beyoncé starred opposite Cuba Gooding, Jr., in the musical comedy The Fighting Temptations as Lilly, a single mother with whom Gooding's character falls in love. The film received mixed reviews from critics but grossed $30 million in the U.S. Beyoncé released "Fighting Temptation" as the lead single from the film's soundtrack album, with Missy Elliott, MC Lyte, and Free which was also used to promote the film. Another of Beyoncé's contributions to the soundtrack, "Summertime", fared better on the U.S. charts.
2003–2005: Dangerously in Love and Destiny Fulfilled
Beyoncé's first solo recording was a feature on Jay-Z's song '03 Bonnie & Clyde" that was released in October 2002, peaking at number four on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 chart. On June 14, 2003, Beyoncé premiered songs from her first solo album Dangerously in Love during her first solo concert and the pay-per-view television special, "Ford Presents Beyoncé Knowles, Friends & Family, Live From Ford's 100th Anniversary Celebration in Dearborn, Michigan". The album was released on June 24, 2003, after Michelle Williams and Kelly Rowland had released their solo efforts. The album sold 317,000 copies in its first week, debuted atop the Billboard 200, and has since sold 11 million copies worldwide. The album's lead single, "Crazy in Love", featuring Jay-Z, became Beyoncé's first number-one single as a solo artist in the US. The single "Baby Boy" also reached number one, and singles, "Me, Myself and I" and "Naughty Girl", both reached the top-five. The album earned Beyoncé a then record-tying five awards at the 46th Annual Grammy Awards; Best Contemporary R&B Album, Best Female R&B Vocal Performance for "Dangerously in Love 2", Best R&B Song and Best Rap/Sung Collaboration for "Crazy in Love", and Best R&B Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocals for "The Closer I Get to You" with Luther Vandross. During the ceremony, she performed with Prince.
In November 2003, she embarked on the Dangerously in Love Tour in Europe and later toured alongside Missy Elliott and Alicia Keys for the Verizon Ladies First Tour in North America. On February 1, 2004, Beyoncé performed the American national anthem at Super Bowl XXXVIII, at the Reliant Stadium in Houston, Texas. After the release of Dangerously in Love, Beyoncé had planned to produce a follow-up album using several of the left-over tracks. However, this was put on hold so she could concentrate on recording Destiny Fulfilled, the final studio album by Destiny's Child. Released on November 15, 2004, in the US and peaking at number two on the Billboard 200, Destiny Fulfilled included the singles "Lose My Breath" and "Soldier", which reached the top five on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. Destiny's Child embarked on a worldwide concert tour, Destiny Fulfilled... and Lovin' It sponsored by McDonald's Corporation, and performed hits such as "No, No, No", "Survivor", "Say My Name", "Independent Women" and "Lose My Breath". In addition to renditions of the group's recorded material, they also performed songs from each singer's solo careers, most notably numbers from Dangerously in Love. and during the last stop of their European tour, in Barcelona on June 11, 2005, Rowland announced that Destiny's Child would disband following the North American leg of the tour. The group released their first compilation album Number 1's on October 25, 2005, in the US and accepted a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in March 2006. The group has sold 60 million records worldwide.
2006–2007: B'Day and Dreamgirls
Beyoncé's second solo album B'Day was released on September 4, 2006, in the US, to coincide with her twenty-fifth birthday. It sold 541,000 copies in its first week and debuted atop the Billboard 200, becoming Beyoncé's second consecutive number-one album in the United States. The album's lead single "Déjà Vu", featuring Jay-Z, reached the top five on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. The second international single "Irreplaceable" was a commercial success worldwide, reaching number one in Australia, Hungary, Ireland, New Zealand and the United States. B'Day also produced three other singles; "Ring the Alarm", "Get Me Bodied", and "Green Light" (released in the United Kingdom only).
At the 49th Annual Grammy Awards (2007), B'Day was nominated for five Grammy Awards, including Best Contemporary R&B Album, Best Female R&B Vocal Performance for "Ring the Alarm" and Best R&B Song and Best Rap/Sung Collaboration"for "Déjà Vu"; the Freemasons club mix of "Déjà Vu" without the rap was put forward in the Best Remixed Recording, Non-Classical category. B'Day won the award for Best Contemporary R&B Album. The following year, B'Day received two nominations – for Record of the Year for "Irreplaceable" and Best Pop Collaboration with Vocals for "Beautiful Liar" (with Shakira), also receiving a nomination for Best Compilation Soundtrack Album for Motion Pictures, Television or Other Visual Media for her appearance on Dreamgirls: Music from the Motion Picture (2006).
Her first acting role of 2006 was in the comedy film The Pink Panther starring opposite Steve Martin, grossing $158.8 million at the box office worldwide. Her second film Dreamgirls, the film version of the 1981 Broadway musical loosely based on The Supremes, received acclaim from critics and grossed $154 million internationally. In it, she starred opposite Jennifer Hudson, Jamie Foxx, and Eddie Murphy playing a pop singer based on Diana Ross. To promote the film, Beyoncé released "Listen" as the lead single from the soundtrack album. In April 2007, Beyoncé embarked on The Beyoncé Experience, her first worldwide concert tour, visiting 97 venues and grossed over $24 million. Beyoncé conducted pre-concert food donation drives during six major stops in conjunction with her pastor at St. John's and America's Second Harvest. At the same time, B'Day was re-released with five additional songs, including her duet with Shakira "Beautiful Liar".
2008–2010: I Am... Sasha Fierce
I Am... Sasha Fierce was released on November 18, 2008, in the United States. The album formally introduces Beyoncé's alter ego Sasha Fierce, conceived during the making of her 2003 single "Crazy in Love". It was met with generally mediocre reviews from critics, but sold 482,000 copies in its first week, debuting atop the Billboard 200, and giving Beyoncé her third consecutive number-one album in the US. The album featured the number-one song "Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)" and the top-five songs "If I Were a Boy" and "Halo". Achieving the accomplishment of becoming her longest-running Hot 100 single in her career, "Halos success in the U.S. helped Beyoncé attain more top-ten singles on the list than any other woman during the 2000s. It also included the successful "Sweet Dreams", and singles "Diva", "Ego", "Broken-Hearted Girl" and "Video Phone". The music video for "Single Ladies" has been parodied and imitated around the world, spawning the "first major dance craze" of the Internet age according to the Toronto Star. The video has won several awards, including Best Video at the 2009 MTV Europe Music Awards, the 2009 Scottish MOBO Awards, and the 2009 BET Awards. At the 2009 MTV Video Music Awards, the video was nominated for nine awards, ultimately winning three including Video of the Year. Its failure to win the Best Female Video category, which went to American singer-songwriter Taylor Swift's "You Belong with Me", led to Kanye West interrupting the ceremony and Beyoncé improvising a re-presentation of Swift's award during her own acceptance speech. In March 2009, Beyoncé embarked on the I Am... World Tour, her second headlining worldwide concert tour, consisting of 108 shows, grossing $119.5 million.
Beyoncé further expanded her acting career, starring as blues singer Etta James in the 2008 musical biopic Cadillac Records. Her performance in the film received praise from critics, and she garnered several nominations for her portrayal of James, including a Satellite Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress, and a NAACP Image Award nomination for Outstanding Supporting Actress. Beyoncé donated her entire salary from the film to Phoenix House, an organization of rehabilitation centers for heroin addicts around the country. On January 20, 2009, Beyoncé performed James' "At Last" at First Couple Barack and Michelle Obama's first inaugural ball. Beyoncé starred opposite Ali Larter and Idris Elba in the thriller, Obsessed. She played Sharon Charles, a mother and wife whose family is threatened by her husband's stalker. Although the film received negative reviews from critics, the movie did well at the U.S. box office, grossing $68 million – $60 million more than Cadillac Records – on a budget of $20 million. The fight scene finale between Sharon and the character played by Ali Larter also won the 2010 MTV Movie Award for Best Fight.
At the 52nd Annual Grammy Awards, Beyoncé received ten nominations, including Album of the Year for I Am... Sasha Fierce, Record of the Year for "Halo", and Song of the Year for "Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)", among others. She tied with Lauryn Hill for most Grammy nominations in a single year by a female artist. Beyoncé went on to win six of those nominations, breaking a record she previously tied in 2004 for the most Grammy awards won in a single night by a female artist with six. In 2010, Beyoncé was featured on Lady Gaga's single "Telephone" and appeared in its music video. The song topped the U.S. Pop Songs chart, becoming the sixth number-one for both Beyoncé and Gaga, tying them with Mariah Carey for most number-ones since the Nielsen Top 40 airplay chart launched in 1992. "Telephone" received a Grammy Award nomination for Best Pop Collaboration with Vocals.
Beyoncé announced a hiatus from her music career in January 2010, heeding her mother's advice, "to live life, to be inspired by things again". During the break she and her father parted ways as business partners. Beyoncé's musical break lasted nine months and saw her visit multiple European cities, the Great Wall of China, the Egyptian pyramids, Australia, English music festivals and various museums and ballet performances.
2011–2013: 4 and Super Bowl XLVII halftime show
On June 26, 2011, she became the first solo female artist to headline the main Pyramid stage at the 2011 Glastonbury Festival in over twenty years. Her fourth studio album 4 was released two days later in the US. 4 sold 310,000 copies in its first week and debuted atop the Billboard 200 chart, giving Beyoncé her fourth consecutive number-one album in the US. The album was preceded by two of its singles "Run the World (Girls)" and "Best Thing I Never Had". The fourth single "Love on Top" spent seven consecutive weeks at number one on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart, while peaking at number 20 on the Billboard Hot 100, the highest peak from the album. 4 also produced four other singles; "Party", "Countdown", "I Care" and "End of Time". "Eat, Play, Love", a cover story written by Beyoncé for Essence that detailed her 2010 career break, won her a writing award from the New York Association of Black Journalists. In late 2011, she took the stage at New York's Roseland Ballroom for four nights of special performances: the 4 Intimate Nights with Beyoncé concerts saw the performance of her 4 album to a standing room only. On August 1, 2011, the album was certified platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), having shipped 1 million copies to retail stores. By December 2015, it reached sales of 1.5 million copies in the US. The album reached one billion Spotify streams on February 5, 2018, making Beyoncé the first female artist to have three of their albums surpass one billion streams on the platform.
In June 2012, she performed for four nights at Revel Atlantic City's Ovation Hall to celebrate the resort's opening, her first performances since giving birth to her daughter.
In January 2013, Destiny's Child released Love Songs, a compilation album of the romance-themed songs from their previous albums and a newly recorded track, "Nuclear". Beyoncé performed the American national anthem singing along with a pre-recorded track at President Obama's second inauguration in Washington, D.C. The following month, Beyoncé performed at the Super Bowl XLVII halftime show, held at the Mercedes-Benz Superdome in New Orleans. The performance stands as the second most tweeted about moment in history at 268,000 tweets per minute. At the 55th Annual Grammy Awards, Beyoncé won for Best Traditional R&B Performance for "Love on Top". Her feature-length documentary film, Life Is But a Dream, first aired on HBO on February 16, 2013. The film was co-directed by Beyoncé herself.
2013–2015: Beyoncé
Beyoncé embarked on The Mrs. Carter Show World Tour on April 15 in Belgrade, Serbia; the tour included 132 dates that ran through to March 2014. It became the most successful tour of her career and one of the most successful tours of all time. In May, Beyoncé's cover of Amy Winehouse's "Back to Black" with André 3000 on The Great Gatsby soundtrack was released. Beyoncé voiced Queen Tara in the 3D CGI animated film, Epic, released by 20th Century Fox on May 24, and recorded an original song for the film, "Rise Up", co-written with Sia.
On December 13, 2013, Beyoncé unexpectedly released her eponymous fifth studio album on the iTunes Store without any prior announcement or promotion. The album debuted atop the Billboard 200 chart, giving Beyoncé her fifth consecutive number-one album in the US. This made her the first woman in the chart's history to have her first five studio albums debut at number one. Beyoncé received critical acclaim and commercial success, selling one million digital copies worldwide in six days; Musically an electro-R&B album, it concerns darker themes previously unexplored in her work, such as "bulimia, postnatal depression [and] the fears and insecurities of marriage and motherhood". The single "Drunk in Love", featuring Jay-Z, peaked at number two on the Billboard Hot 100 chart.
In April 2014, Beyoncé and Jay-Z officially announced their On the Run Tour. It served as the couple's first co-headlining stadium tour together. On August 24, 2014, she received the Michael Jackson Video Vanguard Award at the 2014 MTV Video Music Awards. Beyoncé also won home three competitive awards: Best Video with a Social Message and Best Cinematography for "Pretty Hurts", as well as best collaboration for "Drunk in Love". In November, Forbes reported that Beyoncé was the top-earning woman in music for the second year in a row – earning $115 million in the year, more than double her earnings in 2013. Beyoncé was reissued with new material in three forms: as an extended play, a box set, as well as a full platinum edition. According to the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI), in the last 19 days of 2013, the album sold 2.3 million units worldwide, becoming the tenth best-selling album of 2013. The album also went on to become the twentieth best-selling album of 2014. , Beyoncé has sold over 5 million copies worldwide and has generated over 1 billion streams, .
At the 57th Annual Grammy Awards in February 2015, Beyoncé was nominated for six awards, ultimately winning three: Best R&B Performance and Best R&B Song for "Drunk in Love", and Best Surround Sound Album for Beyoncé. She was nominated for Album of the Year, but the award went to Beck for his album Morning Phase.
2016–2018: Lemonade and Everything Is Love
On February 6, 2016, Beyoncé released "Formation" and its accompanying music video exclusively on the music streaming platform Tidal; the song was made available to download for free. She performed "Formation" live for the first time during the NFL Super Bowl 50 halftime show. The appearance was considered controversial as it appeared to reference the 50th anniversary of the Black Panther Party and the NFL forbids political statements in its performances. Immediately following the performance, Beyoncé announced The Formation World Tour, which highlighted stops in both North America, and Europe. It ended on October 7, with Beyoncé bringing out her husband Jay-Z, Kendrick Lamar, and Serena Williams for the last show. The tour went on to win Tour of the Year at the 44th American Music Awards.
On April 16, 2016, Beyoncé released a teaser clip for a project called Lemonade. It turned out to be a one-hour film which aired on HBO exactly a week later; a corresponding album with the same title was released on the same day exclusively on Tidal. Lemonade debuted at number one on the U.S. Billboard 200, making Beyoncé the first act in Billboard history to have their first six studio albums debut atop the chart; she broke a record previously tied with DMX in 2013. With all 12 tracks of Lemonade debuting on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, Beyoncé also became the first female act to chart 12 or more songs at the same time. Additionally, Lemonade was streamed 115 million times through Tidal, setting a record for the most-streamed album in a single week by a female artist in history. It was 2016's third highest-selling album in the U.S. with 1.554 million copies sold in that time period within the country as well as the best-selling album worldwide with global sales of 2.5 million throughout the year. In June 2019, Lemonade was certified 3× Platinum, having sold up to 3 million album-equivalent units in the United States alone.
Lemonade became her most critically acclaimed work to date, receiving universal acclaim according to Metacritic, a website collecting reviews from professional music critics. Several music publications included the album among the best of 2016, including Rolling Stone, which listed Lemonade at number one. The album's visuals were nominated in 11 categories at the 2016 MTV Video Music Awards, the most ever received by Beyoncé in a single year, and went on to win 8 awards, including Video of the Year for "Formation". The eight wins made Beyoncé the most-awarded artist in the history of the VMAs (24), surpassing Madonna (20). Beyoncé occupied the sixth place for Time magazine's 2016 Person of the Year.
In January 2017, it was announced that Beyoncé would headline the Coachella Music and Arts Festival. This would make Beyoncé only the second female headliner of the festival since it was founded in 1999. It was later announced on February 23, 2017, that Beyoncé would no longer be able to perform at the festival due to doctor's concerns regarding her pregnancy. The festival owners announced that she will instead headline the 2018 festival. Upon the announcement of Beyoncé's departure from the festival lineup, ticket prices dropped by 12%. At the 59th Grammy Awards in February 2017, Lemonade led the nominations with nine, including Album, Record, and Song of the Year for Lemonade and "Formation" respectively. and ultimately won two, Best Urban Contemporary Album for Lemonade and Best Music Video for "Formation". Adele, upon winning her Grammy for Album of the Year, stated Lemonade was monumental and more deserving.
In September 2017, Beyoncé collaborated with J Balvin and Willy William, to release a remix of the song "Mi Gente". Beyoncé donated all proceeds from the song to hurricane charities for those affected by Hurricane Harvey and Hurricane Irma in Texas, Mexico, Puerto Rico, and other Caribbean Islands. On November 10, Eminem released "Walk on Water" featuring Beyoncé as the lead single from his album Revival. On November 30, Ed Sheeran announced that Beyoncé would feature on the remix to his song "Perfect". "Perfect Duet" was released on December 1, 2017. The song reached number-one in the United States, becoming Beyoncé's sixth song of her solo career to do so.
On January 4, 2018, the music video of Beyoncé and Jay-Z's 4:44 collaboration, "Family Feud" was released. It was directed by Ava DuVernay. On March 1, 2018, DJ Khaled released "Top Off" as the first single from his forthcoming album Father of Asahd featuring Beyoncé, husband Jay-Z, and Future. On March 5, 2018, a joint tour with Knowles's husband Jay-Z, was leaked on Facebook. Information about the tour was later taken down. The couple announced the joint tour officially as On the Run II Tour on March 12 and simultaneously released a trailer for the tour on YouTube. On March 20, 2018, the couple traveled to Jamaica to film a music video directed by Melina Matsoukas.
On April 14, 2018, Beyoncé played the first of two weekends as the headlining act of the Coachella Music Festival. Her performance of April 14, attended by 125,000 festival-goers, was immediately praised, with multiple media outlets describing it as historic. The performance became the most-tweeted-about performance of weekend one, as well as the most-watched live Coachella performance and the most-watched live performance on YouTube of all time. The show paid tribute to black culture, specifically historically black colleges and universities and featured a live band with over 100 dancers. Destiny's Child also reunited during the show.
On June 6, 2018, Beyoncé and husband Jay-Z kicked-off the On the Run II Tour in Cardiff, United Kingdom. Ten days later, at their final London performance, the pair unveiled Everything Is Love, their joint studio album, credited under the name The Carters, and initially available exclusively on Tidal. The pair also released the video for the album's lead single, "Apeshit", on Beyoncé's official YouTube channel. Everything Is Love received generally positive reviews, and debuted at number two on the U.S. Billboard 200, with 123,000 album-equivalent units, of which 70,000 were pure album sales. On December 2, 2018, Beyoncé alongside Jay-Z headlined the Global Citizen Festival: Mandela 100 which was held at FNB Stadium in Johannesburg, South Africa. Their 2-hour performance had concepts similar to the On the Run II Tour and Beyoncé was praised for her outfits, which paid tribute to Africa's diversity.
2019–present: Homecoming, The Lion King and Black Is King
Homecoming, a documentary and concert film focusing on Beyoncé's historic 2018 Coachella performances, was released by Netflix on April 17, 2019. The film was accompanied by the surprise live album Homecoming: The Live Album. It was later reported that Beyoncé and Netflix had signed a $60 million deal to produce three different projects, one of which is Homecoming. Homecoming received six nominations at the 71st Primetime Creative Arts Emmy Awards.
Beyoncé starred as the voice of Nala in the remake The Lion King, which was released on July 19, 2019. Beyoncé is featured on the film's soundtrack, released on July 11, 2019, with a remake of the song "Can You Feel the Love Tonight" alongside Donald Glover, Billy Eichner and Seth Rogen, which was originally composed by Elton John. Additionally, an original song from the film by Beyoncé, "Spirit", was released as the lead single from both the soundtrack and The Lion King: The Gift – a companion album released alongside the film, produced and curated by Beyoncé. Beyoncé called The Lion King: The Gift a "sonic cinema". She also stated that the album is influenced by everything from R&B, pop, hip hop and Afro Beat. The songs were additionally produced by African producers, which Beyoncé said was because "authenticity and heart were important to [her]", since the film is set in Africa. In September of the same year, a documentary chronicling the development, production and early music video filming of The Lion King: The Gift entitled "Beyoncé Presents: Making The Gift" was aired on ABC.
On April 29, 2020, Beyoncé was featured on the remix of Megan Thee Stallion's song "Savage", marking her first material of music for the year. The song peaked at number one on the Billboard Hot 100, marking Beyoncé's eleventh song to do so across all acts. On June 19, 2020, Beyoncé released the nonprofit charity single "Black Parade". On June 23, she followed up the release of its studio version with an a capella version exclusively on Tidal. Black Is King, a visual album based on the music of The Lion King: The Gift, premiered globally on Disney+ on July 31, 2020. Produced by Disney and Parkwood Entertainment, the film was written, directed and executive produced by Beyoncé. The film was described by Disney as "a celebratory memoir for the world on the Black experience". Beyoncé received the most nominations (9) at the 63rd Annual Grammy Awards and the most awards (4), which made her the most-awarded singer, most-awarded female artist, and second-most-awarded artist in Grammy history.
Beyoncé wrote and recorded a song titled "Be Alive" for the biographical drama film King Richard. She received her first Academy Award nomination for Best Original Song at the 94th Academy Awards for the song, alongside co-writer DIXSON.
Artistry
Voice and musical style
Beyoncé's voice type is classified as dramatic mezzo-soprano. Jody Rosen highlights her tone and timbre as particularly distinctive, describing her voice as "one of the most compelling instruments in popular music". Her vocal abilities mean she is identified as the centerpiece of Destiny's Child. Jon Pareles of The New York Times commented that her voice is "velvety yet tart, with an insistent flutter and reserves of soul belting". Rosen notes that the hip hop era highly influenced Beyoncé's unique rhythmic vocal style, but also finds her quite traditionalist in her use of balladry, gospel and falsetto. Other critics praise her range and power, with Chris Richards of The Washington Post saying she was "capable of punctuating any beat with goose-bump-inducing whispers or full-bore diva-roars."
Beyoncé's music is generally R&B, pop and hip hop but she also incorporates soul and funk into her songs. 4 demonstrated Beyoncé's exploration of 1990s-style R&B, as well as further use of soul and hip hop than compared to previous releases. While she almost exclusively releases English songs, Beyoncé recorded several Spanish songs for Irreemplazable (re-recordings of songs from B'Day for a Spanish-language audience), and the re-release of B'Day. To record these, Beyoncé was coached phonetically by American record producer Rudy Perez.
Songwriting
Beyoncé has received co-writing credits for most of her songs. In regards to the way she approaches collaborative songwriting, Beyoncé explained: "I love being around great writers because I'm finding that a lot of the things I want to say, I don't articulate as good as maybe Amanda Ghost, so I want to keep collaborating with writers, and I love classics and I want to make sure years from now the song is still something that's relevant." Her early songs with Destiny's Child were personally driven and female-empowerment themed compositions like "Independent Women" and "Survivor", but after the start of her relationship with Jay-Z, she transitioned to more man-tending anthems such as "Cater 2 U".
In 2001, she became the first Black woman and second female lyricist to win the Pop Songwriter of the Year award at the ASCAP Pop Music Awards. Beyoncé was the third woman to have writing credits on three number-one songs ("Irreplaceable", "Grillz" and "Check on It") in the same year, after Carole King in 1971 and Mariah Carey in 1991. She is tied with American lyricist Diane Warren at third with nine songwriting credits on number-one singles. The latter wrote her 9/11-motivated song "I Was Here" for 4. In May 2011, Billboard magazine listed Beyoncé at number 17 on their list of the Top 20 Hot 100 Songwriters for having co-written eight singles that hit number one on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. She was one of only three women on that list, along with Alicia Keys and Taylor Swift.
Beyoncé has long received criticism, including from journalists and musicians, for the extensive writing credits on her songs. The controversy surrounding her songwriting credits began with interviews in which she attributed herself as the songwriter for songs in which she was a co-writer or for which her contributions were marginal. In a cover story for Vanity Fair in 2005, she claimed to have "written" several number-one songs for Destiny's Child, contrary to the credits, which list her as a co-writer among others. In a 2007 interview with Barbara Walters, she claimed to have conceived the musical idea for the Destiny's Child hit "Bootylicious", which provoked the song's producer Rob Fusari to call her father and then-manager Mathew Knowles in protest over the claim. As Fusari tells Billboard, "[Knowles] explained to me, in a nice way, he said, 'People don't want to hear about Rob Fusari, producer from Livingston, N.J. No offense, but that's not what sells records. What sells records is people believing that the artist is everything. However, in an interview for Entertainment Weekly in 2016, Fusari said Beyoncé "had the 'Bootylicious' concept in her head. That was totally her. She knew what she wanted to say. It was very urban pop angle that they were taking on the record."
In 2007, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences ruled out Beyoncé as a songwriter on "Listen" (from Dreamgirls) for its Oscar nomination in the Best Original Song category. Responding to a then-new three-writer limit, the Academy deemed her contribution the least significant for inclusion. In 2009, Ryan Tedder's original demo for "Halo" leaked on the Internet, revealing an identical resemblance to Beyoncé's recording, for which she received a writing credit. When interviewed by The Guardian, Tedder explained that Beyoncé had edited the bridge of the song vocally and thus earned the credit, although he vaguely questioned the ethics of her possible "demand" for a writing credit in other instances. Tedder elaborated when speaking to Gigwise that "She does stuff on any given song that, when you go from the demo to the final version, takes it to another level that you never would have thought of as the writer. For instance, on 'Halo,' that bridge on her version is completely different to my original one. Basically, she came in, ditched that, edited it, did her vocal thing on it, and now it's become one of my favorite parts of the song. The whole melody, she wrote it spontaneously in the studio. So her credit on that song stems from that." In 2014, the popular industry songwriter Linda Perry responded to a question about Beyoncé receiving a co-writing credit for changing one lyric to a song: "Well haha um that's not songwriting but some of these artists believe if it wasn't for them your song would never get out there so they take a cut just because they are who they are. But everyone knows the real truth about Beyoncé. She is talented but in a completely different way." Perry's remarks were echoed by Frank Ocean, who acknowledged the trend of recording artists forcing writing credits while jokingly suggesting Beyoncé had an exceptional status.
Reflecting on the controversy, Sunday Independent columnist Alexis Kritselis wrote in 2014, "It seems as though our love for all things Beyoncé has blinded us to the very real claims of theft and plagiarism that have plagued her career for years", and that, "because of her power and influence in the music industry, it may be hard for some songwriters to 'just say no' to Beyoncé." While reporting on her controversial writing record, pop culture critics such as Roger Friedman and The Daily Beasts Kevin Fallon said the trend has redefined popular conceptions of songwriting, with Fallon saying, "the village of authors and composers that populate Lemonade, [Kanye West']s Life of Pablo, [Rihanna's] Anti, or [Drake's] Views – all of which are still reflective of an artist's voice and vision ... speaks to the truth of the way the industry's top artists create their music today: by committee." James S. Murphy of Vanity Fair suggests Beyoncé is among the major artists like Frank Sinatra and Billie Holiday who are "celebrated [not] because [they] write such good parts, but because [they] create them out of the words that are given".
Meanwhile, Everything Is Love producers Cool & Dre stated that Beyoncé is "100 percent involved" in writing her own songs, with Dre saying that "She put her mind to the music and did her thing. If she had a melody idea, she came up with the words. If we had the words, she came up with the melody. She's a beast", when speaking on the writing process of Everything Is Love. Ne-Yo, when asked about his collaborative writing experience with Beyoncé on "Irreplaceable", said that they both wrote "two damn totally different songs ... So, yeah, I gave her writer's credit. Because that counts. That's writing ... She put her spin on it." As for Drake: Pound Cake' happened while I was writing for Beyoncé or working with Beyoncé, not writing for, working with. I hate saying writing for 'cause she's a phenomenal writer. She has bars on bars." The-Dream revealed: "We did a whole Fela album that didn't go up. It was right before we did 4. We did a whole different sounding thing, about twenty songs. She said she wanted to do something that sounds like Fela. That's why there's so much of that sound in the 'End of Time.' There's always multiple albums being made. Most of the time we're just being creative, period. We're talking about B, somebody who sings all day long and somebody who writes all day long. There's probably a hundred records just sitting around."
Influences
Beyoncé names Michael Jackson as her major musical influence. Aged five, Beyoncé attended her first ever concert where Jackson performed and she claims to have realized her purpose. When she presented him with a tribute award at the World Music Awards in 2006, Beyoncé said, "if it wasn't for Michael Jackson, I would never ever have performed." Beyoncé was heavily influenced by Tina Turner, who she said "Tina Turner is someone that I admire, because she made her strength feminine and sexy". She admires Diana Ross as an "all-around entertainer", and Whitney Houston, who she said "inspired me to get up there and do what she did." Beyoncé cited Madonna as an influence "not only for her musical style, but also for her business sense", saying that she wanted to "follow in the footsteps of Madonna and be a powerhouse and have my own empire." She also credits Mariah Carey's singing and her song "Vision of Love" as influencing her to begin practicing vocal runs as a child. Her other musical influences include Prince, Shakira, Lauryn Hill, Sade Adu, Donna Summer, Mary J. Blige, Anita Baker, and Toni Braxton.
The feminism and female empowerment themes on Beyoncé's second solo album B'Day were inspired by her role in Dreamgirls and by singer Josephine Baker. Beyoncé paid homage to Baker by performing "Déjà Vu" at the 2006 Fashion Rocks concert wearing Baker's trademark mini-hula skirt embellished with fake bananas. Beyoncé's third solo album, I Am... Sasha Fierce, was inspired by Jay-Z and especially by Etta James, whose "boldness" inspired Beyoncé to explore other musical genres and styles. Her fourth solo album, 4, was inspired by Fela Kuti, 1990s R&B, Earth, Wind & Fire, DeBarge, Lionel Richie, Teena Marie, The Jackson 5, New Edition, Adele, Florence and the Machine, and Prince.
Beyoncé has stated that she is personally inspired by Michelle Obama (the 44th First Lady of the United States), saying "she proves you can do it all", and has described Oprah Winfrey as "the definition of inspiration and a strong woman." She has also discussed how Jay-Z is a continuing inspiration to her, both with what she describes as his lyrical genius and in the obstacles he has overcome in his life. Beyoncé has expressed admiration for the artist Jean-Michel Basquiat, posting in a letter "what I find in the work of Jean-Michel Basquiat, I search for in every day in music ... he is lyrical and raw". Beyoncé also cited Cher as a fashion inspiration.
Music videos and stage
In 2006, Beyoncé introduced her all-female tour band Suga Mama (also the name of a song on B'Day) which includes bassists, drummers, guitarists, horn players, keyboardists and percussionists. Her background singers, The Mamas, consist of Montina Cooper-Donnell, Crystal Collins and Tiffany Moniqué Riddick. They made their debut appearance at the 2006 BET Awards and re-appeared in the music videos for "Irreplaceable" and "Green Light". The band have supported Beyoncé in most subsequent live performances, including her 2007 concert tour The Beyoncé Experience, I Am... World Tour (2009–2010), The Mrs. Carter Show World Tour (2013–2014) and The Formation World Tour (2016).
Beyoncé has received praise for her stage presence and voice during live performances. Jarett Wieselman of the New York Post placed her at number one on her list of the Five Best Singer/Dancers. According to Barbara Ellen of The Guardian Beyoncé is the most in-charge female artist she's seen onstage, while Alice Jones of The Independent wrote she "takes her role as entertainer so seriously she's almost too good." The ex-President of Def Jam L.A. Reid has described Beyoncé as the greatest entertainer alive. Jim Farber of the Daily News and Stephanie Classen of The StarPhoenix both praised her strong voice and her stage presence. Beyoncé's stage outfits have been met with criticism from many countries, such as Malaysia, where she has postponed or cancelled performances due to the country's strict laws banning revealing costumes.
Beyoncé has worked with numerous directors for her music videos throughout her career, including Melina Matsoukas, Jonas Åkerlund, and Jake Nava. Bill Condon, director of Beauty and the Beast, stated that the Lemonade visuals in particular served as inspiration for his film, commenting, "You look at Beyoncé's brilliant movie Lemonade, this genre is taking on so many different forms ... I do think that this very old-school break-out-into-song traditional musical is something that people understand again and really want."
Alter ego
Described as being "sexy, seductive and provocative" when performing on stage, Beyoncé has said that she originally created the alter ego "Sasha Fierce" to keep that stage persona separate from who she really is. She described Sasha as being "too aggressive, too strong, too sassy [and] too sexy", stating, "I'm not like her in real life at all." Sasha was conceived during the making of "Crazy in Love", and Beyoncé introduced her with the release of her 2008 album, I Am... Sasha Fierce. In February 2010, she announced in an interview with Allure magazine that she was comfortable enough with herself to no longer need Sasha Fierce. However, Beyoncé announced in May 2012 that she would bring her back for her Revel Presents: Beyoncé Live shows later that month.
Public image
Beyoncé has been described as having a wide-ranging sex appeal, with music journalist Touré writing that since the release of Dangerously in Love, she has "become a crossover sex symbol". Offstage Beyoncé says that while she likes to dress sexily, her onstage dress "is absolutely for the stage". Due to her curves and the term's catchiness, in the 2000s, the media often used the term "bootylicious" (a portmanteau of the words "booty" and "delicious") to describe Beyoncé, the term popularized by Destiny's Child's single of the same name. In 2006, it was added to the Oxford English Dictionary.
In September 2010, Beyoncé made her runway modelling debut at Tom Ford's Spring/Summer 2011 fashion show. She was named the "World's Most Beautiful Woman" by People and the "Hottest Female Singer of All Time" by Complex in 2012. In January 2013, GQ placed her on its cover, featuring her atop its "100 Sexiest Women of the 21st Century" list. VH1 listed her at number 1 on its 100 Sexiest Artists list. Several wax figures of Beyoncé are found at Madame Tussauds Wax Museums in major cities around the world, including New York, Washington, D.C., Amsterdam, Bangkok, Hollywood and Sydney.
According to Italian fashion designer Roberto Cavalli, Beyoncé uses different fashion styles to work with her music while performing. Her mother co-wrote a book, published in 2002, titled Destiny's Style, an account of how fashion affected the trio's success. The B'Day Anthology Video Album showed many instances of fashion-oriented footage, depicting classic to contemporary wardrobe styles. In 2007, Beyoncé was featured on the cover of the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue, becoming the second African American woman after Tyra Banks, and People magazine recognized Beyoncé as the best-dressed celebrity.
Beyoncé has been named "Queen Bey" from publications over the years. The term is a reference to the common phrase "queen bee", a term used for the leader of a group of females. The nickname also refers to the queen of a beehive, with her fan base being named "The BeyHive". The BeyHive was previously titled "The Beyontourage", (a portmanteau of Beyoncé and entourage), but was changed after online petitions on Twitter and online news reports during competitions. The BeyHive has been named one of the most loyal and defensive fan bases and has achieved notoriety for being fiercely protective of Beyoncé.
In 2006, the animal rights organization People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), criticized Beyoncé for wearing and using fur in her clothing line House of Deréon. In 2011, she appeared on the cover of French fashion magazine L'Officiel, in blackface and tribal makeup that drew criticism from the media. A statement released from a spokesperson for the magazine said that Beyoncé's look was "far from the glamorous Sasha Fierce" and that it was "a return to her African roots".
Beyoncé's lighter skin color and costuming has drawn criticism from some in the African-American community. Emmett Price, a professor of music at Northeastern University, wrote in 2007 that he thinks race plays a role in many of these criticisms, saying white celebrities who dress similarly do not attract as many comments. In 2008, L'Oréal was accused of whitening her skin in their Feria hair color advertisements, responding that "it is categorically untrue", and in 2013, Beyoncé herself criticized H&M for their proposed "retouching" of promotional images of her, and according to Vogue requested that only "natural pictures be used".
Beyoncé has been a vocal advocate for the Black Lives Matter movement. The release of "Formation" on February 6, 2016 saw her celebrate her heritage, with the song's music video featuring pro-black imagery and most notably a shot of wall graffiti that says "Stop shooting us". The day after the song's release she performed it at the 2016 Super Bowl halftime show with back up dancers dressed to represent the Black Panther Party. This incited criticism from politicians and police officers, with some police boycotting Beyoncé's then upcoming Formation World Tour. Beyoncé responded to the backlash by releasing tour merchandise that said "Boycott Beyoncé", and later clarified her sentiment, saying: “Anyone who perceives my message as anti-police is completely mistaken. I have so much admiration and respect for officers and the families of officers who sacrifice themselves to keep us safe,” Beyoncé said. “But let’s be clear: I am against police brutality and injustice. Those are two separate things.”
Personal life
Marriage and children
Beyoncé started a relationship with Jay-Z after their collaboration on '03 Bonnie & Clyde", which appeared on his seventh album The Blueprint 2: The Gift & The Curse (2002). Beyoncé appeared as Jay-Z's girlfriend in the music video for the song, fueling speculation about their relationship. On April 4, 2008, Beyoncé and Jay-Z married without publicity. , the couple had sold a combined 300 million records together. They are known for their private relationship, although they have appeared to become more relaxed in recent years. Both have acknowledged difficulty that arose in their marriage after Jay-Z had an affair.
Beyoncé miscarried around 2010 or 2011, describing it as "the saddest thing" she had ever endured. She returned to the studio and wrote music to cope with the loss. In April 2011, Beyoncé and Jay-Z traveled to Paris to shoot the album cover for 4, and she unexpectedly became pregnant in Paris. In August, the couple attended the 2011 MTV Video Music Awards, at which Beyoncé performed "Love on Top" and ended the performance by revealing she was pregnant. Her appearance helped that year's MTV Video Music Awards become the most-watched broadcast in MTV history, pulling in 12.4 million viewers; the announcement was listed in Guinness World Records for "most tweets per second recorded for a single event" on Twitter, receiving 8,868 tweets per second and "Beyonce pregnant" was the most Googled phrase the week of August 29, 2011. On January 7, 2012, Beyoncé gave birth to a daughter, Blue Ivy, at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City.
Following the release of Lemonade, which included the single "Sorry", in 2016, speculations arose about Jay-Z's alleged infidelity with a mistress referred to as "Becky". Jon Pareles in The New York Times pointed out that many of the accusations were "aimed specifically and recognizably" at him. Similarly, Rob Sheffield of Rolling Stone magazine noted the lines "Suck on my balls, I've had enough" were an "unmistakable hint" that the lyrics revolve around Jay-Z.
On February 1, 2017, she revealed on her Instagram account that she was expecting twins. Her announcement gained over 6.3 million likes within eight hours, breaking the world record for the most liked image on the website at the time. On July 13, 2017, Beyoncé uploaded the first image of herself and the twins onto her Instagram account, confirming their birth date as a month prior, on June 13, 2017, with the post becoming the second most liked on Instagram, behind her own pregnancy announcement. The twins, a daughter named Rumi and a son named Sir, were born at Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center in California. She wrote of her pregnancy and its aftermath in the September 2018 issue of Vogue, in which she had full control of the cover, shot at Hammerwood Park by photographer Tyler Mitchell.
Activism
Beyoncé performed "America the Beautiful" at President Barack Obama's 2009 presidential inauguration, as well as "At Last" during the first inaugural dance at the Neighborhood Ball two days later. The couple held a fundraiser at Jay-Z's 40/40 Club in Manhattan for President Obama's 2012 presidential campaign which raised $4 million. In the 2012 presidential election, the singer voted for President Obama. She performed the American national anthem "The Star-Spangled Banner" at his second inauguration in January 2013.
The Washington Post reported in May 2015, that Beyoncé attended a major celebrity fundraiser for 2016 presidential nominee Hillary Clinton. She also headlined for Clinton in a concert held the weekend before Election Day the next year. In this performance, Beyoncé and her entourage of backup dancers wore pantsuits; a clear allusion to Clinton's frequent dress-of-choice. The backup dancers also wore "I'm with her" tee shirts, the campaign slogan for Clinton. In a brief speech at this performance Beyoncé said, "I want my daughter to grow up seeing a woman lead our country and knowing that her possibilities are limitless." She endorsed the bid of Beto O'Rourke during the 2018 United States Senate election in Texas.
In 2013, Beyoncé stated in an interview in Vogue that she considered herself to be "a modern-day feminist". She would later align herself more publicly with the movement, sampling "We should all be feminists", a speech delivered by Nigerian author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie at a TEDx talk in April 2013, in her song "Flawless", released later that year. The next year she performed live at the MTV Video Awards in front a giant backdrop reading "Feminist". Her self-identification incited a circulation of opinions and debate about whether her feminism is aligned with older, more established feminist ideals. Annie Lennox, celebrated artist and feminist advocate, referred to Beyoncé's use of her word feminist as 'feminist lite'. bell hooks critiqued Beyoncé, referring to her as a "terrorist" towards feminism, harmfully impacting her audience of young girls. Adichie responded with "her type of feminism is not mine, as it is the kind that, at the same time, gives quite a lot of space to the necessity of men." Adichie expands upon what 'feminist lite' means to her, referring that "more troubling is the idea, in Feminism Lite, that men are naturally superior but should be expected to "treat women well" and "we judge powerful women more harshly than we judge powerful men. And Feminism Lite enables this." Beyoncé responded about her intent by utilizing the definition of feminist with her platform was to "give clarity to the true meaning" behind it. She says to understand what being a feminist is, "it's very simple. It's someone who believes in equal rights for men and women." She advocated to provide equal opportunities for young boys and girls, men and women must begin to understand the double standards that remain persistent in our societies and the issue must be illuminated in effort to start making changes.
She has also contributed to the Ban Bossy campaign, which uses TV and social media to encourage leadership in girls. Following Beyoncé's public identification as a feminist, the sexualized nature of her performances and the fact that she championed her marriage was questioned.
In December 2012, Beyoncé along with a variety of other celebrities teamed up and produced a video campaign for "Demand A Plan", a bipartisan effort by a group of 950 U.S. mayors and others designed to influence the federal government into rethinking its gun control laws, following the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting. Beyoncé publicly endorsed same-sex marriage on March 26, 2013, after the Supreme Court debate on California's Proposition 8. She spoke against North Carolina's Public Facilities Privacy & Security Act, a bill passed (and later repealed) that discriminated against the LGBT community in public places in a statement during her concert in Raleigh as part of the Formation World Tour in 2016. She has also condemned police brutality against black Americans. She and Jay-Z attended a rally in 2013 in response to the acquittal of George Zimmerman for the killing of Trayvon Martin. The film for her sixth album Lemonade included the mothers of Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown and Eric Garner, holding pictures of their sons in the video for "Freedom". In a 2016 interview with Elle, Beyoncé responded to the controversy surrounding her song "Formation" which was perceived to be critical of the police. She clarified, "I am against police brutality and injustice. Those are two separate things. If celebrating my roots and culture during Black History Month made anyone uncomfortable, those feelings were there long before a video and long before me".
In February 2017, Beyoncé spoke out against the withdrawal of protections for transgender students in public schools by Donald Trump's presidential administration. Posting a link to the 100 Days of Kindness campaign on her Facebook page, Beyoncé voiced her support for transgender youth and joined a roster of celebrities who spoke out against Trump's decision.
In November 2017, Beyoncé presented Colin Kaepernick with the 2017 Sports Illustrated Muhammad Ali Legacy Award, stating, "Thank you for your selfless heart and your conviction, thank you for your personal sacrifice", and that "Colin took action with no fear of consequence ... To change perception, to change the way we treat each other, especially people of color. We're still waiting for the world to catch up." Muhammad Ali was heavily penalized in his career for protesting the status quo of US civil rights through opposition to the Vietnam War, by refusing to serve in the military. 40 years later, Kaepernick had already lost one professional year due to taking a much quieter and legal stand "for people that are oppressed".
Wealth
Forbes magazine began reporting on Beyoncé's earnings in 2008, calculating that the $80 million earned between June 2007 to June 2008, for her music, tour, films and clothing line made her the world's best-paid music personality at the time, above Madonna and Celine Dion. It placed her fourth on the Celebrity 100 list in 2009
and ninth on the "Most Powerful Women in the World" list in 2010. The following year, the magazine placed her eighth on the "Best-Paid Celebrities Under 30" list, having earned $35 million in the past year for her clothing line and endorsement deals. In 2012, Forbes placed Beyoncé at number 16 on the Celebrity 100 list, twelve places lower than three years ago yet still having earned $40 million in the past year for her album 4, clothing line and endorsement deals. In the same year, Beyoncé and Jay-Z placed at number one on the "World's Highest-Paid Celebrity Couples", for collectively earning $78 million. The couple made it into the previous year's Guinness World Records as the "highest-earning power couple" for collectively earning $122 million in 2009. For the years 2009 to 2011, Beyoncé earned an average of $70 million per year, and earned $40 million in 2012. In 2013, Beyoncé's endorsements of Pepsi and H&M made her and Jay-Z the world's first billion dollar couple in the music industry. That year, Beyoncé was published as the fourth most-powerful celebrity in the Forbes rankings.
MTV estimated that by the end of 2014, Beyoncé would become the highest-paid Black musician in history; this became the case in April 2014. In June 2014, Beyoncé ranked at number one on the Forbes Celebrity 100 list, earning an estimated $115 million throughout June 2013 – June 2014. This in turn was the first time she had topped the Celebrity 100 list as well as being her highest yearly earnings to date. In 2016, Beyoncé ranked at number 34 on the Celebrity 100 list with earnings of $54 million. She and Jay-Z also topped the highest paid celebrity couple list, with combined earnings of $107.5 million. , Forbes calculated her net worth to be $355 million, and in June of the same year, ranked her as the 35th highest earning celebrity with annual earnings of $60 million. This tied Beyoncé with Madonna as the only two female artists to earn more than $100 million within a single year twice. As a couple, Beyoncé and Jay-Z have a combined net worth of $1.16 billion. In July 2017, Billboard announced that Beyoncé was the highest paid musician of 2016, with an estimated total of $62.1 million.
Impact
Beyoncé's success has led to her becoming a cultural icon and earning her the nickname "Queen Bey". In The New Yorker, music critic Jody Rosen described Beyoncé as "the most important and compelling popular musician of the twenty-first century ... the result, the logical end point, of a century-plus of pop." Author James Clear, in his book Atomic Habits (2018), draws a parallel between the singer's success and the dramatic transformations in modern society: "In the last one hundred years, we have seen the rise of the car, the airplane, the television, the personal computer, the internet, the smartphone, and Beyoncé." The Observer named her Artist of the Decade (2000s) in 2009.
Writing for Entertainment Weekly, Alex Suskind noticed how Beyoncé was the decade's (2010s) defining pop star, stating that "no one dominated music in the 2010s like Queen Bey", explaining that her "songs, album rollouts, stage presence, social justice initiatives, and disruptive public relations strategy have influenced the way we've viewed music since 2010." British publication NME also shared similar thoughts on her impact in the 2010s, including Beyoncé on their list of the "10 Artists Who Defined The Decade". In 2018, Rolling Stone included her on its Millennial 100 list.
Beyoncé is credited with the invention of the staccato rap-singing style that has since dominated pop, R&B and rap music. Lakin Starling of The Fader wrote that Beyoncé's innovative implementation of the delivery style on Destiny's Child's 1999 album The Writing's on the Wall invented a new form of R&B. Beyoncé's new style subsequently changed the nature of music, revolutionizing both singing in urban music and rapping in pop music, and becoming the dominant sound of both genres. The style helped to redefine both the breadth of commercial R&B and the sound of hip hop, with artists such as Kanye West and Drake implementing Beyoncé's cadence in the late 2000s and early 2010s. The staccato rap-singing style continued to be used in the music industry in the late 2010s and early 2020s; Aaron Williams of Uproxx described Beyoncé as the "primary pioneer" of the rapping style that dominates the music industry today, with many contemporary rappers implementing Beyoncé's rap-singing. Michael Eric Dyson agrees, saying that Beyoncé "changed the whole genre" and has become the "godmother" of mumble rappers, who use the staccato rap-singing cadence. Dyson added: "She doesn't get credit for the remarkable way in which she changed the musical vocabulary of contemporary art."
Beyoncé has been credited with reviving the album as an art form in an era dominated by singles and streaming. This started with her 2011 album 4; while mainstream R&B artists were forgoing albums-led R&B in favor of singles-led EDM, Beyoncé aimed to place the focus back on albums as an artform and re-establish R&B as a mainstream concern. This remained a focus of Beyoncé's, and in 2013, she made her eponymous album only available to purchase as a full album on iTunes, rather than being able to purchase individual tracks or consume the album via streaming. Kaitlin Menza of Marie Claire wrote that this made listeners "experience the album as one whole sonic experience, the way people used to, noting the musical and lyrical themes". Jamieson Cox for The Verge described how Beyoncé's 2013 album initiated a gradual trend of albums becoming more cohesive and self-referential, and this phenomenon reached its endpoint with Lemonade, which set "a new standard for pop storytelling at the highest possible scale". Megan Carpentier of The Guardian wrote that with Lemonade, Beyoncé has "almost revived the album format" by releasing an album that can only be listened to in its entirety. Myf Warhurst on Double J's "Lunch With Myf" explained that while most artists' albums consist of a few singles plus filler songs, Beyoncé "brought the album back", changing the art form of the album "to a narrative with an arc and a story and you have to listen to the entire thing to get the concept".
Several recording artists have cited Beyoncé as their influence. Lady Gaga explained how Beyoncé gave her the determination to become a musician, recalling seeing her in a Destiny's Child music video and saying: "Oh, she's a star. I want that." Rihanna was similarly inspired to start her singing career after watching Beyoncé, telling etalk that after Beyoncé released Dangerously In Love (2003), "I was like 'wow, I want to be just like that.' She's huge and just an inspiration." Lizzo was also first inspired by Beyoncé to start singing after watching her perform at a Destiny's Child concert. Lizzo also taught herself to sing by copying Beyoncé's B'Day (2006). Similarly, Ariana Grande said she learned to sing by mimicking Beyoncé. Adele cited Beyoncé as her inspiration and favorite artist, telling Vogue: "She's been a huge and constant part of my life as an artist since I was about ten or eleven ... I think she's really inspiring. She's beautiful. She's ridiculously talented, and she is one of the kindest people I've ever met ... She makes me want to do things with my life." Both Paul McCartney and Garth Brooks said they watch Beyoncé's performances to get inspiration for their own shows, with Brooks saying that when you watch one of her performances, "take out your notebook and take notes. No matter how long you've been on the stage – take notes on that one."
She is known for coining popular phrases such as "put a ring on it", a euphemism for marriage proposal, "I woke up like this", which started a trend of posting morning selfies with the hashtag #iwokeuplikethis, and "boy, bye", which was used as part of the Democratic National Committee's campaign for the 2020 election. Similarly, she also came up with the phrase "visual album" following the release of her fifth studio album, which had a video for every song. This has been recreated by many other artists since, such as Frank Ocean and Melanie Martinez. The album also popularized surprise releases, with many artists releasing songs, videos or albums with no prior announcement, such as Taylor Swift, Nicki Minaj, Eminem, Frank Ocean, Jay-Z and Drake.
In January 2012, research scientist Bryan Lessard named Scaptia beyonceae, a species of horse-fly found in Northern Queensland, Australia after Beyoncé due to the fly's unique golden hairs on its abdomen. In 2018, the City of Columbia, South Carolina declared August 21 the Beyoncé Knowles-Carter Day in the city after presenting her with the keys to Columbia.
Achievements
Beyoncé has received numerous awards, and is the most-awarded female artist of all time. As a solo artist she has sold over 17 million albums in the US, and over 75 million worldwide (as of February 2013). Having sold over 100 million records worldwide (a further 60 million additionally with Destiny's Child), Beyoncé is one of the best-selling music artists of all time. The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) listed Beyoncé as the top certified artist of the 2000s decade, with a total of 64 certifications. Her songs "Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)", "Halo", and "Irreplaceable" are some of the best-selling singles of all time worldwide. In 2009, Billboard named her the Top Female Artist and Top Radio Songs Artist of the Decade. In 2010, Billboard named her in their Top 50 R&B/Hip-Hop Artists of the Past 25 Years list at number 15. In 2012, VH1 ranked her third on their list of the "100 Greatest Women in Music", behind Mariah Carey and Madonna. In 2002, she received Songwriter of the Year from American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers becoming the First African American woman to win the award. In 2004 and 2019, she received NAACP Image Award for Entertainer of the Year and the Soul Train Music Award for Sammy Davis Jr. – Entertainer of the Year.
In 2005, she also received APEX Award at the Trumpet Award honoring achievements of Black African Americans. In 2007, Beyoncé received the International Artist of Excellence award by the American Music Awards. She also received Honorary Otto at the Bravo Otto. The following year, she received the Legend Award for Outstanding Contribution to the Arts at the World Music Awards and Career Achievement Award at the LOS40 Music Awards. In 2010, she received Award of Honor for Artist of the Decade at the NRJ Music Award and at the 2011 Billboard Music Awards, Beyoncé received the inaugural Billboard Millennium Award. Beyoncé received the Michael Jackson Video Vanguard Award at the 2014 MTV Video Music Awards and was honored as Honorary Mother of the Year at the Australian Mother of the Year Award in Barnardo's Australia for her Humanitarian Effort in the region and the Council of Fashion Designers of America Fashion Icon Award in 2016. In 2019, alongside Jay-Z, she received GLAAD Vanguard Award that is presented to a member of the entertainment community who does not identify as LGBT but who has made a significant difference in promoting equal rights for LGBT people. In 2020, she was awarded the BET Humanitarian Award. Consequence of Sound named her the 30th best singer of all time.
Beyoncé has won 28 Grammy Awards, both as a solo artist and member of Destiny's Child and The Carters, making her the most honored singer, male or female, by the Grammys. She is also the most nominated artist in Grammy Award history with a total of 79 nominations. "Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)" won Song of the Year in 2010 while "Say My Name", "Crazy in Love" and "Drunk in Love" have each won Best R&B Song. Dangerously in Love, B'Day and I Am... Sasha Fierce have all won Best Contemporary R&B Album, while Lemonade has won Best Urban Contemporary Album. Beyoncé set the record for the most Grammy awards won by a female artist in one night in 2010 when she won six awards, breaking the tie she previously held with Alicia Keys, Norah Jones, Alison Krauss, and Amy Winehouse, with Adele equaling this in 2012.
Beyoncé has also won 24 MTV Video Music Awards, making her the most-awarded artist in Video Music Award history. She won two awards each with The Carters and Destiny's Child making her lifetime total of 28 VMAs. "Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)" and "Formation" won Video of the Year in 2009 and 2016 respectively. Beyoncé tied the record set by Lady Gaga in 2010 for the most VMAs won in one night for a female artist with eight in 2016. She is also the most-awarded and nominated artist in BET Award history, winning 29 awards from a total of 60 nominations, the most-awarded person at the Soul Train Music Awards with 17 awards as a solo artist, and the most-awarded person at the NAACP Image Awards with 24 awards as a solo artist.
Following her role in Dreamgirls, Beyoncé was nominated for Best Original Song for "Listen" and Best Actress at the Golden Globe Awards, and Outstanding Actress in a Motion Picture at the NAACP Image Awards. Beyoncé won two awards at the Broadcast Film Critics Association Awards 2006; Best Song for "Listen" and Best Original Soundtrack for Dreamgirls: Music from the Motion Picture. According to Fuse in 2014, Beyoncé is the second-most award-winning artist of all time, after Michael Jackson. Lemonade won a Peabody Award in 2017.
She was named on the 2016 BBC Radio 4 Woman's Hour Power List as one of seven women judged to have had the biggest impact on women's lives over the past 70 years, alongside Margaret Thatcher, Barbara Castle, Helen Brook, Germaine Greer, Jayaben Desai and Bridget Jones, She was named the Most Powerful Woman in Music on the same list in 2020. In the same year, Billboard named her with Destiny's Child the third Greatest Music Video artists of all time, behind Madonna and Michael Jackson.
On June 16, 2021, Beyoncé was among several celebrities at the Pollstar Awards where she won the award of "top touring artist" of the decade (2010s). On June 17, 2021, Beyoncé was inducted into the Black Music & Entertainment Walk of Fame as a member of the inaugural class.
Business and ventures
In 2010, Beyoncé founded her own entertainment company Parkwood Entertainment which formed as an imprint based from Columbia Records, the company began as a production unit for videos and films in 2008. Parkwood Entertainment is named after a street in Houston, Texas where Beyoncé once lived. With headquarters in New York City, the company serves as an umbrella for the entertainer's various brands in music, movies, videos, and fashion. The staff of Parkwood Entertainment have experiences in arts and entertainment, from filmmaking and video production to web and fashion design. In addition to departments in marketing, digital, creative, publicity, fashion design and merchandising, the company houses a state-of-the-art editing suite, where Beyoncé works on content for her worldwide tours, music videos, and television specials. Parkwood Entertainment's first production was the musical biopic Cadillac Records (2008), in which Beyoncé starred and co-produced. The company has also distributed Beyoncé's albums such as her self-titled fifth studio album (2013), Lemonade (2016) and The Carters, Everything is Love (2018). Beyoncé has also signed other artists to Parkwood such as Chloe x Halle, who performed at Super Bowl LIII in February 2019.
Endorsements and partnerships
Beyoncé has worked with Pepsi since 2002, and in 2004 appeared in a Gladiator-themed commercial with Britney Spears, Pink, and Enrique Iglesias. In 2012, Beyoncé signed a $50 million deal to endorse Pepsi. The Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPINET) wrote Beyoncé an open letter asking her to reconsider the deal because of the unhealthiness of the product and to donate the proceeds to a medical organisation. Nevertheless, NetBase found that Beyoncé's campaign was the most talked about endorsement in April 2013, with a 70 percent positive audience response to the commercial and print ads.
Beyoncé has worked with Tommy Hilfiger for the fragrances True Star (singing a cover version of "Wishing on a Star") and True Star Gold; she also promoted Emporio Armani's Diamonds fragrance in 2007. Beyoncé launched her first official fragrance, Heat, in 2010. The commercial, which featured the 1956 song "Fever", was shown after the watershed in the United Kingdom as it begins with an image of Beyoncé appearing to lie naked in a room. In February 2011, Beyoncé launched her second fragrance, Heat Rush. Beyoncé's third fragrance, Pulse, was launched in September 2011. In 2013, The Mrs. Carter Show Limited Edition version of Heat was released. The six editions of Heat are the world's best-selling celebrity fragrance line, with sales of over $400 million.
The release of a video-game Starpower: Beyoncé was cancelled after Beyoncé pulled out of a $100 million with GateFive who alleged the cancellation meant the sacking of 70 staff and millions of pounds lost in development. It was settled out of court by her lawyers in June 2013 who said that they had cancelled because GateFive had lost its financial backers. Beyoncé also has had deals with American Express, Nintendo DS and L'Oréal since the age of 18.
In March 2015, Beyoncé became a co-owner, with other artists, of the music streaming service Tidal. The service specializes in lossless audio and high definition music videos. Beyoncé's husband Jay-Z acquired the parent company of Tidal, Aspiro, in the first quarter of 2015. Including Beyoncé and Jay-Z, sixteen artist stakeholders (such as Kanye West, Rihanna, Madonna, Chris Martin, Nicki Minaj and more) co-own Tidal, with the majority owning a 3% equity stake. The idea of having an all artist owned streaming service was created by those involved to adapt to the increased demand for streaming within the current music industry.
In November 2020, Beyoncé formed a multi-year partnership with exercise equipment and media company Peloton. The partnership was formed to celebrate homecoming season in historically black colleges and universities, providing themed workout experiences inspired by Beyoncé's 2019 Homecoming film and live album after 2020's homecoming celebrations were cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic. As part of the partnership, Beyoncé and Peloton are donating free memberships to all students at 10 HBCUs, and Peloton are pursuing long-term recruiting partnerships at the HCBUs. Gwen Bethel Riley, head of music at Peloton, said: "When we had conversations with Beyoncé around how critical a social impact component was to all of us, it crystallized how important it was to embrace Homecoming as an opportunity to celebrate and create dialogue around Black culture and music, in partnership with HBCUs." Upon news of the partnership, a decline in Peloton's shares reversed, and its shares rose by 8.6%.
In 2021, Beyoncé and Jay-Z partnered with Tiffany & Co. for the company's "About Love" campaign. Beyoncé became the fourth woman, and first Black woman, to wear the Tiffany Yellow Diamond. The campaign featured a robin egg blue painting by Jean-Michel Basquiat titled Equals Pi (1982).
Fashion lines
Beyoncé and her mother introduced House of Deréon, a contemporary women's fashion line, in 2005. The concept is inspired by three generations of women in their family, with the name paying tribute to Beyoncé's grandmother, Agnèz Deréon, a respected seamstress. According to Tina, the overall style of the line best reflects her and Beyoncé's taste and style. Beyoncé and her mother founded their family's company Beyond Productions, which provides the licensing and brand management for House of Deréon, and its junior collection, Deréon. House of Deréon pieces were exhibited in Destiny's Child's shows and tours, during their Destiny Fulfilled era. The collection features sportswear, denim offerings with fur, outerwear and accessories that include handbags and footwear, and are available at department and specialty stores across the U.S. and Canada.
In 2005, Beyoncé teamed up with House of Brands, a shoe company, to produce a range of footwear for House of Deréon. In January 2008, Starwave Mobile launched Beyoncé Fashion Diva, a "high-style" mobile game with a social networking component, featuring the House of Deréon collection. In July 2009, Beyoncé and her mother launched a new junior apparel label, Sasha Fierce for Deréon, for back-to-school selling. The collection included sportswear, outerwear, handbags, footwear, eyewear, lingerie and jewelry. It was available at department stores including Macy's and Dillard's, and specialty stores Jimmy Jazz and Against All Odds. On May 27, 2010, Beyoncé teamed up with clothing store C&A to launch Deréon by Beyoncé at their stores in Brazil. The collection included tailored blazers with padded shoulders, little black dresses, embroidered tops and shirts and bandage dresses.
In October 2014, Beyoncé signed a deal to launch an activewear line of clothing with British fashion retailer Topshop. The 50–50 venture is called Ivy Park and was launched in April 2016. The brand's name is a nod to Beyoncé's daughter and her favourite number four (IV in roman numerals), and also references the park where she used to run in Texas. She has since bought out Topshop owner Philip Green from his 50% share after he was alleged to have sexually harassed, bullied and racially abused employees. She now owns the brand herself. On April 4, 2019, it was announced that Beyoncé would become a creative partner with Adidas and further develop her athletic brand Ivy Park with the company. Knowles will also develop new clothes and footwear for Adidas. Shares for the company rose 1.3% upon the news release. On December 9, 2019, they announced a launch date of January 18, 2020. Beyoncé uploaded a teaser on her website and Instagram. The collection was also previewed on the upcoming Elle January 2020 issue, where Beyoncé is seen wearing several garments, accessories and footwear from the first collection.
Philanthropy
In 2002, Beyoncé, Kelly Rowland and Tina Knowles built the Knowles-Rowland Center for Youth, a community center in Downtown Houston. After Hurricane Katrina in 2005, Beyoncé and Rowland founded the Survivor Foundation to provide transitional housing to displaced families and provide means for new building construction, to which Beyoncé contributed an initial $250,000. The foundation has since expanded to work with other charities in the city, and also provided relief following Hurricane Ike three years later. Beyoncé also donated $100,000 to the Gulf Coast Ike Relief Fund. In 2007, Beyoncé founded the Knowles-Temenos Place Apartments, a housing complex offering living space for 43 displaced individuals. As of 2016, Beyoncé had donated $7 million for the maintenance of the complex.
After starring in Cadillac Records in 2009 and learning about Phoenix House, a non-profit drug and alcohol rehabilitation organization, Beyoncé donated her full $4 million salary from the film to the organization. Beyoncé and her mother subsequently established the Beyoncé Cosmetology Center, which offers a seven-month cosmetology training course helping Phoenix House's clients gain career skills during their recovery.
In January 2010, Beyoncé participated in George Clooney and Wyclef Jean's Hope for Haiti Now: A Global Benefit for Earthquake Relief telethon, donated a large sum to the organization, and was named the official face of the limited edition CFDA "Fashion For Haiti" T-shirt, made by Theory which raised a total of $1 million. In April 2011, Beyoncé joined forces with U.S. First Lady Michelle Obama and the National Association of Broadcasters Education Foundation, to help boost the latter's campaign against child obesity by reworking her single "Get Me Bodied". Following the death of Osama bin Laden, Beyoncé released her cover of the Lee Greenwood song "God Bless the USA", as a charity single to help raise funds for the New York Police and Fire Widows' and Children's Benefit Fund.
Beyoncé became an ambassador for the 2012 World Humanitarian Day campaign donating her song "I Was Here" and its music video, shot in the UN, to the campaign. In 2013, it was announced that Beyoncé would work with Salma Hayek and Frida Giannini on a Gucci "Chime for Change" campaign that aims to spread female empowerment. The campaign, which aired on February 28, was set to her new music. A concert for the cause took place on June 1, 2013, in London. With help of the crowdfunding platform Catapult, visitors of the concert could choose between several projects promoting education of women and girls. Beyoncé also took part in "Miss a Meal", a food-donation campaign, and supported Goodwill Industries through online charity auctions at Charitybuzz that support job creation throughout Europe and the U.S.
Beyoncé and Jay-Z secretly donated tens of thousands of dollars to bail out Black Lives Matter protesters in Baltimore and Ferguson, as well as funded infrastructure for the establishment of Black Lives Matter chapters across the US. Before Beyoncé's Formation World Tour show in Tampa, her team held a private luncheon for more than 20 community leaders to discuss how Beyoncé could support local charitable initiatives, including pledging on the spot to fund 10 scholarships to provide students with financial aid. Tampa Sports Authority board member Thomas Scott said: "I don't know of a prior artist meeting with the community, seeing what their needs are, seeing how they can invest in the community. It says a lot to me about Beyoncé. She not only goes into a community and walks away with (money), but she also gives money back to that community." In June 2016, Beyoncé donated over $82,000 to the United Way of Genesee County to support victims of the Flint water crisis. Beyoncé additionally donated money to support 14 students in Michigan with their college expenses. In August 2016, Beyoncé and Jay-Z donated $1.5 million to civil rights groups including Black Lives Matter, Hands Up United and Dream Defenders. After Hurricane Matthew, Beyoncé and Jay-Z donated $15 million to the Usain Bolt Foundation to support its efforts in rebuilding homes in Haiti. In December 2016, Beyoncé was named the Most Charitable Celebrity of the year.
During Hurricane Harvey in August 2017, Beyoncé launched BeyGOOD Houston to support those affected by the hurricane in Houston. The organization donated necessities such as cots, blankets, pillows, baby products, feminine products and wheelchairs, and funded long-term revitalization projects. On September 8, Beyoncé visited Houston, where she sponsored a lunch for 400 survivors at her local church, visited the George R Brown Convention Center to discuss with people displaced by the flooding about their needs, served meals to those who lost their homes, and made a significant donation to local causes. Beyoncé additionally donated $75,000 worth of new mattresses to survivors of the hurricane. Later that month, Beyoncé released a remix of J Balvin and Willy William's "Mi Gente", with all of her proceeds being donated to disaster relief charities in Puerto Rico, Mexico, the U.S. and the Caribbean after hurricanes Harvey, Irma and Maria, and the Chiapas and Puebla earthquakes.
In April 2020, Beyoncé donated $6 million to the National Alliance in Mental Health, UCLA and local community-based organizations in order to provide mental health and personal wellness services to essential workers during the COVID-19 pandemic. BeyGOOD also teamed up with local organizations to help provide resources to communities of color, including food, water, cleaning supplies, medicines and face masks. The same month Beyoncé released a remix of Megan Thee Stallion's "Savage", with all proceeds benefiting Bread of Life Houston's COVID-19 relief efforts, which includes providing over 14 tons of food and supplies to 500 families and 100 senior citizens in Houston weekly. In May 2020, Beyoncé provided 1,000 free COVID-19 tests in Houston as part of her and her mother's #IDidMyPart initiative, which was established due to the disproportionate deaths in African-American communities. Additionally, 1,000 gloves, masks, hot meals, essential vitamins, grocery vouchers and household items were provided. In July 2020, Beyoncé established the Black-Owned Small Business Impact Fund in partnership with the NAACP, which offers $10,000 grants to black-owned small businesses in need following the George Floyd protests. All proceeds from Beyoncé's single "Black Parade" were donated to the fund. In September 2020, Beyoncé announced that she had donated an additional $1 million to the fund. As of December 31, 2020, the fund had given 715 grants to black-owned small businesses, amounting to $7.15 million donated. In October 2020, Beyoncé released a statement that she has been working with the Feminist Coalition to assist supporters of the End Sars movement in Nigeria, including covering medical costs for injured protestors, covering legal fees for arrested protestors, and providing food, emergency shelter, transportation and telecommunication means to those in need. Beyoncé also showed support for those fighting against other issues in Africa, such as the Anglophone Crisis in Cameroon, ShutItAllDown in Namibia, Zimbabwean Lives Matter in Zimbabwe and the Rape National Emergency in Liberia. In December 2020, Beyoncé donated $500,000 to help alleviate the housing crisis in the U.S. caused by the cessation of the eviction moratorium, giving 100 $5,000 grants to individuals and families facing foreclosures and evictions.
Discography
Dangerously in Love (2003)
B'Day (2006)
I Am... Sasha Fierce (2008)
4 (2011)
Beyoncé (2013)
Lemonade (2016)
Filmography
Films starred
Carmen: A Hip Hopera (2001)
Austin Powers in Goldmember (2002)
The Fighting Temptations (2003)
Fade to Black (2004)
The Pink Panther (2006)
Dreamgirls (2006)
Cadillac Records (2008)
Obsessed (2009)
Epic (2013)
The Lion King (2019)
Films directed
Life Is But a Dream (2013)
Beyoncé: Lemonade (2016)
Homecoming (2019)
Black Is King (2020)
Tours and residencies
Headlining tours
Dangerously in Love Tour (2003)
The Beyoncé Experience (2007)
I Am... World Tour (2009–2010)
The Mrs. Carter Show World Tour (2013–2014)
The Formation World Tour (2016)
Co-headlining tours
Verizon Ladies First Tour (with Alicia Keys and Missy Elliott) (2004)
On the Run Tour (with Jay-Z) (2014)
On the Run II Tour (with Jay-Z) (2018)
Residencies
I Am... Yours (2009)
4 Intimate Nights with Beyoncé (2011)
Revel Presents: Beyoncé Live (2012)
See also
Album era
Honorific nicknames in popular music
List of artists who reached number one in the United States
List of artists with the most number ones on the U.S. dance chart
List of Billboard Social 50 number-one artists
List of black Golden Globe Award winners and nominees
List of highest-grossing concert tours
Best-selling female artists of all time
List of most-followed Instagram accounts
Notes
References
External links
1981 births
Living people
20th-century American businesspeople
20th-century American businesswomen
20th-century American singers
20th-century American women singers
21st-century American actresses
21st-century American businesspeople
21st-century American businesswomen
21st-century American singers
21st-century American women singers
Actresses from Houston
African-American actresses
African-American artists
African-American businesspeople
African-American choreographers
African-American dancers
African-American fashion designers
American fashion designers
African-American female dancers
African-American women rappers
African-American women singers
African-American feminists
African-American Methodists
African-American record producers
African-American women in business
African-American women writers
American women business executives
American choreographers
American contemporary R&B singers
American cosmetics businesspeople
American fashion businesspeople
American women pop singers
American film actresses
American hip hop record producers
American female hip hop singers
American hip hop singers
American mezzo-sopranos
American music publishers (people)
American music video directors
American people of Creole descent
American retail chief executives
American soul singers
American television actresses
American United Methodists
American voice actresses
American women philanthropists
American women record producers
Black Lives Matter people
Brit Award winners
Businesspeople from Houston
Columbia Records artists
Dance-pop musicians
Destiny's Child members
Female music video directors
Feminist musicians
Gold Star Records artists
Grammy Award winners
Grammy Award winners for rap music
High School for the Performing and Visual Arts alumni
Ivor Novello Award winners
Jay-Z
Solange Knowles
Louisiana Creole people
MTV Europe Music Award winners
Music video codirectors
Musicians from Houston
NME Awards winners
Parkwood Entertainment artists
Record producers from Texas
Shoe designers
Singers from Texas
Singers with a four-octave vocal range
Texas Democrats
Women hip hop record producers
World Music Awards winners
Writers from Houston | true | [
"\"Sober\" is a song by American rapper G-Eazy, featuring vocals from American singer-songwriter Charlie Puth. It was released via RCA Records on December 8, 2017, as the third single from G-Eazy's third studio album, The Beautiful & Damned. Puth produced the song with Dakari and the Futuristics, and they wrote the song with G-Eazy alongside Matt Dragstrem and Edgar Machuca.\n\nBackground\nG-Eazy revealed the album's full track listing alongside the single release. Talking about how the collaboration came together, Eazy told MTV News: \"Charlie is one of the most talented individuals in music. He's a really special artist. We met a while ago when we're touring in Europe, and we're playing venues right next to each other. We clicked up that night and just talked and just vibed, and I found out he is a huge fan of the Bay Area hip hop, it was a huge new found respect for him on that level.\" He also explained his reasoning for the title of the song, saying: \"I try to illustrate both sides, you know what I mean? There's definitely the fun side of going out and partying. I'm out all the time. But then there's also that reality of — I try to paint the picture of the other side, living with that [feeling], what did I do last night? But it's all about finding that medium, and I think that's ultimately [the meaning of] The Beautiful & Damned, is to not end up way out there, and to keep yourself in check and try to find that balance, find moderation, or whatever.\"\n\nIn an interview with Billboard, Puth said that he wrote the song with Breyan Issac and Ester Dean in 2015, which was a dark point in his life, and that he had someone in mind when he wrote it. He continued: \"You never know where these songs are gonna go. I had originally written verses, like sing-y verses, and it just didn't feel right. It felt like it needed an Eminem type story. When I heard G's verses on it, they just happened to be something similar to what I went through. There is no other person who could have done it better than G. I love G. Young Gerald, Eazy season. He's my tallest friend.\"\n\nCritical reception\nMegan Armstrong of Billboard made the metaphor of G-Eazy's rapping being \"the devil on one shoulder\" and Puth's voice being \"the angel on the other [shoulder]\". She praised both artists for playing off their contrast in styles. Deepa Lakshmin of MTV News felt \"G-Eazy's rap verses blend perfectly with Puth's smooth vocals\". Mike Wass of Idolator regarded the song as \"a bro-anthem\" and \"an ode to, and a cautionary tale about, drunken nights\". He praised Puth for providing \"an instantly hummable chorus\".\n\nCredits and personnel\nCredits adapted from Tidal.\n G-Eazy – songwriting\n Charlie Puth – songwriting, production\n Breyan Isaac – songwriting\n The Futuristics – songwriting, production\n Ester Dean – songwriting\n Matt Dragstrem – songwriting\n Dakarai Gwitira – songwriting, production, record engineering\n Edgar Machuca – songwriting\n Jaycen Joshua – mix engineering\n Ben Milchev – engineering assistance\n David Nakaji – engineering assistance\n\nCharts\n\nCertifications\n\nRelease history\n\nReferences\n\n2017 songs\n2017 singles\nG-Eazy songs\nCharlie Puth songs\nRCA Records singles\nSongs written by Breyan Isaac\nSongs written by Ester Dean\nSongs written by Charlie Puth\nSong recordings produced by the Futuristics\nSongs written by Joe Khajadourian\nSongs written by Alex Schwartz\nSongs written by Matt Dragstrem\nSongs written by G-Eazy",
"Seela Misra is a Canadian-born singer-songwriter residing in Austin, Texas. She was the lead singer of the jazz band TOrcH and is also the back-up singer for Matt the Electrician. Seela is known for an expressive vocal range, \"one moment she rasps like a Jersey deli queen, the next she's cooing coquettishly.\" This is evident in her solo work and when delivering jazz standards with the Jazz Pharaohs or with TOrcH where she has been credited with \"unswerving hipness\" succeeding where others have failed \"in melding her own style with those from the past.\"\n\nSeela's initial foray into recording, Probably Lucy (1994) conveyed \"a spare sultriness,\" and was called \"a languid acoustic romp through the varied terrain of the poetic heart,\" quickly selling out its first pressing. \"Dark and atmospheric,\" her follow-up album, Something Happened (1999), received criticism for inconsistent songwriting; \"the head lady has not found quite enough songs to fill 56 minutes,\" while simultaneously admitting \"what her songwriting lacks in answers, it makes up for in mood.\"\n\nIndeed, depth of mood and emotion, thus far, has defined her career and stage presence: \"Her stare is direct, like Krishna contemplating Radha,\" while her \"voice is her main calling card, soft and inviting, belying the darkness in her songs.\" \"Sonically compelling,\" Seela is sought out in the Austin music scene, adding vocals to albums across a wide range of genres, while complimenting numerous artists on stage. Seela released her fourth studio album, Valentine in 2013.\n\nPerformed with\nSean Hayes, Ian McLagan, Craig Ross, Tom Freund, Stanley Smith, Freedy Johnston, Ephraim Owens, Eric Beverly, Whammo, Jon Greene.\n\nDiscography\n\nSolo\nProbably Lucy (1994) \nSomething Happened (1999)\nHard Times Hit (2003)\nRock With Us (2004) with 4-Eyes, Live\nValentine (2013)\nTrack you Down (2016)\nCool (2020)\n\nwith TOrcH\nSounds for Staying Home (2002)\nBefore the Night is Over (2005)\nCharmed (2007)\n\nSee also \n Music of Austin\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\nSeela Official website\n\nLiving people\nAmerican women singer-songwriters\nAmerican singer-songwriters\nYear of birth missing (living people)\nCanadian emigrants to the United States\n21st-century American women"
]
|
[
"Beyoncé",
"Voice and songwriting",
"what happened with voice and songwriting?",
"Jody Rosen highlights her tone and timbre as particularly distinctive, describing her voice as \"one of the most compelling instruments in popular music"
]
| C_1128b8d67bcb48feb77ec450ae614b45_1 | what else does she say about her voice? | 2 | What does Jody Rosen say about Beyonce's voice, in addition to her tone and timbre? | Beyoncé | Jody Rosen highlights her tone and timbre as particularly distinctive, describing her voice as "one of the most compelling instruments in popular music". Her vocal abilities mean she is identified as the centerpiece of Destiny's Child. Jon Pareles of The New York Times commented that her voice is "velvety yet tart, with an insistent flutter and reserves of soul belting". Rosen notes that the hip hop era highly influenced Beyonce's unique rhythmic vocal style, but also finds her quite traditionalist in her use of balladry, gospel and falsetto. Other critics praise her range and power, with Chris Richards of The Washington Post saying she was "capable of punctuating any beat with goose-bump-inducing whispers or full-bore diva-roars." Beyonce's music is generally R&B, but she also incorporates pop, soul and funk into her songs. 4 demonstrated Beyonce's exploration of 1990s-style R&B, as well as further use of soul and hip hop than compared to previous releases. While she almost exclusively releases English songs, Beyonce recorded several Spanish songs for Irreemplazable (re-recordings of songs from B'Day for a Spanish-language audience), and the re-release of B'Day. To record these, Beyonce was coached phonetically by American record producer Rudy Perez. She has received co-writing credits for most of the songs recorded with Destiny's Child and her solo efforts. Her early songs were personally driven and female-empowerment themed compositions like "Independent Women" and "Survivor", but after the start of her relationship with Jay-Z, she transitioned to more man-tending anthems such as "Cater 2 U". Beyonce has also received co-producing credits for most of the records in which she has been involved, especially during her solo efforts. However, she does not formulate beats herself, but typically comes up with melodies and ideas during production, sharing them with producers. In 2001, she became the first black woman and second female lyricist to win the Pop Songwriter of the Year award at the American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers Pop Music Awards. Beyonce was the third woman to have writing credits on three number one songs ("Irreplaceable", "Grillz" and "Check on It") in the same year, after Carole King in 1971 and Mariah Carey in 1991. She is tied with American lyricist Diane Warren at third with nine song-writing credits on number-one singles. (The latter wrote her 9/11-motivated song "I Was Here" for 4.) In May 2011, Billboard magazine listed Beyonce at number 17 on their list of the "Top 20 Hot 100 Songwriters", for having co-written eight singles that hit number one on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. She was one of only three women on that list, along with Alicia Keys and Taylor Swift. CANNOTANSWER | Her vocal abilities mean she is identified as the centerpiece of Destiny's Child. | Beyoncé Giselle Knowles-Carter ( ; born September 4, 1981) is an American singer, songwriter, and actress. Born and raised in Houston, Texas, Beyoncé performed in various singing and dancing competitions as a child. She rose to fame in the late 1990s as the lead singer of Destiny's Child, one of the best-selling girl groups of all time. Their hiatus saw the release of her debut solo album Dangerously in Love (2003), which featured the US Billboard Hot 100 number-one singles "Crazy in Love" and "Baby Boy".
Following the 2006 disbanding of Destiny's Child, she released her second solo album, B'Day, which contained singles "Irreplaceable" and "Beautiful Liar". Beyoncé also starred in multiple films such as The Pink Panther (2006), Dreamgirls (2006), Obsessed (2009), and The Lion King (2019). Her marriage to Jay-Z and her portrayal of Etta James in Cadillac Records (2008) influenced her third album, I Am... Sasha Fierce (2008), which earned a record-setting six Grammy Awards in 2010. It spawned the successful singles "If I Were a Boy", "Single Ladies", and "Halo".
After splitting from her manager and father Mathew Knowles in 2010, Beyoncé released her musically diverse fourth album 4 in 2011. She later achieved universal acclaim for her sonically experimental visual albums, Beyoncé (2013) and Lemonade (2016), the latter of which was the world's best-selling album of 2016 and the most acclaimed album of her career, exploring themes of infidelity and womanism. In 2018, she released Everything Is Love, a collaborative album with her husband, Jay-Z, as the Carters. As a featured artist, Beyoncé topped the Billboard Hot 100 with the remixes of "Perfect" by Ed Sheeran in 2017 and "Savage" by Megan Thee Stallion in 2020. The same year, she released the musical film and visual album Black Is King to widespread acclaim.
Beyoncé is one of the world's best-selling recording artists, having sold 120 million records worldwide. She is the first solo artist to have their first six studio albums debut at number one on the Billboard 200. Her success during the 2000s was recognized with the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA)'s Top Certified Artist of the Decade as well as Billboard Top Female Artist of the Decade. Beyoncé's accolades include 28 Grammy Awards, 26 MTV Video Music Awards (including the Michael Jackson Video Vanguard Award in 2014), 24 NAACP Image Awards, 31 BET Awards, and 17 Soul Train Music Awards; all of which are more than any other singer. In 2014, Billboard named her the highest-earning black musician of all time, while in 2020, she was included on Times list of 100 women who defined the last century.
Life and career
1981–1996: Early life and career beginnings
Beyonce Giselle Knowles was born on September 4, 1981, in Houston, Texas, to Celestine "Tina" Knowles (née Beyonce), a hairdresser and salon owner, and Mathew Knowles, a Xerox sales manager; Tina is Louisiana Creole, and Mathew is African American. Beyonce's younger sister Solange Knowles is also a singer and a former backup dancer for Destiny's Child. Solange and Beyoncé are the first sisters to have both had No. 1 albums.
Beyoncé's maternal grandparents, Lumas Beyince, and Agnez Dereon (daughter of Odilia Broussard and Eugene DeRouen), were French-speaking Louisiana Creoles, with roots in New Iberia. Beyoncé is considered a Creole, passed on to her by her grandparents. Through her mother, Beyoncé is a descendant of many French aristocrats from the southwest of France, including the family of the Viscounts de Béarn since the 9th century, and the Viscounts de Belzunce. She is also a descendant of Jean-Vincent d'Abbadie de Saint-Castin, a French nobleman and military leader who fought along the indigenous Abenaki against the British in Acadia and of Acadian leader Joseph Broussard. Her fourth great-grandmother, Marie-Françoise Trahan, was born in 1774 in Bangor, located on Belle Île, France. Trahan was a daughter of Acadians who had taken refuge on Belle Île after the British deportation. The Estates of Brittany had divided the lands of Belle Île to distribute them among 78 other Acadian families and the already settled inhabitants. The Trahan family lived on Belle Île for over ten years before immigrating to Louisiana, where she married a Broussard descendant. Beyoncé researched her ancestry and discovered that she is descended from a slave owner who married his slave.
Beyoncé was raised Catholic and attended St. Mary's Montessori School in Houston, where she enrolled in dance classes. Her singing was discovered when dance instructor Darlette Johnson began humming a song and she finished it, able to hit the high-pitched notes. Beyoncé's interest in music and performing continued after winning a school talent show at age seven, singing John Lennon's "Imagine" to beat 15/16-year-olds. In the fall of 1990, Beyoncé enrolled in Parker Elementary School, a music magnet school in Houston, where she would perform with the school's choir. She also attended the High School for the Performing and Visual Arts and later Alief Elsik High School. Beyoncé was also a member of the choir at St. John's United Methodist Church as a soloist for two years.
When Beyoncé was eight, she met LaTavia Roberson at an audition for an all-girl entertainment group. They were placed into a group called Girl's Tyme with three other girls, and rapped and danced on the talent show circuit in Houston. After seeing the group, R&B producer Arne Frager brought them to his Northern California studio and placed them in Star Search, the largest talent show on national TV at the time. Girl's Tyme failed to win, and Beyoncé later said the song they performed was not good. In 1995, Beyoncé's father resigned from his job to manage the group. The move reduced Beyoncé's family's income by half, and her parents were forced to move into separated apartments. Mathew cut the original line-up to four and the group continued performing as an opening act for other established R&B girl groups. The girls auditioned before record labels and were finally signed to Elektra Records, moving to Atlanta Records briefly to work on their first recording, only to be cut by the company. This put further strain on the family, and Beyoncé's parents separated. On October 5, 1995, Dwayne Wiggins's Grass Roots Entertainment signed the group. In 1996, the girls began recording their debut album under an agreement with Sony Music, the Knowles family reunited, and shortly after, the group got a contract with Columbia Records.
1997–2002: Destiny's Child
The group changed their name to Destiny's Child in 1996, based upon a passage in the Book of Isaiah. In 1997, Destiny's Child released their major label debut song "Killing Time" on the soundtrack to the 1997 film Men in Black. In November, the group released their debut single and first major hit, "No, No, No". They released their self-titled debut album in February 1998, which established the group as a viable act in the music industry, with moderate sales and winning the group three Soul Train Lady of Soul Awards for Best R&B/Soul Album of the Year, Best R&B/Soul or Rap New Artist, and Best R&B/Soul Single for "No, No, No". The group released their Multi-Platinum second album The Writing's on the Wall in 1999. The record features some of the group's most widely known songs such as "Bills, Bills, Bills", the group's first number-one single, "Jumpin' Jumpin' and "Say My Name", which became their most successful song at the time, and would remain one of their signature songs. "Say My Name" won the Best R&B Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocals and the Best R&B Song at the 43rd Annual Grammy Awards. The Writing's on the Wall sold more than eight million copies worldwide. During this time, Beyoncé recorded a duet with Marc Nelson, an original member of Boyz II Men, on the song "After All Is Said and Done" for the soundtrack to the 1999 film, The Best Man.
LeToya Luckett and Roberson became unhappy with Mathew's managing of the band and eventually were replaced by Farrah Franklin and Michelle Williams. Beyoncé experienced depression following the split with Luckett and Roberson after being publicly blamed by the media, critics, and blogs for its cause. Her long-standing boyfriend left her at this time. The depression was so severe it lasted for a couple of years, during which she occasionally kept herself in her bedroom for days and refused to eat anything. Beyoncé stated that she struggled to speak about her depression because Destiny's Child had just won their first Grammy Award, and she feared no one would take her seriously. Beyoncé would later speak of her mother as the person who helped her fight it. Franklin was then dismissed, leaving just Beyoncé, Rowland, and Williams.
The remaining band members recorded "Independent Women Part I", which appeared on the soundtrack to the 2000 film Charlie's Angels. It became their best-charting single, topping the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 chart for eleven consecutive weeks. In early 2001, while Destiny's Child was completing their third album, Beyoncé landed a major role in the MTV made-for-television film, Carmen: A Hip Hopera, starring alongside American actor Mekhi Phifer. Set in Philadelphia, the film is a modern interpretation of the 19th-century opera Carmen by French composer Georges Bizet. When the third album Survivor was released in May 2001, Luckett and Roberson filed a lawsuit claiming that the songs were aimed at them. The album debuted at number one on the U.S. Billboard 200, with first-week sales of 663,000 copies sold. The album spawned other number-one hits, "Bootylicious" and the title track, "Survivor", the latter of which earned the group a Grammy Award for Best R&B Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocals. After releasing their holiday album 8 Days of Christmas in October 2001, the group announced a hiatus to further pursue solo careers.
In July 2002, Beyoncé made her theatrical film debut, playing Foxxy Cleopatra alongside Mike Myers in the comedy film Austin Powers in Goldmember, which spent its first weekend atop the U.S. box office and grossed $73 million. Beyoncé released "Work It Out" as the lead single from its soundtrack album which entered the top ten in the UK, Norway, and Belgium. In 2003, Beyoncé starred opposite Cuba Gooding, Jr., in the musical comedy The Fighting Temptations as Lilly, a single mother with whom Gooding's character falls in love. The film received mixed reviews from critics but grossed $30 million in the U.S. Beyoncé released "Fighting Temptation" as the lead single from the film's soundtrack album, with Missy Elliott, MC Lyte, and Free which was also used to promote the film. Another of Beyoncé's contributions to the soundtrack, "Summertime", fared better on the U.S. charts.
2003–2005: Dangerously in Love and Destiny Fulfilled
Beyoncé's first solo recording was a feature on Jay-Z's song '03 Bonnie & Clyde" that was released in October 2002, peaking at number four on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 chart. On June 14, 2003, Beyoncé premiered songs from her first solo album Dangerously in Love during her first solo concert and the pay-per-view television special, "Ford Presents Beyoncé Knowles, Friends & Family, Live From Ford's 100th Anniversary Celebration in Dearborn, Michigan". The album was released on June 24, 2003, after Michelle Williams and Kelly Rowland had released their solo efforts. The album sold 317,000 copies in its first week, debuted atop the Billboard 200, and has since sold 11 million copies worldwide. The album's lead single, "Crazy in Love", featuring Jay-Z, became Beyoncé's first number-one single as a solo artist in the US. The single "Baby Boy" also reached number one, and singles, "Me, Myself and I" and "Naughty Girl", both reached the top-five. The album earned Beyoncé a then record-tying five awards at the 46th Annual Grammy Awards; Best Contemporary R&B Album, Best Female R&B Vocal Performance for "Dangerously in Love 2", Best R&B Song and Best Rap/Sung Collaboration for "Crazy in Love", and Best R&B Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocals for "The Closer I Get to You" with Luther Vandross. During the ceremony, she performed with Prince.
In November 2003, she embarked on the Dangerously in Love Tour in Europe and later toured alongside Missy Elliott and Alicia Keys for the Verizon Ladies First Tour in North America. On February 1, 2004, Beyoncé performed the American national anthem at Super Bowl XXXVIII, at the Reliant Stadium in Houston, Texas. After the release of Dangerously in Love, Beyoncé had planned to produce a follow-up album using several of the left-over tracks. However, this was put on hold so she could concentrate on recording Destiny Fulfilled, the final studio album by Destiny's Child. Released on November 15, 2004, in the US and peaking at number two on the Billboard 200, Destiny Fulfilled included the singles "Lose My Breath" and "Soldier", which reached the top five on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. Destiny's Child embarked on a worldwide concert tour, Destiny Fulfilled... and Lovin' It sponsored by McDonald's Corporation, and performed hits such as "No, No, No", "Survivor", "Say My Name", "Independent Women" and "Lose My Breath". In addition to renditions of the group's recorded material, they also performed songs from each singer's solo careers, most notably numbers from Dangerously in Love. and during the last stop of their European tour, in Barcelona on June 11, 2005, Rowland announced that Destiny's Child would disband following the North American leg of the tour. The group released their first compilation album Number 1's on October 25, 2005, in the US and accepted a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in March 2006. The group has sold 60 million records worldwide.
2006–2007: B'Day and Dreamgirls
Beyoncé's second solo album B'Day was released on September 4, 2006, in the US, to coincide with her twenty-fifth birthday. It sold 541,000 copies in its first week and debuted atop the Billboard 200, becoming Beyoncé's second consecutive number-one album in the United States. The album's lead single "Déjà Vu", featuring Jay-Z, reached the top five on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. The second international single "Irreplaceable" was a commercial success worldwide, reaching number one in Australia, Hungary, Ireland, New Zealand and the United States. B'Day also produced three other singles; "Ring the Alarm", "Get Me Bodied", and "Green Light" (released in the United Kingdom only).
At the 49th Annual Grammy Awards (2007), B'Day was nominated for five Grammy Awards, including Best Contemporary R&B Album, Best Female R&B Vocal Performance for "Ring the Alarm" and Best R&B Song and Best Rap/Sung Collaboration"for "Déjà Vu"; the Freemasons club mix of "Déjà Vu" without the rap was put forward in the Best Remixed Recording, Non-Classical category. B'Day won the award for Best Contemporary R&B Album. The following year, B'Day received two nominations – for Record of the Year for "Irreplaceable" and Best Pop Collaboration with Vocals for "Beautiful Liar" (with Shakira), also receiving a nomination for Best Compilation Soundtrack Album for Motion Pictures, Television or Other Visual Media for her appearance on Dreamgirls: Music from the Motion Picture (2006).
Her first acting role of 2006 was in the comedy film The Pink Panther starring opposite Steve Martin, grossing $158.8 million at the box office worldwide. Her second film Dreamgirls, the film version of the 1981 Broadway musical loosely based on The Supremes, received acclaim from critics and grossed $154 million internationally. In it, she starred opposite Jennifer Hudson, Jamie Foxx, and Eddie Murphy playing a pop singer based on Diana Ross. To promote the film, Beyoncé released "Listen" as the lead single from the soundtrack album. In April 2007, Beyoncé embarked on The Beyoncé Experience, her first worldwide concert tour, visiting 97 venues and grossed over $24 million. Beyoncé conducted pre-concert food donation drives during six major stops in conjunction with her pastor at St. John's and America's Second Harvest. At the same time, B'Day was re-released with five additional songs, including her duet with Shakira "Beautiful Liar".
2008–2010: I Am... Sasha Fierce
I Am... Sasha Fierce was released on November 18, 2008, in the United States. The album formally introduces Beyoncé's alter ego Sasha Fierce, conceived during the making of her 2003 single "Crazy in Love". It was met with generally mediocre reviews from critics, but sold 482,000 copies in its first week, debuting atop the Billboard 200, and giving Beyoncé her third consecutive number-one album in the US. The album featured the number-one song "Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)" and the top-five songs "If I Were a Boy" and "Halo". Achieving the accomplishment of becoming her longest-running Hot 100 single in her career, "Halos success in the U.S. helped Beyoncé attain more top-ten singles on the list than any other woman during the 2000s. It also included the successful "Sweet Dreams", and singles "Diva", "Ego", "Broken-Hearted Girl" and "Video Phone". The music video for "Single Ladies" has been parodied and imitated around the world, spawning the "first major dance craze" of the Internet age according to the Toronto Star. The video has won several awards, including Best Video at the 2009 MTV Europe Music Awards, the 2009 Scottish MOBO Awards, and the 2009 BET Awards. At the 2009 MTV Video Music Awards, the video was nominated for nine awards, ultimately winning three including Video of the Year. Its failure to win the Best Female Video category, which went to American singer-songwriter Taylor Swift's "You Belong with Me", led to Kanye West interrupting the ceremony and Beyoncé improvising a re-presentation of Swift's award during her own acceptance speech. In March 2009, Beyoncé embarked on the I Am... World Tour, her second headlining worldwide concert tour, consisting of 108 shows, grossing $119.5 million.
Beyoncé further expanded her acting career, starring as blues singer Etta James in the 2008 musical biopic Cadillac Records. Her performance in the film received praise from critics, and she garnered several nominations for her portrayal of James, including a Satellite Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress, and a NAACP Image Award nomination for Outstanding Supporting Actress. Beyoncé donated her entire salary from the film to Phoenix House, an organization of rehabilitation centers for heroin addicts around the country. On January 20, 2009, Beyoncé performed James' "At Last" at First Couple Barack and Michelle Obama's first inaugural ball. Beyoncé starred opposite Ali Larter and Idris Elba in the thriller, Obsessed. She played Sharon Charles, a mother and wife whose family is threatened by her husband's stalker. Although the film received negative reviews from critics, the movie did well at the U.S. box office, grossing $68 million – $60 million more than Cadillac Records – on a budget of $20 million. The fight scene finale between Sharon and the character played by Ali Larter also won the 2010 MTV Movie Award for Best Fight.
At the 52nd Annual Grammy Awards, Beyoncé received ten nominations, including Album of the Year for I Am... Sasha Fierce, Record of the Year for "Halo", and Song of the Year for "Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)", among others. She tied with Lauryn Hill for most Grammy nominations in a single year by a female artist. Beyoncé went on to win six of those nominations, breaking a record she previously tied in 2004 for the most Grammy awards won in a single night by a female artist with six. In 2010, Beyoncé was featured on Lady Gaga's single "Telephone" and appeared in its music video. The song topped the U.S. Pop Songs chart, becoming the sixth number-one for both Beyoncé and Gaga, tying them with Mariah Carey for most number-ones since the Nielsen Top 40 airplay chart launched in 1992. "Telephone" received a Grammy Award nomination for Best Pop Collaboration with Vocals.
Beyoncé announced a hiatus from her music career in January 2010, heeding her mother's advice, "to live life, to be inspired by things again". During the break she and her father parted ways as business partners. Beyoncé's musical break lasted nine months and saw her visit multiple European cities, the Great Wall of China, the Egyptian pyramids, Australia, English music festivals and various museums and ballet performances.
2011–2013: 4 and Super Bowl XLVII halftime show
On June 26, 2011, she became the first solo female artist to headline the main Pyramid stage at the 2011 Glastonbury Festival in over twenty years. Her fourth studio album 4 was released two days later in the US. 4 sold 310,000 copies in its first week and debuted atop the Billboard 200 chart, giving Beyoncé her fourth consecutive number-one album in the US. The album was preceded by two of its singles "Run the World (Girls)" and "Best Thing I Never Had". The fourth single "Love on Top" spent seven consecutive weeks at number one on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart, while peaking at number 20 on the Billboard Hot 100, the highest peak from the album. 4 also produced four other singles; "Party", "Countdown", "I Care" and "End of Time". "Eat, Play, Love", a cover story written by Beyoncé for Essence that detailed her 2010 career break, won her a writing award from the New York Association of Black Journalists. In late 2011, she took the stage at New York's Roseland Ballroom for four nights of special performances: the 4 Intimate Nights with Beyoncé concerts saw the performance of her 4 album to a standing room only. On August 1, 2011, the album was certified platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), having shipped 1 million copies to retail stores. By December 2015, it reached sales of 1.5 million copies in the US. The album reached one billion Spotify streams on February 5, 2018, making Beyoncé the first female artist to have three of their albums surpass one billion streams on the platform.
In June 2012, she performed for four nights at Revel Atlantic City's Ovation Hall to celebrate the resort's opening, her first performances since giving birth to her daughter.
In January 2013, Destiny's Child released Love Songs, a compilation album of the romance-themed songs from their previous albums and a newly recorded track, "Nuclear". Beyoncé performed the American national anthem singing along with a pre-recorded track at President Obama's second inauguration in Washington, D.C. The following month, Beyoncé performed at the Super Bowl XLVII halftime show, held at the Mercedes-Benz Superdome in New Orleans. The performance stands as the second most tweeted about moment in history at 268,000 tweets per minute. At the 55th Annual Grammy Awards, Beyoncé won for Best Traditional R&B Performance for "Love on Top". Her feature-length documentary film, Life Is But a Dream, first aired on HBO on February 16, 2013. The film was co-directed by Beyoncé herself.
2013–2015: Beyoncé
Beyoncé embarked on The Mrs. Carter Show World Tour on April 15 in Belgrade, Serbia; the tour included 132 dates that ran through to March 2014. It became the most successful tour of her career and one of the most successful tours of all time. In May, Beyoncé's cover of Amy Winehouse's "Back to Black" with André 3000 on The Great Gatsby soundtrack was released. Beyoncé voiced Queen Tara in the 3D CGI animated film, Epic, released by 20th Century Fox on May 24, and recorded an original song for the film, "Rise Up", co-written with Sia.
On December 13, 2013, Beyoncé unexpectedly released her eponymous fifth studio album on the iTunes Store without any prior announcement or promotion. The album debuted atop the Billboard 200 chart, giving Beyoncé her fifth consecutive number-one album in the US. This made her the first woman in the chart's history to have her first five studio albums debut at number one. Beyoncé received critical acclaim and commercial success, selling one million digital copies worldwide in six days; Musically an electro-R&B album, it concerns darker themes previously unexplored in her work, such as "bulimia, postnatal depression [and] the fears and insecurities of marriage and motherhood". The single "Drunk in Love", featuring Jay-Z, peaked at number two on the Billboard Hot 100 chart.
In April 2014, Beyoncé and Jay-Z officially announced their On the Run Tour. It served as the couple's first co-headlining stadium tour together. On August 24, 2014, she received the Michael Jackson Video Vanguard Award at the 2014 MTV Video Music Awards. Beyoncé also won home three competitive awards: Best Video with a Social Message and Best Cinematography for "Pretty Hurts", as well as best collaboration for "Drunk in Love". In November, Forbes reported that Beyoncé was the top-earning woman in music for the second year in a row – earning $115 million in the year, more than double her earnings in 2013. Beyoncé was reissued with new material in three forms: as an extended play, a box set, as well as a full platinum edition. According to the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI), in the last 19 days of 2013, the album sold 2.3 million units worldwide, becoming the tenth best-selling album of 2013. The album also went on to become the twentieth best-selling album of 2014. , Beyoncé has sold over 5 million copies worldwide and has generated over 1 billion streams, .
At the 57th Annual Grammy Awards in February 2015, Beyoncé was nominated for six awards, ultimately winning three: Best R&B Performance and Best R&B Song for "Drunk in Love", and Best Surround Sound Album for Beyoncé. She was nominated for Album of the Year, but the award went to Beck for his album Morning Phase.
2016–2018: Lemonade and Everything Is Love
On February 6, 2016, Beyoncé released "Formation" and its accompanying music video exclusively on the music streaming platform Tidal; the song was made available to download for free. She performed "Formation" live for the first time during the NFL Super Bowl 50 halftime show. The appearance was considered controversial as it appeared to reference the 50th anniversary of the Black Panther Party and the NFL forbids political statements in its performances. Immediately following the performance, Beyoncé announced The Formation World Tour, which highlighted stops in both North America, and Europe. It ended on October 7, with Beyoncé bringing out her husband Jay-Z, Kendrick Lamar, and Serena Williams for the last show. The tour went on to win Tour of the Year at the 44th American Music Awards.
On April 16, 2016, Beyoncé released a teaser clip for a project called Lemonade. It turned out to be a one-hour film which aired on HBO exactly a week later; a corresponding album with the same title was released on the same day exclusively on Tidal. Lemonade debuted at number one on the U.S. Billboard 200, making Beyoncé the first act in Billboard history to have their first six studio albums debut atop the chart; she broke a record previously tied with DMX in 2013. With all 12 tracks of Lemonade debuting on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, Beyoncé also became the first female act to chart 12 or more songs at the same time. Additionally, Lemonade was streamed 115 million times through Tidal, setting a record for the most-streamed album in a single week by a female artist in history. It was 2016's third highest-selling album in the U.S. with 1.554 million copies sold in that time period within the country as well as the best-selling album worldwide with global sales of 2.5 million throughout the year. In June 2019, Lemonade was certified 3× Platinum, having sold up to 3 million album-equivalent units in the United States alone.
Lemonade became her most critically acclaimed work to date, receiving universal acclaim according to Metacritic, a website collecting reviews from professional music critics. Several music publications included the album among the best of 2016, including Rolling Stone, which listed Lemonade at number one. The album's visuals were nominated in 11 categories at the 2016 MTV Video Music Awards, the most ever received by Beyoncé in a single year, and went on to win 8 awards, including Video of the Year for "Formation". The eight wins made Beyoncé the most-awarded artist in the history of the VMAs (24), surpassing Madonna (20). Beyoncé occupied the sixth place for Time magazine's 2016 Person of the Year.
In January 2017, it was announced that Beyoncé would headline the Coachella Music and Arts Festival. This would make Beyoncé only the second female headliner of the festival since it was founded in 1999. It was later announced on February 23, 2017, that Beyoncé would no longer be able to perform at the festival due to doctor's concerns regarding her pregnancy. The festival owners announced that she will instead headline the 2018 festival. Upon the announcement of Beyoncé's departure from the festival lineup, ticket prices dropped by 12%. At the 59th Grammy Awards in February 2017, Lemonade led the nominations with nine, including Album, Record, and Song of the Year for Lemonade and "Formation" respectively. and ultimately won two, Best Urban Contemporary Album for Lemonade and Best Music Video for "Formation". Adele, upon winning her Grammy for Album of the Year, stated Lemonade was monumental and more deserving.
In September 2017, Beyoncé collaborated with J Balvin and Willy William, to release a remix of the song "Mi Gente". Beyoncé donated all proceeds from the song to hurricane charities for those affected by Hurricane Harvey and Hurricane Irma in Texas, Mexico, Puerto Rico, and other Caribbean Islands. On November 10, Eminem released "Walk on Water" featuring Beyoncé as the lead single from his album Revival. On November 30, Ed Sheeran announced that Beyoncé would feature on the remix to his song "Perfect". "Perfect Duet" was released on December 1, 2017. The song reached number-one in the United States, becoming Beyoncé's sixth song of her solo career to do so.
On January 4, 2018, the music video of Beyoncé and Jay-Z's 4:44 collaboration, "Family Feud" was released. It was directed by Ava DuVernay. On March 1, 2018, DJ Khaled released "Top Off" as the first single from his forthcoming album Father of Asahd featuring Beyoncé, husband Jay-Z, and Future. On March 5, 2018, a joint tour with Knowles's husband Jay-Z, was leaked on Facebook. Information about the tour was later taken down. The couple announced the joint tour officially as On the Run II Tour on March 12 and simultaneously released a trailer for the tour on YouTube. On March 20, 2018, the couple traveled to Jamaica to film a music video directed by Melina Matsoukas.
On April 14, 2018, Beyoncé played the first of two weekends as the headlining act of the Coachella Music Festival. Her performance of April 14, attended by 125,000 festival-goers, was immediately praised, with multiple media outlets describing it as historic. The performance became the most-tweeted-about performance of weekend one, as well as the most-watched live Coachella performance and the most-watched live performance on YouTube of all time. The show paid tribute to black culture, specifically historically black colleges and universities and featured a live band with over 100 dancers. Destiny's Child also reunited during the show.
On June 6, 2018, Beyoncé and husband Jay-Z kicked-off the On the Run II Tour in Cardiff, United Kingdom. Ten days later, at their final London performance, the pair unveiled Everything Is Love, their joint studio album, credited under the name The Carters, and initially available exclusively on Tidal. The pair also released the video for the album's lead single, "Apeshit", on Beyoncé's official YouTube channel. Everything Is Love received generally positive reviews, and debuted at number two on the U.S. Billboard 200, with 123,000 album-equivalent units, of which 70,000 were pure album sales. On December 2, 2018, Beyoncé alongside Jay-Z headlined the Global Citizen Festival: Mandela 100 which was held at FNB Stadium in Johannesburg, South Africa. Their 2-hour performance had concepts similar to the On the Run II Tour and Beyoncé was praised for her outfits, which paid tribute to Africa's diversity.
2019–present: Homecoming, The Lion King and Black Is King
Homecoming, a documentary and concert film focusing on Beyoncé's historic 2018 Coachella performances, was released by Netflix on April 17, 2019. The film was accompanied by the surprise live album Homecoming: The Live Album. It was later reported that Beyoncé and Netflix had signed a $60 million deal to produce three different projects, one of which is Homecoming. Homecoming received six nominations at the 71st Primetime Creative Arts Emmy Awards.
Beyoncé starred as the voice of Nala in the remake The Lion King, which was released on July 19, 2019. Beyoncé is featured on the film's soundtrack, released on July 11, 2019, with a remake of the song "Can You Feel the Love Tonight" alongside Donald Glover, Billy Eichner and Seth Rogen, which was originally composed by Elton John. Additionally, an original song from the film by Beyoncé, "Spirit", was released as the lead single from both the soundtrack and The Lion King: The Gift – a companion album released alongside the film, produced and curated by Beyoncé. Beyoncé called The Lion King: The Gift a "sonic cinema". She also stated that the album is influenced by everything from R&B, pop, hip hop and Afro Beat. The songs were additionally produced by African producers, which Beyoncé said was because "authenticity and heart were important to [her]", since the film is set in Africa. In September of the same year, a documentary chronicling the development, production and early music video filming of The Lion King: The Gift entitled "Beyoncé Presents: Making The Gift" was aired on ABC.
On April 29, 2020, Beyoncé was featured on the remix of Megan Thee Stallion's song "Savage", marking her first material of music for the year. The song peaked at number one on the Billboard Hot 100, marking Beyoncé's eleventh song to do so across all acts. On June 19, 2020, Beyoncé released the nonprofit charity single "Black Parade". On June 23, she followed up the release of its studio version with an a capella version exclusively on Tidal. Black Is King, a visual album based on the music of The Lion King: The Gift, premiered globally on Disney+ on July 31, 2020. Produced by Disney and Parkwood Entertainment, the film was written, directed and executive produced by Beyoncé. The film was described by Disney as "a celebratory memoir for the world on the Black experience". Beyoncé received the most nominations (9) at the 63rd Annual Grammy Awards and the most awards (4), which made her the most-awarded singer, most-awarded female artist, and second-most-awarded artist in Grammy history.
Beyoncé wrote and recorded a song titled "Be Alive" for the biographical drama film King Richard. She received her first Academy Award nomination for Best Original Song at the 94th Academy Awards for the song, alongside co-writer DIXSON.
Artistry
Voice and musical style
Beyoncé's voice type is classified as dramatic mezzo-soprano. Jody Rosen highlights her tone and timbre as particularly distinctive, describing her voice as "one of the most compelling instruments in popular music". Her vocal abilities mean she is identified as the centerpiece of Destiny's Child. Jon Pareles of The New York Times commented that her voice is "velvety yet tart, with an insistent flutter and reserves of soul belting". Rosen notes that the hip hop era highly influenced Beyoncé's unique rhythmic vocal style, but also finds her quite traditionalist in her use of balladry, gospel and falsetto. Other critics praise her range and power, with Chris Richards of The Washington Post saying she was "capable of punctuating any beat with goose-bump-inducing whispers or full-bore diva-roars."
Beyoncé's music is generally R&B, pop and hip hop but she also incorporates soul and funk into her songs. 4 demonstrated Beyoncé's exploration of 1990s-style R&B, as well as further use of soul and hip hop than compared to previous releases. While she almost exclusively releases English songs, Beyoncé recorded several Spanish songs for Irreemplazable (re-recordings of songs from B'Day for a Spanish-language audience), and the re-release of B'Day. To record these, Beyoncé was coached phonetically by American record producer Rudy Perez.
Songwriting
Beyoncé has received co-writing credits for most of her songs. In regards to the way she approaches collaborative songwriting, Beyoncé explained: "I love being around great writers because I'm finding that a lot of the things I want to say, I don't articulate as good as maybe Amanda Ghost, so I want to keep collaborating with writers, and I love classics and I want to make sure years from now the song is still something that's relevant." Her early songs with Destiny's Child were personally driven and female-empowerment themed compositions like "Independent Women" and "Survivor", but after the start of her relationship with Jay-Z, she transitioned to more man-tending anthems such as "Cater 2 U".
In 2001, she became the first Black woman and second female lyricist to win the Pop Songwriter of the Year award at the ASCAP Pop Music Awards. Beyoncé was the third woman to have writing credits on three number-one songs ("Irreplaceable", "Grillz" and "Check on It") in the same year, after Carole King in 1971 and Mariah Carey in 1991. She is tied with American lyricist Diane Warren at third with nine songwriting credits on number-one singles. The latter wrote her 9/11-motivated song "I Was Here" for 4. In May 2011, Billboard magazine listed Beyoncé at number 17 on their list of the Top 20 Hot 100 Songwriters for having co-written eight singles that hit number one on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. She was one of only three women on that list, along with Alicia Keys and Taylor Swift.
Beyoncé has long received criticism, including from journalists and musicians, for the extensive writing credits on her songs. The controversy surrounding her songwriting credits began with interviews in which she attributed herself as the songwriter for songs in which she was a co-writer or for which her contributions were marginal. In a cover story for Vanity Fair in 2005, she claimed to have "written" several number-one songs for Destiny's Child, contrary to the credits, which list her as a co-writer among others. In a 2007 interview with Barbara Walters, she claimed to have conceived the musical idea for the Destiny's Child hit "Bootylicious", which provoked the song's producer Rob Fusari to call her father and then-manager Mathew Knowles in protest over the claim. As Fusari tells Billboard, "[Knowles] explained to me, in a nice way, he said, 'People don't want to hear about Rob Fusari, producer from Livingston, N.J. No offense, but that's not what sells records. What sells records is people believing that the artist is everything. However, in an interview for Entertainment Weekly in 2016, Fusari said Beyoncé "had the 'Bootylicious' concept in her head. That was totally her. She knew what she wanted to say. It was very urban pop angle that they were taking on the record."
In 2007, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences ruled out Beyoncé as a songwriter on "Listen" (from Dreamgirls) for its Oscar nomination in the Best Original Song category. Responding to a then-new three-writer limit, the Academy deemed her contribution the least significant for inclusion. In 2009, Ryan Tedder's original demo for "Halo" leaked on the Internet, revealing an identical resemblance to Beyoncé's recording, for which she received a writing credit. When interviewed by The Guardian, Tedder explained that Beyoncé had edited the bridge of the song vocally and thus earned the credit, although he vaguely questioned the ethics of her possible "demand" for a writing credit in other instances. Tedder elaborated when speaking to Gigwise that "She does stuff on any given song that, when you go from the demo to the final version, takes it to another level that you never would have thought of as the writer. For instance, on 'Halo,' that bridge on her version is completely different to my original one. Basically, she came in, ditched that, edited it, did her vocal thing on it, and now it's become one of my favorite parts of the song. The whole melody, she wrote it spontaneously in the studio. So her credit on that song stems from that." In 2014, the popular industry songwriter Linda Perry responded to a question about Beyoncé receiving a co-writing credit for changing one lyric to a song: "Well haha um that's not songwriting but some of these artists believe if it wasn't for them your song would never get out there so they take a cut just because they are who they are. But everyone knows the real truth about Beyoncé. She is talented but in a completely different way." Perry's remarks were echoed by Frank Ocean, who acknowledged the trend of recording artists forcing writing credits while jokingly suggesting Beyoncé had an exceptional status.
Reflecting on the controversy, Sunday Independent columnist Alexis Kritselis wrote in 2014, "It seems as though our love for all things Beyoncé has blinded us to the very real claims of theft and plagiarism that have plagued her career for years", and that, "because of her power and influence in the music industry, it may be hard for some songwriters to 'just say no' to Beyoncé." While reporting on her controversial writing record, pop culture critics such as Roger Friedman and The Daily Beasts Kevin Fallon said the trend has redefined popular conceptions of songwriting, with Fallon saying, "the village of authors and composers that populate Lemonade, [Kanye West']s Life of Pablo, [Rihanna's] Anti, or [Drake's] Views – all of which are still reflective of an artist's voice and vision ... speaks to the truth of the way the industry's top artists create their music today: by committee." James S. Murphy of Vanity Fair suggests Beyoncé is among the major artists like Frank Sinatra and Billie Holiday who are "celebrated [not] because [they] write such good parts, but because [they] create them out of the words that are given".
Meanwhile, Everything Is Love producers Cool & Dre stated that Beyoncé is "100 percent involved" in writing her own songs, with Dre saying that "She put her mind to the music and did her thing. If she had a melody idea, she came up with the words. If we had the words, she came up with the melody. She's a beast", when speaking on the writing process of Everything Is Love. Ne-Yo, when asked about his collaborative writing experience with Beyoncé on "Irreplaceable", said that they both wrote "two damn totally different songs ... So, yeah, I gave her writer's credit. Because that counts. That's writing ... She put her spin on it." As for Drake: Pound Cake' happened while I was writing for Beyoncé or working with Beyoncé, not writing for, working with. I hate saying writing for 'cause she's a phenomenal writer. She has bars on bars." The-Dream revealed: "We did a whole Fela album that didn't go up. It was right before we did 4. We did a whole different sounding thing, about twenty songs. She said she wanted to do something that sounds like Fela. That's why there's so much of that sound in the 'End of Time.' There's always multiple albums being made. Most of the time we're just being creative, period. We're talking about B, somebody who sings all day long and somebody who writes all day long. There's probably a hundred records just sitting around."
Influences
Beyoncé names Michael Jackson as her major musical influence. Aged five, Beyoncé attended her first ever concert where Jackson performed and she claims to have realized her purpose. When she presented him with a tribute award at the World Music Awards in 2006, Beyoncé said, "if it wasn't for Michael Jackson, I would never ever have performed." Beyoncé was heavily influenced by Tina Turner, who she said "Tina Turner is someone that I admire, because she made her strength feminine and sexy". She admires Diana Ross as an "all-around entertainer", and Whitney Houston, who she said "inspired me to get up there and do what she did." Beyoncé cited Madonna as an influence "not only for her musical style, but also for her business sense", saying that she wanted to "follow in the footsteps of Madonna and be a powerhouse and have my own empire." She also credits Mariah Carey's singing and her song "Vision of Love" as influencing her to begin practicing vocal runs as a child. Her other musical influences include Prince, Shakira, Lauryn Hill, Sade Adu, Donna Summer, Mary J. Blige, Anita Baker, and Toni Braxton.
The feminism and female empowerment themes on Beyoncé's second solo album B'Day were inspired by her role in Dreamgirls and by singer Josephine Baker. Beyoncé paid homage to Baker by performing "Déjà Vu" at the 2006 Fashion Rocks concert wearing Baker's trademark mini-hula skirt embellished with fake bananas. Beyoncé's third solo album, I Am... Sasha Fierce, was inspired by Jay-Z and especially by Etta James, whose "boldness" inspired Beyoncé to explore other musical genres and styles. Her fourth solo album, 4, was inspired by Fela Kuti, 1990s R&B, Earth, Wind & Fire, DeBarge, Lionel Richie, Teena Marie, The Jackson 5, New Edition, Adele, Florence and the Machine, and Prince.
Beyoncé has stated that she is personally inspired by Michelle Obama (the 44th First Lady of the United States), saying "she proves you can do it all", and has described Oprah Winfrey as "the definition of inspiration and a strong woman." She has also discussed how Jay-Z is a continuing inspiration to her, both with what she describes as his lyrical genius and in the obstacles he has overcome in his life. Beyoncé has expressed admiration for the artist Jean-Michel Basquiat, posting in a letter "what I find in the work of Jean-Michel Basquiat, I search for in every day in music ... he is lyrical and raw". Beyoncé also cited Cher as a fashion inspiration.
Music videos and stage
In 2006, Beyoncé introduced her all-female tour band Suga Mama (also the name of a song on B'Day) which includes bassists, drummers, guitarists, horn players, keyboardists and percussionists. Her background singers, The Mamas, consist of Montina Cooper-Donnell, Crystal Collins and Tiffany Moniqué Riddick. They made their debut appearance at the 2006 BET Awards and re-appeared in the music videos for "Irreplaceable" and "Green Light". The band have supported Beyoncé in most subsequent live performances, including her 2007 concert tour The Beyoncé Experience, I Am... World Tour (2009–2010), The Mrs. Carter Show World Tour (2013–2014) and The Formation World Tour (2016).
Beyoncé has received praise for her stage presence and voice during live performances. Jarett Wieselman of the New York Post placed her at number one on her list of the Five Best Singer/Dancers. According to Barbara Ellen of The Guardian Beyoncé is the most in-charge female artist she's seen onstage, while Alice Jones of The Independent wrote she "takes her role as entertainer so seriously she's almost too good." The ex-President of Def Jam L.A. Reid has described Beyoncé as the greatest entertainer alive. Jim Farber of the Daily News and Stephanie Classen of The StarPhoenix both praised her strong voice and her stage presence. Beyoncé's stage outfits have been met with criticism from many countries, such as Malaysia, where she has postponed or cancelled performances due to the country's strict laws banning revealing costumes.
Beyoncé has worked with numerous directors for her music videos throughout her career, including Melina Matsoukas, Jonas Åkerlund, and Jake Nava. Bill Condon, director of Beauty and the Beast, stated that the Lemonade visuals in particular served as inspiration for his film, commenting, "You look at Beyoncé's brilliant movie Lemonade, this genre is taking on so many different forms ... I do think that this very old-school break-out-into-song traditional musical is something that people understand again and really want."
Alter ego
Described as being "sexy, seductive and provocative" when performing on stage, Beyoncé has said that she originally created the alter ego "Sasha Fierce" to keep that stage persona separate from who she really is. She described Sasha as being "too aggressive, too strong, too sassy [and] too sexy", stating, "I'm not like her in real life at all." Sasha was conceived during the making of "Crazy in Love", and Beyoncé introduced her with the release of her 2008 album, I Am... Sasha Fierce. In February 2010, she announced in an interview with Allure magazine that she was comfortable enough with herself to no longer need Sasha Fierce. However, Beyoncé announced in May 2012 that she would bring her back for her Revel Presents: Beyoncé Live shows later that month.
Public image
Beyoncé has been described as having a wide-ranging sex appeal, with music journalist Touré writing that since the release of Dangerously in Love, she has "become a crossover sex symbol". Offstage Beyoncé says that while she likes to dress sexily, her onstage dress "is absolutely for the stage". Due to her curves and the term's catchiness, in the 2000s, the media often used the term "bootylicious" (a portmanteau of the words "booty" and "delicious") to describe Beyoncé, the term popularized by Destiny's Child's single of the same name. In 2006, it was added to the Oxford English Dictionary.
In September 2010, Beyoncé made her runway modelling debut at Tom Ford's Spring/Summer 2011 fashion show. She was named the "World's Most Beautiful Woman" by People and the "Hottest Female Singer of All Time" by Complex in 2012. In January 2013, GQ placed her on its cover, featuring her atop its "100 Sexiest Women of the 21st Century" list. VH1 listed her at number 1 on its 100 Sexiest Artists list. Several wax figures of Beyoncé are found at Madame Tussauds Wax Museums in major cities around the world, including New York, Washington, D.C., Amsterdam, Bangkok, Hollywood and Sydney.
According to Italian fashion designer Roberto Cavalli, Beyoncé uses different fashion styles to work with her music while performing. Her mother co-wrote a book, published in 2002, titled Destiny's Style, an account of how fashion affected the trio's success. The B'Day Anthology Video Album showed many instances of fashion-oriented footage, depicting classic to contemporary wardrobe styles. In 2007, Beyoncé was featured on the cover of the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue, becoming the second African American woman after Tyra Banks, and People magazine recognized Beyoncé as the best-dressed celebrity.
Beyoncé has been named "Queen Bey" from publications over the years. The term is a reference to the common phrase "queen bee", a term used for the leader of a group of females. The nickname also refers to the queen of a beehive, with her fan base being named "The BeyHive". The BeyHive was previously titled "The Beyontourage", (a portmanteau of Beyoncé and entourage), but was changed after online petitions on Twitter and online news reports during competitions. The BeyHive has been named one of the most loyal and defensive fan bases and has achieved notoriety for being fiercely protective of Beyoncé.
In 2006, the animal rights organization People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), criticized Beyoncé for wearing and using fur in her clothing line House of Deréon. In 2011, she appeared on the cover of French fashion magazine L'Officiel, in blackface and tribal makeup that drew criticism from the media. A statement released from a spokesperson for the magazine said that Beyoncé's look was "far from the glamorous Sasha Fierce" and that it was "a return to her African roots".
Beyoncé's lighter skin color and costuming has drawn criticism from some in the African-American community. Emmett Price, a professor of music at Northeastern University, wrote in 2007 that he thinks race plays a role in many of these criticisms, saying white celebrities who dress similarly do not attract as many comments. In 2008, L'Oréal was accused of whitening her skin in their Feria hair color advertisements, responding that "it is categorically untrue", and in 2013, Beyoncé herself criticized H&M for their proposed "retouching" of promotional images of her, and according to Vogue requested that only "natural pictures be used".
Beyoncé has been a vocal advocate for the Black Lives Matter movement. The release of "Formation" on February 6, 2016 saw her celebrate her heritage, with the song's music video featuring pro-black imagery and most notably a shot of wall graffiti that says "Stop shooting us". The day after the song's release she performed it at the 2016 Super Bowl halftime show with back up dancers dressed to represent the Black Panther Party. This incited criticism from politicians and police officers, with some police boycotting Beyoncé's then upcoming Formation World Tour. Beyoncé responded to the backlash by releasing tour merchandise that said "Boycott Beyoncé", and later clarified her sentiment, saying: “Anyone who perceives my message as anti-police is completely mistaken. I have so much admiration and respect for officers and the families of officers who sacrifice themselves to keep us safe,” Beyoncé said. “But let’s be clear: I am against police brutality and injustice. Those are two separate things.”
Personal life
Marriage and children
Beyoncé started a relationship with Jay-Z after their collaboration on '03 Bonnie & Clyde", which appeared on his seventh album The Blueprint 2: The Gift & The Curse (2002). Beyoncé appeared as Jay-Z's girlfriend in the music video for the song, fueling speculation about their relationship. On April 4, 2008, Beyoncé and Jay-Z married without publicity. , the couple had sold a combined 300 million records together. They are known for their private relationship, although they have appeared to become more relaxed in recent years. Both have acknowledged difficulty that arose in their marriage after Jay-Z had an affair.
Beyoncé miscarried around 2010 or 2011, describing it as "the saddest thing" she had ever endured. She returned to the studio and wrote music to cope with the loss. In April 2011, Beyoncé and Jay-Z traveled to Paris to shoot the album cover for 4, and she unexpectedly became pregnant in Paris. In August, the couple attended the 2011 MTV Video Music Awards, at which Beyoncé performed "Love on Top" and ended the performance by revealing she was pregnant. Her appearance helped that year's MTV Video Music Awards become the most-watched broadcast in MTV history, pulling in 12.4 million viewers; the announcement was listed in Guinness World Records for "most tweets per second recorded for a single event" on Twitter, receiving 8,868 tweets per second and "Beyonce pregnant" was the most Googled phrase the week of August 29, 2011. On January 7, 2012, Beyoncé gave birth to a daughter, Blue Ivy, at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City.
Following the release of Lemonade, which included the single "Sorry", in 2016, speculations arose about Jay-Z's alleged infidelity with a mistress referred to as "Becky". Jon Pareles in The New York Times pointed out that many of the accusations were "aimed specifically and recognizably" at him. Similarly, Rob Sheffield of Rolling Stone magazine noted the lines "Suck on my balls, I've had enough" were an "unmistakable hint" that the lyrics revolve around Jay-Z.
On February 1, 2017, she revealed on her Instagram account that she was expecting twins. Her announcement gained over 6.3 million likes within eight hours, breaking the world record for the most liked image on the website at the time. On July 13, 2017, Beyoncé uploaded the first image of herself and the twins onto her Instagram account, confirming their birth date as a month prior, on June 13, 2017, with the post becoming the second most liked on Instagram, behind her own pregnancy announcement. The twins, a daughter named Rumi and a son named Sir, were born at Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center in California. She wrote of her pregnancy and its aftermath in the September 2018 issue of Vogue, in which she had full control of the cover, shot at Hammerwood Park by photographer Tyler Mitchell.
Activism
Beyoncé performed "America the Beautiful" at President Barack Obama's 2009 presidential inauguration, as well as "At Last" during the first inaugural dance at the Neighborhood Ball two days later. The couple held a fundraiser at Jay-Z's 40/40 Club in Manhattan for President Obama's 2012 presidential campaign which raised $4 million. In the 2012 presidential election, the singer voted for President Obama. She performed the American national anthem "The Star-Spangled Banner" at his second inauguration in January 2013.
The Washington Post reported in May 2015, that Beyoncé attended a major celebrity fundraiser for 2016 presidential nominee Hillary Clinton. She also headlined for Clinton in a concert held the weekend before Election Day the next year. In this performance, Beyoncé and her entourage of backup dancers wore pantsuits; a clear allusion to Clinton's frequent dress-of-choice. The backup dancers also wore "I'm with her" tee shirts, the campaign slogan for Clinton. In a brief speech at this performance Beyoncé said, "I want my daughter to grow up seeing a woman lead our country and knowing that her possibilities are limitless." She endorsed the bid of Beto O'Rourke during the 2018 United States Senate election in Texas.
In 2013, Beyoncé stated in an interview in Vogue that she considered herself to be "a modern-day feminist". She would later align herself more publicly with the movement, sampling "We should all be feminists", a speech delivered by Nigerian author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie at a TEDx talk in April 2013, in her song "Flawless", released later that year. The next year she performed live at the MTV Video Awards in front a giant backdrop reading "Feminist". Her self-identification incited a circulation of opinions and debate about whether her feminism is aligned with older, more established feminist ideals. Annie Lennox, celebrated artist and feminist advocate, referred to Beyoncé's use of her word feminist as 'feminist lite'. bell hooks critiqued Beyoncé, referring to her as a "terrorist" towards feminism, harmfully impacting her audience of young girls. Adichie responded with "her type of feminism is not mine, as it is the kind that, at the same time, gives quite a lot of space to the necessity of men." Adichie expands upon what 'feminist lite' means to her, referring that "more troubling is the idea, in Feminism Lite, that men are naturally superior but should be expected to "treat women well" and "we judge powerful women more harshly than we judge powerful men. And Feminism Lite enables this." Beyoncé responded about her intent by utilizing the definition of feminist with her platform was to "give clarity to the true meaning" behind it. She says to understand what being a feminist is, "it's very simple. It's someone who believes in equal rights for men and women." She advocated to provide equal opportunities for young boys and girls, men and women must begin to understand the double standards that remain persistent in our societies and the issue must be illuminated in effort to start making changes.
She has also contributed to the Ban Bossy campaign, which uses TV and social media to encourage leadership in girls. Following Beyoncé's public identification as a feminist, the sexualized nature of her performances and the fact that she championed her marriage was questioned.
In December 2012, Beyoncé along with a variety of other celebrities teamed up and produced a video campaign for "Demand A Plan", a bipartisan effort by a group of 950 U.S. mayors and others designed to influence the federal government into rethinking its gun control laws, following the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting. Beyoncé publicly endorsed same-sex marriage on March 26, 2013, after the Supreme Court debate on California's Proposition 8. She spoke against North Carolina's Public Facilities Privacy & Security Act, a bill passed (and later repealed) that discriminated against the LGBT community in public places in a statement during her concert in Raleigh as part of the Formation World Tour in 2016. She has also condemned police brutality against black Americans. She and Jay-Z attended a rally in 2013 in response to the acquittal of George Zimmerman for the killing of Trayvon Martin. The film for her sixth album Lemonade included the mothers of Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown and Eric Garner, holding pictures of their sons in the video for "Freedom". In a 2016 interview with Elle, Beyoncé responded to the controversy surrounding her song "Formation" which was perceived to be critical of the police. She clarified, "I am against police brutality and injustice. Those are two separate things. If celebrating my roots and culture during Black History Month made anyone uncomfortable, those feelings were there long before a video and long before me".
In February 2017, Beyoncé spoke out against the withdrawal of protections for transgender students in public schools by Donald Trump's presidential administration. Posting a link to the 100 Days of Kindness campaign on her Facebook page, Beyoncé voiced her support for transgender youth and joined a roster of celebrities who spoke out against Trump's decision.
In November 2017, Beyoncé presented Colin Kaepernick with the 2017 Sports Illustrated Muhammad Ali Legacy Award, stating, "Thank you for your selfless heart and your conviction, thank you for your personal sacrifice", and that "Colin took action with no fear of consequence ... To change perception, to change the way we treat each other, especially people of color. We're still waiting for the world to catch up." Muhammad Ali was heavily penalized in his career for protesting the status quo of US civil rights through opposition to the Vietnam War, by refusing to serve in the military. 40 years later, Kaepernick had already lost one professional year due to taking a much quieter and legal stand "for people that are oppressed".
Wealth
Forbes magazine began reporting on Beyoncé's earnings in 2008, calculating that the $80 million earned between June 2007 to June 2008, for her music, tour, films and clothing line made her the world's best-paid music personality at the time, above Madonna and Celine Dion. It placed her fourth on the Celebrity 100 list in 2009
and ninth on the "Most Powerful Women in the World" list in 2010. The following year, the magazine placed her eighth on the "Best-Paid Celebrities Under 30" list, having earned $35 million in the past year for her clothing line and endorsement deals. In 2012, Forbes placed Beyoncé at number 16 on the Celebrity 100 list, twelve places lower than three years ago yet still having earned $40 million in the past year for her album 4, clothing line and endorsement deals. In the same year, Beyoncé and Jay-Z placed at number one on the "World's Highest-Paid Celebrity Couples", for collectively earning $78 million. The couple made it into the previous year's Guinness World Records as the "highest-earning power couple" for collectively earning $122 million in 2009. For the years 2009 to 2011, Beyoncé earned an average of $70 million per year, and earned $40 million in 2012. In 2013, Beyoncé's endorsements of Pepsi and H&M made her and Jay-Z the world's first billion dollar couple in the music industry. That year, Beyoncé was published as the fourth most-powerful celebrity in the Forbes rankings.
MTV estimated that by the end of 2014, Beyoncé would become the highest-paid Black musician in history; this became the case in April 2014. In June 2014, Beyoncé ranked at number one on the Forbes Celebrity 100 list, earning an estimated $115 million throughout June 2013 – June 2014. This in turn was the first time she had topped the Celebrity 100 list as well as being her highest yearly earnings to date. In 2016, Beyoncé ranked at number 34 on the Celebrity 100 list with earnings of $54 million. She and Jay-Z also topped the highest paid celebrity couple list, with combined earnings of $107.5 million. , Forbes calculated her net worth to be $355 million, and in June of the same year, ranked her as the 35th highest earning celebrity with annual earnings of $60 million. This tied Beyoncé with Madonna as the only two female artists to earn more than $100 million within a single year twice. As a couple, Beyoncé and Jay-Z have a combined net worth of $1.16 billion. In July 2017, Billboard announced that Beyoncé was the highest paid musician of 2016, with an estimated total of $62.1 million.
Impact
Beyoncé's success has led to her becoming a cultural icon and earning her the nickname "Queen Bey". In The New Yorker, music critic Jody Rosen described Beyoncé as "the most important and compelling popular musician of the twenty-first century ... the result, the logical end point, of a century-plus of pop." Author James Clear, in his book Atomic Habits (2018), draws a parallel between the singer's success and the dramatic transformations in modern society: "In the last one hundred years, we have seen the rise of the car, the airplane, the television, the personal computer, the internet, the smartphone, and Beyoncé." The Observer named her Artist of the Decade (2000s) in 2009.
Writing for Entertainment Weekly, Alex Suskind noticed how Beyoncé was the decade's (2010s) defining pop star, stating that "no one dominated music in the 2010s like Queen Bey", explaining that her "songs, album rollouts, stage presence, social justice initiatives, and disruptive public relations strategy have influenced the way we've viewed music since 2010." British publication NME also shared similar thoughts on her impact in the 2010s, including Beyoncé on their list of the "10 Artists Who Defined The Decade". In 2018, Rolling Stone included her on its Millennial 100 list.
Beyoncé is credited with the invention of the staccato rap-singing style that has since dominated pop, R&B and rap music. Lakin Starling of The Fader wrote that Beyoncé's innovative implementation of the delivery style on Destiny's Child's 1999 album The Writing's on the Wall invented a new form of R&B. Beyoncé's new style subsequently changed the nature of music, revolutionizing both singing in urban music and rapping in pop music, and becoming the dominant sound of both genres. The style helped to redefine both the breadth of commercial R&B and the sound of hip hop, with artists such as Kanye West and Drake implementing Beyoncé's cadence in the late 2000s and early 2010s. The staccato rap-singing style continued to be used in the music industry in the late 2010s and early 2020s; Aaron Williams of Uproxx described Beyoncé as the "primary pioneer" of the rapping style that dominates the music industry today, with many contemporary rappers implementing Beyoncé's rap-singing. Michael Eric Dyson agrees, saying that Beyoncé "changed the whole genre" and has become the "godmother" of mumble rappers, who use the staccato rap-singing cadence. Dyson added: "She doesn't get credit for the remarkable way in which she changed the musical vocabulary of contemporary art."
Beyoncé has been credited with reviving the album as an art form in an era dominated by singles and streaming. This started with her 2011 album 4; while mainstream R&B artists were forgoing albums-led R&B in favor of singles-led EDM, Beyoncé aimed to place the focus back on albums as an artform and re-establish R&B as a mainstream concern. This remained a focus of Beyoncé's, and in 2013, she made her eponymous album only available to purchase as a full album on iTunes, rather than being able to purchase individual tracks or consume the album via streaming. Kaitlin Menza of Marie Claire wrote that this made listeners "experience the album as one whole sonic experience, the way people used to, noting the musical and lyrical themes". Jamieson Cox for The Verge described how Beyoncé's 2013 album initiated a gradual trend of albums becoming more cohesive and self-referential, and this phenomenon reached its endpoint with Lemonade, which set "a new standard for pop storytelling at the highest possible scale". Megan Carpentier of The Guardian wrote that with Lemonade, Beyoncé has "almost revived the album format" by releasing an album that can only be listened to in its entirety. Myf Warhurst on Double J's "Lunch With Myf" explained that while most artists' albums consist of a few singles plus filler songs, Beyoncé "brought the album back", changing the art form of the album "to a narrative with an arc and a story and you have to listen to the entire thing to get the concept".
Several recording artists have cited Beyoncé as their influence. Lady Gaga explained how Beyoncé gave her the determination to become a musician, recalling seeing her in a Destiny's Child music video and saying: "Oh, she's a star. I want that." Rihanna was similarly inspired to start her singing career after watching Beyoncé, telling etalk that after Beyoncé released Dangerously In Love (2003), "I was like 'wow, I want to be just like that.' She's huge and just an inspiration." Lizzo was also first inspired by Beyoncé to start singing after watching her perform at a Destiny's Child concert. Lizzo also taught herself to sing by copying Beyoncé's B'Day (2006). Similarly, Ariana Grande said she learned to sing by mimicking Beyoncé. Adele cited Beyoncé as her inspiration and favorite artist, telling Vogue: "She's been a huge and constant part of my life as an artist since I was about ten or eleven ... I think she's really inspiring. She's beautiful. She's ridiculously talented, and she is one of the kindest people I've ever met ... She makes me want to do things with my life." Both Paul McCartney and Garth Brooks said they watch Beyoncé's performances to get inspiration for their own shows, with Brooks saying that when you watch one of her performances, "take out your notebook and take notes. No matter how long you've been on the stage – take notes on that one."
She is known for coining popular phrases such as "put a ring on it", a euphemism for marriage proposal, "I woke up like this", which started a trend of posting morning selfies with the hashtag #iwokeuplikethis, and "boy, bye", which was used as part of the Democratic National Committee's campaign for the 2020 election. Similarly, she also came up with the phrase "visual album" following the release of her fifth studio album, which had a video for every song. This has been recreated by many other artists since, such as Frank Ocean and Melanie Martinez. The album also popularized surprise releases, with many artists releasing songs, videos or albums with no prior announcement, such as Taylor Swift, Nicki Minaj, Eminem, Frank Ocean, Jay-Z and Drake.
In January 2012, research scientist Bryan Lessard named Scaptia beyonceae, a species of horse-fly found in Northern Queensland, Australia after Beyoncé due to the fly's unique golden hairs on its abdomen. In 2018, the City of Columbia, South Carolina declared August 21 the Beyoncé Knowles-Carter Day in the city after presenting her with the keys to Columbia.
Achievements
Beyoncé has received numerous awards, and is the most-awarded female artist of all time. As a solo artist she has sold over 17 million albums in the US, and over 75 million worldwide (as of February 2013). Having sold over 100 million records worldwide (a further 60 million additionally with Destiny's Child), Beyoncé is one of the best-selling music artists of all time. The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) listed Beyoncé as the top certified artist of the 2000s decade, with a total of 64 certifications. Her songs "Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)", "Halo", and "Irreplaceable" are some of the best-selling singles of all time worldwide. In 2009, Billboard named her the Top Female Artist and Top Radio Songs Artist of the Decade. In 2010, Billboard named her in their Top 50 R&B/Hip-Hop Artists of the Past 25 Years list at number 15. In 2012, VH1 ranked her third on their list of the "100 Greatest Women in Music", behind Mariah Carey and Madonna. In 2002, she received Songwriter of the Year from American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers becoming the First African American woman to win the award. In 2004 and 2019, she received NAACP Image Award for Entertainer of the Year and the Soul Train Music Award for Sammy Davis Jr. – Entertainer of the Year.
In 2005, she also received APEX Award at the Trumpet Award honoring achievements of Black African Americans. In 2007, Beyoncé received the International Artist of Excellence award by the American Music Awards. She also received Honorary Otto at the Bravo Otto. The following year, she received the Legend Award for Outstanding Contribution to the Arts at the World Music Awards and Career Achievement Award at the LOS40 Music Awards. In 2010, she received Award of Honor for Artist of the Decade at the NRJ Music Award and at the 2011 Billboard Music Awards, Beyoncé received the inaugural Billboard Millennium Award. Beyoncé received the Michael Jackson Video Vanguard Award at the 2014 MTV Video Music Awards and was honored as Honorary Mother of the Year at the Australian Mother of the Year Award in Barnardo's Australia for her Humanitarian Effort in the region and the Council of Fashion Designers of America Fashion Icon Award in 2016. In 2019, alongside Jay-Z, she received GLAAD Vanguard Award that is presented to a member of the entertainment community who does not identify as LGBT but who has made a significant difference in promoting equal rights for LGBT people. In 2020, she was awarded the BET Humanitarian Award. Consequence of Sound named her the 30th best singer of all time.
Beyoncé has won 28 Grammy Awards, both as a solo artist and member of Destiny's Child and The Carters, making her the most honored singer, male or female, by the Grammys. She is also the most nominated artist in Grammy Award history with a total of 79 nominations. "Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)" won Song of the Year in 2010 while "Say My Name", "Crazy in Love" and "Drunk in Love" have each won Best R&B Song. Dangerously in Love, B'Day and I Am... Sasha Fierce have all won Best Contemporary R&B Album, while Lemonade has won Best Urban Contemporary Album. Beyoncé set the record for the most Grammy awards won by a female artist in one night in 2010 when she won six awards, breaking the tie she previously held with Alicia Keys, Norah Jones, Alison Krauss, and Amy Winehouse, with Adele equaling this in 2012.
Beyoncé has also won 24 MTV Video Music Awards, making her the most-awarded artist in Video Music Award history. She won two awards each with The Carters and Destiny's Child making her lifetime total of 28 VMAs. "Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)" and "Formation" won Video of the Year in 2009 and 2016 respectively. Beyoncé tied the record set by Lady Gaga in 2010 for the most VMAs won in one night for a female artist with eight in 2016. She is also the most-awarded and nominated artist in BET Award history, winning 29 awards from a total of 60 nominations, the most-awarded person at the Soul Train Music Awards with 17 awards as a solo artist, and the most-awarded person at the NAACP Image Awards with 24 awards as a solo artist.
Following her role in Dreamgirls, Beyoncé was nominated for Best Original Song for "Listen" and Best Actress at the Golden Globe Awards, and Outstanding Actress in a Motion Picture at the NAACP Image Awards. Beyoncé won two awards at the Broadcast Film Critics Association Awards 2006; Best Song for "Listen" and Best Original Soundtrack for Dreamgirls: Music from the Motion Picture. According to Fuse in 2014, Beyoncé is the second-most award-winning artist of all time, after Michael Jackson. Lemonade won a Peabody Award in 2017.
She was named on the 2016 BBC Radio 4 Woman's Hour Power List as one of seven women judged to have had the biggest impact on women's lives over the past 70 years, alongside Margaret Thatcher, Barbara Castle, Helen Brook, Germaine Greer, Jayaben Desai and Bridget Jones, She was named the Most Powerful Woman in Music on the same list in 2020. In the same year, Billboard named her with Destiny's Child the third Greatest Music Video artists of all time, behind Madonna and Michael Jackson.
On June 16, 2021, Beyoncé was among several celebrities at the Pollstar Awards where she won the award of "top touring artist" of the decade (2010s). On June 17, 2021, Beyoncé was inducted into the Black Music & Entertainment Walk of Fame as a member of the inaugural class.
Business and ventures
In 2010, Beyoncé founded her own entertainment company Parkwood Entertainment which formed as an imprint based from Columbia Records, the company began as a production unit for videos and films in 2008. Parkwood Entertainment is named after a street in Houston, Texas where Beyoncé once lived. With headquarters in New York City, the company serves as an umbrella for the entertainer's various brands in music, movies, videos, and fashion. The staff of Parkwood Entertainment have experiences in arts and entertainment, from filmmaking and video production to web and fashion design. In addition to departments in marketing, digital, creative, publicity, fashion design and merchandising, the company houses a state-of-the-art editing suite, where Beyoncé works on content for her worldwide tours, music videos, and television specials. Parkwood Entertainment's first production was the musical biopic Cadillac Records (2008), in which Beyoncé starred and co-produced. The company has also distributed Beyoncé's albums such as her self-titled fifth studio album (2013), Lemonade (2016) and The Carters, Everything is Love (2018). Beyoncé has also signed other artists to Parkwood such as Chloe x Halle, who performed at Super Bowl LIII in February 2019.
Endorsements and partnerships
Beyoncé has worked with Pepsi since 2002, and in 2004 appeared in a Gladiator-themed commercial with Britney Spears, Pink, and Enrique Iglesias. In 2012, Beyoncé signed a $50 million deal to endorse Pepsi. The Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPINET) wrote Beyoncé an open letter asking her to reconsider the deal because of the unhealthiness of the product and to donate the proceeds to a medical organisation. Nevertheless, NetBase found that Beyoncé's campaign was the most talked about endorsement in April 2013, with a 70 percent positive audience response to the commercial and print ads.
Beyoncé has worked with Tommy Hilfiger for the fragrances True Star (singing a cover version of "Wishing on a Star") and True Star Gold; she also promoted Emporio Armani's Diamonds fragrance in 2007. Beyoncé launched her first official fragrance, Heat, in 2010. The commercial, which featured the 1956 song "Fever", was shown after the watershed in the United Kingdom as it begins with an image of Beyoncé appearing to lie naked in a room. In February 2011, Beyoncé launched her second fragrance, Heat Rush. Beyoncé's third fragrance, Pulse, was launched in September 2011. In 2013, The Mrs. Carter Show Limited Edition version of Heat was released. The six editions of Heat are the world's best-selling celebrity fragrance line, with sales of over $400 million.
The release of a video-game Starpower: Beyoncé was cancelled after Beyoncé pulled out of a $100 million with GateFive who alleged the cancellation meant the sacking of 70 staff and millions of pounds lost in development. It was settled out of court by her lawyers in June 2013 who said that they had cancelled because GateFive had lost its financial backers. Beyoncé also has had deals with American Express, Nintendo DS and L'Oréal since the age of 18.
In March 2015, Beyoncé became a co-owner, with other artists, of the music streaming service Tidal. The service specializes in lossless audio and high definition music videos. Beyoncé's husband Jay-Z acquired the parent company of Tidal, Aspiro, in the first quarter of 2015. Including Beyoncé and Jay-Z, sixteen artist stakeholders (such as Kanye West, Rihanna, Madonna, Chris Martin, Nicki Minaj and more) co-own Tidal, with the majority owning a 3% equity stake. The idea of having an all artist owned streaming service was created by those involved to adapt to the increased demand for streaming within the current music industry.
In November 2020, Beyoncé formed a multi-year partnership with exercise equipment and media company Peloton. The partnership was formed to celebrate homecoming season in historically black colleges and universities, providing themed workout experiences inspired by Beyoncé's 2019 Homecoming film and live album after 2020's homecoming celebrations were cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic. As part of the partnership, Beyoncé and Peloton are donating free memberships to all students at 10 HBCUs, and Peloton are pursuing long-term recruiting partnerships at the HCBUs. Gwen Bethel Riley, head of music at Peloton, said: "When we had conversations with Beyoncé around how critical a social impact component was to all of us, it crystallized how important it was to embrace Homecoming as an opportunity to celebrate and create dialogue around Black culture and music, in partnership with HBCUs." Upon news of the partnership, a decline in Peloton's shares reversed, and its shares rose by 8.6%.
In 2021, Beyoncé and Jay-Z partnered with Tiffany & Co. for the company's "About Love" campaign. Beyoncé became the fourth woman, and first Black woman, to wear the Tiffany Yellow Diamond. The campaign featured a robin egg blue painting by Jean-Michel Basquiat titled Equals Pi (1982).
Fashion lines
Beyoncé and her mother introduced House of Deréon, a contemporary women's fashion line, in 2005. The concept is inspired by three generations of women in their family, with the name paying tribute to Beyoncé's grandmother, Agnèz Deréon, a respected seamstress. According to Tina, the overall style of the line best reflects her and Beyoncé's taste and style. Beyoncé and her mother founded their family's company Beyond Productions, which provides the licensing and brand management for House of Deréon, and its junior collection, Deréon. House of Deréon pieces were exhibited in Destiny's Child's shows and tours, during their Destiny Fulfilled era. The collection features sportswear, denim offerings with fur, outerwear and accessories that include handbags and footwear, and are available at department and specialty stores across the U.S. and Canada.
In 2005, Beyoncé teamed up with House of Brands, a shoe company, to produce a range of footwear for House of Deréon. In January 2008, Starwave Mobile launched Beyoncé Fashion Diva, a "high-style" mobile game with a social networking component, featuring the House of Deréon collection. In July 2009, Beyoncé and her mother launched a new junior apparel label, Sasha Fierce for Deréon, for back-to-school selling. The collection included sportswear, outerwear, handbags, footwear, eyewear, lingerie and jewelry. It was available at department stores including Macy's and Dillard's, and specialty stores Jimmy Jazz and Against All Odds. On May 27, 2010, Beyoncé teamed up with clothing store C&A to launch Deréon by Beyoncé at their stores in Brazil. The collection included tailored blazers with padded shoulders, little black dresses, embroidered tops and shirts and bandage dresses.
In October 2014, Beyoncé signed a deal to launch an activewear line of clothing with British fashion retailer Topshop. The 50–50 venture is called Ivy Park and was launched in April 2016. The brand's name is a nod to Beyoncé's daughter and her favourite number four (IV in roman numerals), and also references the park where she used to run in Texas. She has since bought out Topshop owner Philip Green from his 50% share after he was alleged to have sexually harassed, bullied and racially abused employees. She now owns the brand herself. On April 4, 2019, it was announced that Beyoncé would become a creative partner with Adidas and further develop her athletic brand Ivy Park with the company. Knowles will also develop new clothes and footwear for Adidas. Shares for the company rose 1.3% upon the news release. On December 9, 2019, they announced a launch date of January 18, 2020. Beyoncé uploaded a teaser on her website and Instagram. The collection was also previewed on the upcoming Elle January 2020 issue, where Beyoncé is seen wearing several garments, accessories and footwear from the first collection.
Philanthropy
In 2002, Beyoncé, Kelly Rowland and Tina Knowles built the Knowles-Rowland Center for Youth, a community center in Downtown Houston. After Hurricane Katrina in 2005, Beyoncé and Rowland founded the Survivor Foundation to provide transitional housing to displaced families and provide means for new building construction, to which Beyoncé contributed an initial $250,000. The foundation has since expanded to work with other charities in the city, and also provided relief following Hurricane Ike three years later. Beyoncé also donated $100,000 to the Gulf Coast Ike Relief Fund. In 2007, Beyoncé founded the Knowles-Temenos Place Apartments, a housing complex offering living space for 43 displaced individuals. As of 2016, Beyoncé had donated $7 million for the maintenance of the complex.
After starring in Cadillac Records in 2009 and learning about Phoenix House, a non-profit drug and alcohol rehabilitation organization, Beyoncé donated her full $4 million salary from the film to the organization. Beyoncé and her mother subsequently established the Beyoncé Cosmetology Center, which offers a seven-month cosmetology training course helping Phoenix House's clients gain career skills during their recovery.
In January 2010, Beyoncé participated in George Clooney and Wyclef Jean's Hope for Haiti Now: A Global Benefit for Earthquake Relief telethon, donated a large sum to the organization, and was named the official face of the limited edition CFDA "Fashion For Haiti" T-shirt, made by Theory which raised a total of $1 million. In April 2011, Beyoncé joined forces with U.S. First Lady Michelle Obama and the National Association of Broadcasters Education Foundation, to help boost the latter's campaign against child obesity by reworking her single "Get Me Bodied". Following the death of Osama bin Laden, Beyoncé released her cover of the Lee Greenwood song "God Bless the USA", as a charity single to help raise funds for the New York Police and Fire Widows' and Children's Benefit Fund.
Beyoncé became an ambassador for the 2012 World Humanitarian Day campaign donating her song "I Was Here" and its music video, shot in the UN, to the campaign. In 2013, it was announced that Beyoncé would work with Salma Hayek and Frida Giannini on a Gucci "Chime for Change" campaign that aims to spread female empowerment. The campaign, which aired on February 28, was set to her new music. A concert for the cause took place on June 1, 2013, in London. With help of the crowdfunding platform Catapult, visitors of the concert could choose between several projects promoting education of women and girls. Beyoncé also took part in "Miss a Meal", a food-donation campaign, and supported Goodwill Industries through online charity auctions at Charitybuzz that support job creation throughout Europe and the U.S.
Beyoncé and Jay-Z secretly donated tens of thousands of dollars to bail out Black Lives Matter protesters in Baltimore and Ferguson, as well as funded infrastructure for the establishment of Black Lives Matter chapters across the US. Before Beyoncé's Formation World Tour show in Tampa, her team held a private luncheon for more than 20 community leaders to discuss how Beyoncé could support local charitable initiatives, including pledging on the spot to fund 10 scholarships to provide students with financial aid. Tampa Sports Authority board member Thomas Scott said: "I don't know of a prior artist meeting with the community, seeing what their needs are, seeing how they can invest in the community. It says a lot to me about Beyoncé. She not only goes into a community and walks away with (money), but she also gives money back to that community." In June 2016, Beyoncé donated over $82,000 to the United Way of Genesee County to support victims of the Flint water crisis. Beyoncé additionally donated money to support 14 students in Michigan with their college expenses. In August 2016, Beyoncé and Jay-Z donated $1.5 million to civil rights groups including Black Lives Matter, Hands Up United and Dream Defenders. After Hurricane Matthew, Beyoncé and Jay-Z donated $15 million to the Usain Bolt Foundation to support its efforts in rebuilding homes in Haiti. In December 2016, Beyoncé was named the Most Charitable Celebrity of the year.
During Hurricane Harvey in August 2017, Beyoncé launched BeyGOOD Houston to support those affected by the hurricane in Houston. The organization donated necessities such as cots, blankets, pillows, baby products, feminine products and wheelchairs, and funded long-term revitalization projects. On September 8, Beyoncé visited Houston, where she sponsored a lunch for 400 survivors at her local church, visited the George R Brown Convention Center to discuss with people displaced by the flooding about their needs, served meals to those who lost their homes, and made a significant donation to local causes. Beyoncé additionally donated $75,000 worth of new mattresses to survivors of the hurricane. Later that month, Beyoncé released a remix of J Balvin and Willy William's "Mi Gente", with all of her proceeds being donated to disaster relief charities in Puerto Rico, Mexico, the U.S. and the Caribbean after hurricanes Harvey, Irma and Maria, and the Chiapas and Puebla earthquakes.
In April 2020, Beyoncé donated $6 million to the National Alliance in Mental Health, UCLA and local community-based organizations in order to provide mental health and personal wellness services to essential workers during the COVID-19 pandemic. BeyGOOD also teamed up with local organizations to help provide resources to communities of color, including food, water, cleaning supplies, medicines and face masks. The same month Beyoncé released a remix of Megan Thee Stallion's "Savage", with all proceeds benefiting Bread of Life Houston's COVID-19 relief efforts, which includes providing over 14 tons of food and supplies to 500 families and 100 senior citizens in Houston weekly. In May 2020, Beyoncé provided 1,000 free COVID-19 tests in Houston as part of her and her mother's #IDidMyPart initiative, which was established due to the disproportionate deaths in African-American communities. Additionally, 1,000 gloves, masks, hot meals, essential vitamins, grocery vouchers and household items were provided. In July 2020, Beyoncé established the Black-Owned Small Business Impact Fund in partnership with the NAACP, which offers $10,000 grants to black-owned small businesses in need following the George Floyd protests. All proceeds from Beyoncé's single "Black Parade" were donated to the fund. In September 2020, Beyoncé announced that she had donated an additional $1 million to the fund. As of December 31, 2020, the fund had given 715 grants to black-owned small businesses, amounting to $7.15 million donated. In October 2020, Beyoncé released a statement that she has been working with the Feminist Coalition to assist supporters of the End Sars movement in Nigeria, including covering medical costs for injured protestors, covering legal fees for arrested protestors, and providing food, emergency shelter, transportation and telecommunication means to those in need. Beyoncé also showed support for those fighting against other issues in Africa, such as the Anglophone Crisis in Cameroon, ShutItAllDown in Namibia, Zimbabwean Lives Matter in Zimbabwe and the Rape National Emergency in Liberia. In December 2020, Beyoncé donated $500,000 to help alleviate the housing crisis in the U.S. caused by the cessation of the eviction moratorium, giving 100 $5,000 grants to individuals and families facing foreclosures and evictions.
Discography
Dangerously in Love (2003)
B'Day (2006)
I Am... Sasha Fierce (2008)
4 (2011)
Beyoncé (2013)
Lemonade (2016)
Filmography
Films starred
Carmen: A Hip Hopera (2001)
Austin Powers in Goldmember (2002)
The Fighting Temptations (2003)
Fade to Black (2004)
The Pink Panther (2006)
Dreamgirls (2006)
Cadillac Records (2008)
Obsessed (2009)
Epic (2013)
The Lion King (2019)
Films directed
Life Is But a Dream (2013)
Beyoncé: Lemonade (2016)
Homecoming (2019)
Black Is King (2020)
Tours and residencies
Headlining tours
Dangerously in Love Tour (2003)
The Beyoncé Experience (2007)
I Am... World Tour (2009–2010)
The Mrs. Carter Show World Tour (2013–2014)
The Formation World Tour (2016)
Co-headlining tours
Verizon Ladies First Tour (with Alicia Keys and Missy Elliott) (2004)
On the Run Tour (with Jay-Z) (2014)
On the Run II Tour (with Jay-Z) (2018)
Residencies
I Am... Yours (2009)
4 Intimate Nights with Beyoncé (2011)
Revel Presents: Beyoncé Live (2012)
See also
Album era
Honorific nicknames in popular music
List of artists who reached number one in the United States
List of artists with the most number ones on the U.S. dance chart
List of Billboard Social 50 number-one artists
List of black Golden Globe Award winners and nominees
List of highest-grossing concert tours
Best-selling female artists of all time
List of most-followed Instagram accounts
Notes
References
External links
1981 births
Living people
20th-century American businesspeople
20th-century American businesswomen
20th-century American singers
20th-century American women singers
21st-century American actresses
21st-century American businesspeople
21st-century American businesswomen
21st-century American singers
21st-century American women singers
Actresses from Houston
African-American actresses
African-American artists
African-American businesspeople
African-American choreographers
African-American dancers
African-American fashion designers
American fashion designers
African-American female dancers
African-American women rappers
African-American women singers
African-American feminists
African-American Methodists
African-American record producers
African-American women in business
African-American women writers
American women business executives
American choreographers
American contemporary R&B singers
American cosmetics businesspeople
American fashion businesspeople
American women pop singers
American film actresses
American hip hop record producers
American female hip hop singers
American hip hop singers
American mezzo-sopranos
American music publishers (people)
American music video directors
American people of Creole descent
American retail chief executives
American soul singers
American television actresses
American United Methodists
American voice actresses
American women philanthropists
American women record producers
Black Lives Matter people
Brit Award winners
Businesspeople from Houston
Columbia Records artists
Dance-pop musicians
Destiny's Child members
Female music video directors
Feminist musicians
Gold Star Records artists
Grammy Award winners
Grammy Award winners for rap music
High School for the Performing and Visual Arts alumni
Ivor Novello Award winners
Jay-Z
Solange Knowles
Louisiana Creole people
MTV Europe Music Award winners
Music video codirectors
Musicians from Houston
NME Awards winners
Parkwood Entertainment artists
Record producers from Texas
Shoe designers
Singers from Texas
Singers with a four-octave vocal range
Texas Democrats
Women hip hop record producers
World Music Awards winners
Writers from Houston | true | [
"\"River Lea\" is a song recorded by English singer-songwriter Adele for her third studio album 25 (2015). The song was written by Adele Adkins and Brian Burton, while production of the song was provided by Burton under his pseudonym Danger Mouse. Lyrically, the track is partly about the River Lea in London. Musically, the song is a gospel song with a ghostly feel. \"River Lea\" received positive reviews from critics, with The Guardian calling it \"one of the most striking tracks\" on 25.\n\nThe song peaked at number 5 on the Finland Chart and number 80 on the France Chart. It debuted at number 97 on the Official German Charts.\n\nComposition\n\n\"River Lea\" is a biographical song with a \"ghostly feel.\" It is partly about the River Lea, a London tributary to the River Thames. It is a marshy river, and its significance to Adele is that it is located near her birthplace. Adele says, \"A lot of my life was spent walking alongside the River Lea to go and get somewhere else.\" Adele also describes how the song is about how she has changed from the time she lived in the area around the river. There is a lot of guilt wrapped up in the song and Adele \"cuts off the ends of her sentences as if she does not want to say what she is saying.\" SPIN magazine writes that she takes the name of the river itself and \"warps the phrase into an amorphous being.\" The song is in the genre of gospel music. The music behind the lyrics contains \"choirlike keyboard chords created from her own sampled voice.\"\n\n\"River Lea\" is written in the key of E minor with a tempo of 83 beats per minute. The song follows a chord progression of CDEmA, and Adele's vocals span from E3 to B4.\n\nCharts\n\nReferences\n\n2015 songs\nAdele songs\nGospel songs\nSong recordings produced by Danger Mouse (musician)\nSongs about London\nSongs about rivers\nSongs written by Adele\nSongs written by Danger Mouse (musician)",
"Voice is a studio album by Japanese jazz pianist Hiromi Uehara's Trio Project featuring bassist Anthony Jackson and drummer Simon Phillips. The album was released on June 7, 2011 by Telarc Digital label.\n\nMusic\nAs Hiromi says, \"I called this album Voice because I believe that people’s real voices are expressed in their emotions. It’s not something that you really say. It’s more something that you have in your heart. Maybe it’s something you haven’t said yet. Maybe you’re never going to say it. But it’s your true voice. Instrumental music is very similar. We don’t have any words or any lyrics to go with it. It’s the true voice that we don’t really put into words, but we feel it when it’s real.\"\n\nReception\nDerk Richardson of The Absolute Sound stated \"On Voice, her seventh album, Hiromi’s energy shines like never before. Much credit goes to Michael Bishop’s recording, which pushes the piano, synths, bass, drums, and cymbals right into your room where their presence—sharp-edged or rounded and burnished at exactly the right moments—pulsates against the silence. But Voice is more than one of best-engineered piano records this side of ECM; it is an hour of virtually nonstop excitement, rising to peak after peak, capped by a perfectly placed five-minute denouement that allows your burning ears to cool down.\" Ian Patterson of All About Jazz commented, \"Voice presents Hiromi as a maturing composer spreading her wings, confident and open to all manner of influences. This is a highly satisfying addition to Hiromi's discography, and one that leaves the tantalizing sensation that her already fascinating musical journey is maybe only just beginning.\"\n\nPhil Wain of No Treble stated \"We certainly feel it. Hiromi’s latest album, Voice is convincing music – it has the air of authenticity, the musicians believe in what they are creating and what they have created here is a record that stands fairly unique, both in contemporary jazz and in Hiromi’s recorded output to date. You can hear the Ahmad Jamal influence fairly explicitly, while at the same time it’s definitely Hiromi’s voice here.\" In his review for The Guardian, John Fordham wrote, \"Though she can't resist hurtling through a jaw-dropping obstacle race of swing, classical adaptations and thundering blues, it's hard to resist the childlike glee with which she does it all. Voice doesn't feature any vocals, but the theme is her journey towards a voice of her own.\"\n\nTrack listing\n\nPersonnel \n Hiromi Uehara - Piano\n Anthony Jackson - Bass\n Simon Phillips - Drums\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\nOfficial website\n\n2011 albums\nHiromi Uehara albums"
]
|
[
"Beyoncé",
"Voice and songwriting",
"what happened with voice and songwriting?",
"Jody Rosen highlights her tone and timbre as particularly distinctive, describing her voice as \"one of the most compelling instruments in popular music",
"what else does she say about her voice?",
"Her vocal abilities mean she is identified as the centerpiece of Destiny's Child."
]
| C_1128b8d67bcb48feb77ec450ae614b45_1 | did anyone else have anything to say about her voice? good or bad. | 3 | Did anyone have say good or bad about Beyonce's voice and songwriting besides Jody Rosen? | Beyoncé | Jody Rosen highlights her tone and timbre as particularly distinctive, describing her voice as "one of the most compelling instruments in popular music". Her vocal abilities mean she is identified as the centerpiece of Destiny's Child. Jon Pareles of The New York Times commented that her voice is "velvety yet tart, with an insistent flutter and reserves of soul belting". Rosen notes that the hip hop era highly influenced Beyonce's unique rhythmic vocal style, but also finds her quite traditionalist in her use of balladry, gospel and falsetto. Other critics praise her range and power, with Chris Richards of The Washington Post saying she was "capable of punctuating any beat with goose-bump-inducing whispers or full-bore diva-roars." Beyonce's music is generally R&B, but she also incorporates pop, soul and funk into her songs. 4 demonstrated Beyonce's exploration of 1990s-style R&B, as well as further use of soul and hip hop than compared to previous releases. While she almost exclusively releases English songs, Beyonce recorded several Spanish songs for Irreemplazable (re-recordings of songs from B'Day for a Spanish-language audience), and the re-release of B'Day. To record these, Beyonce was coached phonetically by American record producer Rudy Perez. She has received co-writing credits for most of the songs recorded with Destiny's Child and her solo efforts. Her early songs were personally driven and female-empowerment themed compositions like "Independent Women" and "Survivor", but after the start of her relationship with Jay-Z, she transitioned to more man-tending anthems such as "Cater 2 U". Beyonce has also received co-producing credits for most of the records in which she has been involved, especially during her solo efforts. However, she does not formulate beats herself, but typically comes up with melodies and ideas during production, sharing them with producers. In 2001, she became the first black woman and second female lyricist to win the Pop Songwriter of the Year award at the American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers Pop Music Awards. Beyonce was the third woman to have writing credits on three number one songs ("Irreplaceable", "Grillz" and "Check on It") in the same year, after Carole King in 1971 and Mariah Carey in 1991. She is tied with American lyricist Diane Warren at third with nine song-writing credits on number-one singles. (The latter wrote her 9/11-motivated song "I Was Here" for 4.) In May 2011, Billboard magazine listed Beyonce at number 17 on their list of the "Top 20 Hot 100 Songwriters", for having co-written eight singles that hit number one on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. She was one of only three women on that list, along with Alicia Keys and Taylor Swift. CANNOTANSWER | Jon Pareles of The New York Times commented that her voice is "velvety yet tart, | Beyoncé Giselle Knowles-Carter ( ; born September 4, 1981) is an American singer, songwriter, and actress. Born and raised in Houston, Texas, Beyoncé performed in various singing and dancing competitions as a child. She rose to fame in the late 1990s as the lead singer of Destiny's Child, one of the best-selling girl groups of all time. Their hiatus saw the release of her debut solo album Dangerously in Love (2003), which featured the US Billboard Hot 100 number-one singles "Crazy in Love" and "Baby Boy".
Following the 2006 disbanding of Destiny's Child, she released her second solo album, B'Day, which contained singles "Irreplaceable" and "Beautiful Liar". Beyoncé also starred in multiple films such as The Pink Panther (2006), Dreamgirls (2006), Obsessed (2009), and The Lion King (2019). Her marriage to Jay-Z and her portrayal of Etta James in Cadillac Records (2008) influenced her third album, I Am... Sasha Fierce (2008), which earned a record-setting six Grammy Awards in 2010. It spawned the successful singles "If I Were a Boy", "Single Ladies", and "Halo".
After splitting from her manager and father Mathew Knowles in 2010, Beyoncé released her musically diverse fourth album 4 in 2011. She later achieved universal acclaim for her sonically experimental visual albums, Beyoncé (2013) and Lemonade (2016), the latter of which was the world's best-selling album of 2016 and the most acclaimed album of her career, exploring themes of infidelity and womanism. In 2018, she released Everything Is Love, a collaborative album with her husband, Jay-Z, as the Carters. As a featured artist, Beyoncé topped the Billboard Hot 100 with the remixes of "Perfect" by Ed Sheeran in 2017 and "Savage" by Megan Thee Stallion in 2020. The same year, she released the musical film and visual album Black Is King to widespread acclaim.
Beyoncé is one of the world's best-selling recording artists, having sold 120 million records worldwide. She is the first solo artist to have their first six studio albums debut at number one on the Billboard 200. Her success during the 2000s was recognized with the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA)'s Top Certified Artist of the Decade as well as Billboard Top Female Artist of the Decade. Beyoncé's accolades include 28 Grammy Awards, 26 MTV Video Music Awards (including the Michael Jackson Video Vanguard Award in 2014), 24 NAACP Image Awards, 31 BET Awards, and 17 Soul Train Music Awards; all of which are more than any other singer. In 2014, Billboard named her the highest-earning black musician of all time, while in 2020, she was included on Times list of 100 women who defined the last century.
Life and career
1981–1996: Early life and career beginnings
Beyonce Giselle Knowles was born on September 4, 1981, in Houston, Texas, to Celestine "Tina" Knowles (née Beyonce), a hairdresser and salon owner, and Mathew Knowles, a Xerox sales manager; Tina is Louisiana Creole, and Mathew is African American. Beyonce's younger sister Solange Knowles is also a singer and a former backup dancer for Destiny's Child. Solange and Beyoncé are the first sisters to have both had No. 1 albums.
Beyoncé's maternal grandparents, Lumas Beyince, and Agnez Dereon (daughter of Odilia Broussard and Eugene DeRouen), were French-speaking Louisiana Creoles, with roots in New Iberia. Beyoncé is considered a Creole, passed on to her by her grandparents. Through her mother, Beyoncé is a descendant of many French aristocrats from the southwest of France, including the family of the Viscounts de Béarn since the 9th century, and the Viscounts de Belzunce. She is also a descendant of Jean-Vincent d'Abbadie de Saint-Castin, a French nobleman and military leader who fought along the indigenous Abenaki against the British in Acadia and of Acadian leader Joseph Broussard. Her fourth great-grandmother, Marie-Françoise Trahan, was born in 1774 in Bangor, located on Belle Île, France. Trahan was a daughter of Acadians who had taken refuge on Belle Île after the British deportation. The Estates of Brittany had divided the lands of Belle Île to distribute them among 78 other Acadian families and the already settled inhabitants. The Trahan family lived on Belle Île for over ten years before immigrating to Louisiana, where she married a Broussard descendant. Beyoncé researched her ancestry and discovered that she is descended from a slave owner who married his slave.
Beyoncé was raised Catholic and attended St. Mary's Montessori School in Houston, where she enrolled in dance classes. Her singing was discovered when dance instructor Darlette Johnson began humming a song and she finished it, able to hit the high-pitched notes. Beyoncé's interest in music and performing continued after winning a school talent show at age seven, singing John Lennon's "Imagine" to beat 15/16-year-olds. In the fall of 1990, Beyoncé enrolled in Parker Elementary School, a music magnet school in Houston, where she would perform with the school's choir. She also attended the High School for the Performing and Visual Arts and later Alief Elsik High School. Beyoncé was also a member of the choir at St. John's United Methodist Church as a soloist for two years.
When Beyoncé was eight, she met LaTavia Roberson at an audition for an all-girl entertainment group. They were placed into a group called Girl's Tyme with three other girls, and rapped and danced on the talent show circuit in Houston. After seeing the group, R&B producer Arne Frager brought them to his Northern California studio and placed them in Star Search, the largest talent show on national TV at the time. Girl's Tyme failed to win, and Beyoncé later said the song they performed was not good. In 1995, Beyoncé's father resigned from his job to manage the group. The move reduced Beyoncé's family's income by half, and her parents were forced to move into separated apartments. Mathew cut the original line-up to four and the group continued performing as an opening act for other established R&B girl groups. The girls auditioned before record labels and were finally signed to Elektra Records, moving to Atlanta Records briefly to work on their first recording, only to be cut by the company. This put further strain on the family, and Beyoncé's parents separated. On October 5, 1995, Dwayne Wiggins's Grass Roots Entertainment signed the group. In 1996, the girls began recording their debut album under an agreement with Sony Music, the Knowles family reunited, and shortly after, the group got a contract with Columbia Records.
1997–2002: Destiny's Child
The group changed their name to Destiny's Child in 1996, based upon a passage in the Book of Isaiah. In 1997, Destiny's Child released their major label debut song "Killing Time" on the soundtrack to the 1997 film Men in Black. In November, the group released their debut single and first major hit, "No, No, No". They released their self-titled debut album in February 1998, which established the group as a viable act in the music industry, with moderate sales and winning the group three Soul Train Lady of Soul Awards for Best R&B/Soul Album of the Year, Best R&B/Soul or Rap New Artist, and Best R&B/Soul Single for "No, No, No". The group released their Multi-Platinum second album The Writing's on the Wall in 1999. The record features some of the group's most widely known songs such as "Bills, Bills, Bills", the group's first number-one single, "Jumpin' Jumpin' and "Say My Name", which became their most successful song at the time, and would remain one of their signature songs. "Say My Name" won the Best R&B Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocals and the Best R&B Song at the 43rd Annual Grammy Awards. The Writing's on the Wall sold more than eight million copies worldwide. During this time, Beyoncé recorded a duet with Marc Nelson, an original member of Boyz II Men, on the song "After All Is Said and Done" for the soundtrack to the 1999 film, The Best Man.
LeToya Luckett and Roberson became unhappy with Mathew's managing of the band and eventually were replaced by Farrah Franklin and Michelle Williams. Beyoncé experienced depression following the split with Luckett and Roberson after being publicly blamed by the media, critics, and blogs for its cause. Her long-standing boyfriend left her at this time. The depression was so severe it lasted for a couple of years, during which she occasionally kept herself in her bedroom for days and refused to eat anything. Beyoncé stated that she struggled to speak about her depression because Destiny's Child had just won their first Grammy Award, and she feared no one would take her seriously. Beyoncé would later speak of her mother as the person who helped her fight it. Franklin was then dismissed, leaving just Beyoncé, Rowland, and Williams.
The remaining band members recorded "Independent Women Part I", which appeared on the soundtrack to the 2000 film Charlie's Angels. It became their best-charting single, topping the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 chart for eleven consecutive weeks. In early 2001, while Destiny's Child was completing their third album, Beyoncé landed a major role in the MTV made-for-television film, Carmen: A Hip Hopera, starring alongside American actor Mekhi Phifer. Set in Philadelphia, the film is a modern interpretation of the 19th-century opera Carmen by French composer Georges Bizet. When the third album Survivor was released in May 2001, Luckett and Roberson filed a lawsuit claiming that the songs were aimed at them. The album debuted at number one on the U.S. Billboard 200, with first-week sales of 663,000 copies sold. The album spawned other number-one hits, "Bootylicious" and the title track, "Survivor", the latter of which earned the group a Grammy Award for Best R&B Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocals. After releasing their holiday album 8 Days of Christmas in October 2001, the group announced a hiatus to further pursue solo careers.
In July 2002, Beyoncé made her theatrical film debut, playing Foxxy Cleopatra alongside Mike Myers in the comedy film Austin Powers in Goldmember, which spent its first weekend atop the U.S. box office and grossed $73 million. Beyoncé released "Work It Out" as the lead single from its soundtrack album which entered the top ten in the UK, Norway, and Belgium. In 2003, Beyoncé starred opposite Cuba Gooding, Jr., in the musical comedy The Fighting Temptations as Lilly, a single mother with whom Gooding's character falls in love. The film received mixed reviews from critics but grossed $30 million in the U.S. Beyoncé released "Fighting Temptation" as the lead single from the film's soundtrack album, with Missy Elliott, MC Lyte, and Free which was also used to promote the film. Another of Beyoncé's contributions to the soundtrack, "Summertime", fared better on the U.S. charts.
2003–2005: Dangerously in Love and Destiny Fulfilled
Beyoncé's first solo recording was a feature on Jay-Z's song '03 Bonnie & Clyde" that was released in October 2002, peaking at number four on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 chart. On June 14, 2003, Beyoncé premiered songs from her first solo album Dangerously in Love during her first solo concert and the pay-per-view television special, "Ford Presents Beyoncé Knowles, Friends & Family, Live From Ford's 100th Anniversary Celebration in Dearborn, Michigan". The album was released on June 24, 2003, after Michelle Williams and Kelly Rowland had released their solo efforts. The album sold 317,000 copies in its first week, debuted atop the Billboard 200, and has since sold 11 million copies worldwide. The album's lead single, "Crazy in Love", featuring Jay-Z, became Beyoncé's first number-one single as a solo artist in the US. The single "Baby Boy" also reached number one, and singles, "Me, Myself and I" and "Naughty Girl", both reached the top-five. The album earned Beyoncé a then record-tying five awards at the 46th Annual Grammy Awards; Best Contemporary R&B Album, Best Female R&B Vocal Performance for "Dangerously in Love 2", Best R&B Song and Best Rap/Sung Collaboration for "Crazy in Love", and Best R&B Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocals for "The Closer I Get to You" with Luther Vandross. During the ceremony, she performed with Prince.
In November 2003, she embarked on the Dangerously in Love Tour in Europe and later toured alongside Missy Elliott and Alicia Keys for the Verizon Ladies First Tour in North America. On February 1, 2004, Beyoncé performed the American national anthem at Super Bowl XXXVIII, at the Reliant Stadium in Houston, Texas. After the release of Dangerously in Love, Beyoncé had planned to produce a follow-up album using several of the left-over tracks. However, this was put on hold so she could concentrate on recording Destiny Fulfilled, the final studio album by Destiny's Child. Released on November 15, 2004, in the US and peaking at number two on the Billboard 200, Destiny Fulfilled included the singles "Lose My Breath" and "Soldier", which reached the top five on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. Destiny's Child embarked on a worldwide concert tour, Destiny Fulfilled... and Lovin' It sponsored by McDonald's Corporation, and performed hits such as "No, No, No", "Survivor", "Say My Name", "Independent Women" and "Lose My Breath". In addition to renditions of the group's recorded material, they also performed songs from each singer's solo careers, most notably numbers from Dangerously in Love. and during the last stop of their European tour, in Barcelona on June 11, 2005, Rowland announced that Destiny's Child would disband following the North American leg of the tour. The group released their first compilation album Number 1's on October 25, 2005, in the US and accepted a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in March 2006. The group has sold 60 million records worldwide.
2006–2007: B'Day and Dreamgirls
Beyoncé's second solo album B'Day was released on September 4, 2006, in the US, to coincide with her twenty-fifth birthday. It sold 541,000 copies in its first week and debuted atop the Billboard 200, becoming Beyoncé's second consecutive number-one album in the United States. The album's lead single "Déjà Vu", featuring Jay-Z, reached the top five on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. The second international single "Irreplaceable" was a commercial success worldwide, reaching number one in Australia, Hungary, Ireland, New Zealand and the United States. B'Day also produced three other singles; "Ring the Alarm", "Get Me Bodied", and "Green Light" (released in the United Kingdom only).
At the 49th Annual Grammy Awards (2007), B'Day was nominated for five Grammy Awards, including Best Contemporary R&B Album, Best Female R&B Vocal Performance for "Ring the Alarm" and Best R&B Song and Best Rap/Sung Collaboration"for "Déjà Vu"; the Freemasons club mix of "Déjà Vu" without the rap was put forward in the Best Remixed Recording, Non-Classical category. B'Day won the award for Best Contemporary R&B Album. The following year, B'Day received two nominations – for Record of the Year for "Irreplaceable" and Best Pop Collaboration with Vocals for "Beautiful Liar" (with Shakira), also receiving a nomination for Best Compilation Soundtrack Album for Motion Pictures, Television or Other Visual Media for her appearance on Dreamgirls: Music from the Motion Picture (2006).
Her first acting role of 2006 was in the comedy film The Pink Panther starring opposite Steve Martin, grossing $158.8 million at the box office worldwide. Her second film Dreamgirls, the film version of the 1981 Broadway musical loosely based on The Supremes, received acclaim from critics and grossed $154 million internationally. In it, she starred opposite Jennifer Hudson, Jamie Foxx, and Eddie Murphy playing a pop singer based on Diana Ross. To promote the film, Beyoncé released "Listen" as the lead single from the soundtrack album. In April 2007, Beyoncé embarked on The Beyoncé Experience, her first worldwide concert tour, visiting 97 venues and grossed over $24 million. Beyoncé conducted pre-concert food donation drives during six major stops in conjunction with her pastor at St. John's and America's Second Harvest. At the same time, B'Day was re-released with five additional songs, including her duet with Shakira "Beautiful Liar".
2008–2010: I Am... Sasha Fierce
I Am... Sasha Fierce was released on November 18, 2008, in the United States. The album formally introduces Beyoncé's alter ego Sasha Fierce, conceived during the making of her 2003 single "Crazy in Love". It was met with generally mediocre reviews from critics, but sold 482,000 copies in its first week, debuting atop the Billboard 200, and giving Beyoncé her third consecutive number-one album in the US. The album featured the number-one song "Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)" and the top-five songs "If I Were a Boy" and "Halo". Achieving the accomplishment of becoming her longest-running Hot 100 single in her career, "Halos success in the U.S. helped Beyoncé attain more top-ten singles on the list than any other woman during the 2000s. It also included the successful "Sweet Dreams", and singles "Diva", "Ego", "Broken-Hearted Girl" and "Video Phone". The music video for "Single Ladies" has been parodied and imitated around the world, spawning the "first major dance craze" of the Internet age according to the Toronto Star. The video has won several awards, including Best Video at the 2009 MTV Europe Music Awards, the 2009 Scottish MOBO Awards, and the 2009 BET Awards. At the 2009 MTV Video Music Awards, the video was nominated for nine awards, ultimately winning three including Video of the Year. Its failure to win the Best Female Video category, which went to American singer-songwriter Taylor Swift's "You Belong with Me", led to Kanye West interrupting the ceremony and Beyoncé improvising a re-presentation of Swift's award during her own acceptance speech. In March 2009, Beyoncé embarked on the I Am... World Tour, her second headlining worldwide concert tour, consisting of 108 shows, grossing $119.5 million.
Beyoncé further expanded her acting career, starring as blues singer Etta James in the 2008 musical biopic Cadillac Records. Her performance in the film received praise from critics, and she garnered several nominations for her portrayal of James, including a Satellite Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress, and a NAACP Image Award nomination for Outstanding Supporting Actress. Beyoncé donated her entire salary from the film to Phoenix House, an organization of rehabilitation centers for heroin addicts around the country. On January 20, 2009, Beyoncé performed James' "At Last" at First Couple Barack and Michelle Obama's first inaugural ball. Beyoncé starred opposite Ali Larter and Idris Elba in the thriller, Obsessed. She played Sharon Charles, a mother and wife whose family is threatened by her husband's stalker. Although the film received negative reviews from critics, the movie did well at the U.S. box office, grossing $68 million – $60 million more than Cadillac Records – on a budget of $20 million. The fight scene finale between Sharon and the character played by Ali Larter also won the 2010 MTV Movie Award for Best Fight.
At the 52nd Annual Grammy Awards, Beyoncé received ten nominations, including Album of the Year for I Am... Sasha Fierce, Record of the Year for "Halo", and Song of the Year for "Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)", among others. She tied with Lauryn Hill for most Grammy nominations in a single year by a female artist. Beyoncé went on to win six of those nominations, breaking a record she previously tied in 2004 for the most Grammy awards won in a single night by a female artist with six. In 2010, Beyoncé was featured on Lady Gaga's single "Telephone" and appeared in its music video. The song topped the U.S. Pop Songs chart, becoming the sixth number-one for both Beyoncé and Gaga, tying them with Mariah Carey for most number-ones since the Nielsen Top 40 airplay chart launched in 1992. "Telephone" received a Grammy Award nomination for Best Pop Collaboration with Vocals.
Beyoncé announced a hiatus from her music career in January 2010, heeding her mother's advice, "to live life, to be inspired by things again". During the break she and her father parted ways as business partners. Beyoncé's musical break lasted nine months and saw her visit multiple European cities, the Great Wall of China, the Egyptian pyramids, Australia, English music festivals and various museums and ballet performances.
2011–2013: 4 and Super Bowl XLVII halftime show
On June 26, 2011, she became the first solo female artist to headline the main Pyramid stage at the 2011 Glastonbury Festival in over twenty years. Her fourth studio album 4 was released two days later in the US. 4 sold 310,000 copies in its first week and debuted atop the Billboard 200 chart, giving Beyoncé her fourth consecutive number-one album in the US. The album was preceded by two of its singles "Run the World (Girls)" and "Best Thing I Never Had". The fourth single "Love on Top" spent seven consecutive weeks at number one on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart, while peaking at number 20 on the Billboard Hot 100, the highest peak from the album. 4 also produced four other singles; "Party", "Countdown", "I Care" and "End of Time". "Eat, Play, Love", a cover story written by Beyoncé for Essence that detailed her 2010 career break, won her a writing award from the New York Association of Black Journalists. In late 2011, she took the stage at New York's Roseland Ballroom for four nights of special performances: the 4 Intimate Nights with Beyoncé concerts saw the performance of her 4 album to a standing room only. On August 1, 2011, the album was certified platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), having shipped 1 million copies to retail stores. By December 2015, it reached sales of 1.5 million copies in the US. The album reached one billion Spotify streams on February 5, 2018, making Beyoncé the first female artist to have three of their albums surpass one billion streams on the platform.
In June 2012, she performed for four nights at Revel Atlantic City's Ovation Hall to celebrate the resort's opening, her first performances since giving birth to her daughter.
In January 2013, Destiny's Child released Love Songs, a compilation album of the romance-themed songs from their previous albums and a newly recorded track, "Nuclear". Beyoncé performed the American national anthem singing along with a pre-recorded track at President Obama's second inauguration in Washington, D.C. The following month, Beyoncé performed at the Super Bowl XLVII halftime show, held at the Mercedes-Benz Superdome in New Orleans. The performance stands as the second most tweeted about moment in history at 268,000 tweets per minute. At the 55th Annual Grammy Awards, Beyoncé won for Best Traditional R&B Performance for "Love on Top". Her feature-length documentary film, Life Is But a Dream, first aired on HBO on February 16, 2013. The film was co-directed by Beyoncé herself.
2013–2015: Beyoncé
Beyoncé embarked on The Mrs. Carter Show World Tour on April 15 in Belgrade, Serbia; the tour included 132 dates that ran through to March 2014. It became the most successful tour of her career and one of the most successful tours of all time. In May, Beyoncé's cover of Amy Winehouse's "Back to Black" with André 3000 on The Great Gatsby soundtrack was released. Beyoncé voiced Queen Tara in the 3D CGI animated film, Epic, released by 20th Century Fox on May 24, and recorded an original song for the film, "Rise Up", co-written with Sia.
On December 13, 2013, Beyoncé unexpectedly released her eponymous fifth studio album on the iTunes Store without any prior announcement or promotion. The album debuted atop the Billboard 200 chart, giving Beyoncé her fifth consecutive number-one album in the US. This made her the first woman in the chart's history to have her first five studio albums debut at number one. Beyoncé received critical acclaim and commercial success, selling one million digital copies worldwide in six days; Musically an electro-R&B album, it concerns darker themes previously unexplored in her work, such as "bulimia, postnatal depression [and] the fears and insecurities of marriage and motherhood". The single "Drunk in Love", featuring Jay-Z, peaked at number two on the Billboard Hot 100 chart.
In April 2014, Beyoncé and Jay-Z officially announced their On the Run Tour. It served as the couple's first co-headlining stadium tour together. On August 24, 2014, she received the Michael Jackson Video Vanguard Award at the 2014 MTV Video Music Awards. Beyoncé also won home three competitive awards: Best Video with a Social Message and Best Cinematography for "Pretty Hurts", as well as best collaboration for "Drunk in Love". In November, Forbes reported that Beyoncé was the top-earning woman in music for the second year in a row – earning $115 million in the year, more than double her earnings in 2013. Beyoncé was reissued with new material in three forms: as an extended play, a box set, as well as a full platinum edition. According to the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI), in the last 19 days of 2013, the album sold 2.3 million units worldwide, becoming the tenth best-selling album of 2013. The album also went on to become the twentieth best-selling album of 2014. , Beyoncé has sold over 5 million copies worldwide and has generated over 1 billion streams, .
At the 57th Annual Grammy Awards in February 2015, Beyoncé was nominated for six awards, ultimately winning three: Best R&B Performance and Best R&B Song for "Drunk in Love", and Best Surround Sound Album for Beyoncé. She was nominated for Album of the Year, but the award went to Beck for his album Morning Phase.
2016–2018: Lemonade and Everything Is Love
On February 6, 2016, Beyoncé released "Formation" and its accompanying music video exclusively on the music streaming platform Tidal; the song was made available to download for free. She performed "Formation" live for the first time during the NFL Super Bowl 50 halftime show. The appearance was considered controversial as it appeared to reference the 50th anniversary of the Black Panther Party and the NFL forbids political statements in its performances. Immediately following the performance, Beyoncé announced The Formation World Tour, which highlighted stops in both North America, and Europe. It ended on October 7, with Beyoncé bringing out her husband Jay-Z, Kendrick Lamar, and Serena Williams for the last show. The tour went on to win Tour of the Year at the 44th American Music Awards.
On April 16, 2016, Beyoncé released a teaser clip for a project called Lemonade. It turned out to be a one-hour film which aired on HBO exactly a week later; a corresponding album with the same title was released on the same day exclusively on Tidal. Lemonade debuted at number one on the U.S. Billboard 200, making Beyoncé the first act in Billboard history to have their first six studio albums debut atop the chart; she broke a record previously tied with DMX in 2013. With all 12 tracks of Lemonade debuting on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, Beyoncé also became the first female act to chart 12 or more songs at the same time. Additionally, Lemonade was streamed 115 million times through Tidal, setting a record for the most-streamed album in a single week by a female artist in history. It was 2016's third highest-selling album in the U.S. with 1.554 million copies sold in that time period within the country as well as the best-selling album worldwide with global sales of 2.5 million throughout the year. In June 2019, Lemonade was certified 3× Platinum, having sold up to 3 million album-equivalent units in the United States alone.
Lemonade became her most critically acclaimed work to date, receiving universal acclaim according to Metacritic, a website collecting reviews from professional music critics. Several music publications included the album among the best of 2016, including Rolling Stone, which listed Lemonade at number one. The album's visuals were nominated in 11 categories at the 2016 MTV Video Music Awards, the most ever received by Beyoncé in a single year, and went on to win 8 awards, including Video of the Year for "Formation". The eight wins made Beyoncé the most-awarded artist in the history of the VMAs (24), surpassing Madonna (20). Beyoncé occupied the sixth place for Time magazine's 2016 Person of the Year.
In January 2017, it was announced that Beyoncé would headline the Coachella Music and Arts Festival. This would make Beyoncé only the second female headliner of the festival since it was founded in 1999. It was later announced on February 23, 2017, that Beyoncé would no longer be able to perform at the festival due to doctor's concerns regarding her pregnancy. The festival owners announced that she will instead headline the 2018 festival. Upon the announcement of Beyoncé's departure from the festival lineup, ticket prices dropped by 12%. At the 59th Grammy Awards in February 2017, Lemonade led the nominations with nine, including Album, Record, and Song of the Year for Lemonade and "Formation" respectively. and ultimately won two, Best Urban Contemporary Album for Lemonade and Best Music Video for "Formation". Adele, upon winning her Grammy for Album of the Year, stated Lemonade was monumental and more deserving.
In September 2017, Beyoncé collaborated with J Balvin and Willy William, to release a remix of the song "Mi Gente". Beyoncé donated all proceeds from the song to hurricane charities for those affected by Hurricane Harvey and Hurricane Irma in Texas, Mexico, Puerto Rico, and other Caribbean Islands. On November 10, Eminem released "Walk on Water" featuring Beyoncé as the lead single from his album Revival. On November 30, Ed Sheeran announced that Beyoncé would feature on the remix to his song "Perfect". "Perfect Duet" was released on December 1, 2017. The song reached number-one in the United States, becoming Beyoncé's sixth song of her solo career to do so.
On January 4, 2018, the music video of Beyoncé and Jay-Z's 4:44 collaboration, "Family Feud" was released. It was directed by Ava DuVernay. On March 1, 2018, DJ Khaled released "Top Off" as the first single from his forthcoming album Father of Asahd featuring Beyoncé, husband Jay-Z, and Future. On March 5, 2018, a joint tour with Knowles's husband Jay-Z, was leaked on Facebook. Information about the tour was later taken down. The couple announced the joint tour officially as On the Run II Tour on March 12 and simultaneously released a trailer for the tour on YouTube. On March 20, 2018, the couple traveled to Jamaica to film a music video directed by Melina Matsoukas.
On April 14, 2018, Beyoncé played the first of two weekends as the headlining act of the Coachella Music Festival. Her performance of April 14, attended by 125,000 festival-goers, was immediately praised, with multiple media outlets describing it as historic. The performance became the most-tweeted-about performance of weekend one, as well as the most-watched live Coachella performance and the most-watched live performance on YouTube of all time. The show paid tribute to black culture, specifically historically black colleges and universities and featured a live band with over 100 dancers. Destiny's Child also reunited during the show.
On June 6, 2018, Beyoncé and husband Jay-Z kicked-off the On the Run II Tour in Cardiff, United Kingdom. Ten days later, at their final London performance, the pair unveiled Everything Is Love, their joint studio album, credited under the name The Carters, and initially available exclusively on Tidal. The pair also released the video for the album's lead single, "Apeshit", on Beyoncé's official YouTube channel. Everything Is Love received generally positive reviews, and debuted at number two on the U.S. Billboard 200, with 123,000 album-equivalent units, of which 70,000 were pure album sales. On December 2, 2018, Beyoncé alongside Jay-Z headlined the Global Citizen Festival: Mandela 100 which was held at FNB Stadium in Johannesburg, South Africa. Their 2-hour performance had concepts similar to the On the Run II Tour and Beyoncé was praised for her outfits, which paid tribute to Africa's diversity.
2019–present: Homecoming, The Lion King and Black Is King
Homecoming, a documentary and concert film focusing on Beyoncé's historic 2018 Coachella performances, was released by Netflix on April 17, 2019. The film was accompanied by the surprise live album Homecoming: The Live Album. It was later reported that Beyoncé and Netflix had signed a $60 million deal to produce three different projects, one of which is Homecoming. Homecoming received six nominations at the 71st Primetime Creative Arts Emmy Awards.
Beyoncé starred as the voice of Nala in the remake The Lion King, which was released on July 19, 2019. Beyoncé is featured on the film's soundtrack, released on July 11, 2019, with a remake of the song "Can You Feel the Love Tonight" alongside Donald Glover, Billy Eichner and Seth Rogen, which was originally composed by Elton John. Additionally, an original song from the film by Beyoncé, "Spirit", was released as the lead single from both the soundtrack and The Lion King: The Gift – a companion album released alongside the film, produced and curated by Beyoncé. Beyoncé called The Lion King: The Gift a "sonic cinema". She also stated that the album is influenced by everything from R&B, pop, hip hop and Afro Beat. The songs were additionally produced by African producers, which Beyoncé said was because "authenticity and heart were important to [her]", since the film is set in Africa. In September of the same year, a documentary chronicling the development, production and early music video filming of The Lion King: The Gift entitled "Beyoncé Presents: Making The Gift" was aired on ABC.
On April 29, 2020, Beyoncé was featured on the remix of Megan Thee Stallion's song "Savage", marking her first material of music for the year. The song peaked at number one on the Billboard Hot 100, marking Beyoncé's eleventh song to do so across all acts. On June 19, 2020, Beyoncé released the nonprofit charity single "Black Parade". On June 23, she followed up the release of its studio version with an a capella version exclusively on Tidal. Black Is King, a visual album based on the music of The Lion King: The Gift, premiered globally on Disney+ on July 31, 2020. Produced by Disney and Parkwood Entertainment, the film was written, directed and executive produced by Beyoncé. The film was described by Disney as "a celebratory memoir for the world on the Black experience". Beyoncé received the most nominations (9) at the 63rd Annual Grammy Awards and the most awards (4), which made her the most-awarded singer, most-awarded female artist, and second-most-awarded artist in Grammy history.
Beyoncé wrote and recorded a song titled "Be Alive" for the biographical drama film King Richard. She received her first Academy Award nomination for Best Original Song at the 94th Academy Awards for the song, alongside co-writer DIXSON.
Artistry
Voice and musical style
Beyoncé's voice type is classified as dramatic mezzo-soprano. Jody Rosen highlights her tone and timbre as particularly distinctive, describing her voice as "one of the most compelling instruments in popular music". Her vocal abilities mean she is identified as the centerpiece of Destiny's Child. Jon Pareles of The New York Times commented that her voice is "velvety yet tart, with an insistent flutter and reserves of soul belting". Rosen notes that the hip hop era highly influenced Beyoncé's unique rhythmic vocal style, but also finds her quite traditionalist in her use of balladry, gospel and falsetto. Other critics praise her range and power, with Chris Richards of The Washington Post saying she was "capable of punctuating any beat with goose-bump-inducing whispers or full-bore diva-roars."
Beyoncé's music is generally R&B, pop and hip hop but she also incorporates soul and funk into her songs. 4 demonstrated Beyoncé's exploration of 1990s-style R&B, as well as further use of soul and hip hop than compared to previous releases. While she almost exclusively releases English songs, Beyoncé recorded several Spanish songs for Irreemplazable (re-recordings of songs from B'Day for a Spanish-language audience), and the re-release of B'Day. To record these, Beyoncé was coached phonetically by American record producer Rudy Perez.
Songwriting
Beyoncé has received co-writing credits for most of her songs. In regards to the way she approaches collaborative songwriting, Beyoncé explained: "I love being around great writers because I'm finding that a lot of the things I want to say, I don't articulate as good as maybe Amanda Ghost, so I want to keep collaborating with writers, and I love classics and I want to make sure years from now the song is still something that's relevant." Her early songs with Destiny's Child were personally driven and female-empowerment themed compositions like "Independent Women" and "Survivor", but after the start of her relationship with Jay-Z, she transitioned to more man-tending anthems such as "Cater 2 U".
In 2001, she became the first Black woman and second female lyricist to win the Pop Songwriter of the Year award at the ASCAP Pop Music Awards. Beyoncé was the third woman to have writing credits on three number-one songs ("Irreplaceable", "Grillz" and "Check on It") in the same year, after Carole King in 1971 and Mariah Carey in 1991. She is tied with American lyricist Diane Warren at third with nine songwriting credits on number-one singles. The latter wrote her 9/11-motivated song "I Was Here" for 4. In May 2011, Billboard magazine listed Beyoncé at number 17 on their list of the Top 20 Hot 100 Songwriters for having co-written eight singles that hit number one on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. She was one of only three women on that list, along with Alicia Keys and Taylor Swift.
Beyoncé has long received criticism, including from journalists and musicians, for the extensive writing credits on her songs. The controversy surrounding her songwriting credits began with interviews in which she attributed herself as the songwriter for songs in which she was a co-writer or for which her contributions were marginal. In a cover story for Vanity Fair in 2005, she claimed to have "written" several number-one songs for Destiny's Child, contrary to the credits, which list her as a co-writer among others. In a 2007 interview with Barbara Walters, she claimed to have conceived the musical idea for the Destiny's Child hit "Bootylicious", which provoked the song's producer Rob Fusari to call her father and then-manager Mathew Knowles in protest over the claim. As Fusari tells Billboard, "[Knowles] explained to me, in a nice way, he said, 'People don't want to hear about Rob Fusari, producer from Livingston, N.J. No offense, but that's not what sells records. What sells records is people believing that the artist is everything. However, in an interview for Entertainment Weekly in 2016, Fusari said Beyoncé "had the 'Bootylicious' concept in her head. That was totally her. She knew what she wanted to say. It was very urban pop angle that they were taking on the record."
In 2007, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences ruled out Beyoncé as a songwriter on "Listen" (from Dreamgirls) for its Oscar nomination in the Best Original Song category. Responding to a then-new three-writer limit, the Academy deemed her contribution the least significant for inclusion. In 2009, Ryan Tedder's original demo for "Halo" leaked on the Internet, revealing an identical resemblance to Beyoncé's recording, for which she received a writing credit. When interviewed by The Guardian, Tedder explained that Beyoncé had edited the bridge of the song vocally and thus earned the credit, although he vaguely questioned the ethics of her possible "demand" for a writing credit in other instances. Tedder elaborated when speaking to Gigwise that "She does stuff on any given song that, when you go from the demo to the final version, takes it to another level that you never would have thought of as the writer. For instance, on 'Halo,' that bridge on her version is completely different to my original one. Basically, she came in, ditched that, edited it, did her vocal thing on it, and now it's become one of my favorite parts of the song. The whole melody, she wrote it spontaneously in the studio. So her credit on that song stems from that." In 2014, the popular industry songwriter Linda Perry responded to a question about Beyoncé receiving a co-writing credit for changing one lyric to a song: "Well haha um that's not songwriting but some of these artists believe if it wasn't for them your song would never get out there so they take a cut just because they are who they are. But everyone knows the real truth about Beyoncé. She is talented but in a completely different way." Perry's remarks were echoed by Frank Ocean, who acknowledged the trend of recording artists forcing writing credits while jokingly suggesting Beyoncé had an exceptional status.
Reflecting on the controversy, Sunday Independent columnist Alexis Kritselis wrote in 2014, "It seems as though our love for all things Beyoncé has blinded us to the very real claims of theft and plagiarism that have plagued her career for years", and that, "because of her power and influence in the music industry, it may be hard for some songwriters to 'just say no' to Beyoncé." While reporting on her controversial writing record, pop culture critics such as Roger Friedman and The Daily Beasts Kevin Fallon said the trend has redefined popular conceptions of songwriting, with Fallon saying, "the village of authors and composers that populate Lemonade, [Kanye West']s Life of Pablo, [Rihanna's] Anti, or [Drake's] Views – all of which are still reflective of an artist's voice and vision ... speaks to the truth of the way the industry's top artists create their music today: by committee." James S. Murphy of Vanity Fair suggests Beyoncé is among the major artists like Frank Sinatra and Billie Holiday who are "celebrated [not] because [they] write such good parts, but because [they] create them out of the words that are given".
Meanwhile, Everything Is Love producers Cool & Dre stated that Beyoncé is "100 percent involved" in writing her own songs, with Dre saying that "She put her mind to the music and did her thing. If she had a melody idea, she came up with the words. If we had the words, she came up with the melody. She's a beast", when speaking on the writing process of Everything Is Love. Ne-Yo, when asked about his collaborative writing experience with Beyoncé on "Irreplaceable", said that they both wrote "two damn totally different songs ... So, yeah, I gave her writer's credit. Because that counts. That's writing ... She put her spin on it." As for Drake: Pound Cake' happened while I was writing for Beyoncé or working with Beyoncé, not writing for, working with. I hate saying writing for 'cause she's a phenomenal writer. She has bars on bars." The-Dream revealed: "We did a whole Fela album that didn't go up. It was right before we did 4. We did a whole different sounding thing, about twenty songs. She said she wanted to do something that sounds like Fela. That's why there's so much of that sound in the 'End of Time.' There's always multiple albums being made. Most of the time we're just being creative, period. We're talking about B, somebody who sings all day long and somebody who writes all day long. There's probably a hundred records just sitting around."
Influences
Beyoncé names Michael Jackson as her major musical influence. Aged five, Beyoncé attended her first ever concert where Jackson performed and she claims to have realized her purpose. When she presented him with a tribute award at the World Music Awards in 2006, Beyoncé said, "if it wasn't for Michael Jackson, I would never ever have performed." Beyoncé was heavily influenced by Tina Turner, who she said "Tina Turner is someone that I admire, because she made her strength feminine and sexy". She admires Diana Ross as an "all-around entertainer", and Whitney Houston, who she said "inspired me to get up there and do what she did." Beyoncé cited Madonna as an influence "not only for her musical style, but also for her business sense", saying that she wanted to "follow in the footsteps of Madonna and be a powerhouse and have my own empire." She also credits Mariah Carey's singing and her song "Vision of Love" as influencing her to begin practicing vocal runs as a child. Her other musical influences include Prince, Shakira, Lauryn Hill, Sade Adu, Donna Summer, Mary J. Blige, Anita Baker, and Toni Braxton.
The feminism and female empowerment themes on Beyoncé's second solo album B'Day were inspired by her role in Dreamgirls and by singer Josephine Baker. Beyoncé paid homage to Baker by performing "Déjà Vu" at the 2006 Fashion Rocks concert wearing Baker's trademark mini-hula skirt embellished with fake bananas. Beyoncé's third solo album, I Am... Sasha Fierce, was inspired by Jay-Z and especially by Etta James, whose "boldness" inspired Beyoncé to explore other musical genres and styles. Her fourth solo album, 4, was inspired by Fela Kuti, 1990s R&B, Earth, Wind & Fire, DeBarge, Lionel Richie, Teena Marie, The Jackson 5, New Edition, Adele, Florence and the Machine, and Prince.
Beyoncé has stated that she is personally inspired by Michelle Obama (the 44th First Lady of the United States), saying "she proves you can do it all", and has described Oprah Winfrey as "the definition of inspiration and a strong woman." She has also discussed how Jay-Z is a continuing inspiration to her, both with what she describes as his lyrical genius and in the obstacles he has overcome in his life. Beyoncé has expressed admiration for the artist Jean-Michel Basquiat, posting in a letter "what I find in the work of Jean-Michel Basquiat, I search for in every day in music ... he is lyrical and raw". Beyoncé also cited Cher as a fashion inspiration.
Music videos and stage
In 2006, Beyoncé introduced her all-female tour band Suga Mama (also the name of a song on B'Day) which includes bassists, drummers, guitarists, horn players, keyboardists and percussionists. Her background singers, The Mamas, consist of Montina Cooper-Donnell, Crystal Collins and Tiffany Moniqué Riddick. They made their debut appearance at the 2006 BET Awards and re-appeared in the music videos for "Irreplaceable" and "Green Light". The band have supported Beyoncé in most subsequent live performances, including her 2007 concert tour The Beyoncé Experience, I Am... World Tour (2009–2010), The Mrs. Carter Show World Tour (2013–2014) and The Formation World Tour (2016).
Beyoncé has received praise for her stage presence and voice during live performances. Jarett Wieselman of the New York Post placed her at number one on her list of the Five Best Singer/Dancers. According to Barbara Ellen of The Guardian Beyoncé is the most in-charge female artist she's seen onstage, while Alice Jones of The Independent wrote she "takes her role as entertainer so seriously she's almost too good." The ex-President of Def Jam L.A. Reid has described Beyoncé as the greatest entertainer alive. Jim Farber of the Daily News and Stephanie Classen of The StarPhoenix both praised her strong voice and her stage presence. Beyoncé's stage outfits have been met with criticism from many countries, such as Malaysia, where she has postponed or cancelled performances due to the country's strict laws banning revealing costumes.
Beyoncé has worked with numerous directors for her music videos throughout her career, including Melina Matsoukas, Jonas Åkerlund, and Jake Nava. Bill Condon, director of Beauty and the Beast, stated that the Lemonade visuals in particular served as inspiration for his film, commenting, "You look at Beyoncé's brilliant movie Lemonade, this genre is taking on so many different forms ... I do think that this very old-school break-out-into-song traditional musical is something that people understand again and really want."
Alter ego
Described as being "sexy, seductive and provocative" when performing on stage, Beyoncé has said that she originally created the alter ego "Sasha Fierce" to keep that stage persona separate from who she really is. She described Sasha as being "too aggressive, too strong, too sassy [and] too sexy", stating, "I'm not like her in real life at all." Sasha was conceived during the making of "Crazy in Love", and Beyoncé introduced her with the release of her 2008 album, I Am... Sasha Fierce. In February 2010, she announced in an interview with Allure magazine that she was comfortable enough with herself to no longer need Sasha Fierce. However, Beyoncé announced in May 2012 that she would bring her back for her Revel Presents: Beyoncé Live shows later that month.
Public image
Beyoncé has been described as having a wide-ranging sex appeal, with music journalist Touré writing that since the release of Dangerously in Love, she has "become a crossover sex symbol". Offstage Beyoncé says that while she likes to dress sexily, her onstage dress "is absolutely for the stage". Due to her curves and the term's catchiness, in the 2000s, the media often used the term "bootylicious" (a portmanteau of the words "booty" and "delicious") to describe Beyoncé, the term popularized by Destiny's Child's single of the same name. In 2006, it was added to the Oxford English Dictionary.
In September 2010, Beyoncé made her runway modelling debut at Tom Ford's Spring/Summer 2011 fashion show. She was named the "World's Most Beautiful Woman" by People and the "Hottest Female Singer of All Time" by Complex in 2012. In January 2013, GQ placed her on its cover, featuring her atop its "100 Sexiest Women of the 21st Century" list. VH1 listed her at number 1 on its 100 Sexiest Artists list. Several wax figures of Beyoncé are found at Madame Tussauds Wax Museums in major cities around the world, including New York, Washington, D.C., Amsterdam, Bangkok, Hollywood and Sydney.
According to Italian fashion designer Roberto Cavalli, Beyoncé uses different fashion styles to work with her music while performing. Her mother co-wrote a book, published in 2002, titled Destiny's Style, an account of how fashion affected the trio's success. The B'Day Anthology Video Album showed many instances of fashion-oriented footage, depicting classic to contemporary wardrobe styles. In 2007, Beyoncé was featured on the cover of the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue, becoming the second African American woman after Tyra Banks, and People magazine recognized Beyoncé as the best-dressed celebrity.
Beyoncé has been named "Queen Bey" from publications over the years. The term is a reference to the common phrase "queen bee", a term used for the leader of a group of females. The nickname also refers to the queen of a beehive, with her fan base being named "The BeyHive". The BeyHive was previously titled "The Beyontourage", (a portmanteau of Beyoncé and entourage), but was changed after online petitions on Twitter and online news reports during competitions. The BeyHive has been named one of the most loyal and defensive fan bases and has achieved notoriety for being fiercely protective of Beyoncé.
In 2006, the animal rights organization People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), criticized Beyoncé for wearing and using fur in her clothing line House of Deréon. In 2011, she appeared on the cover of French fashion magazine L'Officiel, in blackface and tribal makeup that drew criticism from the media. A statement released from a spokesperson for the magazine said that Beyoncé's look was "far from the glamorous Sasha Fierce" and that it was "a return to her African roots".
Beyoncé's lighter skin color and costuming has drawn criticism from some in the African-American community. Emmett Price, a professor of music at Northeastern University, wrote in 2007 that he thinks race plays a role in many of these criticisms, saying white celebrities who dress similarly do not attract as many comments. In 2008, L'Oréal was accused of whitening her skin in their Feria hair color advertisements, responding that "it is categorically untrue", and in 2013, Beyoncé herself criticized H&M for their proposed "retouching" of promotional images of her, and according to Vogue requested that only "natural pictures be used".
Beyoncé has been a vocal advocate for the Black Lives Matter movement. The release of "Formation" on February 6, 2016 saw her celebrate her heritage, with the song's music video featuring pro-black imagery and most notably a shot of wall graffiti that says "Stop shooting us". The day after the song's release she performed it at the 2016 Super Bowl halftime show with back up dancers dressed to represent the Black Panther Party. This incited criticism from politicians and police officers, with some police boycotting Beyoncé's then upcoming Formation World Tour. Beyoncé responded to the backlash by releasing tour merchandise that said "Boycott Beyoncé", and later clarified her sentiment, saying: “Anyone who perceives my message as anti-police is completely mistaken. I have so much admiration and respect for officers and the families of officers who sacrifice themselves to keep us safe,” Beyoncé said. “But let’s be clear: I am against police brutality and injustice. Those are two separate things.”
Personal life
Marriage and children
Beyoncé started a relationship with Jay-Z after their collaboration on '03 Bonnie & Clyde", which appeared on his seventh album The Blueprint 2: The Gift & The Curse (2002). Beyoncé appeared as Jay-Z's girlfriend in the music video for the song, fueling speculation about their relationship. On April 4, 2008, Beyoncé and Jay-Z married without publicity. , the couple had sold a combined 300 million records together. They are known for their private relationship, although they have appeared to become more relaxed in recent years. Both have acknowledged difficulty that arose in their marriage after Jay-Z had an affair.
Beyoncé miscarried around 2010 or 2011, describing it as "the saddest thing" she had ever endured. She returned to the studio and wrote music to cope with the loss. In April 2011, Beyoncé and Jay-Z traveled to Paris to shoot the album cover for 4, and she unexpectedly became pregnant in Paris. In August, the couple attended the 2011 MTV Video Music Awards, at which Beyoncé performed "Love on Top" and ended the performance by revealing she was pregnant. Her appearance helped that year's MTV Video Music Awards become the most-watched broadcast in MTV history, pulling in 12.4 million viewers; the announcement was listed in Guinness World Records for "most tweets per second recorded for a single event" on Twitter, receiving 8,868 tweets per second and "Beyonce pregnant" was the most Googled phrase the week of August 29, 2011. On January 7, 2012, Beyoncé gave birth to a daughter, Blue Ivy, at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City.
Following the release of Lemonade, which included the single "Sorry", in 2016, speculations arose about Jay-Z's alleged infidelity with a mistress referred to as "Becky". Jon Pareles in The New York Times pointed out that many of the accusations were "aimed specifically and recognizably" at him. Similarly, Rob Sheffield of Rolling Stone magazine noted the lines "Suck on my balls, I've had enough" were an "unmistakable hint" that the lyrics revolve around Jay-Z.
On February 1, 2017, she revealed on her Instagram account that she was expecting twins. Her announcement gained over 6.3 million likes within eight hours, breaking the world record for the most liked image on the website at the time. On July 13, 2017, Beyoncé uploaded the first image of herself and the twins onto her Instagram account, confirming their birth date as a month prior, on June 13, 2017, with the post becoming the second most liked on Instagram, behind her own pregnancy announcement. The twins, a daughter named Rumi and a son named Sir, were born at Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center in California. She wrote of her pregnancy and its aftermath in the September 2018 issue of Vogue, in which she had full control of the cover, shot at Hammerwood Park by photographer Tyler Mitchell.
Activism
Beyoncé performed "America the Beautiful" at President Barack Obama's 2009 presidential inauguration, as well as "At Last" during the first inaugural dance at the Neighborhood Ball two days later. The couple held a fundraiser at Jay-Z's 40/40 Club in Manhattan for President Obama's 2012 presidential campaign which raised $4 million. In the 2012 presidential election, the singer voted for President Obama. She performed the American national anthem "The Star-Spangled Banner" at his second inauguration in January 2013.
The Washington Post reported in May 2015, that Beyoncé attended a major celebrity fundraiser for 2016 presidential nominee Hillary Clinton. She also headlined for Clinton in a concert held the weekend before Election Day the next year. In this performance, Beyoncé and her entourage of backup dancers wore pantsuits; a clear allusion to Clinton's frequent dress-of-choice. The backup dancers also wore "I'm with her" tee shirts, the campaign slogan for Clinton. In a brief speech at this performance Beyoncé said, "I want my daughter to grow up seeing a woman lead our country and knowing that her possibilities are limitless." She endorsed the bid of Beto O'Rourke during the 2018 United States Senate election in Texas.
In 2013, Beyoncé stated in an interview in Vogue that she considered herself to be "a modern-day feminist". She would later align herself more publicly with the movement, sampling "We should all be feminists", a speech delivered by Nigerian author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie at a TEDx talk in April 2013, in her song "Flawless", released later that year. The next year she performed live at the MTV Video Awards in front a giant backdrop reading "Feminist". Her self-identification incited a circulation of opinions and debate about whether her feminism is aligned with older, more established feminist ideals. Annie Lennox, celebrated artist and feminist advocate, referred to Beyoncé's use of her word feminist as 'feminist lite'. bell hooks critiqued Beyoncé, referring to her as a "terrorist" towards feminism, harmfully impacting her audience of young girls. Adichie responded with "her type of feminism is not mine, as it is the kind that, at the same time, gives quite a lot of space to the necessity of men." Adichie expands upon what 'feminist lite' means to her, referring that "more troubling is the idea, in Feminism Lite, that men are naturally superior but should be expected to "treat women well" and "we judge powerful women more harshly than we judge powerful men. And Feminism Lite enables this." Beyoncé responded about her intent by utilizing the definition of feminist with her platform was to "give clarity to the true meaning" behind it. She says to understand what being a feminist is, "it's very simple. It's someone who believes in equal rights for men and women." She advocated to provide equal opportunities for young boys and girls, men and women must begin to understand the double standards that remain persistent in our societies and the issue must be illuminated in effort to start making changes.
She has also contributed to the Ban Bossy campaign, which uses TV and social media to encourage leadership in girls. Following Beyoncé's public identification as a feminist, the sexualized nature of her performances and the fact that she championed her marriage was questioned.
In December 2012, Beyoncé along with a variety of other celebrities teamed up and produced a video campaign for "Demand A Plan", a bipartisan effort by a group of 950 U.S. mayors and others designed to influence the federal government into rethinking its gun control laws, following the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting. Beyoncé publicly endorsed same-sex marriage on March 26, 2013, after the Supreme Court debate on California's Proposition 8. She spoke against North Carolina's Public Facilities Privacy & Security Act, a bill passed (and later repealed) that discriminated against the LGBT community in public places in a statement during her concert in Raleigh as part of the Formation World Tour in 2016. She has also condemned police brutality against black Americans. She and Jay-Z attended a rally in 2013 in response to the acquittal of George Zimmerman for the killing of Trayvon Martin. The film for her sixth album Lemonade included the mothers of Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown and Eric Garner, holding pictures of their sons in the video for "Freedom". In a 2016 interview with Elle, Beyoncé responded to the controversy surrounding her song "Formation" which was perceived to be critical of the police. She clarified, "I am against police brutality and injustice. Those are two separate things. If celebrating my roots and culture during Black History Month made anyone uncomfortable, those feelings were there long before a video and long before me".
In February 2017, Beyoncé spoke out against the withdrawal of protections for transgender students in public schools by Donald Trump's presidential administration. Posting a link to the 100 Days of Kindness campaign on her Facebook page, Beyoncé voiced her support for transgender youth and joined a roster of celebrities who spoke out against Trump's decision.
In November 2017, Beyoncé presented Colin Kaepernick with the 2017 Sports Illustrated Muhammad Ali Legacy Award, stating, "Thank you for your selfless heart and your conviction, thank you for your personal sacrifice", and that "Colin took action with no fear of consequence ... To change perception, to change the way we treat each other, especially people of color. We're still waiting for the world to catch up." Muhammad Ali was heavily penalized in his career for protesting the status quo of US civil rights through opposition to the Vietnam War, by refusing to serve in the military. 40 years later, Kaepernick had already lost one professional year due to taking a much quieter and legal stand "for people that are oppressed".
Wealth
Forbes magazine began reporting on Beyoncé's earnings in 2008, calculating that the $80 million earned between June 2007 to June 2008, for her music, tour, films and clothing line made her the world's best-paid music personality at the time, above Madonna and Celine Dion. It placed her fourth on the Celebrity 100 list in 2009
and ninth on the "Most Powerful Women in the World" list in 2010. The following year, the magazine placed her eighth on the "Best-Paid Celebrities Under 30" list, having earned $35 million in the past year for her clothing line and endorsement deals. In 2012, Forbes placed Beyoncé at number 16 on the Celebrity 100 list, twelve places lower than three years ago yet still having earned $40 million in the past year for her album 4, clothing line and endorsement deals. In the same year, Beyoncé and Jay-Z placed at number one on the "World's Highest-Paid Celebrity Couples", for collectively earning $78 million. The couple made it into the previous year's Guinness World Records as the "highest-earning power couple" for collectively earning $122 million in 2009. For the years 2009 to 2011, Beyoncé earned an average of $70 million per year, and earned $40 million in 2012. In 2013, Beyoncé's endorsements of Pepsi and H&M made her and Jay-Z the world's first billion dollar couple in the music industry. That year, Beyoncé was published as the fourth most-powerful celebrity in the Forbes rankings.
MTV estimated that by the end of 2014, Beyoncé would become the highest-paid Black musician in history; this became the case in April 2014. In June 2014, Beyoncé ranked at number one on the Forbes Celebrity 100 list, earning an estimated $115 million throughout June 2013 – June 2014. This in turn was the first time she had topped the Celebrity 100 list as well as being her highest yearly earnings to date. In 2016, Beyoncé ranked at number 34 on the Celebrity 100 list with earnings of $54 million. She and Jay-Z also topped the highest paid celebrity couple list, with combined earnings of $107.5 million. , Forbes calculated her net worth to be $355 million, and in June of the same year, ranked her as the 35th highest earning celebrity with annual earnings of $60 million. This tied Beyoncé with Madonna as the only two female artists to earn more than $100 million within a single year twice. As a couple, Beyoncé and Jay-Z have a combined net worth of $1.16 billion. In July 2017, Billboard announced that Beyoncé was the highest paid musician of 2016, with an estimated total of $62.1 million.
Impact
Beyoncé's success has led to her becoming a cultural icon and earning her the nickname "Queen Bey". In The New Yorker, music critic Jody Rosen described Beyoncé as "the most important and compelling popular musician of the twenty-first century ... the result, the logical end point, of a century-plus of pop." Author James Clear, in his book Atomic Habits (2018), draws a parallel between the singer's success and the dramatic transformations in modern society: "In the last one hundred years, we have seen the rise of the car, the airplane, the television, the personal computer, the internet, the smartphone, and Beyoncé." The Observer named her Artist of the Decade (2000s) in 2009.
Writing for Entertainment Weekly, Alex Suskind noticed how Beyoncé was the decade's (2010s) defining pop star, stating that "no one dominated music in the 2010s like Queen Bey", explaining that her "songs, album rollouts, stage presence, social justice initiatives, and disruptive public relations strategy have influenced the way we've viewed music since 2010." British publication NME also shared similar thoughts on her impact in the 2010s, including Beyoncé on their list of the "10 Artists Who Defined The Decade". In 2018, Rolling Stone included her on its Millennial 100 list.
Beyoncé is credited with the invention of the staccato rap-singing style that has since dominated pop, R&B and rap music. Lakin Starling of The Fader wrote that Beyoncé's innovative implementation of the delivery style on Destiny's Child's 1999 album The Writing's on the Wall invented a new form of R&B. Beyoncé's new style subsequently changed the nature of music, revolutionizing both singing in urban music and rapping in pop music, and becoming the dominant sound of both genres. The style helped to redefine both the breadth of commercial R&B and the sound of hip hop, with artists such as Kanye West and Drake implementing Beyoncé's cadence in the late 2000s and early 2010s. The staccato rap-singing style continued to be used in the music industry in the late 2010s and early 2020s; Aaron Williams of Uproxx described Beyoncé as the "primary pioneer" of the rapping style that dominates the music industry today, with many contemporary rappers implementing Beyoncé's rap-singing. Michael Eric Dyson agrees, saying that Beyoncé "changed the whole genre" and has become the "godmother" of mumble rappers, who use the staccato rap-singing cadence. Dyson added: "She doesn't get credit for the remarkable way in which she changed the musical vocabulary of contemporary art."
Beyoncé has been credited with reviving the album as an art form in an era dominated by singles and streaming. This started with her 2011 album 4; while mainstream R&B artists were forgoing albums-led R&B in favor of singles-led EDM, Beyoncé aimed to place the focus back on albums as an artform and re-establish R&B as a mainstream concern. This remained a focus of Beyoncé's, and in 2013, she made her eponymous album only available to purchase as a full album on iTunes, rather than being able to purchase individual tracks or consume the album via streaming. Kaitlin Menza of Marie Claire wrote that this made listeners "experience the album as one whole sonic experience, the way people used to, noting the musical and lyrical themes". Jamieson Cox for The Verge described how Beyoncé's 2013 album initiated a gradual trend of albums becoming more cohesive and self-referential, and this phenomenon reached its endpoint with Lemonade, which set "a new standard for pop storytelling at the highest possible scale". Megan Carpentier of The Guardian wrote that with Lemonade, Beyoncé has "almost revived the album format" by releasing an album that can only be listened to in its entirety. Myf Warhurst on Double J's "Lunch With Myf" explained that while most artists' albums consist of a few singles plus filler songs, Beyoncé "brought the album back", changing the art form of the album "to a narrative with an arc and a story and you have to listen to the entire thing to get the concept".
Several recording artists have cited Beyoncé as their influence. Lady Gaga explained how Beyoncé gave her the determination to become a musician, recalling seeing her in a Destiny's Child music video and saying: "Oh, she's a star. I want that." Rihanna was similarly inspired to start her singing career after watching Beyoncé, telling etalk that after Beyoncé released Dangerously In Love (2003), "I was like 'wow, I want to be just like that.' She's huge and just an inspiration." Lizzo was also first inspired by Beyoncé to start singing after watching her perform at a Destiny's Child concert. Lizzo also taught herself to sing by copying Beyoncé's B'Day (2006). Similarly, Ariana Grande said she learned to sing by mimicking Beyoncé. Adele cited Beyoncé as her inspiration and favorite artist, telling Vogue: "She's been a huge and constant part of my life as an artist since I was about ten or eleven ... I think she's really inspiring. She's beautiful. She's ridiculously talented, and she is one of the kindest people I've ever met ... She makes me want to do things with my life." Both Paul McCartney and Garth Brooks said they watch Beyoncé's performances to get inspiration for their own shows, with Brooks saying that when you watch one of her performances, "take out your notebook and take notes. No matter how long you've been on the stage – take notes on that one."
She is known for coining popular phrases such as "put a ring on it", a euphemism for marriage proposal, "I woke up like this", which started a trend of posting morning selfies with the hashtag #iwokeuplikethis, and "boy, bye", which was used as part of the Democratic National Committee's campaign for the 2020 election. Similarly, she also came up with the phrase "visual album" following the release of her fifth studio album, which had a video for every song. This has been recreated by many other artists since, such as Frank Ocean and Melanie Martinez. The album also popularized surprise releases, with many artists releasing songs, videos or albums with no prior announcement, such as Taylor Swift, Nicki Minaj, Eminem, Frank Ocean, Jay-Z and Drake.
In January 2012, research scientist Bryan Lessard named Scaptia beyonceae, a species of horse-fly found in Northern Queensland, Australia after Beyoncé due to the fly's unique golden hairs on its abdomen. In 2018, the City of Columbia, South Carolina declared August 21 the Beyoncé Knowles-Carter Day in the city after presenting her with the keys to Columbia.
Achievements
Beyoncé has received numerous awards, and is the most-awarded female artist of all time. As a solo artist she has sold over 17 million albums in the US, and over 75 million worldwide (as of February 2013). Having sold over 100 million records worldwide (a further 60 million additionally with Destiny's Child), Beyoncé is one of the best-selling music artists of all time. The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) listed Beyoncé as the top certified artist of the 2000s decade, with a total of 64 certifications. Her songs "Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)", "Halo", and "Irreplaceable" are some of the best-selling singles of all time worldwide. In 2009, Billboard named her the Top Female Artist and Top Radio Songs Artist of the Decade. In 2010, Billboard named her in their Top 50 R&B/Hip-Hop Artists of the Past 25 Years list at number 15. In 2012, VH1 ranked her third on their list of the "100 Greatest Women in Music", behind Mariah Carey and Madonna. In 2002, she received Songwriter of the Year from American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers becoming the First African American woman to win the award. In 2004 and 2019, she received NAACP Image Award for Entertainer of the Year and the Soul Train Music Award for Sammy Davis Jr. – Entertainer of the Year.
In 2005, she also received APEX Award at the Trumpet Award honoring achievements of Black African Americans. In 2007, Beyoncé received the International Artist of Excellence award by the American Music Awards. She also received Honorary Otto at the Bravo Otto. The following year, she received the Legend Award for Outstanding Contribution to the Arts at the World Music Awards and Career Achievement Award at the LOS40 Music Awards. In 2010, she received Award of Honor for Artist of the Decade at the NRJ Music Award and at the 2011 Billboard Music Awards, Beyoncé received the inaugural Billboard Millennium Award. Beyoncé received the Michael Jackson Video Vanguard Award at the 2014 MTV Video Music Awards and was honored as Honorary Mother of the Year at the Australian Mother of the Year Award in Barnardo's Australia for her Humanitarian Effort in the region and the Council of Fashion Designers of America Fashion Icon Award in 2016. In 2019, alongside Jay-Z, she received GLAAD Vanguard Award that is presented to a member of the entertainment community who does not identify as LGBT but who has made a significant difference in promoting equal rights for LGBT people. In 2020, she was awarded the BET Humanitarian Award. Consequence of Sound named her the 30th best singer of all time.
Beyoncé has won 28 Grammy Awards, both as a solo artist and member of Destiny's Child and The Carters, making her the most honored singer, male or female, by the Grammys. She is also the most nominated artist in Grammy Award history with a total of 79 nominations. "Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)" won Song of the Year in 2010 while "Say My Name", "Crazy in Love" and "Drunk in Love" have each won Best R&B Song. Dangerously in Love, B'Day and I Am... Sasha Fierce have all won Best Contemporary R&B Album, while Lemonade has won Best Urban Contemporary Album. Beyoncé set the record for the most Grammy awards won by a female artist in one night in 2010 when she won six awards, breaking the tie she previously held with Alicia Keys, Norah Jones, Alison Krauss, and Amy Winehouse, with Adele equaling this in 2012.
Beyoncé has also won 24 MTV Video Music Awards, making her the most-awarded artist in Video Music Award history. She won two awards each with The Carters and Destiny's Child making her lifetime total of 28 VMAs. "Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)" and "Formation" won Video of the Year in 2009 and 2016 respectively. Beyoncé tied the record set by Lady Gaga in 2010 for the most VMAs won in one night for a female artist with eight in 2016. She is also the most-awarded and nominated artist in BET Award history, winning 29 awards from a total of 60 nominations, the most-awarded person at the Soul Train Music Awards with 17 awards as a solo artist, and the most-awarded person at the NAACP Image Awards with 24 awards as a solo artist.
Following her role in Dreamgirls, Beyoncé was nominated for Best Original Song for "Listen" and Best Actress at the Golden Globe Awards, and Outstanding Actress in a Motion Picture at the NAACP Image Awards. Beyoncé won two awards at the Broadcast Film Critics Association Awards 2006; Best Song for "Listen" and Best Original Soundtrack for Dreamgirls: Music from the Motion Picture. According to Fuse in 2014, Beyoncé is the second-most award-winning artist of all time, after Michael Jackson. Lemonade won a Peabody Award in 2017.
She was named on the 2016 BBC Radio 4 Woman's Hour Power List as one of seven women judged to have had the biggest impact on women's lives over the past 70 years, alongside Margaret Thatcher, Barbara Castle, Helen Brook, Germaine Greer, Jayaben Desai and Bridget Jones, She was named the Most Powerful Woman in Music on the same list in 2020. In the same year, Billboard named her with Destiny's Child the third Greatest Music Video artists of all time, behind Madonna and Michael Jackson.
On June 16, 2021, Beyoncé was among several celebrities at the Pollstar Awards where she won the award of "top touring artist" of the decade (2010s). On June 17, 2021, Beyoncé was inducted into the Black Music & Entertainment Walk of Fame as a member of the inaugural class.
Business and ventures
In 2010, Beyoncé founded her own entertainment company Parkwood Entertainment which formed as an imprint based from Columbia Records, the company began as a production unit for videos and films in 2008. Parkwood Entertainment is named after a street in Houston, Texas where Beyoncé once lived. With headquarters in New York City, the company serves as an umbrella for the entertainer's various brands in music, movies, videos, and fashion. The staff of Parkwood Entertainment have experiences in arts and entertainment, from filmmaking and video production to web and fashion design. In addition to departments in marketing, digital, creative, publicity, fashion design and merchandising, the company houses a state-of-the-art editing suite, where Beyoncé works on content for her worldwide tours, music videos, and television specials. Parkwood Entertainment's first production was the musical biopic Cadillac Records (2008), in which Beyoncé starred and co-produced. The company has also distributed Beyoncé's albums such as her self-titled fifth studio album (2013), Lemonade (2016) and The Carters, Everything is Love (2018). Beyoncé has also signed other artists to Parkwood such as Chloe x Halle, who performed at Super Bowl LIII in February 2019.
Endorsements and partnerships
Beyoncé has worked with Pepsi since 2002, and in 2004 appeared in a Gladiator-themed commercial with Britney Spears, Pink, and Enrique Iglesias. In 2012, Beyoncé signed a $50 million deal to endorse Pepsi. The Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPINET) wrote Beyoncé an open letter asking her to reconsider the deal because of the unhealthiness of the product and to donate the proceeds to a medical organisation. Nevertheless, NetBase found that Beyoncé's campaign was the most talked about endorsement in April 2013, with a 70 percent positive audience response to the commercial and print ads.
Beyoncé has worked with Tommy Hilfiger for the fragrances True Star (singing a cover version of "Wishing on a Star") and True Star Gold; she also promoted Emporio Armani's Diamonds fragrance in 2007. Beyoncé launched her first official fragrance, Heat, in 2010. The commercial, which featured the 1956 song "Fever", was shown after the watershed in the United Kingdom as it begins with an image of Beyoncé appearing to lie naked in a room. In February 2011, Beyoncé launched her second fragrance, Heat Rush. Beyoncé's third fragrance, Pulse, was launched in September 2011. In 2013, The Mrs. Carter Show Limited Edition version of Heat was released. The six editions of Heat are the world's best-selling celebrity fragrance line, with sales of over $400 million.
The release of a video-game Starpower: Beyoncé was cancelled after Beyoncé pulled out of a $100 million with GateFive who alleged the cancellation meant the sacking of 70 staff and millions of pounds lost in development. It was settled out of court by her lawyers in June 2013 who said that they had cancelled because GateFive had lost its financial backers. Beyoncé also has had deals with American Express, Nintendo DS and L'Oréal since the age of 18.
In March 2015, Beyoncé became a co-owner, with other artists, of the music streaming service Tidal. The service specializes in lossless audio and high definition music videos. Beyoncé's husband Jay-Z acquired the parent company of Tidal, Aspiro, in the first quarter of 2015. Including Beyoncé and Jay-Z, sixteen artist stakeholders (such as Kanye West, Rihanna, Madonna, Chris Martin, Nicki Minaj and more) co-own Tidal, with the majority owning a 3% equity stake. The idea of having an all artist owned streaming service was created by those involved to adapt to the increased demand for streaming within the current music industry.
In November 2020, Beyoncé formed a multi-year partnership with exercise equipment and media company Peloton. The partnership was formed to celebrate homecoming season in historically black colleges and universities, providing themed workout experiences inspired by Beyoncé's 2019 Homecoming film and live album after 2020's homecoming celebrations were cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic. As part of the partnership, Beyoncé and Peloton are donating free memberships to all students at 10 HBCUs, and Peloton are pursuing long-term recruiting partnerships at the HCBUs. Gwen Bethel Riley, head of music at Peloton, said: "When we had conversations with Beyoncé around how critical a social impact component was to all of us, it crystallized how important it was to embrace Homecoming as an opportunity to celebrate and create dialogue around Black culture and music, in partnership with HBCUs." Upon news of the partnership, a decline in Peloton's shares reversed, and its shares rose by 8.6%.
In 2021, Beyoncé and Jay-Z partnered with Tiffany & Co. for the company's "About Love" campaign. Beyoncé became the fourth woman, and first Black woman, to wear the Tiffany Yellow Diamond. The campaign featured a robin egg blue painting by Jean-Michel Basquiat titled Equals Pi (1982).
Fashion lines
Beyoncé and her mother introduced House of Deréon, a contemporary women's fashion line, in 2005. The concept is inspired by three generations of women in their family, with the name paying tribute to Beyoncé's grandmother, Agnèz Deréon, a respected seamstress. According to Tina, the overall style of the line best reflects her and Beyoncé's taste and style. Beyoncé and her mother founded their family's company Beyond Productions, which provides the licensing and brand management for House of Deréon, and its junior collection, Deréon. House of Deréon pieces were exhibited in Destiny's Child's shows and tours, during their Destiny Fulfilled era. The collection features sportswear, denim offerings with fur, outerwear and accessories that include handbags and footwear, and are available at department and specialty stores across the U.S. and Canada.
In 2005, Beyoncé teamed up with House of Brands, a shoe company, to produce a range of footwear for House of Deréon. In January 2008, Starwave Mobile launched Beyoncé Fashion Diva, a "high-style" mobile game with a social networking component, featuring the House of Deréon collection. In July 2009, Beyoncé and her mother launched a new junior apparel label, Sasha Fierce for Deréon, for back-to-school selling. The collection included sportswear, outerwear, handbags, footwear, eyewear, lingerie and jewelry. It was available at department stores including Macy's and Dillard's, and specialty stores Jimmy Jazz and Against All Odds. On May 27, 2010, Beyoncé teamed up with clothing store C&A to launch Deréon by Beyoncé at their stores in Brazil. The collection included tailored blazers with padded shoulders, little black dresses, embroidered tops and shirts and bandage dresses.
In October 2014, Beyoncé signed a deal to launch an activewear line of clothing with British fashion retailer Topshop. The 50–50 venture is called Ivy Park and was launched in April 2016. The brand's name is a nod to Beyoncé's daughter and her favourite number four (IV in roman numerals), and also references the park where she used to run in Texas. She has since bought out Topshop owner Philip Green from his 50% share after he was alleged to have sexually harassed, bullied and racially abused employees. She now owns the brand herself. On April 4, 2019, it was announced that Beyoncé would become a creative partner with Adidas and further develop her athletic brand Ivy Park with the company. Knowles will also develop new clothes and footwear for Adidas. Shares for the company rose 1.3% upon the news release. On December 9, 2019, they announced a launch date of January 18, 2020. Beyoncé uploaded a teaser on her website and Instagram. The collection was also previewed on the upcoming Elle January 2020 issue, where Beyoncé is seen wearing several garments, accessories and footwear from the first collection.
Philanthropy
In 2002, Beyoncé, Kelly Rowland and Tina Knowles built the Knowles-Rowland Center for Youth, a community center in Downtown Houston. After Hurricane Katrina in 2005, Beyoncé and Rowland founded the Survivor Foundation to provide transitional housing to displaced families and provide means for new building construction, to which Beyoncé contributed an initial $250,000. The foundation has since expanded to work with other charities in the city, and also provided relief following Hurricane Ike three years later. Beyoncé also donated $100,000 to the Gulf Coast Ike Relief Fund. In 2007, Beyoncé founded the Knowles-Temenos Place Apartments, a housing complex offering living space for 43 displaced individuals. As of 2016, Beyoncé had donated $7 million for the maintenance of the complex.
After starring in Cadillac Records in 2009 and learning about Phoenix House, a non-profit drug and alcohol rehabilitation organization, Beyoncé donated her full $4 million salary from the film to the organization. Beyoncé and her mother subsequently established the Beyoncé Cosmetology Center, which offers a seven-month cosmetology training course helping Phoenix House's clients gain career skills during their recovery.
In January 2010, Beyoncé participated in George Clooney and Wyclef Jean's Hope for Haiti Now: A Global Benefit for Earthquake Relief telethon, donated a large sum to the organization, and was named the official face of the limited edition CFDA "Fashion For Haiti" T-shirt, made by Theory which raised a total of $1 million. In April 2011, Beyoncé joined forces with U.S. First Lady Michelle Obama and the National Association of Broadcasters Education Foundation, to help boost the latter's campaign against child obesity by reworking her single "Get Me Bodied". Following the death of Osama bin Laden, Beyoncé released her cover of the Lee Greenwood song "God Bless the USA", as a charity single to help raise funds for the New York Police and Fire Widows' and Children's Benefit Fund.
Beyoncé became an ambassador for the 2012 World Humanitarian Day campaign donating her song "I Was Here" and its music video, shot in the UN, to the campaign. In 2013, it was announced that Beyoncé would work with Salma Hayek and Frida Giannini on a Gucci "Chime for Change" campaign that aims to spread female empowerment. The campaign, which aired on February 28, was set to her new music. A concert for the cause took place on June 1, 2013, in London. With help of the crowdfunding platform Catapult, visitors of the concert could choose between several projects promoting education of women and girls. Beyoncé also took part in "Miss a Meal", a food-donation campaign, and supported Goodwill Industries through online charity auctions at Charitybuzz that support job creation throughout Europe and the U.S.
Beyoncé and Jay-Z secretly donated tens of thousands of dollars to bail out Black Lives Matter protesters in Baltimore and Ferguson, as well as funded infrastructure for the establishment of Black Lives Matter chapters across the US. Before Beyoncé's Formation World Tour show in Tampa, her team held a private luncheon for more than 20 community leaders to discuss how Beyoncé could support local charitable initiatives, including pledging on the spot to fund 10 scholarships to provide students with financial aid. Tampa Sports Authority board member Thomas Scott said: "I don't know of a prior artist meeting with the community, seeing what their needs are, seeing how they can invest in the community. It says a lot to me about Beyoncé. She not only goes into a community and walks away with (money), but she also gives money back to that community." In June 2016, Beyoncé donated over $82,000 to the United Way of Genesee County to support victims of the Flint water crisis. Beyoncé additionally donated money to support 14 students in Michigan with their college expenses. In August 2016, Beyoncé and Jay-Z donated $1.5 million to civil rights groups including Black Lives Matter, Hands Up United and Dream Defenders. After Hurricane Matthew, Beyoncé and Jay-Z donated $15 million to the Usain Bolt Foundation to support its efforts in rebuilding homes in Haiti. In December 2016, Beyoncé was named the Most Charitable Celebrity of the year.
During Hurricane Harvey in August 2017, Beyoncé launched BeyGOOD Houston to support those affected by the hurricane in Houston. The organization donated necessities such as cots, blankets, pillows, baby products, feminine products and wheelchairs, and funded long-term revitalization projects. On September 8, Beyoncé visited Houston, where she sponsored a lunch for 400 survivors at her local church, visited the George R Brown Convention Center to discuss with people displaced by the flooding about their needs, served meals to those who lost their homes, and made a significant donation to local causes. Beyoncé additionally donated $75,000 worth of new mattresses to survivors of the hurricane. Later that month, Beyoncé released a remix of J Balvin and Willy William's "Mi Gente", with all of her proceeds being donated to disaster relief charities in Puerto Rico, Mexico, the U.S. and the Caribbean after hurricanes Harvey, Irma and Maria, and the Chiapas and Puebla earthquakes.
In April 2020, Beyoncé donated $6 million to the National Alliance in Mental Health, UCLA and local community-based organizations in order to provide mental health and personal wellness services to essential workers during the COVID-19 pandemic. BeyGOOD also teamed up with local organizations to help provide resources to communities of color, including food, water, cleaning supplies, medicines and face masks. The same month Beyoncé released a remix of Megan Thee Stallion's "Savage", with all proceeds benefiting Bread of Life Houston's COVID-19 relief efforts, which includes providing over 14 tons of food and supplies to 500 families and 100 senior citizens in Houston weekly. In May 2020, Beyoncé provided 1,000 free COVID-19 tests in Houston as part of her and her mother's #IDidMyPart initiative, which was established due to the disproportionate deaths in African-American communities. Additionally, 1,000 gloves, masks, hot meals, essential vitamins, grocery vouchers and household items were provided. In July 2020, Beyoncé established the Black-Owned Small Business Impact Fund in partnership with the NAACP, which offers $10,000 grants to black-owned small businesses in need following the George Floyd protests. All proceeds from Beyoncé's single "Black Parade" were donated to the fund. In September 2020, Beyoncé announced that she had donated an additional $1 million to the fund. As of December 31, 2020, the fund had given 715 grants to black-owned small businesses, amounting to $7.15 million donated. In October 2020, Beyoncé released a statement that she has been working with the Feminist Coalition to assist supporters of the End Sars movement in Nigeria, including covering medical costs for injured protestors, covering legal fees for arrested protestors, and providing food, emergency shelter, transportation and telecommunication means to those in need. Beyoncé also showed support for those fighting against other issues in Africa, such as the Anglophone Crisis in Cameroon, ShutItAllDown in Namibia, Zimbabwean Lives Matter in Zimbabwe and the Rape National Emergency in Liberia. In December 2020, Beyoncé donated $500,000 to help alleviate the housing crisis in the U.S. caused by the cessation of the eviction moratorium, giving 100 $5,000 grants to individuals and families facing foreclosures and evictions.
Discography
Dangerously in Love (2003)
B'Day (2006)
I Am... Sasha Fierce (2008)
4 (2011)
Beyoncé (2013)
Lemonade (2016)
Filmography
Films starred
Carmen: A Hip Hopera (2001)
Austin Powers in Goldmember (2002)
The Fighting Temptations (2003)
Fade to Black (2004)
The Pink Panther (2006)
Dreamgirls (2006)
Cadillac Records (2008)
Obsessed (2009)
Epic (2013)
The Lion King (2019)
Films directed
Life Is But a Dream (2013)
Beyoncé: Lemonade (2016)
Homecoming (2019)
Black Is King (2020)
Tours and residencies
Headlining tours
Dangerously in Love Tour (2003)
The Beyoncé Experience (2007)
I Am... World Tour (2009–2010)
The Mrs. Carter Show World Tour (2013–2014)
The Formation World Tour (2016)
Co-headlining tours
Verizon Ladies First Tour (with Alicia Keys and Missy Elliott) (2004)
On the Run Tour (with Jay-Z) (2014)
On the Run II Tour (with Jay-Z) (2018)
Residencies
I Am... Yours (2009)
4 Intimate Nights with Beyoncé (2011)
Revel Presents: Beyoncé Live (2012)
See also
Album era
Honorific nicknames in popular music
List of artists who reached number one in the United States
List of artists with the most number ones on the U.S. dance chart
List of Billboard Social 50 number-one artists
List of black Golden Globe Award winners and nominees
List of highest-grossing concert tours
Best-selling female artists of all time
List of most-followed Instagram accounts
Notes
References
External links
1981 births
Living people
20th-century American businesspeople
20th-century American businesswomen
20th-century American singers
20th-century American women singers
21st-century American actresses
21st-century American businesspeople
21st-century American businesswomen
21st-century American singers
21st-century American women singers
Actresses from Houston
African-American actresses
African-American artists
African-American businesspeople
African-American choreographers
African-American dancers
African-American fashion designers
American fashion designers
African-American female dancers
African-American women rappers
African-American women singers
African-American feminists
African-American Methodists
African-American record producers
African-American women in business
African-American women writers
American women business executives
American choreographers
American contemporary R&B singers
American cosmetics businesspeople
American fashion businesspeople
American women pop singers
American film actresses
American hip hop record producers
American female hip hop singers
American hip hop singers
American mezzo-sopranos
American music publishers (people)
American music video directors
American people of Creole descent
American retail chief executives
American soul singers
American television actresses
American United Methodists
American voice actresses
American women philanthropists
American women record producers
Black Lives Matter people
Brit Award winners
Businesspeople from Houston
Columbia Records artists
Dance-pop musicians
Destiny's Child members
Female music video directors
Feminist musicians
Gold Star Records artists
Grammy Award winners
Grammy Award winners for rap music
High School for the Performing and Visual Arts alumni
Ivor Novello Award winners
Jay-Z
Solange Knowles
Louisiana Creole people
MTV Europe Music Award winners
Music video codirectors
Musicians from Houston
NME Awards winners
Parkwood Entertainment artists
Record producers from Texas
Shoe designers
Singers from Texas
Singers with a four-octave vocal range
Texas Democrats
Women hip hop record producers
World Music Awards winners
Writers from Houston | true | [
"Say Anything may refer to:\n\nFilm and television\n Say Anything..., a 1989 American film by Cameron Crowe\n \"Say Anything\" (BoJack Horseman), a television episode\n\nMusic\n Say Anything (band), an American rock band\n Say Anything (album), a 2009 album by the band\n \"Say Anything\", a 2012 song by Say Anything from Anarchy, My Dear\n \"Say Anything\" (Marianas Trench song), 2006\n \"Say Anything\" (X Japan song), 1991\n \"Say Anything\", a song by Aimee Mann from Whatever, 1993\n \"Say Anything\", a song by the Bouncing Souls from The Bouncing Souls, 1997\n \"Say Anything\", a song by Good Charlotte from The Young and the Hopeless, 2002\n \"Say Anything\", a song by Girl in Red, 2018\n \"Say Anything\", a song by Will Young from Lexicon, 2019\n \"Say Anything (Else)\", a song by Cartel from Chroma, 2005\n\nOther uses\n Say Anything (party game), a 2008 board game published by North Star Games\n \"Say Anything\", a column in YM magazine\n\nSee also\n Say Something (disambiguation)",
"Hard to Hold is a 1984 musical drama film directed by Larry Peerce. It was meant as a starring vehicle for Rick Springfield, who had a solid television acting resume and a blossoming rock-pop career, but had yet to break out in feature films. It stars Springfield, Janet Eilber, and Patti Hansen. The film features many Springfield songs which are included on the soundtrack.\n\nPlot summary\n\nJames \"Jamie\" Roberts (played by singer-songwriter Rick Springfield), being a pop idol, is used to having his way with women. He meets child psychologist Diana Lawson (Janet Eilber) in a car accident; however, she has never heard of him and doesn't swoon at his attention. He tries to win her affection, but complicating things is his ex-lover, Nicky Nides (Patti Hansen), who remains a member of his band.\n\nProduction\nSpringfield had been performing music and acting for over a decade when his career went to a new level in the 1980s, due to a successful run of singles and a popular role on General Hospital. He was approached to act in the film. He later recalled:\n\nIt was one of those guys that said, [Uses an old-time Hollywood voice.] \"We can make some money on this, kid.\" And I thought the script was so awful that I threw it across the room; I remember physically throwing it across the room and saying, \"This is a piece of shit.\" Then they offered me a lot of money and I remember picking it up and saying, \"I can make this work!\" [Laughs.] Which I didn't, because it was still a crappy movie, but I did my best in it and I still make jokes about it actually ... That's probably the only time I'll say my ego got the better of me was when I did that film. I said, \"I can make this work\".\nDirector Larry Peerce said \"like everyone else, I was skeptical about using Rick. But he is a marvelous, talented, well-trained young man with a wonderful sense of comedy - and sexy as hell.... Anyone who can make it through the soaps can make it through anything. Then, too, he has that thing that happens to people who've been up and down a few times.\" Peerce added that Springfield \"not only appeals to youth, but to mature women, too - and he's also one of those rare handsome, sexy men who doesn't put other men off.\"\n\nSpringfield said \"the freedom of the movies after TV was liked going from a wading pool to the ocean.\"\n\nThe female lead Jennifer Eilber was a former dancer. When she was offered the film she says \"I thought it would be rated PG. After all, the majority of Springfield's fans are teenage girls. But the script plainly called for a nude love scene. I convinced myself it would be a matter of doing the scene under a sheet or something. But two or three days after we shot the scene I realized there was no sheet and there would be no PG.\"\n\nIn December 1983 Springfield said \"Hopefully it will be the only music movie I'll make, because I want to branch out and stretch my wings. I guess you could say it was just a safer script than some of those I was given. I even looked at one script about a case of mistaken identity where a guy is locked up in a garage with a guy who thinks he's somebody else and is trying to kill him. So the music movie looked pretty good.\"\n\nThe film had to be edited so it would be rated PG rather than R.\n\nSpringfield followed making the movie with a tour.\n\nReception\n\nCritical\nJanet Maslin of the New York Times found the film an exercise in narcissistic excess:\n\nDripping sweat, with the backstage lights glinting off his jeweled belt and his single earring, James Roberts escapes to his dressing room, collapsing beside the Space Invaders machine. He's drained. He's exhausted. He's a very famous rock star, and he has just whipped another adoring audience into a lather. ... Hard to Hold is a movie for anyone who thinks this sounds like real behind-the-scenes rock-and-roll ambiance and for anyone who thinks Rick Springfield is a real rock star. It's not a movie for anyone else, except perhaps film students, who will find that Larry Peerce has included more weak transitions, conversational cliches, unflattering camera angles and ethnic restaurant scenes in this film's mere 93 minutes than some directors manage in an entire career.\n\nGene Siskel of the Chicago Tribune had a similar sentiment:\n\nIt's too bad something different didn't happen in \"Hard to Hold,\" something right out of that old Mad magazine feature \"Scenes We'd Like to See.\" Springfield bumps into the uptight psychologist and tries and tries to woo her but fails. Then, just when she is having second thoughts about him, he gives up chasing her and rededicates himself to his old girlfriend, to solving her drug problem and to writing beautiful music with her. Not surprisingly, that story probably would have more appeal for the rock audience for which \"Hard to Hold\" was made.\n\nBox office\nThe film opened in seventh place with $3.4 million.\n\nLegacy\nRick Springfield would later make jokes about the film in his act. He said:\n\nThe fans and a lot of people say they don't like it when I make fun of Hard to Hold because a lot of them liked it. I mean, it wasn't War and Peace, and they took it for the light, romantic comedy it was. It had a lot of good music in it and a lot of guys and women have said, \"You know, dude, I liked that movie! It was great!\" But I was expecting more and it wasn't the right mix involved, I think.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n \n \n \n \n \n\n1984 films\nAmerican films\nEnglish-language films\n1980s musical drama films\nFilms directed by Larry Peerce\nFilms scored by Tom Scott\nUniversal Pictures films\nAmerican musical drama films\n1984 drama films"
]
|
[
"Beyoncé",
"Voice and songwriting",
"what happened with voice and songwriting?",
"Jody Rosen highlights her tone and timbre as particularly distinctive, describing her voice as \"one of the most compelling instruments in popular music",
"what else does she say about her voice?",
"Her vocal abilities mean she is identified as the centerpiece of Destiny's Child.",
"did anyone else have anything to say about her voice? good or bad.",
"Jon Pareles of The New York Times commented that her voice is \"velvety yet tart,"
]
| C_1128b8d67bcb48feb77ec450ae614b45_1 | what else did he comment about her voice? | 4 | What did Jon Pareles of The New York Times comment about Beyonce's voice in addition to "velvety yet tart"? | Beyoncé | Jody Rosen highlights her tone and timbre as particularly distinctive, describing her voice as "one of the most compelling instruments in popular music". Her vocal abilities mean she is identified as the centerpiece of Destiny's Child. Jon Pareles of The New York Times commented that her voice is "velvety yet tart, with an insistent flutter and reserves of soul belting". Rosen notes that the hip hop era highly influenced Beyonce's unique rhythmic vocal style, but also finds her quite traditionalist in her use of balladry, gospel and falsetto. Other critics praise her range and power, with Chris Richards of The Washington Post saying she was "capable of punctuating any beat with goose-bump-inducing whispers or full-bore diva-roars." Beyonce's music is generally R&B, but she also incorporates pop, soul and funk into her songs. 4 demonstrated Beyonce's exploration of 1990s-style R&B, as well as further use of soul and hip hop than compared to previous releases. While she almost exclusively releases English songs, Beyonce recorded several Spanish songs for Irreemplazable (re-recordings of songs from B'Day for a Spanish-language audience), and the re-release of B'Day. To record these, Beyonce was coached phonetically by American record producer Rudy Perez. She has received co-writing credits for most of the songs recorded with Destiny's Child and her solo efforts. Her early songs were personally driven and female-empowerment themed compositions like "Independent Women" and "Survivor", but after the start of her relationship with Jay-Z, she transitioned to more man-tending anthems such as "Cater 2 U". Beyonce has also received co-producing credits for most of the records in which she has been involved, especially during her solo efforts. However, she does not formulate beats herself, but typically comes up with melodies and ideas during production, sharing them with producers. In 2001, she became the first black woman and second female lyricist to win the Pop Songwriter of the Year award at the American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers Pop Music Awards. Beyonce was the third woman to have writing credits on three number one songs ("Irreplaceable", "Grillz" and "Check on It") in the same year, after Carole King in 1971 and Mariah Carey in 1991. She is tied with American lyricist Diane Warren at third with nine song-writing credits on number-one singles. (The latter wrote her 9/11-motivated song "I Was Here" for 4.) In May 2011, Billboard magazine listed Beyonce at number 17 on their list of the "Top 20 Hot 100 Songwriters", for having co-written eight singles that hit number one on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. She was one of only three women on that list, along with Alicia Keys and Taylor Swift. CANNOTANSWER | "velvety yet tart, with an insistent flutter and reserves of soul belting". | Beyoncé Giselle Knowles-Carter ( ; born September 4, 1981) is an American singer, songwriter, and actress. Born and raised in Houston, Texas, Beyoncé performed in various singing and dancing competitions as a child. She rose to fame in the late 1990s as the lead singer of Destiny's Child, one of the best-selling girl groups of all time. Their hiatus saw the release of her debut solo album Dangerously in Love (2003), which featured the US Billboard Hot 100 number-one singles "Crazy in Love" and "Baby Boy".
Following the 2006 disbanding of Destiny's Child, she released her second solo album, B'Day, which contained singles "Irreplaceable" and "Beautiful Liar". Beyoncé also starred in multiple films such as The Pink Panther (2006), Dreamgirls (2006), Obsessed (2009), and The Lion King (2019). Her marriage to Jay-Z and her portrayal of Etta James in Cadillac Records (2008) influenced her third album, I Am... Sasha Fierce (2008), which earned a record-setting six Grammy Awards in 2010. It spawned the successful singles "If I Were a Boy", "Single Ladies", and "Halo".
After splitting from her manager and father Mathew Knowles in 2010, Beyoncé released her musically diverse fourth album 4 in 2011. She later achieved universal acclaim for her sonically experimental visual albums, Beyoncé (2013) and Lemonade (2016), the latter of which was the world's best-selling album of 2016 and the most acclaimed album of her career, exploring themes of infidelity and womanism. In 2018, she released Everything Is Love, a collaborative album with her husband, Jay-Z, as the Carters. As a featured artist, Beyoncé topped the Billboard Hot 100 with the remixes of "Perfect" by Ed Sheeran in 2017 and "Savage" by Megan Thee Stallion in 2020. The same year, she released the musical film and visual album Black Is King to widespread acclaim.
Beyoncé is one of the world's best-selling recording artists, having sold 120 million records worldwide. She is the first solo artist to have their first six studio albums debut at number one on the Billboard 200. Her success during the 2000s was recognized with the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA)'s Top Certified Artist of the Decade as well as Billboard Top Female Artist of the Decade. Beyoncé's accolades include 28 Grammy Awards, 26 MTV Video Music Awards (including the Michael Jackson Video Vanguard Award in 2014), 24 NAACP Image Awards, 31 BET Awards, and 17 Soul Train Music Awards; all of which are more than any other singer. In 2014, Billboard named her the highest-earning black musician of all time, while in 2020, she was included on Times list of 100 women who defined the last century.
Life and career
1981–1996: Early life and career beginnings
Beyonce Giselle Knowles was born on September 4, 1981, in Houston, Texas, to Celestine "Tina" Knowles (née Beyonce), a hairdresser and salon owner, and Mathew Knowles, a Xerox sales manager; Tina is Louisiana Creole, and Mathew is African American. Beyonce's younger sister Solange Knowles is also a singer and a former backup dancer for Destiny's Child. Solange and Beyoncé are the first sisters to have both had No. 1 albums.
Beyoncé's maternal grandparents, Lumas Beyince, and Agnez Dereon (daughter of Odilia Broussard and Eugene DeRouen), were French-speaking Louisiana Creoles, with roots in New Iberia. Beyoncé is considered a Creole, passed on to her by her grandparents. Through her mother, Beyoncé is a descendant of many French aristocrats from the southwest of France, including the family of the Viscounts de Béarn since the 9th century, and the Viscounts de Belzunce. She is also a descendant of Jean-Vincent d'Abbadie de Saint-Castin, a French nobleman and military leader who fought along the indigenous Abenaki against the British in Acadia and of Acadian leader Joseph Broussard. Her fourth great-grandmother, Marie-Françoise Trahan, was born in 1774 in Bangor, located on Belle Île, France. Trahan was a daughter of Acadians who had taken refuge on Belle Île after the British deportation. The Estates of Brittany had divided the lands of Belle Île to distribute them among 78 other Acadian families and the already settled inhabitants. The Trahan family lived on Belle Île for over ten years before immigrating to Louisiana, where she married a Broussard descendant. Beyoncé researched her ancestry and discovered that she is descended from a slave owner who married his slave.
Beyoncé was raised Catholic and attended St. Mary's Montessori School in Houston, where she enrolled in dance classes. Her singing was discovered when dance instructor Darlette Johnson began humming a song and she finished it, able to hit the high-pitched notes. Beyoncé's interest in music and performing continued after winning a school talent show at age seven, singing John Lennon's "Imagine" to beat 15/16-year-olds. In the fall of 1990, Beyoncé enrolled in Parker Elementary School, a music magnet school in Houston, where she would perform with the school's choir. She also attended the High School for the Performing and Visual Arts and later Alief Elsik High School. Beyoncé was also a member of the choir at St. John's United Methodist Church as a soloist for two years.
When Beyoncé was eight, she met LaTavia Roberson at an audition for an all-girl entertainment group. They were placed into a group called Girl's Tyme with three other girls, and rapped and danced on the talent show circuit in Houston. After seeing the group, R&B producer Arne Frager brought them to his Northern California studio and placed them in Star Search, the largest talent show on national TV at the time. Girl's Tyme failed to win, and Beyoncé later said the song they performed was not good. In 1995, Beyoncé's father resigned from his job to manage the group. The move reduced Beyoncé's family's income by half, and her parents were forced to move into separated apartments. Mathew cut the original line-up to four and the group continued performing as an opening act for other established R&B girl groups. The girls auditioned before record labels and were finally signed to Elektra Records, moving to Atlanta Records briefly to work on their first recording, only to be cut by the company. This put further strain on the family, and Beyoncé's parents separated. On October 5, 1995, Dwayne Wiggins's Grass Roots Entertainment signed the group. In 1996, the girls began recording their debut album under an agreement with Sony Music, the Knowles family reunited, and shortly after, the group got a contract with Columbia Records.
1997–2002: Destiny's Child
The group changed their name to Destiny's Child in 1996, based upon a passage in the Book of Isaiah. In 1997, Destiny's Child released their major label debut song "Killing Time" on the soundtrack to the 1997 film Men in Black. In November, the group released their debut single and first major hit, "No, No, No". They released their self-titled debut album in February 1998, which established the group as a viable act in the music industry, with moderate sales and winning the group three Soul Train Lady of Soul Awards for Best R&B/Soul Album of the Year, Best R&B/Soul or Rap New Artist, and Best R&B/Soul Single for "No, No, No". The group released their Multi-Platinum second album The Writing's on the Wall in 1999. The record features some of the group's most widely known songs such as "Bills, Bills, Bills", the group's first number-one single, "Jumpin' Jumpin' and "Say My Name", which became their most successful song at the time, and would remain one of their signature songs. "Say My Name" won the Best R&B Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocals and the Best R&B Song at the 43rd Annual Grammy Awards. The Writing's on the Wall sold more than eight million copies worldwide. During this time, Beyoncé recorded a duet with Marc Nelson, an original member of Boyz II Men, on the song "After All Is Said and Done" for the soundtrack to the 1999 film, The Best Man.
LeToya Luckett and Roberson became unhappy with Mathew's managing of the band and eventually were replaced by Farrah Franklin and Michelle Williams. Beyoncé experienced depression following the split with Luckett and Roberson after being publicly blamed by the media, critics, and blogs for its cause. Her long-standing boyfriend left her at this time. The depression was so severe it lasted for a couple of years, during which she occasionally kept herself in her bedroom for days and refused to eat anything. Beyoncé stated that she struggled to speak about her depression because Destiny's Child had just won their first Grammy Award, and she feared no one would take her seriously. Beyoncé would later speak of her mother as the person who helped her fight it. Franklin was then dismissed, leaving just Beyoncé, Rowland, and Williams.
The remaining band members recorded "Independent Women Part I", which appeared on the soundtrack to the 2000 film Charlie's Angels. It became their best-charting single, topping the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 chart for eleven consecutive weeks. In early 2001, while Destiny's Child was completing their third album, Beyoncé landed a major role in the MTV made-for-television film, Carmen: A Hip Hopera, starring alongside American actor Mekhi Phifer. Set in Philadelphia, the film is a modern interpretation of the 19th-century opera Carmen by French composer Georges Bizet. When the third album Survivor was released in May 2001, Luckett and Roberson filed a lawsuit claiming that the songs were aimed at them. The album debuted at number one on the U.S. Billboard 200, with first-week sales of 663,000 copies sold. The album spawned other number-one hits, "Bootylicious" and the title track, "Survivor", the latter of which earned the group a Grammy Award for Best R&B Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocals. After releasing their holiday album 8 Days of Christmas in October 2001, the group announced a hiatus to further pursue solo careers.
In July 2002, Beyoncé made her theatrical film debut, playing Foxxy Cleopatra alongside Mike Myers in the comedy film Austin Powers in Goldmember, which spent its first weekend atop the U.S. box office and grossed $73 million. Beyoncé released "Work It Out" as the lead single from its soundtrack album which entered the top ten in the UK, Norway, and Belgium. In 2003, Beyoncé starred opposite Cuba Gooding, Jr., in the musical comedy The Fighting Temptations as Lilly, a single mother with whom Gooding's character falls in love. The film received mixed reviews from critics but grossed $30 million in the U.S. Beyoncé released "Fighting Temptation" as the lead single from the film's soundtrack album, with Missy Elliott, MC Lyte, and Free which was also used to promote the film. Another of Beyoncé's contributions to the soundtrack, "Summertime", fared better on the U.S. charts.
2003–2005: Dangerously in Love and Destiny Fulfilled
Beyoncé's first solo recording was a feature on Jay-Z's song '03 Bonnie & Clyde" that was released in October 2002, peaking at number four on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 chart. On June 14, 2003, Beyoncé premiered songs from her first solo album Dangerously in Love during her first solo concert and the pay-per-view television special, "Ford Presents Beyoncé Knowles, Friends & Family, Live From Ford's 100th Anniversary Celebration in Dearborn, Michigan". The album was released on June 24, 2003, after Michelle Williams and Kelly Rowland had released their solo efforts. The album sold 317,000 copies in its first week, debuted atop the Billboard 200, and has since sold 11 million copies worldwide. The album's lead single, "Crazy in Love", featuring Jay-Z, became Beyoncé's first number-one single as a solo artist in the US. The single "Baby Boy" also reached number one, and singles, "Me, Myself and I" and "Naughty Girl", both reached the top-five. The album earned Beyoncé a then record-tying five awards at the 46th Annual Grammy Awards; Best Contemporary R&B Album, Best Female R&B Vocal Performance for "Dangerously in Love 2", Best R&B Song and Best Rap/Sung Collaboration for "Crazy in Love", and Best R&B Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocals for "The Closer I Get to You" with Luther Vandross. During the ceremony, she performed with Prince.
In November 2003, she embarked on the Dangerously in Love Tour in Europe and later toured alongside Missy Elliott and Alicia Keys for the Verizon Ladies First Tour in North America. On February 1, 2004, Beyoncé performed the American national anthem at Super Bowl XXXVIII, at the Reliant Stadium in Houston, Texas. After the release of Dangerously in Love, Beyoncé had planned to produce a follow-up album using several of the left-over tracks. However, this was put on hold so she could concentrate on recording Destiny Fulfilled, the final studio album by Destiny's Child. Released on November 15, 2004, in the US and peaking at number two on the Billboard 200, Destiny Fulfilled included the singles "Lose My Breath" and "Soldier", which reached the top five on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. Destiny's Child embarked on a worldwide concert tour, Destiny Fulfilled... and Lovin' It sponsored by McDonald's Corporation, and performed hits such as "No, No, No", "Survivor", "Say My Name", "Independent Women" and "Lose My Breath". In addition to renditions of the group's recorded material, they also performed songs from each singer's solo careers, most notably numbers from Dangerously in Love. and during the last stop of their European tour, in Barcelona on June 11, 2005, Rowland announced that Destiny's Child would disband following the North American leg of the tour. The group released their first compilation album Number 1's on October 25, 2005, in the US and accepted a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in March 2006. The group has sold 60 million records worldwide.
2006–2007: B'Day and Dreamgirls
Beyoncé's second solo album B'Day was released on September 4, 2006, in the US, to coincide with her twenty-fifth birthday. It sold 541,000 copies in its first week and debuted atop the Billboard 200, becoming Beyoncé's second consecutive number-one album in the United States. The album's lead single "Déjà Vu", featuring Jay-Z, reached the top five on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. The second international single "Irreplaceable" was a commercial success worldwide, reaching number one in Australia, Hungary, Ireland, New Zealand and the United States. B'Day also produced three other singles; "Ring the Alarm", "Get Me Bodied", and "Green Light" (released in the United Kingdom only).
At the 49th Annual Grammy Awards (2007), B'Day was nominated for five Grammy Awards, including Best Contemporary R&B Album, Best Female R&B Vocal Performance for "Ring the Alarm" and Best R&B Song and Best Rap/Sung Collaboration"for "Déjà Vu"; the Freemasons club mix of "Déjà Vu" without the rap was put forward in the Best Remixed Recording, Non-Classical category. B'Day won the award for Best Contemporary R&B Album. The following year, B'Day received two nominations – for Record of the Year for "Irreplaceable" and Best Pop Collaboration with Vocals for "Beautiful Liar" (with Shakira), also receiving a nomination for Best Compilation Soundtrack Album for Motion Pictures, Television or Other Visual Media for her appearance on Dreamgirls: Music from the Motion Picture (2006).
Her first acting role of 2006 was in the comedy film The Pink Panther starring opposite Steve Martin, grossing $158.8 million at the box office worldwide. Her second film Dreamgirls, the film version of the 1981 Broadway musical loosely based on The Supremes, received acclaim from critics and grossed $154 million internationally. In it, she starred opposite Jennifer Hudson, Jamie Foxx, and Eddie Murphy playing a pop singer based on Diana Ross. To promote the film, Beyoncé released "Listen" as the lead single from the soundtrack album. In April 2007, Beyoncé embarked on The Beyoncé Experience, her first worldwide concert tour, visiting 97 venues and grossed over $24 million. Beyoncé conducted pre-concert food donation drives during six major stops in conjunction with her pastor at St. John's and America's Second Harvest. At the same time, B'Day was re-released with five additional songs, including her duet with Shakira "Beautiful Liar".
2008–2010: I Am... Sasha Fierce
I Am... Sasha Fierce was released on November 18, 2008, in the United States. The album formally introduces Beyoncé's alter ego Sasha Fierce, conceived during the making of her 2003 single "Crazy in Love". It was met with generally mediocre reviews from critics, but sold 482,000 copies in its first week, debuting atop the Billboard 200, and giving Beyoncé her third consecutive number-one album in the US. The album featured the number-one song "Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)" and the top-five songs "If I Were a Boy" and "Halo". Achieving the accomplishment of becoming her longest-running Hot 100 single in her career, "Halos success in the U.S. helped Beyoncé attain more top-ten singles on the list than any other woman during the 2000s. It also included the successful "Sweet Dreams", and singles "Diva", "Ego", "Broken-Hearted Girl" and "Video Phone". The music video for "Single Ladies" has been parodied and imitated around the world, spawning the "first major dance craze" of the Internet age according to the Toronto Star. The video has won several awards, including Best Video at the 2009 MTV Europe Music Awards, the 2009 Scottish MOBO Awards, and the 2009 BET Awards. At the 2009 MTV Video Music Awards, the video was nominated for nine awards, ultimately winning three including Video of the Year. Its failure to win the Best Female Video category, which went to American singer-songwriter Taylor Swift's "You Belong with Me", led to Kanye West interrupting the ceremony and Beyoncé improvising a re-presentation of Swift's award during her own acceptance speech. In March 2009, Beyoncé embarked on the I Am... World Tour, her second headlining worldwide concert tour, consisting of 108 shows, grossing $119.5 million.
Beyoncé further expanded her acting career, starring as blues singer Etta James in the 2008 musical biopic Cadillac Records. Her performance in the film received praise from critics, and she garnered several nominations for her portrayal of James, including a Satellite Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress, and a NAACP Image Award nomination for Outstanding Supporting Actress. Beyoncé donated her entire salary from the film to Phoenix House, an organization of rehabilitation centers for heroin addicts around the country. On January 20, 2009, Beyoncé performed James' "At Last" at First Couple Barack and Michelle Obama's first inaugural ball. Beyoncé starred opposite Ali Larter and Idris Elba in the thriller, Obsessed. She played Sharon Charles, a mother and wife whose family is threatened by her husband's stalker. Although the film received negative reviews from critics, the movie did well at the U.S. box office, grossing $68 million – $60 million more than Cadillac Records – on a budget of $20 million. The fight scene finale between Sharon and the character played by Ali Larter also won the 2010 MTV Movie Award for Best Fight.
At the 52nd Annual Grammy Awards, Beyoncé received ten nominations, including Album of the Year for I Am... Sasha Fierce, Record of the Year for "Halo", and Song of the Year for "Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)", among others. She tied with Lauryn Hill for most Grammy nominations in a single year by a female artist. Beyoncé went on to win six of those nominations, breaking a record she previously tied in 2004 for the most Grammy awards won in a single night by a female artist with six. In 2010, Beyoncé was featured on Lady Gaga's single "Telephone" and appeared in its music video. The song topped the U.S. Pop Songs chart, becoming the sixth number-one for both Beyoncé and Gaga, tying them with Mariah Carey for most number-ones since the Nielsen Top 40 airplay chart launched in 1992. "Telephone" received a Grammy Award nomination for Best Pop Collaboration with Vocals.
Beyoncé announced a hiatus from her music career in January 2010, heeding her mother's advice, "to live life, to be inspired by things again". During the break she and her father parted ways as business partners. Beyoncé's musical break lasted nine months and saw her visit multiple European cities, the Great Wall of China, the Egyptian pyramids, Australia, English music festivals and various museums and ballet performances.
2011–2013: 4 and Super Bowl XLVII halftime show
On June 26, 2011, she became the first solo female artist to headline the main Pyramid stage at the 2011 Glastonbury Festival in over twenty years. Her fourth studio album 4 was released two days later in the US. 4 sold 310,000 copies in its first week and debuted atop the Billboard 200 chart, giving Beyoncé her fourth consecutive number-one album in the US. The album was preceded by two of its singles "Run the World (Girls)" and "Best Thing I Never Had". The fourth single "Love on Top" spent seven consecutive weeks at number one on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart, while peaking at number 20 on the Billboard Hot 100, the highest peak from the album. 4 also produced four other singles; "Party", "Countdown", "I Care" and "End of Time". "Eat, Play, Love", a cover story written by Beyoncé for Essence that detailed her 2010 career break, won her a writing award from the New York Association of Black Journalists. In late 2011, she took the stage at New York's Roseland Ballroom for four nights of special performances: the 4 Intimate Nights with Beyoncé concerts saw the performance of her 4 album to a standing room only. On August 1, 2011, the album was certified platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), having shipped 1 million copies to retail stores. By December 2015, it reached sales of 1.5 million copies in the US. The album reached one billion Spotify streams on February 5, 2018, making Beyoncé the first female artist to have three of their albums surpass one billion streams on the platform.
In June 2012, she performed for four nights at Revel Atlantic City's Ovation Hall to celebrate the resort's opening, her first performances since giving birth to her daughter.
In January 2013, Destiny's Child released Love Songs, a compilation album of the romance-themed songs from their previous albums and a newly recorded track, "Nuclear". Beyoncé performed the American national anthem singing along with a pre-recorded track at President Obama's second inauguration in Washington, D.C. The following month, Beyoncé performed at the Super Bowl XLVII halftime show, held at the Mercedes-Benz Superdome in New Orleans. The performance stands as the second most tweeted about moment in history at 268,000 tweets per minute. At the 55th Annual Grammy Awards, Beyoncé won for Best Traditional R&B Performance for "Love on Top". Her feature-length documentary film, Life Is But a Dream, first aired on HBO on February 16, 2013. The film was co-directed by Beyoncé herself.
2013–2015: Beyoncé
Beyoncé embarked on The Mrs. Carter Show World Tour on April 15 in Belgrade, Serbia; the tour included 132 dates that ran through to March 2014. It became the most successful tour of her career and one of the most successful tours of all time. In May, Beyoncé's cover of Amy Winehouse's "Back to Black" with André 3000 on The Great Gatsby soundtrack was released. Beyoncé voiced Queen Tara in the 3D CGI animated film, Epic, released by 20th Century Fox on May 24, and recorded an original song for the film, "Rise Up", co-written with Sia.
On December 13, 2013, Beyoncé unexpectedly released her eponymous fifth studio album on the iTunes Store without any prior announcement or promotion. The album debuted atop the Billboard 200 chart, giving Beyoncé her fifth consecutive number-one album in the US. This made her the first woman in the chart's history to have her first five studio albums debut at number one. Beyoncé received critical acclaim and commercial success, selling one million digital copies worldwide in six days; Musically an electro-R&B album, it concerns darker themes previously unexplored in her work, such as "bulimia, postnatal depression [and] the fears and insecurities of marriage and motherhood". The single "Drunk in Love", featuring Jay-Z, peaked at number two on the Billboard Hot 100 chart.
In April 2014, Beyoncé and Jay-Z officially announced their On the Run Tour. It served as the couple's first co-headlining stadium tour together. On August 24, 2014, she received the Michael Jackson Video Vanguard Award at the 2014 MTV Video Music Awards. Beyoncé also won home three competitive awards: Best Video with a Social Message and Best Cinematography for "Pretty Hurts", as well as best collaboration for "Drunk in Love". In November, Forbes reported that Beyoncé was the top-earning woman in music for the second year in a row – earning $115 million in the year, more than double her earnings in 2013. Beyoncé was reissued with new material in three forms: as an extended play, a box set, as well as a full platinum edition. According to the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI), in the last 19 days of 2013, the album sold 2.3 million units worldwide, becoming the tenth best-selling album of 2013. The album also went on to become the twentieth best-selling album of 2014. , Beyoncé has sold over 5 million copies worldwide and has generated over 1 billion streams, .
At the 57th Annual Grammy Awards in February 2015, Beyoncé was nominated for six awards, ultimately winning three: Best R&B Performance and Best R&B Song for "Drunk in Love", and Best Surround Sound Album for Beyoncé. She was nominated for Album of the Year, but the award went to Beck for his album Morning Phase.
2016–2018: Lemonade and Everything Is Love
On February 6, 2016, Beyoncé released "Formation" and its accompanying music video exclusively on the music streaming platform Tidal; the song was made available to download for free. She performed "Formation" live for the first time during the NFL Super Bowl 50 halftime show. The appearance was considered controversial as it appeared to reference the 50th anniversary of the Black Panther Party and the NFL forbids political statements in its performances. Immediately following the performance, Beyoncé announced The Formation World Tour, which highlighted stops in both North America, and Europe. It ended on October 7, with Beyoncé bringing out her husband Jay-Z, Kendrick Lamar, and Serena Williams for the last show. The tour went on to win Tour of the Year at the 44th American Music Awards.
On April 16, 2016, Beyoncé released a teaser clip for a project called Lemonade. It turned out to be a one-hour film which aired on HBO exactly a week later; a corresponding album with the same title was released on the same day exclusively on Tidal. Lemonade debuted at number one on the U.S. Billboard 200, making Beyoncé the first act in Billboard history to have their first six studio albums debut atop the chart; she broke a record previously tied with DMX in 2013. With all 12 tracks of Lemonade debuting on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, Beyoncé also became the first female act to chart 12 or more songs at the same time. Additionally, Lemonade was streamed 115 million times through Tidal, setting a record for the most-streamed album in a single week by a female artist in history. It was 2016's third highest-selling album in the U.S. with 1.554 million copies sold in that time period within the country as well as the best-selling album worldwide with global sales of 2.5 million throughout the year. In June 2019, Lemonade was certified 3× Platinum, having sold up to 3 million album-equivalent units in the United States alone.
Lemonade became her most critically acclaimed work to date, receiving universal acclaim according to Metacritic, a website collecting reviews from professional music critics. Several music publications included the album among the best of 2016, including Rolling Stone, which listed Lemonade at number one. The album's visuals were nominated in 11 categories at the 2016 MTV Video Music Awards, the most ever received by Beyoncé in a single year, and went on to win 8 awards, including Video of the Year for "Formation". The eight wins made Beyoncé the most-awarded artist in the history of the VMAs (24), surpassing Madonna (20). Beyoncé occupied the sixth place for Time magazine's 2016 Person of the Year.
In January 2017, it was announced that Beyoncé would headline the Coachella Music and Arts Festival. This would make Beyoncé only the second female headliner of the festival since it was founded in 1999. It was later announced on February 23, 2017, that Beyoncé would no longer be able to perform at the festival due to doctor's concerns regarding her pregnancy. The festival owners announced that she will instead headline the 2018 festival. Upon the announcement of Beyoncé's departure from the festival lineup, ticket prices dropped by 12%. At the 59th Grammy Awards in February 2017, Lemonade led the nominations with nine, including Album, Record, and Song of the Year for Lemonade and "Formation" respectively. and ultimately won two, Best Urban Contemporary Album for Lemonade and Best Music Video for "Formation". Adele, upon winning her Grammy for Album of the Year, stated Lemonade was monumental and more deserving.
In September 2017, Beyoncé collaborated with J Balvin and Willy William, to release a remix of the song "Mi Gente". Beyoncé donated all proceeds from the song to hurricane charities for those affected by Hurricane Harvey and Hurricane Irma in Texas, Mexico, Puerto Rico, and other Caribbean Islands. On November 10, Eminem released "Walk on Water" featuring Beyoncé as the lead single from his album Revival. On November 30, Ed Sheeran announced that Beyoncé would feature on the remix to his song "Perfect". "Perfect Duet" was released on December 1, 2017. The song reached number-one in the United States, becoming Beyoncé's sixth song of her solo career to do so.
On January 4, 2018, the music video of Beyoncé and Jay-Z's 4:44 collaboration, "Family Feud" was released. It was directed by Ava DuVernay. On March 1, 2018, DJ Khaled released "Top Off" as the first single from his forthcoming album Father of Asahd featuring Beyoncé, husband Jay-Z, and Future. On March 5, 2018, a joint tour with Knowles's husband Jay-Z, was leaked on Facebook. Information about the tour was later taken down. The couple announced the joint tour officially as On the Run II Tour on March 12 and simultaneously released a trailer for the tour on YouTube. On March 20, 2018, the couple traveled to Jamaica to film a music video directed by Melina Matsoukas.
On April 14, 2018, Beyoncé played the first of two weekends as the headlining act of the Coachella Music Festival. Her performance of April 14, attended by 125,000 festival-goers, was immediately praised, with multiple media outlets describing it as historic. The performance became the most-tweeted-about performance of weekend one, as well as the most-watched live Coachella performance and the most-watched live performance on YouTube of all time. The show paid tribute to black culture, specifically historically black colleges and universities and featured a live band with over 100 dancers. Destiny's Child also reunited during the show.
On June 6, 2018, Beyoncé and husband Jay-Z kicked-off the On the Run II Tour in Cardiff, United Kingdom. Ten days later, at their final London performance, the pair unveiled Everything Is Love, their joint studio album, credited under the name The Carters, and initially available exclusively on Tidal. The pair also released the video for the album's lead single, "Apeshit", on Beyoncé's official YouTube channel. Everything Is Love received generally positive reviews, and debuted at number two on the U.S. Billboard 200, with 123,000 album-equivalent units, of which 70,000 were pure album sales. On December 2, 2018, Beyoncé alongside Jay-Z headlined the Global Citizen Festival: Mandela 100 which was held at FNB Stadium in Johannesburg, South Africa. Their 2-hour performance had concepts similar to the On the Run II Tour and Beyoncé was praised for her outfits, which paid tribute to Africa's diversity.
2019–present: Homecoming, The Lion King and Black Is King
Homecoming, a documentary and concert film focusing on Beyoncé's historic 2018 Coachella performances, was released by Netflix on April 17, 2019. The film was accompanied by the surprise live album Homecoming: The Live Album. It was later reported that Beyoncé and Netflix had signed a $60 million deal to produce three different projects, one of which is Homecoming. Homecoming received six nominations at the 71st Primetime Creative Arts Emmy Awards.
Beyoncé starred as the voice of Nala in the remake The Lion King, which was released on July 19, 2019. Beyoncé is featured on the film's soundtrack, released on July 11, 2019, with a remake of the song "Can You Feel the Love Tonight" alongside Donald Glover, Billy Eichner and Seth Rogen, which was originally composed by Elton John. Additionally, an original song from the film by Beyoncé, "Spirit", was released as the lead single from both the soundtrack and The Lion King: The Gift – a companion album released alongside the film, produced and curated by Beyoncé. Beyoncé called The Lion King: The Gift a "sonic cinema". She also stated that the album is influenced by everything from R&B, pop, hip hop and Afro Beat. The songs were additionally produced by African producers, which Beyoncé said was because "authenticity and heart were important to [her]", since the film is set in Africa. In September of the same year, a documentary chronicling the development, production and early music video filming of The Lion King: The Gift entitled "Beyoncé Presents: Making The Gift" was aired on ABC.
On April 29, 2020, Beyoncé was featured on the remix of Megan Thee Stallion's song "Savage", marking her first material of music for the year. The song peaked at number one on the Billboard Hot 100, marking Beyoncé's eleventh song to do so across all acts. On June 19, 2020, Beyoncé released the nonprofit charity single "Black Parade". On June 23, she followed up the release of its studio version with an a capella version exclusively on Tidal. Black Is King, a visual album based on the music of The Lion King: The Gift, premiered globally on Disney+ on July 31, 2020. Produced by Disney and Parkwood Entertainment, the film was written, directed and executive produced by Beyoncé. The film was described by Disney as "a celebratory memoir for the world on the Black experience". Beyoncé received the most nominations (9) at the 63rd Annual Grammy Awards and the most awards (4), which made her the most-awarded singer, most-awarded female artist, and second-most-awarded artist in Grammy history.
Beyoncé wrote and recorded a song titled "Be Alive" for the biographical drama film King Richard. She received her first Academy Award nomination for Best Original Song at the 94th Academy Awards for the song, alongside co-writer DIXSON.
Artistry
Voice and musical style
Beyoncé's voice type is classified as dramatic mezzo-soprano. Jody Rosen highlights her tone and timbre as particularly distinctive, describing her voice as "one of the most compelling instruments in popular music". Her vocal abilities mean she is identified as the centerpiece of Destiny's Child. Jon Pareles of The New York Times commented that her voice is "velvety yet tart, with an insistent flutter and reserves of soul belting". Rosen notes that the hip hop era highly influenced Beyoncé's unique rhythmic vocal style, but also finds her quite traditionalist in her use of balladry, gospel and falsetto. Other critics praise her range and power, with Chris Richards of The Washington Post saying she was "capable of punctuating any beat with goose-bump-inducing whispers or full-bore diva-roars."
Beyoncé's music is generally R&B, pop and hip hop but she also incorporates soul and funk into her songs. 4 demonstrated Beyoncé's exploration of 1990s-style R&B, as well as further use of soul and hip hop than compared to previous releases. While she almost exclusively releases English songs, Beyoncé recorded several Spanish songs for Irreemplazable (re-recordings of songs from B'Day for a Spanish-language audience), and the re-release of B'Day. To record these, Beyoncé was coached phonetically by American record producer Rudy Perez.
Songwriting
Beyoncé has received co-writing credits for most of her songs. In regards to the way she approaches collaborative songwriting, Beyoncé explained: "I love being around great writers because I'm finding that a lot of the things I want to say, I don't articulate as good as maybe Amanda Ghost, so I want to keep collaborating with writers, and I love classics and I want to make sure years from now the song is still something that's relevant." Her early songs with Destiny's Child were personally driven and female-empowerment themed compositions like "Independent Women" and "Survivor", but after the start of her relationship with Jay-Z, she transitioned to more man-tending anthems such as "Cater 2 U".
In 2001, she became the first Black woman and second female lyricist to win the Pop Songwriter of the Year award at the ASCAP Pop Music Awards. Beyoncé was the third woman to have writing credits on three number-one songs ("Irreplaceable", "Grillz" and "Check on It") in the same year, after Carole King in 1971 and Mariah Carey in 1991. She is tied with American lyricist Diane Warren at third with nine songwriting credits on number-one singles. The latter wrote her 9/11-motivated song "I Was Here" for 4. In May 2011, Billboard magazine listed Beyoncé at number 17 on their list of the Top 20 Hot 100 Songwriters for having co-written eight singles that hit number one on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. She was one of only three women on that list, along with Alicia Keys and Taylor Swift.
Beyoncé has long received criticism, including from journalists and musicians, for the extensive writing credits on her songs. The controversy surrounding her songwriting credits began with interviews in which she attributed herself as the songwriter for songs in which she was a co-writer or for which her contributions were marginal. In a cover story for Vanity Fair in 2005, she claimed to have "written" several number-one songs for Destiny's Child, contrary to the credits, which list her as a co-writer among others. In a 2007 interview with Barbara Walters, she claimed to have conceived the musical idea for the Destiny's Child hit "Bootylicious", which provoked the song's producer Rob Fusari to call her father and then-manager Mathew Knowles in protest over the claim. As Fusari tells Billboard, "[Knowles] explained to me, in a nice way, he said, 'People don't want to hear about Rob Fusari, producer from Livingston, N.J. No offense, but that's not what sells records. What sells records is people believing that the artist is everything. However, in an interview for Entertainment Weekly in 2016, Fusari said Beyoncé "had the 'Bootylicious' concept in her head. That was totally her. She knew what she wanted to say. It was very urban pop angle that they were taking on the record."
In 2007, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences ruled out Beyoncé as a songwriter on "Listen" (from Dreamgirls) for its Oscar nomination in the Best Original Song category. Responding to a then-new three-writer limit, the Academy deemed her contribution the least significant for inclusion. In 2009, Ryan Tedder's original demo for "Halo" leaked on the Internet, revealing an identical resemblance to Beyoncé's recording, for which she received a writing credit. When interviewed by The Guardian, Tedder explained that Beyoncé had edited the bridge of the song vocally and thus earned the credit, although he vaguely questioned the ethics of her possible "demand" for a writing credit in other instances. Tedder elaborated when speaking to Gigwise that "She does stuff on any given song that, when you go from the demo to the final version, takes it to another level that you never would have thought of as the writer. For instance, on 'Halo,' that bridge on her version is completely different to my original one. Basically, she came in, ditched that, edited it, did her vocal thing on it, and now it's become one of my favorite parts of the song. The whole melody, she wrote it spontaneously in the studio. So her credit on that song stems from that." In 2014, the popular industry songwriter Linda Perry responded to a question about Beyoncé receiving a co-writing credit for changing one lyric to a song: "Well haha um that's not songwriting but some of these artists believe if it wasn't for them your song would never get out there so they take a cut just because they are who they are. But everyone knows the real truth about Beyoncé. She is talented but in a completely different way." Perry's remarks were echoed by Frank Ocean, who acknowledged the trend of recording artists forcing writing credits while jokingly suggesting Beyoncé had an exceptional status.
Reflecting on the controversy, Sunday Independent columnist Alexis Kritselis wrote in 2014, "It seems as though our love for all things Beyoncé has blinded us to the very real claims of theft and plagiarism that have plagued her career for years", and that, "because of her power and influence in the music industry, it may be hard for some songwriters to 'just say no' to Beyoncé." While reporting on her controversial writing record, pop culture critics such as Roger Friedman and The Daily Beasts Kevin Fallon said the trend has redefined popular conceptions of songwriting, with Fallon saying, "the village of authors and composers that populate Lemonade, [Kanye West']s Life of Pablo, [Rihanna's] Anti, or [Drake's] Views – all of which are still reflective of an artist's voice and vision ... speaks to the truth of the way the industry's top artists create their music today: by committee." James S. Murphy of Vanity Fair suggests Beyoncé is among the major artists like Frank Sinatra and Billie Holiday who are "celebrated [not] because [they] write such good parts, but because [they] create them out of the words that are given".
Meanwhile, Everything Is Love producers Cool & Dre stated that Beyoncé is "100 percent involved" in writing her own songs, with Dre saying that "She put her mind to the music and did her thing. If she had a melody idea, she came up with the words. If we had the words, she came up with the melody. She's a beast", when speaking on the writing process of Everything Is Love. Ne-Yo, when asked about his collaborative writing experience with Beyoncé on "Irreplaceable", said that they both wrote "two damn totally different songs ... So, yeah, I gave her writer's credit. Because that counts. That's writing ... She put her spin on it." As for Drake: Pound Cake' happened while I was writing for Beyoncé or working with Beyoncé, not writing for, working with. I hate saying writing for 'cause she's a phenomenal writer. She has bars on bars." The-Dream revealed: "We did a whole Fela album that didn't go up. It was right before we did 4. We did a whole different sounding thing, about twenty songs. She said she wanted to do something that sounds like Fela. That's why there's so much of that sound in the 'End of Time.' There's always multiple albums being made. Most of the time we're just being creative, period. We're talking about B, somebody who sings all day long and somebody who writes all day long. There's probably a hundred records just sitting around."
Influences
Beyoncé names Michael Jackson as her major musical influence. Aged five, Beyoncé attended her first ever concert where Jackson performed and she claims to have realized her purpose. When she presented him with a tribute award at the World Music Awards in 2006, Beyoncé said, "if it wasn't for Michael Jackson, I would never ever have performed." Beyoncé was heavily influenced by Tina Turner, who she said "Tina Turner is someone that I admire, because she made her strength feminine and sexy". She admires Diana Ross as an "all-around entertainer", and Whitney Houston, who she said "inspired me to get up there and do what she did." Beyoncé cited Madonna as an influence "not only for her musical style, but also for her business sense", saying that she wanted to "follow in the footsteps of Madonna and be a powerhouse and have my own empire." She also credits Mariah Carey's singing and her song "Vision of Love" as influencing her to begin practicing vocal runs as a child. Her other musical influences include Prince, Shakira, Lauryn Hill, Sade Adu, Donna Summer, Mary J. Blige, Anita Baker, and Toni Braxton.
The feminism and female empowerment themes on Beyoncé's second solo album B'Day were inspired by her role in Dreamgirls and by singer Josephine Baker. Beyoncé paid homage to Baker by performing "Déjà Vu" at the 2006 Fashion Rocks concert wearing Baker's trademark mini-hula skirt embellished with fake bananas. Beyoncé's third solo album, I Am... Sasha Fierce, was inspired by Jay-Z and especially by Etta James, whose "boldness" inspired Beyoncé to explore other musical genres and styles. Her fourth solo album, 4, was inspired by Fela Kuti, 1990s R&B, Earth, Wind & Fire, DeBarge, Lionel Richie, Teena Marie, The Jackson 5, New Edition, Adele, Florence and the Machine, and Prince.
Beyoncé has stated that she is personally inspired by Michelle Obama (the 44th First Lady of the United States), saying "she proves you can do it all", and has described Oprah Winfrey as "the definition of inspiration and a strong woman." She has also discussed how Jay-Z is a continuing inspiration to her, both with what she describes as his lyrical genius and in the obstacles he has overcome in his life. Beyoncé has expressed admiration for the artist Jean-Michel Basquiat, posting in a letter "what I find in the work of Jean-Michel Basquiat, I search for in every day in music ... he is lyrical and raw". Beyoncé also cited Cher as a fashion inspiration.
Music videos and stage
In 2006, Beyoncé introduced her all-female tour band Suga Mama (also the name of a song on B'Day) which includes bassists, drummers, guitarists, horn players, keyboardists and percussionists. Her background singers, The Mamas, consist of Montina Cooper-Donnell, Crystal Collins and Tiffany Moniqué Riddick. They made their debut appearance at the 2006 BET Awards and re-appeared in the music videos for "Irreplaceable" and "Green Light". The band have supported Beyoncé in most subsequent live performances, including her 2007 concert tour The Beyoncé Experience, I Am... World Tour (2009–2010), The Mrs. Carter Show World Tour (2013–2014) and The Formation World Tour (2016).
Beyoncé has received praise for her stage presence and voice during live performances. Jarett Wieselman of the New York Post placed her at number one on her list of the Five Best Singer/Dancers. According to Barbara Ellen of The Guardian Beyoncé is the most in-charge female artist she's seen onstage, while Alice Jones of The Independent wrote she "takes her role as entertainer so seriously she's almost too good." The ex-President of Def Jam L.A. Reid has described Beyoncé as the greatest entertainer alive. Jim Farber of the Daily News and Stephanie Classen of The StarPhoenix both praised her strong voice and her stage presence. Beyoncé's stage outfits have been met with criticism from many countries, such as Malaysia, where she has postponed or cancelled performances due to the country's strict laws banning revealing costumes.
Beyoncé has worked with numerous directors for her music videos throughout her career, including Melina Matsoukas, Jonas Åkerlund, and Jake Nava. Bill Condon, director of Beauty and the Beast, stated that the Lemonade visuals in particular served as inspiration for his film, commenting, "You look at Beyoncé's brilliant movie Lemonade, this genre is taking on so many different forms ... I do think that this very old-school break-out-into-song traditional musical is something that people understand again and really want."
Alter ego
Described as being "sexy, seductive and provocative" when performing on stage, Beyoncé has said that she originally created the alter ego "Sasha Fierce" to keep that stage persona separate from who she really is. She described Sasha as being "too aggressive, too strong, too sassy [and] too sexy", stating, "I'm not like her in real life at all." Sasha was conceived during the making of "Crazy in Love", and Beyoncé introduced her with the release of her 2008 album, I Am... Sasha Fierce. In February 2010, she announced in an interview with Allure magazine that she was comfortable enough with herself to no longer need Sasha Fierce. However, Beyoncé announced in May 2012 that she would bring her back for her Revel Presents: Beyoncé Live shows later that month.
Public image
Beyoncé has been described as having a wide-ranging sex appeal, with music journalist Touré writing that since the release of Dangerously in Love, she has "become a crossover sex symbol". Offstage Beyoncé says that while she likes to dress sexily, her onstage dress "is absolutely for the stage". Due to her curves and the term's catchiness, in the 2000s, the media often used the term "bootylicious" (a portmanteau of the words "booty" and "delicious") to describe Beyoncé, the term popularized by Destiny's Child's single of the same name. In 2006, it was added to the Oxford English Dictionary.
In September 2010, Beyoncé made her runway modelling debut at Tom Ford's Spring/Summer 2011 fashion show. She was named the "World's Most Beautiful Woman" by People and the "Hottest Female Singer of All Time" by Complex in 2012. In January 2013, GQ placed her on its cover, featuring her atop its "100 Sexiest Women of the 21st Century" list. VH1 listed her at number 1 on its 100 Sexiest Artists list. Several wax figures of Beyoncé are found at Madame Tussauds Wax Museums in major cities around the world, including New York, Washington, D.C., Amsterdam, Bangkok, Hollywood and Sydney.
According to Italian fashion designer Roberto Cavalli, Beyoncé uses different fashion styles to work with her music while performing. Her mother co-wrote a book, published in 2002, titled Destiny's Style, an account of how fashion affected the trio's success. The B'Day Anthology Video Album showed many instances of fashion-oriented footage, depicting classic to contemporary wardrobe styles. In 2007, Beyoncé was featured on the cover of the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue, becoming the second African American woman after Tyra Banks, and People magazine recognized Beyoncé as the best-dressed celebrity.
Beyoncé has been named "Queen Bey" from publications over the years. The term is a reference to the common phrase "queen bee", a term used for the leader of a group of females. The nickname also refers to the queen of a beehive, with her fan base being named "The BeyHive". The BeyHive was previously titled "The Beyontourage", (a portmanteau of Beyoncé and entourage), but was changed after online petitions on Twitter and online news reports during competitions. The BeyHive has been named one of the most loyal and defensive fan bases and has achieved notoriety for being fiercely protective of Beyoncé.
In 2006, the animal rights organization People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), criticized Beyoncé for wearing and using fur in her clothing line House of Deréon. In 2011, she appeared on the cover of French fashion magazine L'Officiel, in blackface and tribal makeup that drew criticism from the media. A statement released from a spokesperson for the magazine said that Beyoncé's look was "far from the glamorous Sasha Fierce" and that it was "a return to her African roots".
Beyoncé's lighter skin color and costuming has drawn criticism from some in the African-American community. Emmett Price, a professor of music at Northeastern University, wrote in 2007 that he thinks race plays a role in many of these criticisms, saying white celebrities who dress similarly do not attract as many comments. In 2008, L'Oréal was accused of whitening her skin in their Feria hair color advertisements, responding that "it is categorically untrue", and in 2013, Beyoncé herself criticized H&M for their proposed "retouching" of promotional images of her, and according to Vogue requested that only "natural pictures be used".
Beyoncé has been a vocal advocate for the Black Lives Matter movement. The release of "Formation" on February 6, 2016 saw her celebrate her heritage, with the song's music video featuring pro-black imagery and most notably a shot of wall graffiti that says "Stop shooting us". The day after the song's release she performed it at the 2016 Super Bowl halftime show with back up dancers dressed to represent the Black Panther Party. This incited criticism from politicians and police officers, with some police boycotting Beyoncé's then upcoming Formation World Tour. Beyoncé responded to the backlash by releasing tour merchandise that said "Boycott Beyoncé", and later clarified her sentiment, saying: “Anyone who perceives my message as anti-police is completely mistaken. I have so much admiration and respect for officers and the families of officers who sacrifice themselves to keep us safe,” Beyoncé said. “But let’s be clear: I am against police brutality and injustice. Those are two separate things.”
Personal life
Marriage and children
Beyoncé started a relationship with Jay-Z after their collaboration on '03 Bonnie & Clyde", which appeared on his seventh album The Blueprint 2: The Gift & The Curse (2002). Beyoncé appeared as Jay-Z's girlfriend in the music video for the song, fueling speculation about their relationship. On April 4, 2008, Beyoncé and Jay-Z married without publicity. , the couple had sold a combined 300 million records together. They are known for their private relationship, although they have appeared to become more relaxed in recent years. Both have acknowledged difficulty that arose in their marriage after Jay-Z had an affair.
Beyoncé miscarried around 2010 or 2011, describing it as "the saddest thing" she had ever endured. She returned to the studio and wrote music to cope with the loss. In April 2011, Beyoncé and Jay-Z traveled to Paris to shoot the album cover for 4, and she unexpectedly became pregnant in Paris. In August, the couple attended the 2011 MTV Video Music Awards, at which Beyoncé performed "Love on Top" and ended the performance by revealing she was pregnant. Her appearance helped that year's MTV Video Music Awards become the most-watched broadcast in MTV history, pulling in 12.4 million viewers; the announcement was listed in Guinness World Records for "most tweets per second recorded for a single event" on Twitter, receiving 8,868 tweets per second and "Beyonce pregnant" was the most Googled phrase the week of August 29, 2011. On January 7, 2012, Beyoncé gave birth to a daughter, Blue Ivy, at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City.
Following the release of Lemonade, which included the single "Sorry", in 2016, speculations arose about Jay-Z's alleged infidelity with a mistress referred to as "Becky". Jon Pareles in The New York Times pointed out that many of the accusations were "aimed specifically and recognizably" at him. Similarly, Rob Sheffield of Rolling Stone magazine noted the lines "Suck on my balls, I've had enough" were an "unmistakable hint" that the lyrics revolve around Jay-Z.
On February 1, 2017, she revealed on her Instagram account that she was expecting twins. Her announcement gained over 6.3 million likes within eight hours, breaking the world record for the most liked image on the website at the time. On July 13, 2017, Beyoncé uploaded the first image of herself and the twins onto her Instagram account, confirming their birth date as a month prior, on June 13, 2017, with the post becoming the second most liked on Instagram, behind her own pregnancy announcement. The twins, a daughter named Rumi and a son named Sir, were born at Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center in California. She wrote of her pregnancy and its aftermath in the September 2018 issue of Vogue, in which she had full control of the cover, shot at Hammerwood Park by photographer Tyler Mitchell.
Activism
Beyoncé performed "America the Beautiful" at President Barack Obama's 2009 presidential inauguration, as well as "At Last" during the first inaugural dance at the Neighborhood Ball two days later. The couple held a fundraiser at Jay-Z's 40/40 Club in Manhattan for President Obama's 2012 presidential campaign which raised $4 million. In the 2012 presidential election, the singer voted for President Obama. She performed the American national anthem "The Star-Spangled Banner" at his second inauguration in January 2013.
The Washington Post reported in May 2015, that Beyoncé attended a major celebrity fundraiser for 2016 presidential nominee Hillary Clinton. She also headlined for Clinton in a concert held the weekend before Election Day the next year. In this performance, Beyoncé and her entourage of backup dancers wore pantsuits; a clear allusion to Clinton's frequent dress-of-choice. The backup dancers also wore "I'm with her" tee shirts, the campaign slogan for Clinton. In a brief speech at this performance Beyoncé said, "I want my daughter to grow up seeing a woman lead our country and knowing that her possibilities are limitless." She endorsed the bid of Beto O'Rourke during the 2018 United States Senate election in Texas.
In 2013, Beyoncé stated in an interview in Vogue that she considered herself to be "a modern-day feminist". She would later align herself more publicly with the movement, sampling "We should all be feminists", a speech delivered by Nigerian author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie at a TEDx talk in April 2013, in her song "Flawless", released later that year. The next year she performed live at the MTV Video Awards in front a giant backdrop reading "Feminist". Her self-identification incited a circulation of opinions and debate about whether her feminism is aligned with older, more established feminist ideals. Annie Lennox, celebrated artist and feminist advocate, referred to Beyoncé's use of her word feminist as 'feminist lite'. bell hooks critiqued Beyoncé, referring to her as a "terrorist" towards feminism, harmfully impacting her audience of young girls. Adichie responded with "her type of feminism is not mine, as it is the kind that, at the same time, gives quite a lot of space to the necessity of men." Adichie expands upon what 'feminist lite' means to her, referring that "more troubling is the idea, in Feminism Lite, that men are naturally superior but should be expected to "treat women well" and "we judge powerful women more harshly than we judge powerful men. And Feminism Lite enables this." Beyoncé responded about her intent by utilizing the definition of feminist with her platform was to "give clarity to the true meaning" behind it. She says to understand what being a feminist is, "it's very simple. It's someone who believes in equal rights for men and women." She advocated to provide equal opportunities for young boys and girls, men and women must begin to understand the double standards that remain persistent in our societies and the issue must be illuminated in effort to start making changes.
She has also contributed to the Ban Bossy campaign, which uses TV and social media to encourage leadership in girls. Following Beyoncé's public identification as a feminist, the sexualized nature of her performances and the fact that she championed her marriage was questioned.
In December 2012, Beyoncé along with a variety of other celebrities teamed up and produced a video campaign for "Demand A Plan", a bipartisan effort by a group of 950 U.S. mayors and others designed to influence the federal government into rethinking its gun control laws, following the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting. Beyoncé publicly endorsed same-sex marriage on March 26, 2013, after the Supreme Court debate on California's Proposition 8. She spoke against North Carolina's Public Facilities Privacy & Security Act, a bill passed (and later repealed) that discriminated against the LGBT community in public places in a statement during her concert in Raleigh as part of the Formation World Tour in 2016. She has also condemned police brutality against black Americans. She and Jay-Z attended a rally in 2013 in response to the acquittal of George Zimmerman for the killing of Trayvon Martin. The film for her sixth album Lemonade included the mothers of Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown and Eric Garner, holding pictures of their sons in the video for "Freedom". In a 2016 interview with Elle, Beyoncé responded to the controversy surrounding her song "Formation" which was perceived to be critical of the police. She clarified, "I am against police brutality and injustice. Those are two separate things. If celebrating my roots and culture during Black History Month made anyone uncomfortable, those feelings were there long before a video and long before me".
In February 2017, Beyoncé spoke out against the withdrawal of protections for transgender students in public schools by Donald Trump's presidential administration. Posting a link to the 100 Days of Kindness campaign on her Facebook page, Beyoncé voiced her support for transgender youth and joined a roster of celebrities who spoke out against Trump's decision.
In November 2017, Beyoncé presented Colin Kaepernick with the 2017 Sports Illustrated Muhammad Ali Legacy Award, stating, "Thank you for your selfless heart and your conviction, thank you for your personal sacrifice", and that "Colin took action with no fear of consequence ... To change perception, to change the way we treat each other, especially people of color. We're still waiting for the world to catch up." Muhammad Ali was heavily penalized in his career for protesting the status quo of US civil rights through opposition to the Vietnam War, by refusing to serve in the military. 40 years later, Kaepernick had already lost one professional year due to taking a much quieter and legal stand "for people that are oppressed".
Wealth
Forbes magazine began reporting on Beyoncé's earnings in 2008, calculating that the $80 million earned between June 2007 to June 2008, for her music, tour, films and clothing line made her the world's best-paid music personality at the time, above Madonna and Celine Dion. It placed her fourth on the Celebrity 100 list in 2009
and ninth on the "Most Powerful Women in the World" list in 2010. The following year, the magazine placed her eighth on the "Best-Paid Celebrities Under 30" list, having earned $35 million in the past year for her clothing line and endorsement deals. In 2012, Forbes placed Beyoncé at number 16 on the Celebrity 100 list, twelve places lower than three years ago yet still having earned $40 million in the past year for her album 4, clothing line and endorsement deals. In the same year, Beyoncé and Jay-Z placed at number one on the "World's Highest-Paid Celebrity Couples", for collectively earning $78 million. The couple made it into the previous year's Guinness World Records as the "highest-earning power couple" for collectively earning $122 million in 2009. For the years 2009 to 2011, Beyoncé earned an average of $70 million per year, and earned $40 million in 2012. In 2013, Beyoncé's endorsements of Pepsi and H&M made her and Jay-Z the world's first billion dollar couple in the music industry. That year, Beyoncé was published as the fourth most-powerful celebrity in the Forbes rankings.
MTV estimated that by the end of 2014, Beyoncé would become the highest-paid Black musician in history; this became the case in April 2014. In June 2014, Beyoncé ranked at number one on the Forbes Celebrity 100 list, earning an estimated $115 million throughout June 2013 – June 2014. This in turn was the first time she had topped the Celebrity 100 list as well as being her highest yearly earnings to date. In 2016, Beyoncé ranked at number 34 on the Celebrity 100 list with earnings of $54 million. She and Jay-Z also topped the highest paid celebrity couple list, with combined earnings of $107.5 million. , Forbes calculated her net worth to be $355 million, and in June of the same year, ranked her as the 35th highest earning celebrity with annual earnings of $60 million. This tied Beyoncé with Madonna as the only two female artists to earn more than $100 million within a single year twice. As a couple, Beyoncé and Jay-Z have a combined net worth of $1.16 billion. In July 2017, Billboard announced that Beyoncé was the highest paid musician of 2016, with an estimated total of $62.1 million.
Impact
Beyoncé's success has led to her becoming a cultural icon and earning her the nickname "Queen Bey". In The New Yorker, music critic Jody Rosen described Beyoncé as "the most important and compelling popular musician of the twenty-first century ... the result, the logical end point, of a century-plus of pop." Author James Clear, in his book Atomic Habits (2018), draws a parallel between the singer's success and the dramatic transformations in modern society: "In the last one hundred years, we have seen the rise of the car, the airplane, the television, the personal computer, the internet, the smartphone, and Beyoncé." The Observer named her Artist of the Decade (2000s) in 2009.
Writing for Entertainment Weekly, Alex Suskind noticed how Beyoncé was the decade's (2010s) defining pop star, stating that "no one dominated music in the 2010s like Queen Bey", explaining that her "songs, album rollouts, stage presence, social justice initiatives, and disruptive public relations strategy have influenced the way we've viewed music since 2010." British publication NME also shared similar thoughts on her impact in the 2010s, including Beyoncé on their list of the "10 Artists Who Defined The Decade". In 2018, Rolling Stone included her on its Millennial 100 list.
Beyoncé is credited with the invention of the staccato rap-singing style that has since dominated pop, R&B and rap music. Lakin Starling of The Fader wrote that Beyoncé's innovative implementation of the delivery style on Destiny's Child's 1999 album The Writing's on the Wall invented a new form of R&B. Beyoncé's new style subsequently changed the nature of music, revolutionizing both singing in urban music and rapping in pop music, and becoming the dominant sound of both genres. The style helped to redefine both the breadth of commercial R&B and the sound of hip hop, with artists such as Kanye West and Drake implementing Beyoncé's cadence in the late 2000s and early 2010s. The staccato rap-singing style continued to be used in the music industry in the late 2010s and early 2020s; Aaron Williams of Uproxx described Beyoncé as the "primary pioneer" of the rapping style that dominates the music industry today, with many contemporary rappers implementing Beyoncé's rap-singing. Michael Eric Dyson agrees, saying that Beyoncé "changed the whole genre" and has become the "godmother" of mumble rappers, who use the staccato rap-singing cadence. Dyson added: "She doesn't get credit for the remarkable way in which she changed the musical vocabulary of contemporary art."
Beyoncé has been credited with reviving the album as an art form in an era dominated by singles and streaming. This started with her 2011 album 4; while mainstream R&B artists were forgoing albums-led R&B in favor of singles-led EDM, Beyoncé aimed to place the focus back on albums as an artform and re-establish R&B as a mainstream concern. This remained a focus of Beyoncé's, and in 2013, she made her eponymous album only available to purchase as a full album on iTunes, rather than being able to purchase individual tracks or consume the album via streaming. Kaitlin Menza of Marie Claire wrote that this made listeners "experience the album as one whole sonic experience, the way people used to, noting the musical and lyrical themes". Jamieson Cox for The Verge described how Beyoncé's 2013 album initiated a gradual trend of albums becoming more cohesive and self-referential, and this phenomenon reached its endpoint with Lemonade, which set "a new standard for pop storytelling at the highest possible scale". Megan Carpentier of The Guardian wrote that with Lemonade, Beyoncé has "almost revived the album format" by releasing an album that can only be listened to in its entirety. Myf Warhurst on Double J's "Lunch With Myf" explained that while most artists' albums consist of a few singles plus filler songs, Beyoncé "brought the album back", changing the art form of the album "to a narrative with an arc and a story and you have to listen to the entire thing to get the concept".
Several recording artists have cited Beyoncé as their influence. Lady Gaga explained how Beyoncé gave her the determination to become a musician, recalling seeing her in a Destiny's Child music video and saying: "Oh, she's a star. I want that." Rihanna was similarly inspired to start her singing career after watching Beyoncé, telling etalk that after Beyoncé released Dangerously In Love (2003), "I was like 'wow, I want to be just like that.' She's huge and just an inspiration." Lizzo was also first inspired by Beyoncé to start singing after watching her perform at a Destiny's Child concert. Lizzo also taught herself to sing by copying Beyoncé's B'Day (2006). Similarly, Ariana Grande said she learned to sing by mimicking Beyoncé. Adele cited Beyoncé as her inspiration and favorite artist, telling Vogue: "She's been a huge and constant part of my life as an artist since I was about ten or eleven ... I think she's really inspiring. She's beautiful. She's ridiculously talented, and she is one of the kindest people I've ever met ... She makes me want to do things with my life." Both Paul McCartney and Garth Brooks said they watch Beyoncé's performances to get inspiration for their own shows, with Brooks saying that when you watch one of her performances, "take out your notebook and take notes. No matter how long you've been on the stage – take notes on that one."
She is known for coining popular phrases such as "put a ring on it", a euphemism for marriage proposal, "I woke up like this", which started a trend of posting morning selfies with the hashtag #iwokeuplikethis, and "boy, bye", which was used as part of the Democratic National Committee's campaign for the 2020 election. Similarly, she also came up with the phrase "visual album" following the release of her fifth studio album, which had a video for every song. This has been recreated by many other artists since, such as Frank Ocean and Melanie Martinez. The album also popularized surprise releases, with many artists releasing songs, videos or albums with no prior announcement, such as Taylor Swift, Nicki Minaj, Eminem, Frank Ocean, Jay-Z and Drake.
In January 2012, research scientist Bryan Lessard named Scaptia beyonceae, a species of horse-fly found in Northern Queensland, Australia after Beyoncé due to the fly's unique golden hairs on its abdomen. In 2018, the City of Columbia, South Carolina declared August 21 the Beyoncé Knowles-Carter Day in the city after presenting her with the keys to Columbia.
Achievements
Beyoncé has received numerous awards, and is the most-awarded female artist of all time. As a solo artist she has sold over 17 million albums in the US, and over 75 million worldwide (as of February 2013). Having sold over 100 million records worldwide (a further 60 million additionally with Destiny's Child), Beyoncé is one of the best-selling music artists of all time. The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) listed Beyoncé as the top certified artist of the 2000s decade, with a total of 64 certifications. Her songs "Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)", "Halo", and "Irreplaceable" are some of the best-selling singles of all time worldwide. In 2009, Billboard named her the Top Female Artist and Top Radio Songs Artist of the Decade. In 2010, Billboard named her in their Top 50 R&B/Hip-Hop Artists of the Past 25 Years list at number 15. In 2012, VH1 ranked her third on their list of the "100 Greatest Women in Music", behind Mariah Carey and Madonna. In 2002, she received Songwriter of the Year from American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers becoming the First African American woman to win the award. In 2004 and 2019, she received NAACP Image Award for Entertainer of the Year and the Soul Train Music Award for Sammy Davis Jr. – Entertainer of the Year.
In 2005, she also received APEX Award at the Trumpet Award honoring achievements of Black African Americans. In 2007, Beyoncé received the International Artist of Excellence award by the American Music Awards. She also received Honorary Otto at the Bravo Otto. The following year, she received the Legend Award for Outstanding Contribution to the Arts at the World Music Awards and Career Achievement Award at the LOS40 Music Awards. In 2010, she received Award of Honor for Artist of the Decade at the NRJ Music Award and at the 2011 Billboard Music Awards, Beyoncé received the inaugural Billboard Millennium Award. Beyoncé received the Michael Jackson Video Vanguard Award at the 2014 MTV Video Music Awards and was honored as Honorary Mother of the Year at the Australian Mother of the Year Award in Barnardo's Australia for her Humanitarian Effort in the region and the Council of Fashion Designers of America Fashion Icon Award in 2016. In 2019, alongside Jay-Z, she received GLAAD Vanguard Award that is presented to a member of the entertainment community who does not identify as LGBT but who has made a significant difference in promoting equal rights for LGBT people. In 2020, she was awarded the BET Humanitarian Award. Consequence of Sound named her the 30th best singer of all time.
Beyoncé has won 28 Grammy Awards, both as a solo artist and member of Destiny's Child and The Carters, making her the most honored singer, male or female, by the Grammys. She is also the most nominated artist in Grammy Award history with a total of 79 nominations. "Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)" won Song of the Year in 2010 while "Say My Name", "Crazy in Love" and "Drunk in Love" have each won Best R&B Song. Dangerously in Love, B'Day and I Am... Sasha Fierce have all won Best Contemporary R&B Album, while Lemonade has won Best Urban Contemporary Album. Beyoncé set the record for the most Grammy awards won by a female artist in one night in 2010 when she won six awards, breaking the tie she previously held with Alicia Keys, Norah Jones, Alison Krauss, and Amy Winehouse, with Adele equaling this in 2012.
Beyoncé has also won 24 MTV Video Music Awards, making her the most-awarded artist in Video Music Award history. She won two awards each with The Carters and Destiny's Child making her lifetime total of 28 VMAs. "Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)" and "Formation" won Video of the Year in 2009 and 2016 respectively. Beyoncé tied the record set by Lady Gaga in 2010 for the most VMAs won in one night for a female artist with eight in 2016. She is also the most-awarded and nominated artist in BET Award history, winning 29 awards from a total of 60 nominations, the most-awarded person at the Soul Train Music Awards with 17 awards as a solo artist, and the most-awarded person at the NAACP Image Awards with 24 awards as a solo artist.
Following her role in Dreamgirls, Beyoncé was nominated for Best Original Song for "Listen" and Best Actress at the Golden Globe Awards, and Outstanding Actress in a Motion Picture at the NAACP Image Awards. Beyoncé won two awards at the Broadcast Film Critics Association Awards 2006; Best Song for "Listen" and Best Original Soundtrack for Dreamgirls: Music from the Motion Picture. According to Fuse in 2014, Beyoncé is the second-most award-winning artist of all time, after Michael Jackson. Lemonade won a Peabody Award in 2017.
She was named on the 2016 BBC Radio 4 Woman's Hour Power List as one of seven women judged to have had the biggest impact on women's lives over the past 70 years, alongside Margaret Thatcher, Barbara Castle, Helen Brook, Germaine Greer, Jayaben Desai and Bridget Jones, She was named the Most Powerful Woman in Music on the same list in 2020. In the same year, Billboard named her with Destiny's Child the third Greatest Music Video artists of all time, behind Madonna and Michael Jackson.
On June 16, 2021, Beyoncé was among several celebrities at the Pollstar Awards where she won the award of "top touring artist" of the decade (2010s). On June 17, 2021, Beyoncé was inducted into the Black Music & Entertainment Walk of Fame as a member of the inaugural class.
Business and ventures
In 2010, Beyoncé founded her own entertainment company Parkwood Entertainment which formed as an imprint based from Columbia Records, the company began as a production unit for videos and films in 2008. Parkwood Entertainment is named after a street in Houston, Texas where Beyoncé once lived. With headquarters in New York City, the company serves as an umbrella for the entertainer's various brands in music, movies, videos, and fashion. The staff of Parkwood Entertainment have experiences in arts and entertainment, from filmmaking and video production to web and fashion design. In addition to departments in marketing, digital, creative, publicity, fashion design and merchandising, the company houses a state-of-the-art editing suite, where Beyoncé works on content for her worldwide tours, music videos, and television specials. Parkwood Entertainment's first production was the musical biopic Cadillac Records (2008), in which Beyoncé starred and co-produced. The company has also distributed Beyoncé's albums such as her self-titled fifth studio album (2013), Lemonade (2016) and The Carters, Everything is Love (2018). Beyoncé has also signed other artists to Parkwood such as Chloe x Halle, who performed at Super Bowl LIII in February 2019.
Endorsements and partnerships
Beyoncé has worked with Pepsi since 2002, and in 2004 appeared in a Gladiator-themed commercial with Britney Spears, Pink, and Enrique Iglesias. In 2012, Beyoncé signed a $50 million deal to endorse Pepsi. The Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPINET) wrote Beyoncé an open letter asking her to reconsider the deal because of the unhealthiness of the product and to donate the proceeds to a medical organisation. Nevertheless, NetBase found that Beyoncé's campaign was the most talked about endorsement in April 2013, with a 70 percent positive audience response to the commercial and print ads.
Beyoncé has worked with Tommy Hilfiger for the fragrances True Star (singing a cover version of "Wishing on a Star") and True Star Gold; she also promoted Emporio Armani's Diamonds fragrance in 2007. Beyoncé launched her first official fragrance, Heat, in 2010. The commercial, which featured the 1956 song "Fever", was shown after the watershed in the United Kingdom as it begins with an image of Beyoncé appearing to lie naked in a room. In February 2011, Beyoncé launched her second fragrance, Heat Rush. Beyoncé's third fragrance, Pulse, was launched in September 2011. In 2013, The Mrs. Carter Show Limited Edition version of Heat was released. The six editions of Heat are the world's best-selling celebrity fragrance line, with sales of over $400 million.
The release of a video-game Starpower: Beyoncé was cancelled after Beyoncé pulled out of a $100 million with GateFive who alleged the cancellation meant the sacking of 70 staff and millions of pounds lost in development. It was settled out of court by her lawyers in June 2013 who said that they had cancelled because GateFive had lost its financial backers. Beyoncé also has had deals with American Express, Nintendo DS and L'Oréal since the age of 18.
In March 2015, Beyoncé became a co-owner, with other artists, of the music streaming service Tidal. The service specializes in lossless audio and high definition music videos. Beyoncé's husband Jay-Z acquired the parent company of Tidal, Aspiro, in the first quarter of 2015. Including Beyoncé and Jay-Z, sixteen artist stakeholders (such as Kanye West, Rihanna, Madonna, Chris Martin, Nicki Minaj and more) co-own Tidal, with the majority owning a 3% equity stake. The idea of having an all artist owned streaming service was created by those involved to adapt to the increased demand for streaming within the current music industry.
In November 2020, Beyoncé formed a multi-year partnership with exercise equipment and media company Peloton. The partnership was formed to celebrate homecoming season in historically black colleges and universities, providing themed workout experiences inspired by Beyoncé's 2019 Homecoming film and live album after 2020's homecoming celebrations were cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic. As part of the partnership, Beyoncé and Peloton are donating free memberships to all students at 10 HBCUs, and Peloton are pursuing long-term recruiting partnerships at the HCBUs. Gwen Bethel Riley, head of music at Peloton, said: "When we had conversations with Beyoncé around how critical a social impact component was to all of us, it crystallized how important it was to embrace Homecoming as an opportunity to celebrate and create dialogue around Black culture and music, in partnership with HBCUs." Upon news of the partnership, a decline in Peloton's shares reversed, and its shares rose by 8.6%.
In 2021, Beyoncé and Jay-Z partnered with Tiffany & Co. for the company's "About Love" campaign. Beyoncé became the fourth woman, and first Black woman, to wear the Tiffany Yellow Diamond. The campaign featured a robin egg blue painting by Jean-Michel Basquiat titled Equals Pi (1982).
Fashion lines
Beyoncé and her mother introduced House of Deréon, a contemporary women's fashion line, in 2005. The concept is inspired by three generations of women in their family, with the name paying tribute to Beyoncé's grandmother, Agnèz Deréon, a respected seamstress. According to Tina, the overall style of the line best reflects her and Beyoncé's taste and style. Beyoncé and her mother founded their family's company Beyond Productions, which provides the licensing and brand management for House of Deréon, and its junior collection, Deréon. House of Deréon pieces were exhibited in Destiny's Child's shows and tours, during their Destiny Fulfilled era. The collection features sportswear, denim offerings with fur, outerwear and accessories that include handbags and footwear, and are available at department and specialty stores across the U.S. and Canada.
In 2005, Beyoncé teamed up with House of Brands, a shoe company, to produce a range of footwear for House of Deréon. In January 2008, Starwave Mobile launched Beyoncé Fashion Diva, a "high-style" mobile game with a social networking component, featuring the House of Deréon collection. In July 2009, Beyoncé and her mother launched a new junior apparel label, Sasha Fierce for Deréon, for back-to-school selling. The collection included sportswear, outerwear, handbags, footwear, eyewear, lingerie and jewelry. It was available at department stores including Macy's and Dillard's, and specialty stores Jimmy Jazz and Against All Odds. On May 27, 2010, Beyoncé teamed up with clothing store C&A to launch Deréon by Beyoncé at their stores in Brazil. The collection included tailored blazers with padded shoulders, little black dresses, embroidered tops and shirts and bandage dresses.
In October 2014, Beyoncé signed a deal to launch an activewear line of clothing with British fashion retailer Topshop. The 50–50 venture is called Ivy Park and was launched in April 2016. The brand's name is a nod to Beyoncé's daughter and her favourite number four (IV in roman numerals), and also references the park where she used to run in Texas. She has since bought out Topshop owner Philip Green from his 50% share after he was alleged to have sexually harassed, bullied and racially abused employees. She now owns the brand herself. On April 4, 2019, it was announced that Beyoncé would become a creative partner with Adidas and further develop her athletic brand Ivy Park with the company. Knowles will also develop new clothes and footwear for Adidas. Shares for the company rose 1.3% upon the news release. On December 9, 2019, they announced a launch date of January 18, 2020. Beyoncé uploaded a teaser on her website and Instagram. The collection was also previewed on the upcoming Elle January 2020 issue, where Beyoncé is seen wearing several garments, accessories and footwear from the first collection.
Philanthropy
In 2002, Beyoncé, Kelly Rowland and Tina Knowles built the Knowles-Rowland Center for Youth, a community center in Downtown Houston. After Hurricane Katrina in 2005, Beyoncé and Rowland founded the Survivor Foundation to provide transitional housing to displaced families and provide means for new building construction, to which Beyoncé contributed an initial $250,000. The foundation has since expanded to work with other charities in the city, and also provided relief following Hurricane Ike three years later. Beyoncé also donated $100,000 to the Gulf Coast Ike Relief Fund. In 2007, Beyoncé founded the Knowles-Temenos Place Apartments, a housing complex offering living space for 43 displaced individuals. As of 2016, Beyoncé had donated $7 million for the maintenance of the complex.
After starring in Cadillac Records in 2009 and learning about Phoenix House, a non-profit drug and alcohol rehabilitation organization, Beyoncé donated her full $4 million salary from the film to the organization. Beyoncé and her mother subsequently established the Beyoncé Cosmetology Center, which offers a seven-month cosmetology training course helping Phoenix House's clients gain career skills during their recovery.
In January 2010, Beyoncé participated in George Clooney and Wyclef Jean's Hope for Haiti Now: A Global Benefit for Earthquake Relief telethon, donated a large sum to the organization, and was named the official face of the limited edition CFDA "Fashion For Haiti" T-shirt, made by Theory which raised a total of $1 million. In April 2011, Beyoncé joined forces with U.S. First Lady Michelle Obama and the National Association of Broadcasters Education Foundation, to help boost the latter's campaign against child obesity by reworking her single "Get Me Bodied". Following the death of Osama bin Laden, Beyoncé released her cover of the Lee Greenwood song "God Bless the USA", as a charity single to help raise funds for the New York Police and Fire Widows' and Children's Benefit Fund.
Beyoncé became an ambassador for the 2012 World Humanitarian Day campaign donating her song "I Was Here" and its music video, shot in the UN, to the campaign. In 2013, it was announced that Beyoncé would work with Salma Hayek and Frida Giannini on a Gucci "Chime for Change" campaign that aims to spread female empowerment. The campaign, which aired on February 28, was set to her new music. A concert for the cause took place on June 1, 2013, in London. With help of the crowdfunding platform Catapult, visitors of the concert could choose between several projects promoting education of women and girls. Beyoncé also took part in "Miss a Meal", a food-donation campaign, and supported Goodwill Industries through online charity auctions at Charitybuzz that support job creation throughout Europe and the U.S.
Beyoncé and Jay-Z secretly donated tens of thousands of dollars to bail out Black Lives Matter protesters in Baltimore and Ferguson, as well as funded infrastructure for the establishment of Black Lives Matter chapters across the US. Before Beyoncé's Formation World Tour show in Tampa, her team held a private luncheon for more than 20 community leaders to discuss how Beyoncé could support local charitable initiatives, including pledging on the spot to fund 10 scholarships to provide students with financial aid. Tampa Sports Authority board member Thomas Scott said: "I don't know of a prior artist meeting with the community, seeing what their needs are, seeing how they can invest in the community. It says a lot to me about Beyoncé. She not only goes into a community and walks away with (money), but she also gives money back to that community." In June 2016, Beyoncé donated over $82,000 to the United Way of Genesee County to support victims of the Flint water crisis. Beyoncé additionally donated money to support 14 students in Michigan with their college expenses. In August 2016, Beyoncé and Jay-Z donated $1.5 million to civil rights groups including Black Lives Matter, Hands Up United and Dream Defenders. After Hurricane Matthew, Beyoncé and Jay-Z donated $15 million to the Usain Bolt Foundation to support its efforts in rebuilding homes in Haiti. In December 2016, Beyoncé was named the Most Charitable Celebrity of the year.
During Hurricane Harvey in August 2017, Beyoncé launched BeyGOOD Houston to support those affected by the hurricane in Houston. The organization donated necessities such as cots, blankets, pillows, baby products, feminine products and wheelchairs, and funded long-term revitalization projects. On September 8, Beyoncé visited Houston, where she sponsored a lunch for 400 survivors at her local church, visited the George R Brown Convention Center to discuss with people displaced by the flooding about their needs, served meals to those who lost their homes, and made a significant donation to local causes. Beyoncé additionally donated $75,000 worth of new mattresses to survivors of the hurricane. Later that month, Beyoncé released a remix of J Balvin and Willy William's "Mi Gente", with all of her proceeds being donated to disaster relief charities in Puerto Rico, Mexico, the U.S. and the Caribbean after hurricanes Harvey, Irma and Maria, and the Chiapas and Puebla earthquakes.
In April 2020, Beyoncé donated $6 million to the National Alliance in Mental Health, UCLA and local community-based organizations in order to provide mental health and personal wellness services to essential workers during the COVID-19 pandemic. BeyGOOD also teamed up with local organizations to help provide resources to communities of color, including food, water, cleaning supplies, medicines and face masks. The same month Beyoncé released a remix of Megan Thee Stallion's "Savage", with all proceeds benefiting Bread of Life Houston's COVID-19 relief efforts, which includes providing over 14 tons of food and supplies to 500 families and 100 senior citizens in Houston weekly. In May 2020, Beyoncé provided 1,000 free COVID-19 tests in Houston as part of her and her mother's #IDidMyPart initiative, which was established due to the disproportionate deaths in African-American communities. Additionally, 1,000 gloves, masks, hot meals, essential vitamins, grocery vouchers and household items were provided. In July 2020, Beyoncé established the Black-Owned Small Business Impact Fund in partnership with the NAACP, which offers $10,000 grants to black-owned small businesses in need following the George Floyd protests. All proceeds from Beyoncé's single "Black Parade" were donated to the fund. In September 2020, Beyoncé announced that she had donated an additional $1 million to the fund. As of December 31, 2020, the fund had given 715 grants to black-owned small businesses, amounting to $7.15 million donated. In October 2020, Beyoncé released a statement that she has been working with the Feminist Coalition to assist supporters of the End Sars movement in Nigeria, including covering medical costs for injured protestors, covering legal fees for arrested protestors, and providing food, emergency shelter, transportation and telecommunication means to those in need. Beyoncé also showed support for those fighting against other issues in Africa, such as the Anglophone Crisis in Cameroon, ShutItAllDown in Namibia, Zimbabwean Lives Matter in Zimbabwe and the Rape National Emergency in Liberia. In December 2020, Beyoncé donated $500,000 to help alleviate the housing crisis in the U.S. caused by the cessation of the eviction moratorium, giving 100 $5,000 grants to individuals and families facing foreclosures and evictions.
Discography
Dangerously in Love (2003)
B'Day (2006)
I Am... Sasha Fierce (2008)
4 (2011)
Beyoncé (2013)
Lemonade (2016)
Filmography
Films starred
Carmen: A Hip Hopera (2001)
Austin Powers in Goldmember (2002)
The Fighting Temptations (2003)
Fade to Black (2004)
The Pink Panther (2006)
Dreamgirls (2006)
Cadillac Records (2008)
Obsessed (2009)
Epic (2013)
The Lion King (2019)
Films directed
Life Is But a Dream (2013)
Beyoncé: Lemonade (2016)
Homecoming (2019)
Black Is King (2020)
Tours and residencies
Headlining tours
Dangerously in Love Tour (2003)
The Beyoncé Experience (2007)
I Am... World Tour (2009–2010)
The Mrs. Carter Show World Tour (2013–2014)
The Formation World Tour (2016)
Co-headlining tours
Verizon Ladies First Tour (with Alicia Keys and Missy Elliott) (2004)
On the Run Tour (with Jay-Z) (2014)
On the Run II Tour (with Jay-Z) (2018)
Residencies
I Am... Yours (2009)
4 Intimate Nights with Beyoncé (2011)
Revel Presents: Beyoncé Live (2012)
See also
Album era
Honorific nicknames in popular music
List of artists who reached number one in the United States
List of artists with the most number ones on the U.S. dance chart
List of Billboard Social 50 number-one artists
List of black Golden Globe Award winners and nominees
List of highest-grossing concert tours
Best-selling female artists of all time
List of most-followed Instagram accounts
Notes
References
External links
1981 births
Living people
20th-century American businesspeople
20th-century American businesswomen
20th-century American singers
20th-century American women singers
21st-century American actresses
21st-century American businesspeople
21st-century American businesswomen
21st-century American singers
21st-century American women singers
Actresses from Houston
African-American actresses
African-American artists
African-American businesspeople
African-American choreographers
African-American dancers
African-American fashion designers
American fashion designers
African-American female dancers
African-American women rappers
African-American women singers
African-American feminists
African-American Methodists
African-American record producers
African-American women in business
African-American women writers
American women business executives
American choreographers
American contemporary R&B singers
American cosmetics businesspeople
American fashion businesspeople
American women pop singers
American film actresses
American hip hop record producers
American female hip hop singers
American hip hop singers
American mezzo-sopranos
American music publishers (people)
American music video directors
American people of Creole descent
American retail chief executives
American soul singers
American television actresses
American United Methodists
American voice actresses
American women philanthropists
American women record producers
Black Lives Matter people
Brit Award winners
Businesspeople from Houston
Columbia Records artists
Dance-pop musicians
Destiny's Child members
Female music video directors
Feminist musicians
Gold Star Records artists
Grammy Award winners
Grammy Award winners for rap music
High School for the Performing and Visual Arts alumni
Ivor Novello Award winners
Jay-Z
Solange Knowles
Louisiana Creole people
MTV Europe Music Award winners
Music video codirectors
Musicians from Houston
NME Awards winners
Parkwood Entertainment artists
Record producers from Texas
Shoe designers
Singers from Texas
Singers with a four-octave vocal range
Texas Democrats
Women hip hop record producers
World Music Awards winners
Writers from Houston | true | [
"Rosearik Rikki Allen Simons (born September 8, 1970) is an American voice actor, writer, cartoonist, and animator. He is best known as the voice of GIR in the Nickelodeon animated series, Invader Zim. Simons has also written a number of novels and comic series, often working with his wife, Tavisha Wolfgarth-Simons.\n\nBiography\n\nInvader Zim and other voice work \nSimons was the color designer for the animated TV show Invader Zim, and also voiced the robot character of GIR on the show. Show creator Jhonen Vasquez wanted someone with no experience in voice acting to play the part of GIR, as a reflection of how broken and messed up GIR really is. Vasquez was disappointed with actors who auditioned for GIR saying they were \"good actors\" who just did a \"stock crazy robot voice\". Simons was Vasquez's friend and was working on I Feel Sick with him, and he asked Simons to try to audition for GIR, saying he \"couldn't screw it up anymore than anyone else\".\n\nSimons did a few different voices for his audition for GIR, including one where he was trying to imitate his mother-in-law, but decided it was too \"shrieky\". He then remembered when he used to play with hand puppets with his father as a kid and tried to do one of those voices. Vasquez said he gave Simons the part of GIR because he was \"bad at it\", and that fit the character. When voicing GIR, Simons' voice was edited to make it sound higher-pitched and metallic. While Simons eventually learned to perform the voice without the high-pitch editing, the metallic quality still had to be added. Unedited versions of Simons' voice-overs can be heard in voice recordings for the unfinished episodes.\n\nSimons said in a 2004 interview that he approached the role of GIR \"by pretending (which didn't take much effort) that it wasn't a job... A lot of people comment that I sound like I was just making things up on the spot. That's partly true, but I'm not a voice actor... while I did the voice-actor thing of taking his direction on inflection and I read the lines provided, I was really having the best time ever just yelling and screaming and being stupid.\"\n\nSimons reprised his role of GIR in a number of video games and in a 2019 movie, Invader Zim: Enter the Florpus. In 2011, Nickelodeon approached Rikki Simons, the voice of GIR, about doing some animated shorts revolving around GIR. While Simons was open to reprising his role, nothing ever came of these shorts for unknown reasons. During an Invader Zim panel at Long Beach Comic Con 2019, Simons said the reason why these GIR shorts never went anywhere might have been because \"It's kinda weird to do GIR by himself. I don't know what that would be.\"\n\nSimons was also involved in the Invader Zim comic series; he was credited as a writer in issue #0 of the Invader Zim comic series as well as a colorist for two issues.\n\nSimons has gone on to other voice acting roles, including on the cartoon Mighty Magiswords and the 2021 video game Psychonauts 2.\n\n Comics and writing \nSimons has written multiple novels and comics. Many of these are illustrated or co-illustrated by Simon's wife, illustrator Tavisha Wolfgarth-Simons.\n\nWorks\n\n Acting \nUnless otherwise noted, all roles below are voice acting.\n\n Colorist \n I Feel Sick (comic book series,1999–2000)\n Invader Zim (TV show, color designer, 2001–2006)\nInvader Zim, comic book series, colorist for issues #0 and #3Jackie Chan Adventures (2002–2003) – color stylist for 15 episodes of the TV series\n\nWriter\n ShutterBox (writer, co-artist) (2003–2005)\n Super Information Hijinks: Reality Check! (1995–2002) - comic book series, illustrated by Tavisha Wolfgarth-Simons \n Ranklechick and His Three-Legged Cat (2006) - novel, with illustrations by Tavisha Wolfgarth-SimonsTrinkkits - webcomic\n Hitherto a Lion (2011) - novel, with illustrations by Tavisha Wolfgarth-Simons.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n \n \n Rikki Simons's Newsarama Interview\n Rikki Simons's character design from Invader ZIM'': by Aaron Alexovich.: , by Aaron A. and John Fountain: \n\n1970 births\nAmerican male voice actors\nPeople from San Bernardino County, California\nLiving people\nAmerican comics artists\nAmerican comics writers\n21st-century American novelists\nAmerican male novelists\nAmerican graphic novelists\nAmerican webcomic creators\n21st-century American male writers\nNovelists from California",
"\"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"
]
|
[
"Beyoncé",
"Voice and songwriting",
"what happened with voice and songwriting?",
"Jody Rosen highlights her tone and timbre as particularly distinctive, describing her voice as \"one of the most compelling instruments in popular music",
"what else does she say about her voice?",
"Her vocal abilities mean she is identified as the centerpiece of Destiny's Child.",
"did anyone else have anything to say about her voice? good or bad.",
"Jon Pareles of The New York Times commented that her voice is \"velvety yet tart,",
"what else did he comment about her voice?",
"\"velvety yet tart, with an insistent flutter and reserves of soul belting\"."
]
| C_1128b8d67bcb48feb77ec450ae614b45_1 | what do people have to say about her songwriting? | 5 | What do people have to say about Beyonce's songwriting? | Beyoncé | Jody Rosen highlights her tone and timbre as particularly distinctive, describing her voice as "one of the most compelling instruments in popular music". Her vocal abilities mean she is identified as the centerpiece of Destiny's Child. Jon Pareles of The New York Times commented that her voice is "velvety yet tart, with an insistent flutter and reserves of soul belting". Rosen notes that the hip hop era highly influenced Beyonce's unique rhythmic vocal style, but also finds her quite traditionalist in her use of balladry, gospel and falsetto. Other critics praise her range and power, with Chris Richards of The Washington Post saying she was "capable of punctuating any beat with goose-bump-inducing whispers or full-bore diva-roars." Beyonce's music is generally R&B, but she also incorporates pop, soul and funk into her songs. 4 demonstrated Beyonce's exploration of 1990s-style R&B, as well as further use of soul and hip hop than compared to previous releases. While she almost exclusively releases English songs, Beyonce recorded several Spanish songs for Irreemplazable (re-recordings of songs from B'Day for a Spanish-language audience), and the re-release of B'Day. To record these, Beyonce was coached phonetically by American record producer Rudy Perez. She has received co-writing credits for most of the songs recorded with Destiny's Child and her solo efforts. Her early songs were personally driven and female-empowerment themed compositions like "Independent Women" and "Survivor", but after the start of her relationship with Jay-Z, she transitioned to more man-tending anthems such as "Cater 2 U". Beyonce has also received co-producing credits for most of the records in which she has been involved, especially during her solo efforts. However, she does not formulate beats herself, but typically comes up with melodies and ideas during production, sharing them with producers. In 2001, she became the first black woman and second female lyricist to win the Pop Songwriter of the Year award at the American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers Pop Music Awards. Beyonce was the third woman to have writing credits on three number one songs ("Irreplaceable", "Grillz" and "Check on It") in the same year, after Carole King in 1971 and Mariah Carey in 1991. She is tied with American lyricist Diane Warren at third with nine song-writing credits on number-one singles. (The latter wrote her 9/11-motivated song "I Was Here" for 4.) In May 2011, Billboard magazine listed Beyonce at number 17 on their list of the "Top 20 Hot 100 Songwriters", for having co-written eight singles that hit number one on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. She was one of only three women on that list, along with Alicia Keys and Taylor Swift. CANNOTANSWER | She has received co-writing credits for most of the songs recorded with Destiny's Child and her solo efforts. | Beyoncé Giselle Knowles-Carter ( ; born September 4, 1981) is an American singer, songwriter, and actress. Born and raised in Houston, Texas, Beyoncé performed in various singing and dancing competitions as a child. She rose to fame in the late 1990s as the lead singer of Destiny's Child, one of the best-selling girl groups of all time. Their hiatus saw the release of her debut solo album Dangerously in Love (2003), which featured the US Billboard Hot 100 number-one singles "Crazy in Love" and "Baby Boy".
Following the 2006 disbanding of Destiny's Child, she released her second solo album, B'Day, which contained singles "Irreplaceable" and "Beautiful Liar". Beyoncé also starred in multiple films such as The Pink Panther (2006), Dreamgirls (2006), Obsessed (2009), and The Lion King (2019). Her marriage to Jay-Z and her portrayal of Etta James in Cadillac Records (2008) influenced her third album, I Am... Sasha Fierce (2008), which earned a record-setting six Grammy Awards in 2010. It spawned the successful singles "If I Were a Boy", "Single Ladies", and "Halo".
After splitting from her manager and father Mathew Knowles in 2010, Beyoncé released her musically diverse fourth album 4 in 2011. She later achieved universal acclaim for her sonically experimental visual albums, Beyoncé (2013) and Lemonade (2016), the latter of which was the world's best-selling album of 2016 and the most acclaimed album of her career, exploring themes of infidelity and womanism. In 2018, she released Everything Is Love, a collaborative album with her husband, Jay-Z, as the Carters. As a featured artist, Beyoncé topped the Billboard Hot 100 with the remixes of "Perfect" by Ed Sheeran in 2017 and "Savage" by Megan Thee Stallion in 2020. The same year, she released the musical film and visual album Black Is King to widespread acclaim.
Beyoncé is one of the world's best-selling recording artists, having sold 120 million records worldwide. She is the first solo artist to have their first six studio albums debut at number one on the Billboard 200. Her success during the 2000s was recognized with the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA)'s Top Certified Artist of the Decade as well as Billboard Top Female Artist of the Decade. Beyoncé's accolades include 28 Grammy Awards, 26 MTV Video Music Awards (including the Michael Jackson Video Vanguard Award in 2014), 24 NAACP Image Awards, 31 BET Awards, and 17 Soul Train Music Awards; all of which are more than any other singer. In 2014, Billboard named her the highest-earning black musician of all time, while in 2020, she was included on Times list of 100 women who defined the last century.
Life and career
1981–1996: Early life and career beginnings
Beyonce Giselle Knowles was born on September 4, 1981, in Houston, Texas, to Celestine "Tina" Knowles (née Beyonce), a hairdresser and salon owner, and Mathew Knowles, a Xerox sales manager; Tina is Louisiana Creole, and Mathew is African American. Beyonce's younger sister Solange Knowles is also a singer and a former backup dancer for Destiny's Child. Solange and Beyoncé are the first sisters to have both had No. 1 albums.
Beyoncé's maternal grandparents, Lumas Beyince, and Agnez Dereon (daughter of Odilia Broussard and Eugene DeRouen), were French-speaking Louisiana Creoles, with roots in New Iberia. Beyoncé is considered a Creole, passed on to her by her grandparents. Through her mother, Beyoncé is a descendant of many French aristocrats from the southwest of France, including the family of the Viscounts de Béarn since the 9th century, and the Viscounts de Belzunce. She is also a descendant of Jean-Vincent d'Abbadie de Saint-Castin, a French nobleman and military leader who fought along the indigenous Abenaki against the British in Acadia and of Acadian leader Joseph Broussard. Her fourth great-grandmother, Marie-Françoise Trahan, was born in 1774 in Bangor, located on Belle Île, France. Trahan was a daughter of Acadians who had taken refuge on Belle Île after the British deportation. The Estates of Brittany had divided the lands of Belle Île to distribute them among 78 other Acadian families and the already settled inhabitants. The Trahan family lived on Belle Île for over ten years before immigrating to Louisiana, where she married a Broussard descendant. Beyoncé researched her ancestry and discovered that she is descended from a slave owner who married his slave.
Beyoncé was raised Catholic and attended St. Mary's Montessori School in Houston, where she enrolled in dance classes. Her singing was discovered when dance instructor Darlette Johnson began humming a song and she finished it, able to hit the high-pitched notes. Beyoncé's interest in music and performing continued after winning a school talent show at age seven, singing John Lennon's "Imagine" to beat 15/16-year-olds. In the fall of 1990, Beyoncé enrolled in Parker Elementary School, a music magnet school in Houston, where she would perform with the school's choir. She also attended the High School for the Performing and Visual Arts and later Alief Elsik High School. Beyoncé was also a member of the choir at St. John's United Methodist Church as a soloist for two years.
When Beyoncé was eight, she met LaTavia Roberson at an audition for an all-girl entertainment group. They were placed into a group called Girl's Tyme with three other girls, and rapped and danced on the talent show circuit in Houston. After seeing the group, R&B producer Arne Frager brought them to his Northern California studio and placed them in Star Search, the largest talent show on national TV at the time. Girl's Tyme failed to win, and Beyoncé later said the song they performed was not good. In 1995, Beyoncé's father resigned from his job to manage the group. The move reduced Beyoncé's family's income by half, and her parents were forced to move into separated apartments. Mathew cut the original line-up to four and the group continued performing as an opening act for other established R&B girl groups. The girls auditioned before record labels and were finally signed to Elektra Records, moving to Atlanta Records briefly to work on their first recording, only to be cut by the company. This put further strain on the family, and Beyoncé's parents separated. On October 5, 1995, Dwayne Wiggins's Grass Roots Entertainment signed the group. In 1996, the girls began recording their debut album under an agreement with Sony Music, the Knowles family reunited, and shortly after, the group got a contract with Columbia Records.
1997–2002: Destiny's Child
The group changed their name to Destiny's Child in 1996, based upon a passage in the Book of Isaiah. In 1997, Destiny's Child released their major label debut song "Killing Time" on the soundtrack to the 1997 film Men in Black. In November, the group released their debut single and first major hit, "No, No, No". They released their self-titled debut album in February 1998, which established the group as a viable act in the music industry, with moderate sales and winning the group three Soul Train Lady of Soul Awards for Best R&B/Soul Album of the Year, Best R&B/Soul or Rap New Artist, and Best R&B/Soul Single for "No, No, No". The group released their Multi-Platinum second album The Writing's on the Wall in 1999. The record features some of the group's most widely known songs such as "Bills, Bills, Bills", the group's first number-one single, "Jumpin' Jumpin' and "Say My Name", which became their most successful song at the time, and would remain one of their signature songs. "Say My Name" won the Best R&B Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocals and the Best R&B Song at the 43rd Annual Grammy Awards. The Writing's on the Wall sold more than eight million copies worldwide. During this time, Beyoncé recorded a duet with Marc Nelson, an original member of Boyz II Men, on the song "After All Is Said and Done" for the soundtrack to the 1999 film, The Best Man.
LeToya Luckett and Roberson became unhappy with Mathew's managing of the band and eventually were replaced by Farrah Franklin and Michelle Williams. Beyoncé experienced depression following the split with Luckett and Roberson after being publicly blamed by the media, critics, and blogs for its cause. Her long-standing boyfriend left her at this time. The depression was so severe it lasted for a couple of years, during which she occasionally kept herself in her bedroom for days and refused to eat anything. Beyoncé stated that she struggled to speak about her depression because Destiny's Child had just won their first Grammy Award, and she feared no one would take her seriously. Beyoncé would later speak of her mother as the person who helped her fight it. Franklin was then dismissed, leaving just Beyoncé, Rowland, and Williams.
The remaining band members recorded "Independent Women Part I", which appeared on the soundtrack to the 2000 film Charlie's Angels. It became their best-charting single, topping the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 chart for eleven consecutive weeks. In early 2001, while Destiny's Child was completing their third album, Beyoncé landed a major role in the MTV made-for-television film, Carmen: A Hip Hopera, starring alongside American actor Mekhi Phifer. Set in Philadelphia, the film is a modern interpretation of the 19th-century opera Carmen by French composer Georges Bizet. When the third album Survivor was released in May 2001, Luckett and Roberson filed a lawsuit claiming that the songs were aimed at them. The album debuted at number one on the U.S. Billboard 200, with first-week sales of 663,000 copies sold. The album spawned other number-one hits, "Bootylicious" and the title track, "Survivor", the latter of which earned the group a Grammy Award for Best R&B Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocals. After releasing their holiday album 8 Days of Christmas in October 2001, the group announced a hiatus to further pursue solo careers.
In July 2002, Beyoncé made her theatrical film debut, playing Foxxy Cleopatra alongside Mike Myers in the comedy film Austin Powers in Goldmember, which spent its first weekend atop the U.S. box office and grossed $73 million. Beyoncé released "Work It Out" as the lead single from its soundtrack album which entered the top ten in the UK, Norway, and Belgium. In 2003, Beyoncé starred opposite Cuba Gooding, Jr., in the musical comedy The Fighting Temptations as Lilly, a single mother with whom Gooding's character falls in love. The film received mixed reviews from critics but grossed $30 million in the U.S. Beyoncé released "Fighting Temptation" as the lead single from the film's soundtrack album, with Missy Elliott, MC Lyte, and Free which was also used to promote the film. Another of Beyoncé's contributions to the soundtrack, "Summertime", fared better on the U.S. charts.
2003–2005: Dangerously in Love and Destiny Fulfilled
Beyoncé's first solo recording was a feature on Jay-Z's song '03 Bonnie & Clyde" that was released in October 2002, peaking at number four on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 chart. On June 14, 2003, Beyoncé premiered songs from her first solo album Dangerously in Love during her first solo concert and the pay-per-view television special, "Ford Presents Beyoncé Knowles, Friends & Family, Live From Ford's 100th Anniversary Celebration in Dearborn, Michigan". The album was released on June 24, 2003, after Michelle Williams and Kelly Rowland had released their solo efforts. The album sold 317,000 copies in its first week, debuted atop the Billboard 200, and has since sold 11 million copies worldwide. The album's lead single, "Crazy in Love", featuring Jay-Z, became Beyoncé's first number-one single as a solo artist in the US. The single "Baby Boy" also reached number one, and singles, "Me, Myself and I" and "Naughty Girl", both reached the top-five. The album earned Beyoncé a then record-tying five awards at the 46th Annual Grammy Awards; Best Contemporary R&B Album, Best Female R&B Vocal Performance for "Dangerously in Love 2", Best R&B Song and Best Rap/Sung Collaboration for "Crazy in Love", and Best R&B Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocals for "The Closer I Get to You" with Luther Vandross. During the ceremony, she performed with Prince.
In November 2003, she embarked on the Dangerously in Love Tour in Europe and later toured alongside Missy Elliott and Alicia Keys for the Verizon Ladies First Tour in North America. On February 1, 2004, Beyoncé performed the American national anthem at Super Bowl XXXVIII, at the Reliant Stadium in Houston, Texas. After the release of Dangerously in Love, Beyoncé had planned to produce a follow-up album using several of the left-over tracks. However, this was put on hold so she could concentrate on recording Destiny Fulfilled, the final studio album by Destiny's Child. Released on November 15, 2004, in the US and peaking at number two on the Billboard 200, Destiny Fulfilled included the singles "Lose My Breath" and "Soldier", which reached the top five on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. Destiny's Child embarked on a worldwide concert tour, Destiny Fulfilled... and Lovin' It sponsored by McDonald's Corporation, and performed hits such as "No, No, No", "Survivor", "Say My Name", "Independent Women" and "Lose My Breath". In addition to renditions of the group's recorded material, they also performed songs from each singer's solo careers, most notably numbers from Dangerously in Love. and during the last stop of their European tour, in Barcelona on June 11, 2005, Rowland announced that Destiny's Child would disband following the North American leg of the tour. The group released their first compilation album Number 1's on October 25, 2005, in the US and accepted a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in March 2006. The group has sold 60 million records worldwide.
2006–2007: B'Day and Dreamgirls
Beyoncé's second solo album B'Day was released on September 4, 2006, in the US, to coincide with her twenty-fifth birthday. It sold 541,000 copies in its first week and debuted atop the Billboard 200, becoming Beyoncé's second consecutive number-one album in the United States. The album's lead single "Déjà Vu", featuring Jay-Z, reached the top five on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. The second international single "Irreplaceable" was a commercial success worldwide, reaching number one in Australia, Hungary, Ireland, New Zealand and the United States. B'Day also produced three other singles; "Ring the Alarm", "Get Me Bodied", and "Green Light" (released in the United Kingdom only).
At the 49th Annual Grammy Awards (2007), B'Day was nominated for five Grammy Awards, including Best Contemporary R&B Album, Best Female R&B Vocal Performance for "Ring the Alarm" and Best R&B Song and Best Rap/Sung Collaboration"for "Déjà Vu"; the Freemasons club mix of "Déjà Vu" without the rap was put forward in the Best Remixed Recording, Non-Classical category. B'Day won the award for Best Contemporary R&B Album. The following year, B'Day received two nominations – for Record of the Year for "Irreplaceable" and Best Pop Collaboration with Vocals for "Beautiful Liar" (with Shakira), also receiving a nomination for Best Compilation Soundtrack Album for Motion Pictures, Television or Other Visual Media for her appearance on Dreamgirls: Music from the Motion Picture (2006).
Her first acting role of 2006 was in the comedy film The Pink Panther starring opposite Steve Martin, grossing $158.8 million at the box office worldwide. Her second film Dreamgirls, the film version of the 1981 Broadway musical loosely based on The Supremes, received acclaim from critics and grossed $154 million internationally. In it, she starred opposite Jennifer Hudson, Jamie Foxx, and Eddie Murphy playing a pop singer based on Diana Ross. To promote the film, Beyoncé released "Listen" as the lead single from the soundtrack album. In April 2007, Beyoncé embarked on The Beyoncé Experience, her first worldwide concert tour, visiting 97 venues and grossed over $24 million. Beyoncé conducted pre-concert food donation drives during six major stops in conjunction with her pastor at St. John's and America's Second Harvest. At the same time, B'Day was re-released with five additional songs, including her duet with Shakira "Beautiful Liar".
2008–2010: I Am... Sasha Fierce
I Am... Sasha Fierce was released on November 18, 2008, in the United States. The album formally introduces Beyoncé's alter ego Sasha Fierce, conceived during the making of her 2003 single "Crazy in Love". It was met with generally mediocre reviews from critics, but sold 482,000 copies in its first week, debuting atop the Billboard 200, and giving Beyoncé her third consecutive number-one album in the US. The album featured the number-one song "Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)" and the top-five songs "If I Were a Boy" and "Halo". Achieving the accomplishment of becoming her longest-running Hot 100 single in her career, "Halos success in the U.S. helped Beyoncé attain more top-ten singles on the list than any other woman during the 2000s. It also included the successful "Sweet Dreams", and singles "Diva", "Ego", "Broken-Hearted Girl" and "Video Phone". The music video for "Single Ladies" has been parodied and imitated around the world, spawning the "first major dance craze" of the Internet age according to the Toronto Star. The video has won several awards, including Best Video at the 2009 MTV Europe Music Awards, the 2009 Scottish MOBO Awards, and the 2009 BET Awards. At the 2009 MTV Video Music Awards, the video was nominated for nine awards, ultimately winning three including Video of the Year. Its failure to win the Best Female Video category, which went to American singer-songwriter Taylor Swift's "You Belong with Me", led to Kanye West interrupting the ceremony and Beyoncé improvising a re-presentation of Swift's award during her own acceptance speech. In March 2009, Beyoncé embarked on the I Am... World Tour, her second headlining worldwide concert tour, consisting of 108 shows, grossing $119.5 million.
Beyoncé further expanded her acting career, starring as blues singer Etta James in the 2008 musical biopic Cadillac Records. Her performance in the film received praise from critics, and she garnered several nominations for her portrayal of James, including a Satellite Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress, and a NAACP Image Award nomination for Outstanding Supporting Actress. Beyoncé donated her entire salary from the film to Phoenix House, an organization of rehabilitation centers for heroin addicts around the country. On January 20, 2009, Beyoncé performed James' "At Last" at First Couple Barack and Michelle Obama's first inaugural ball. Beyoncé starred opposite Ali Larter and Idris Elba in the thriller, Obsessed. She played Sharon Charles, a mother and wife whose family is threatened by her husband's stalker. Although the film received negative reviews from critics, the movie did well at the U.S. box office, grossing $68 million – $60 million more than Cadillac Records – on a budget of $20 million. The fight scene finale between Sharon and the character played by Ali Larter also won the 2010 MTV Movie Award for Best Fight.
At the 52nd Annual Grammy Awards, Beyoncé received ten nominations, including Album of the Year for I Am... Sasha Fierce, Record of the Year for "Halo", and Song of the Year for "Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)", among others. She tied with Lauryn Hill for most Grammy nominations in a single year by a female artist. Beyoncé went on to win six of those nominations, breaking a record she previously tied in 2004 for the most Grammy awards won in a single night by a female artist with six. In 2010, Beyoncé was featured on Lady Gaga's single "Telephone" and appeared in its music video. The song topped the U.S. Pop Songs chart, becoming the sixth number-one for both Beyoncé and Gaga, tying them with Mariah Carey for most number-ones since the Nielsen Top 40 airplay chart launched in 1992. "Telephone" received a Grammy Award nomination for Best Pop Collaboration with Vocals.
Beyoncé announced a hiatus from her music career in January 2010, heeding her mother's advice, "to live life, to be inspired by things again". During the break she and her father parted ways as business partners. Beyoncé's musical break lasted nine months and saw her visit multiple European cities, the Great Wall of China, the Egyptian pyramids, Australia, English music festivals and various museums and ballet performances.
2011–2013: 4 and Super Bowl XLVII halftime show
On June 26, 2011, she became the first solo female artist to headline the main Pyramid stage at the 2011 Glastonbury Festival in over twenty years. Her fourth studio album 4 was released two days later in the US. 4 sold 310,000 copies in its first week and debuted atop the Billboard 200 chart, giving Beyoncé her fourth consecutive number-one album in the US. The album was preceded by two of its singles "Run the World (Girls)" and "Best Thing I Never Had". The fourth single "Love on Top" spent seven consecutive weeks at number one on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart, while peaking at number 20 on the Billboard Hot 100, the highest peak from the album. 4 also produced four other singles; "Party", "Countdown", "I Care" and "End of Time". "Eat, Play, Love", a cover story written by Beyoncé for Essence that detailed her 2010 career break, won her a writing award from the New York Association of Black Journalists. In late 2011, she took the stage at New York's Roseland Ballroom for four nights of special performances: the 4 Intimate Nights with Beyoncé concerts saw the performance of her 4 album to a standing room only. On August 1, 2011, the album was certified platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), having shipped 1 million copies to retail stores. By December 2015, it reached sales of 1.5 million copies in the US. The album reached one billion Spotify streams on February 5, 2018, making Beyoncé the first female artist to have three of their albums surpass one billion streams on the platform.
In June 2012, she performed for four nights at Revel Atlantic City's Ovation Hall to celebrate the resort's opening, her first performances since giving birth to her daughter.
In January 2013, Destiny's Child released Love Songs, a compilation album of the romance-themed songs from their previous albums and a newly recorded track, "Nuclear". Beyoncé performed the American national anthem singing along with a pre-recorded track at President Obama's second inauguration in Washington, D.C. The following month, Beyoncé performed at the Super Bowl XLVII halftime show, held at the Mercedes-Benz Superdome in New Orleans. The performance stands as the second most tweeted about moment in history at 268,000 tweets per minute. At the 55th Annual Grammy Awards, Beyoncé won for Best Traditional R&B Performance for "Love on Top". Her feature-length documentary film, Life Is But a Dream, first aired on HBO on February 16, 2013. The film was co-directed by Beyoncé herself.
2013–2015: Beyoncé
Beyoncé embarked on The Mrs. Carter Show World Tour on April 15 in Belgrade, Serbia; the tour included 132 dates that ran through to March 2014. It became the most successful tour of her career and one of the most successful tours of all time. In May, Beyoncé's cover of Amy Winehouse's "Back to Black" with André 3000 on The Great Gatsby soundtrack was released. Beyoncé voiced Queen Tara in the 3D CGI animated film, Epic, released by 20th Century Fox on May 24, and recorded an original song for the film, "Rise Up", co-written with Sia.
On December 13, 2013, Beyoncé unexpectedly released her eponymous fifth studio album on the iTunes Store without any prior announcement or promotion. The album debuted atop the Billboard 200 chart, giving Beyoncé her fifth consecutive number-one album in the US. This made her the first woman in the chart's history to have her first five studio albums debut at number one. Beyoncé received critical acclaim and commercial success, selling one million digital copies worldwide in six days; Musically an electro-R&B album, it concerns darker themes previously unexplored in her work, such as "bulimia, postnatal depression [and] the fears and insecurities of marriage and motherhood". The single "Drunk in Love", featuring Jay-Z, peaked at number two on the Billboard Hot 100 chart.
In April 2014, Beyoncé and Jay-Z officially announced their On the Run Tour. It served as the couple's first co-headlining stadium tour together. On August 24, 2014, she received the Michael Jackson Video Vanguard Award at the 2014 MTV Video Music Awards. Beyoncé also won home three competitive awards: Best Video with a Social Message and Best Cinematography for "Pretty Hurts", as well as best collaboration for "Drunk in Love". In November, Forbes reported that Beyoncé was the top-earning woman in music for the second year in a row – earning $115 million in the year, more than double her earnings in 2013. Beyoncé was reissued with new material in three forms: as an extended play, a box set, as well as a full platinum edition. According to the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI), in the last 19 days of 2013, the album sold 2.3 million units worldwide, becoming the tenth best-selling album of 2013. The album also went on to become the twentieth best-selling album of 2014. , Beyoncé has sold over 5 million copies worldwide and has generated over 1 billion streams, .
At the 57th Annual Grammy Awards in February 2015, Beyoncé was nominated for six awards, ultimately winning three: Best R&B Performance and Best R&B Song for "Drunk in Love", and Best Surround Sound Album for Beyoncé. She was nominated for Album of the Year, but the award went to Beck for his album Morning Phase.
2016–2018: Lemonade and Everything Is Love
On February 6, 2016, Beyoncé released "Formation" and its accompanying music video exclusively on the music streaming platform Tidal; the song was made available to download for free. She performed "Formation" live for the first time during the NFL Super Bowl 50 halftime show. The appearance was considered controversial as it appeared to reference the 50th anniversary of the Black Panther Party and the NFL forbids political statements in its performances. Immediately following the performance, Beyoncé announced The Formation World Tour, which highlighted stops in both North America, and Europe. It ended on October 7, with Beyoncé bringing out her husband Jay-Z, Kendrick Lamar, and Serena Williams for the last show. The tour went on to win Tour of the Year at the 44th American Music Awards.
On April 16, 2016, Beyoncé released a teaser clip for a project called Lemonade. It turned out to be a one-hour film which aired on HBO exactly a week later; a corresponding album with the same title was released on the same day exclusively on Tidal. Lemonade debuted at number one on the U.S. Billboard 200, making Beyoncé the first act in Billboard history to have their first six studio albums debut atop the chart; she broke a record previously tied with DMX in 2013. With all 12 tracks of Lemonade debuting on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, Beyoncé also became the first female act to chart 12 or more songs at the same time. Additionally, Lemonade was streamed 115 million times through Tidal, setting a record for the most-streamed album in a single week by a female artist in history. It was 2016's third highest-selling album in the U.S. with 1.554 million copies sold in that time period within the country as well as the best-selling album worldwide with global sales of 2.5 million throughout the year. In June 2019, Lemonade was certified 3× Platinum, having sold up to 3 million album-equivalent units in the United States alone.
Lemonade became her most critically acclaimed work to date, receiving universal acclaim according to Metacritic, a website collecting reviews from professional music critics. Several music publications included the album among the best of 2016, including Rolling Stone, which listed Lemonade at number one. The album's visuals were nominated in 11 categories at the 2016 MTV Video Music Awards, the most ever received by Beyoncé in a single year, and went on to win 8 awards, including Video of the Year for "Formation". The eight wins made Beyoncé the most-awarded artist in the history of the VMAs (24), surpassing Madonna (20). Beyoncé occupied the sixth place for Time magazine's 2016 Person of the Year.
In January 2017, it was announced that Beyoncé would headline the Coachella Music and Arts Festival. This would make Beyoncé only the second female headliner of the festival since it was founded in 1999. It was later announced on February 23, 2017, that Beyoncé would no longer be able to perform at the festival due to doctor's concerns regarding her pregnancy. The festival owners announced that she will instead headline the 2018 festival. Upon the announcement of Beyoncé's departure from the festival lineup, ticket prices dropped by 12%. At the 59th Grammy Awards in February 2017, Lemonade led the nominations with nine, including Album, Record, and Song of the Year for Lemonade and "Formation" respectively. and ultimately won two, Best Urban Contemporary Album for Lemonade and Best Music Video for "Formation". Adele, upon winning her Grammy for Album of the Year, stated Lemonade was monumental and more deserving.
In September 2017, Beyoncé collaborated with J Balvin and Willy William, to release a remix of the song "Mi Gente". Beyoncé donated all proceeds from the song to hurricane charities for those affected by Hurricane Harvey and Hurricane Irma in Texas, Mexico, Puerto Rico, and other Caribbean Islands. On November 10, Eminem released "Walk on Water" featuring Beyoncé as the lead single from his album Revival. On November 30, Ed Sheeran announced that Beyoncé would feature on the remix to his song "Perfect". "Perfect Duet" was released on December 1, 2017. The song reached number-one in the United States, becoming Beyoncé's sixth song of her solo career to do so.
On January 4, 2018, the music video of Beyoncé and Jay-Z's 4:44 collaboration, "Family Feud" was released. It was directed by Ava DuVernay. On March 1, 2018, DJ Khaled released "Top Off" as the first single from his forthcoming album Father of Asahd featuring Beyoncé, husband Jay-Z, and Future. On March 5, 2018, a joint tour with Knowles's husband Jay-Z, was leaked on Facebook. Information about the tour was later taken down. The couple announced the joint tour officially as On the Run II Tour on March 12 and simultaneously released a trailer for the tour on YouTube. On March 20, 2018, the couple traveled to Jamaica to film a music video directed by Melina Matsoukas.
On April 14, 2018, Beyoncé played the first of two weekends as the headlining act of the Coachella Music Festival. Her performance of April 14, attended by 125,000 festival-goers, was immediately praised, with multiple media outlets describing it as historic. The performance became the most-tweeted-about performance of weekend one, as well as the most-watched live Coachella performance and the most-watched live performance on YouTube of all time. The show paid tribute to black culture, specifically historically black colleges and universities and featured a live band with over 100 dancers. Destiny's Child also reunited during the show.
On June 6, 2018, Beyoncé and husband Jay-Z kicked-off the On the Run II Tour in Cardiff, United Kingdom. Ten days later, at their final London performance, the pair unveiled Everything Is Love, their joint studio album, credited under the name The Carters, and initially available exclusively on Tidal. The pair also released the video for the album's lead single, "Apeshit", on Beyoncé's official YouTube channel. Everything Is Love received generally positive reviews, and debuted at number two on the U.S. Billboard 200, with 123,000 album-equivalent units, of which 70,000 were pure album sales. On December 2, 2018, Beyoncé alongside Jay-Z headlined the Global Citizen Festival: Mandela 100 which was held at FNB Stadium in Johannesburg, South Africa. Their 2-hour performance had concepts similar to the On the Run II Tour and Beyoncé was praised for her outfits, which paid tribute to Africa's diversity.
2019–present: Homecoming, The Lion King and Black Is King
Homecoming, a documentary and concert film focusing on Beyoncé's historic 2018 Coachella performances, was released by Netflix on April 17, 2019. The film was accompanied by the surprise live album Homecoming: The Live Album. It was later reported that Beyoncé and Netflix had signed a $60 million deal to produce three different projects, one of which is Homecoming. Homecoming received six nominations at the 71st Primetime Creative Arts Emmy Awards.
Beyoncé starred as the voice of Nala in the remake The Lion King, which was released on July 19, 2019. Beyoncé is featured on the film's soundtrack, released on July 11, 2019, with a remake of the song "Can You Feel the Love Tonight" alongside Donald Glover, Billy Eichner and Seth Rogen, which was originally composed by Elton John. Additionally, an original song from the film by Beyoncé, "Spirit", was released as the lead single from both the soundtrack and The Lion King: The Gift – a companion album released alongside the film, produced and curated by Beyoncé. Beyoncé called The Lion King: The Gift a "sonic cinema". She also stated that the album is influenced by everything from R&B, pop, hip hop and Afro Beat. The songs were additionally produced by African producers, which Beyoncé said was because "authenticity and heart were important to [her]", since the film is set in Africa. In September of the same year, a documentary chronicling the development, production and early music video filming of The Lion King: The Gift entitled "Beyoncé Presents: Making The Gift" was aired on ABC.
On April 29, 2020, Beyoncé was featured on the remix of Megan Thee Stallion's song "Savage", marking her first material of music for the year. The song peaked at number one on the Billboard Hot 100, marking Beyoncé's eleventh song to do so across all acts. On June 19, 2020, Beyoncé released the nonprofit charity single "Black Parade". On June 23, she followed up the release of its studio version with an a capella version exclusively on Tidal. Black Is King, a visual album based on the music of The Lion King: The Gift, premiered globally on Disney+ on July 31, 2020. Produced by Disney and Parkwood Entertainment, the film was written, directed and executive produced by Beyoncé. The film was described by Disney as "a celebratory memoir for the world on the Black experience". Beyoncé received the most nominations (9) at the 63rd Annual Grammy Awards and the most awards (4), which made her the most-awarded singer, most-awarded female artist, and second-most-awarded artist in Grammy history.
Beyoncé wrote and recorded a song titled "Be Alive" for the biographical drama film King Richard. She received her first Academy Award nomination for Best Original Song at the 94th Academy Awards for the song, alongside co-writer DIXSON.
Artistry
Voice and musical style
Beyoncé's voice type is classified as dramatic mezzo-soprano. Jody Rosen highlights her tone and timbre as particularly distinctive, describing her voice as "one of the most compelling instruments in popular music". Her vocal abilities mean she is identified as the centerpiece of Destiny's Child. Jon Pareles of The New York Times commented that her voice is "velvety yet tart, with an insistent flutter and reserves of soul belting". Rosen notes that the hip hop era highly influenced Beyoncé's unique rhythmic vocal style, but also finds her quite traditionalist in her use of balladry, gospel and falsetto. Other critics praise her range and power, with Chris Richards of The Washington Post saying she was "capable of punctuating any beat with goose-bump-inducing whispers or full-bore diva-roars."
Beyoncé's music is generally R&B, pop and hip hop but she also incorporates soul and funk into her songs. 4 demonstrated Beyoncé's exploration of 1990s-style R&B, as well as further use of soul and hip hop than compared to previous releases. While she almost exclusively releases English songs, Beyoncé recorded several Spanish songs for Irreemplazable (re-recordings of songs from B'Day for a Spanish-language audience), and the re-release of B'Day. To record these, Beyoncé was coached phonetically by American record producer Rudy Perez.
Songwriting
Beyoncé has received co-writing credits for most of her songs. In regards to the way she approaches collaborative songwriting, Beyoncé explained: "I love being around great writers because I'm finding that a lot of the things I want to say, I don't articulate as good as maybe Amanda Ghost, so I want to keep collaborating with writers, and I love classics and I want to make sure years from now the song is still something that's relevant." Her early songs with Destiny's Child were personally driven and female-empowerment themed compositions like "Independent Women" and "Survivor", but after the start of her relationship with Jay-Z, she transitioned to more man-tending anthems such as "Cater 2 U".
In 2001, she became the first Black woman and second female lyricist to win the Pop Songwriter of the Year award at the ASCAP Pop Music Awards. Beyoncé was the third woman to have writing credits on three number-one songs ("Irreplaceable", "Grillz" and "Check on It") in the same year, after Carole King in 1971 and Mariah Carey in 1991. She is tied with American lyricist Diane Warren at third with nine songwriting credits on number-one singles. The latter wrote her 9/11-motivated song "I Was Here" for 4. In May 2011, Billboard magazine listed Beyoncé at number 17 on their list of the Top 20 Hot 100 Songwriters for having co-written eight singles that hit number one on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. She was one of only three women on that list, along with Alicia Keys and Taylor Swift.
Beyoncé has long received criticism, including from journalists and musicians, for the extensive writing credits on her songs. The controversy surrounding her songwriting credits began with interviews in which she attributed herself as the songwriter for songs in which she was a co-writer or for which her contributions were marginal. In a cover story for Vanity Fair in 2005, she claimed to have "written" several number-one songs for Destiny's Child, contrary to the credits, which list her as a co-writer among others. In a 2007 interview with Barbara Walters, she claimed to have conceived the musical idea for the Destiny's Child hit "Bootylicious", which provoked the song's producer Rob Fusari to call her father and then-manager Mathew Knowles in protest over the claim. As Fusari tells Billboard, "[Knowles] explained to me, in a nice way, he said, 'People don't want to hear about Rob Fusari, producer from Livingston, N.J. No offense, but that's not what sells records. What sells records is people believing that the artist is everything. However, in an interview for Entertainment Weekly in 2016, Fusari said Beyoncé "had the 'Bootylicious' concept in her head. That was totally her. She knew what she wanted to say. It was very urban pop angle that they were taking on the record."
In 2007, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences ruled out Beyoncé as a songwriter on "Listen" (from Dreamgirls) for its Oscar nomination in the Best Original Song category. Responding to a then-new three-writer limit, the Academy deemed her contribution the least significant for inclusion. In 2009, Ryan Tedder's original demo for "Halo" leaked on the Internet, revealing an identical resemblance to Beyoncé's recording, for which she received a writing credit. When interviewed by The Guardian, Tedder explained that Beyoncé had edited the bridge of the song vocally and thus earned the credit, although he vaguely questioned the ethics of her possible "demand" for a writing credit in other instances. Tedder elaborated when speaking to Gigwise that "She does stuff on any given song that, when you go from the demo to the final version, takes it to another level that you never would have thought of as the writer. For instance, on 'Halo,' that bridge on her version is completely different to my original one. Basically, she came in, ditched that, edited it, did her vocal thing on it, and now it's become one of my favorite parts of the song. The whole melody, she wrote it spontaneously in the studio. So her credit on that song stems from that." In 2014, the popular industry songwriter Linda Perry responded to a question about Beyoncé receiving a co-writing credit for changing one lyric to a song: "Well haha um that's not songwriting but some of these artists believe if it wasn't for them your song would never get out there so they take a cut just because they are who they are. But everyone knows the real truth about Beyoncé. She is talented but in a completely different way." Perry's remarks were echoed by Frank Ocean, who acknowledged the trend of recording artists forcing writing credits while jokingly suggesting Beyoncé had an exceptional status.
Reflecting on the controversy, Sunday Independent columnist Alexis Kritselis wrote in 2014, "It seems as though our love for all things Beyoncé has blinded us to the very real claims of theft and plagiarism that have plagued her career for years", and that, "because of her power and influence in the music industry, it may be hard for some songwriters to 'just say no' to Beyoncé." While reporting on her controversial writing record, pop culture critics such as Roger Friedman and The Daily Beasts Kevin Fallon said the trend has redefined popular conceptions of songwriting, with Fallon saying, "the village of authors and composers that populate Lemonade, [Kanye West']s Life of Pablo, [Rihanna's] Anti, or [Drake's] Views – all of which are still reflective of an artist's voice and vision ... speaks to the truth of the way the industry's top artists create their music today: by committee." James S. Murphy of Vanity Fair suggests Beyoncé is among the major artists like Frank Sinatra and Billie Holiday who are "celebrated [not] because [they] write such good parts, but because [they] create them out of the words that are given".
Meanwhile, Everything Is Love producers Cool & Dre stated that Beyoncé is "100 percent involved" in writing her own songs, with Dre saying that "She put her mind to the music and did her thing. If she had a melody idea, she came up with the words. If we had the words, she came up with the melody. She's a beast", when speaking on the writing process of Everything Is Love. Ne-Yo, when asked about his collaborative writing experience with Beyoncé on "Irreplaceable", said that they both wrote "two damn totally different songs ... So, yeah, I gave her writer's credit. Because that counts. That's writing ... She put her spin on it." As for Drake: Pound Cake' happened while I was writing for Beyoncé or working with Beyoncé, not writing for, working with. I hate saying writing for 'cause she's a phenomenal writer. She has bars on bars." The-Dream revealed: "We did a whole Fela album that didn't go up. It was right before we did 4. We did a whole different sounding thing, about twenty songs. She said she wanted to do something that sounds like Fela. That's why there's so much of that sound in the 'End of Time.' There's always multiple albums being made. Most of the time we're just being creative, period. We're talking about B, somebody who sings all day long and somebody who writes all day long. There's probably a hundred records just sitting around."
Influences
Beyoncé names Michael Jackson as her major musical influence. Aged five, Beyoncé attended her first ever concert where Jackson performed and she claims to have realized her purpose. When she presented him with a tribute award at the World Music Awards in 2006, Beyoncé said, "if it wasn't for Michael Jackson, I would never ever have performed." Beyoncé was heavily influenced by Tina Turner, who she said "Tina Turner is someone that I admire, because she made her strength feminine and sexy". She admires Diana Ross as an "all-around entertainer", and Whitney Houston, who she said "inspired me to get up there and do what she did." Beyoncé cited Madonna as an influence "not only for her musical style, but also for her business sense", saying that she wanted to "follow in the footsteps of Madonna and be a powerhouse and have my own empire." She also credits Mariah Carey's singing and her song "Vision of Love" as influencing her to begin practicing vocal runs as a child. Her other musical influences include Prince, Shakira, Lauryn Hill, Sade Adu, Donna Summer, Mary J. Blige, Anita Baker, and Toni Braxton.
The feminism and female empowerment themes on Beyoncé's second solo album B'Day were inspired by her role in Dreamgirls and by singer Josephine Baker. Beyoncé paid homage to Baker by performing "Déjà Vu" at the 2006 Fashion Rocks concert wearing Baker's trademark mini-hula skirt embellished with fake bananas. Beyoncé's third solo album, I Am... Sasha Fierce, was inspired by Jay-Z and especially by Etta James, whose "boldness" inspired Beyoncé to explore other musical genres and styles. Her fourth solo album, 4, was inspired by Fela Kuti, 1990s R&B, Earth, Wind & Fire, DeBarge, Lionel Richie, Teena Marie, The Jackson 5, New Edition, Adele, Florence and the Machine, and Prince.
Beyoncé has stated that she is personally inspired by Michelle Obama (the 44th First Lady of the United States), saying "she proves you can do it all", and has described Oprah Winfrey as "the definition of inspiration and a strong woman." She has also discussed how Jay-Z is a continuing inspiration to her, both with what she describes as his lyrical genius and in the obstacles he has overcome in his life. Beyoncé has expressed admiration for the artist Jean-Michel Basquiat, posting in a letter "what I find in the work of Jean-Michel Basquiat, I search for in every day in music ... he is lyrical and raw". Beyoncé also cited Cher as a fashion inspiration.
Music videos and stage
In 2006, Beyoncé introduced her all-female tour band Suga Mama (also the name of a song on B'Day) which includes bassists, drummers, guitarists, horn players, keyboardists and percussionists. Her background singers, The Mamas, consist of Montina Cooper-Donnell, Crystal Collins and Tiffany Moniqué Riddick. They made their debut appearance at the 2006 BET Awards and re-appeared in the music videos for "Irreplaceable" and "Green Light". The band have supported Beyoncé in most subsequent live performances, including her 2007 concert tour The Beyoncé Experience, I Am... World Tour (2009–2010), The Mrs. Carter Show World Tour (2013–2014) and The Formation World Tour (2016).
Beyoncé has received praise for her stage presence and voice during live performances. Jarett Wieselman of the New York Post placed her at number one on her list of the Five Best Singer/Dancers. According to Barbara Ellen of The Guardian Beyoncé is the most in-charge female artist she's seen onstage, while Alice Jones of The Independent wrote she "takes her role as entertainer so seriously she's almost too good." The ex-President of Def Jam L.A. Reid has described Beyoncé as the greatest entertainer alive. Jim Farber of the Daily News and Stephanie Classen of The StarPhoenix both praised her strong voice and her stage presence. Beyoncé's stage outfits have been met with criticism from many countries, such as Malaysia, where she has postponed or cancelled performances due to the country's strict laws banning revealing costumes.
Beyoncé has worked with numerous directors for her music videos throughout her career, including Melina Matsoukas, Jonas Åkerlund, and Jake Nava. Bill Condon, director of Beauty and the Beast, stated that the Lemonade visuals in particular served as inspiration for his film, commenting, "You look at Beyoncé's brilliant movie Lemonade, this genre is taking on so many different forms ... I do think that this very old-school break-out-into-song traditional musical is something that people understand again and really want."
Alter ego
Described as being "sexy, seductive and provocative" when performing on stage, Beyoncé has said that she originally created the alter ego "Sasha Fierce" to keep that stage persona separate from who she really is. She described Sasha as being "too aggressive, too strong, too sassy [and] too sexy", stating, "I'm not like her in real life at all." Sasha was conceived during the making of "Crazy in Love", and Beyoncé introduced her with the release of her 2008 album, I Am... Sasha Fierce. In February 2010, she announced in an interview with Allure magazine that she was comfortable enough with herself to no longer need Sasha Fierce. However, Beyoncé announced in May 2012 that she would bring her back for her Revel Presents: Beyoncé Live shows later that month.
Public image
Beyoncé has been described as having a wide-ranging sex appeal, with music journalist Touré writing that since the release of Dangerously in Love, she has "become a crossover sex symbol". Offstage Beyoncé says that while she likes to dress sexily, her onstage dress "is absolutely for the stage". Due to her curves and the term's catchiness, in the 2000s, the media often used the term "bootylicious" (a portmanteau of the words "booty" and "delicious") to describe Beyoncé, the term popularized by Destiny's Child's single of the same name. In 2006, it was added to the Oxford English Dictionary.
In September 2010, Beyoncé made her runway modelling debut at Tom Ford's Spring/Summer 2011 fashion show. She was named the "World's Most Beautiful Woman" by People and the "Hottest Female Singer of All Time" by Complex in 2012. In January 2013, GQ placed her on its cover, featuring her atop its "100 Sexiest Women of the 21st Century" list. VH1 listed her at number 1 on its 100 Sexiest Artists list. Several wax figures of Beyoncé are found at Madame Tussauds Wax Museums in major cities around the world, including New York, Washington, D.C., Amsterdam, Bangkok, Hollywood and Sydney.
According to Italian fashion designer Roberto Cavalli, Beyoncé uses different fashion styles to work with her music while performing. Her mother co-wrote a book, published in 2002, titled Destiny's Style, an account of how fashion affected the trio's success. The B'Day Anthology Video Album showed many instances of fashion-oriented footage, depicting classic to contemporary wardrobe styles. In 2007, Beyoncé was featured on the cover of the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue, becoming the second African American woman after Tyra Banks, and People magazine recognized Beyoncé as the best-dressed celebrity.
Beyoncé has been named "Queen Bey" from publications over the years. The term is a reference to the common phrase "queen bee", a term used for the leader of a group of females. The nickname also refers to the queen of a beehive, with her fan base being named "The BeyHive". The BeyHive was previously titled "The Beyontourage", (a portmanteau of Beyoncé and entourage), but was changed after online petitions on Twitter and online news reports during competitions. The BeyHive has been named one of the most loyal and defensive fan bases and has achieved notoriety for being fiercely protective of Beyoncé.
In 2006, the animal rights organization People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), criticized Beyoncé for wearing and using fur in her clothing line House of Deréon. In 2011, she appeared on the cover of French fashion magazine L'Officiel, in blackface and tribal makeup that drew criticism from the media. A statement released from a spokesperson for the magazine said that Beyoncé's look was "far from the glamorous Sasha Fierce" and that it was "a return to her African roots".
Beyoncé's lighter skin color and costuming has drawn criticism from some in the African-American community. Emmett Price, a professor of music at Northeastern University, wrote in 2007 that he thinks race plays a role in many of these criticisms, saying white celebrities who dress similarly do not attract as many comments. In 2008, L'Oréal was accused of whitening her skin in their Feria hair color advertisements, responding that "it is categorically untrue", and in 2013, Beyoncé herself criticized H&M for their proposed "retouching" of promotional images of her, and according to Vogue requested that only "natural pictures be used".
Beyoncé has been a vocal advocate for the Black Lives Matter movement. The release of "Formation" on February 6, 2016 saw her celebrate her heritage, with the song's music video featuring pro-black imagery and most notably a shot of wall graffiti that says "Stop shooting us". The day after the song's release she performed it at the 2016 Super Bowl halftime show with back up dancers dressed to represent the Black Panther Party. This incited criticism from politicians and police officers, with some police boycotting Beyoncé's then upcoming Formation World Tour. Beyoncé responded to the backlash by releasing tour merchandise that said "Boycott Beyoncé", and later clarified her sentiment, saying: “Anyone who perceives my message as anti-police is completely mistaken. I have so much admiration and respect for officers and the families of officers who sacrifice themselves to keep us safe,” Beyoncé said. “But let’s be clear: I am against police brutality and injustice. Those are two separate things.”
Personal life
Marriage and children
Beyoncé started a relationship with Jay-Z after their collaboration on '03 Bonnie & Clyde", which appeared on his seventh album The Blueprint 2: The Gift & The Curse (2002). Beyoncé appeared as Jay-Z's girlfriend in the music video for the song, fueling speculation about their relationship. On April 4, 2008, Beyoncé and Jay-Z married without publicity. , the couple had sold a combined 300 million records together. They are known for their private relationship, although they have appeared to become more relaxed in recent years. Both have acknowledged difficulty that arose in their marriage after Jay-Z had an affair.
Beyoncé miscarried around 2010 or 2011, describing it as "the saddest thing" she had ever endured. She returned to the studio and wrote music to cope with the loss. In April 2011, Beyoncé and Jay-Z traveled to Paris to shoot the album cover for 4, and she unexpectedly became pregnant in Paris. In August, the couple attended the 2011 MTV Video Music Awards, at which Beyoncé performed "Love on Top" and ended the performance by revealing she was pregnant. Her appearance helped that year's MTV Video Music Awards become the most-watched broadcast in MTV history, pulling in 12.4 million viewers; the announcement was listed in Guinness World Records for "most tweets per second recorded for a single event" on Twitter, receiving 8,868 tweets per second and "Beyonce pregnant" was the most Googled phrase the week of August 29, 2011. On January 7, 2012, Beyoncé gave birth to a daughter, Blue Ivy, at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City.
Following the release of Lemonade, which included the single "Sorry", in 2016, speculations arose about Jay-Z's alleged infidelity with a mistress referred to as "Becky". Jon Pareles in The New York Times pointed out that many of the accusations were "aimed specifically and recognizably" at him. Similarly, Rob Sheffield of Rolling Stone magazine noted the lines "Suck on my balls, I've had enough" were an "unmistakable hint" that the lyrics revolve around Jay-Z.
On February 1, 2017, she revealed on her Instagram account that she was expecting twins. Her announcement gained over 6.3 million likes within eight hours, breaking the world record for the most liked image on the website at the time. On July 13, 2017, Beyoncé uploaded the first image of herself and the twins onto her Instagram account, confirming their birth date as a month prior, on June 13, 2017, with the post becoming the second most liked on Instagram, behind her own pregnancy announcement. The twins, a daughter named Rumi and a son named Sir, were born at Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center in California. She wrote of her pregnancy and its aftermath in the September 2018 issue of Vogue, in which she had full control of the cover, shot at Hammerwood Park by photographer Tyler Mitchell.
Activism
Beyoncé performed "America the Beautiful" at President Barack Obama's 2009 presidential inauguration, as well as "At Last" during the first inaugural dance at the Neighborhood Ball two days later. The couple held a fundraiser at Jay-Z's 40/40 Club in Manhattan for President Obama's 2012 presidential campaign which raised $4 million. In the 2012 presidential election, the singer voted for President Obama. She performed the American national anthem "The Star-Spangled Banner" at his second inauguration in January 2013.
The Washington Post reported in May 2015, that Beyoncé attended a major celebrity fundraiser for 2016 presidential nominee Hillary Clinton. She also headlined for Clinton in a concert held the weekend before Election Day the next year. In this performance, Beyoncé and her entourage of backup dancers wore pantsuits; a clear allusion to Clinton's frequent dress-of-choice. The backup dancers also wore "I'm with her" tee shirts, the campaign slogan for Clinton. In a brief speech at this performance Beyoncé said, "I want my daughter to grow up seeing a woman lead our country and knowing that her possibilities are limitless." She endorsed the bid of Beto O'Rourke during the 2018 United States Senate election in Texas.
In 2013, Beyoncé stated in an interview in Vogue that she considered herself to be "a modern-day feminist". She would later align herself more publicly with the movement, sampling "We should all be feminists", a speech delivered by Nigerian author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie at a TEDx talk in April 2013, in her song "Flawless", released later that year. The next year she performed live at the MTV Video Awards in front a giant backdrop reading "Feminist". Her self-identification incited a circulation of opinions and debate about whether her feminism is aligned with older, more established feminist ideals. Annie Lennox, celebrated artist and feminist advocate, referred to Beyoncé's use of her word feminist as 'feminist lite'. bell hooks critiqued Beyoncé, referring to her as a "terrorist" towards feminism, harmfully impacting her audience of young girls. Adichie responded with "her type of feminism is not mine, as it is the kind that, at the same time, gives quite a lot of space to the necessity of men." Adichie expands upon what 'feminist lite' means to her, referring that "more troubling is the idea, in Feminism Lite, that men are naturally superior but should be expected to "treat women well" and "we judge powerful women more harshly than we judge powerful men. And Feminism Lite enables this." Beyoncé responded about her intent by utilizing the definition of feminist with her platform was to "give clarity to the true meaning" behind it. She says to understand what being a feminist is, "it's very simple. It's someone who believes in equal rights for men and women." She advocated to provide equal opportunities for young boys and girls, men and women must begin to understand the double standards that remain persistent in our societies and the issue must be illuminated in effort to start making changes.
She has also contributed to the Ban Bossy campaign, which uses TV and social media to encourage leadership in girls. Following Beyoncé's public identification as a feminist, the sexualized nature of her performances and the fact that she championed her marriage was questioned.
In December 2012, Beyoncé along with a variety of other celebrities teamed up and produced a video campaign for "Demand A Plan", a bipartisan effort by a group of 950 U.S. mayors and others designed to influence the federal government into rethinking its gun control laws, following the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting. Beyoncé publicly endorsed same-sex marriage on March 26, 2013, after the Supreme Court debate on California's Proposition 8. She spoke against North Carolina's Public Facilities Privacy & Security Act, a bill passed (and later repealed) that discriminated against the LGBT community in public places in a statement during her concert in Raleigh as part of the Formation World Tour in 2016. She has also condemned police brutality against black Americans. She and Jay-Z attended a rally in 2013 in response to the acquittal of George Zimmerman for the killing of Trayvon Martin. The film for her sixth album Lemonade included the mothers of Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown and Eric Garner, holding pictures of their sons in the video for "Freedom". In a 2016 interview with Elle, Beyoncé responded to the controversy surrounding her song "Formation" which was perceived to be critical of the police. She clarified, "I am against police brutality and injustice. Those are two separate things. If celebrating my roots and culture during Black History Month made anyone uncomfortable, those feelings were there long before a video and long before me".
In February 2017, Beyoncé spoke out against the withdrawal of protections for transgender students in public schools by Donald Trump's presidential administration. Posting a link to the 100 Days of Kindness campaign on her Facebook page, Beyoncé voiced her support for transgender youth and joined a roster of celebrities who spoke out against Trump's decision.
In November 2017, Beyoncé presented Colin Kaepernick with the 2017 Sports Illustrated Muhammad Ali Legacy Award, stating, "Thank you for your selfless heart and your conviction, thank you for your personal sacrifice", and that "Colin took action with no fear of consequence ... To change perception, to change the way we treat each other, especially people of color. We're still waiting for the world to catch up." Muhammad Ali was heavily penalized in his career for protesting the status quo of US civil rights through opposition to the Vietnam War, by refusing to serve in the military. 40 years later, Kaepernick had already lost one professional year due to taking a much quieter and legal stand "for people that are oppressed".
Wealth
Forbes magazine began reporting on Beyoncé's earnings in 2008, calculating that the $80 million earned between June 2007 to June 2008, for her music, tour, films and clothing line made her the world's best-paid music personality at the time, above Madonna and Celine Dion. It placed her fourth on the Celebrity 100 list in 2009
and ninth on the "Most Powerful Women in the World" list in 2010. The following year, the magazine placed her eighth on the "Best-Paid Celebrities Under 30" list, having earned $35 million in the past year for her clothing line and endorsement deals. In 2012, Forbes placed Beyoncé at number 16 on the Celebrity 100 list, twelve places lower than three years ago yet still having earned $40 million in the past year for her album 4, clothing line and endorsement deals. In the same year, Beyoncé and Jay-Z placed at number one on the "World's Highest-Paid Celebrity Couples", for collectively earning $78 million. The couple made it into the previous year's Guinness World Records as the "highest-earning power couple" for collectively earning $122 million in 2009. For the years 2009 to 2011, Beyoncé earned an average of $70 million per year, and earned $40 million in 2012. In 2013, Beyoncé's endorsements of Pepsi and H&M made her and Jay-Z the world's first billion dollar couple in the music industry. That year, Beyoncé was published as the fourth most-powerful celebrity in the Forbes rankings.
MTV estimated that by the end of 2014, Beyoncé would become the highest-paid Black musician in history; this became the case in April 2014. In June 2014, Beyoncé ranked at number one on the Forbes Celebrity 100 list, earning an estimated $115 million throughout June 2013 – June 2014. This in turn was the first time she had topped the Celebrity 100 list as well as being her highest yearly earnings to date. In 2016, Beyoncé ranked at number 34 on the Celebrity 100 list with earnings of $54 million. She and Jay-Z also topped the highest paid celebrity couple list, with combined earnings of $107.5 million. , Forbes calculated her net worth to be $355 million, and in June of the same year, ranked her as the 35th highest earning celebrity with annual earnings of $60 million. This tied Beyoncé with Madonna as the only two female artists to earn more than $100 million within a single year twice. As a couple, Beyoncé and Jay-Z have a combined net worth of $1.16 billion. In July 2017, Billboard announced that Beyoncé was the highest paid musician of 2016, with an estimated total of $62.1 million.
Impact
Beyoncé's success has led to her becoming a cultural icon and earning her the nickname "Queen Bey". In The New Yorker, music critic Jody Rosen described Beyoncé as "the most important and compelling popular musician of the twenty-first century ... the result, the logical end point, of a century-plus of pop." Author James Clear, in his book Atomic Habits (2018), draws a parallel between the singer's success and the dramatic transformations in modern society: "In the last one hundred years, we have seen the rise of the car, the airplane, the television, the personal computer, the internet, the smartphone, and Beyoncé." The Observer named her Artist of the Decade (2000s) in 2009.
Writing for Entertainment Weekly, Alex Suskind noticed how Beyoncé was the decade's (2010s) defining pop star, stating that "no one dominated music in the 2010s like Queen Bey", explaining that her "songs, album rollouts, stage presence, social justice initiatives, and disruptive public relations strategy have influenced the way we've viewed music since 2010." British publication NME also shared similar thoughts on her impact in the 2010s, including Beyoncé on their list of the "10 Artists Who Defined The Decade". In 2018, Rolling Stone included her on its Millennial 100 list.
Beyoncé is credited with the invention of the staccato rap-singing style that has since dominated pop, R&B and rap music. Lakin Starling of The Fader wrote that Beyoncé's innovative implementation of the delivery style on Destiny's Child's 1999 album The Writing's on the Wall invented a new form of R&B. Beyoncé's new style subsequently changed the nature of music, revolutionizing both singing in urban music and rapping in pop music, and becoming the dominant sound of both genres. The style helped to redefine both the breadth of commercial R&B and the sound of hip hop, with artists such as Kanye West and Drake implementing Beyoncé's cadence in the late 2000s and early 2010s. The staccato rap-singing style continued to be used in the music industry in the late 2010s and early 2020s; Aaron Williams of Uproxx described Beyoncé as the "primary pioneer" of the rapping style that dominates the music industry today, with many contemporary rappers implementing Beyoncé's rap-singing. Michael Eric Dyson agrees, saying that Beyoncé "changed the whole genre" and has become the "godmother" of mumble rappers, who use the staccato rap-singing cadence. Dyson added: "She doesn't get credit for the remarkable way in which she changed the musical vocabulary of contemporary art."
Beyoncé has been credited with reviving the album as an art form in an era dominated by singles and streaming. This started with her 2011 album 4; while mainstream R&B artists were forgoing albums-led R&B in favor of singles-led EDM, Beyoncé aimed to place the focus back on albums as an artform and re-establish R&B as a mainstream concern. This remained a focus of Beyoncé's, and in 2013, she made her eponymous album only available to purchase as a full album on iTunes, rather than being able to purchase individual tracks or consume the album via streaming. Kaitlin Menza of Marie Claire wrote that this made listeners "experience the album as one whole sonic experience, the way people used to, noting the musical and lyrical themes". Jamieson Cox for The Verge described how Beyoncé's 2013 album initiated a gradual trend of albums becoming more cohesive and self-referential, and this phenomenon reached its endpoint with Lemonade, which set "a new standard for pop storytelling at the highest possible scale". Megan Carpentier of The Guardian wrote that with Lemonade, Beyoncé has "almost revived the album format" by releasing an album that can only be listened to in its entirety. Myf Warhurst on Double J's "Lunch With Myf" explained that while most artists' albums consist of a few singles plus filler songs, Beyoncé "brought the album back", changing the art form of the album "to a narrative with an arc and a story and you have to listen to the entire thing to get the concept".
Several recording artists have cited Beyoncé as their influence. Lady Gaga explained how Beyoncé gave her the determination to become a musician, recalling seeing her in a Destiny's Child music video and saying: "Oh, she's a star. I want that." Rihanna was similarly inspired to start her singing career after watching Beyoncé, telling etalk that after Beyoncé released Dangerously In Love (2003), "I was like 'wow, I want to be just like that.' She's huge and just an inspiration." Lizzo was also first inspired by Beyoncé to start singing after watching her perform at a Destiny's Child concert. Lizzo also taught herself to sing by copying Beyoncé's B'Day (2006). Similarly, Ariana Grande said she learned to sing by mimicking Beyoncé. Adele cited Beyoncé as her inspiration and favorite artist, telling Vogue: "She's been a huge and constant part of my life as an artist since I was about ten or eleven ... I think she's really inspiring. She's beautiful. She's ridiculously talented, and she is one of the kindest people I've ever met ... She makes me want to do things with my life." Both Paul McCartney and Garth Brooks said they watch Beyoncé's performances to get inspiration for their own shows, with Brooks saying that when you watch one of her performances, "take out your notebook and take notes. No matter how long you've been on the stage – take notes on that one."
She is known for coining popular phrases such as "put a ring on it", a euphemism for marriage proposal, "I woke up like this", which started a trend of posting morning selfies with the hashtag #iwokeuplikethis, and "boy, bye", which was used as part of the Democratic National Committee's campaign for the 2020 election. Similarly, she also came up with the phrase "visual album" following the release of her fifth studio album, which had a video for every song. This has been recreated by many other artists since, such as Frank Ocean and Melanie Martinez. The album also popularized surprise releases, with many artists releasing songs, videos or albums with no prior announcement, such as Taylor Swift, Nicki Minaj, Eminem, Frank Ocean, Jay-Z and Drake.
In January 2012, research scientist Bryan Lessard named Scaptia beyonceae, a species of horse-fly found in Northern Queensland, Australia after Beyoncé due to the fly's unique golden hairs on its abdomen. In 2018, the City of Columbia, South Carolina declared August 21 the Beyoncé Knowles-Carter Day in the city after presenting her with the keys to Columbia.
Achievements
Beyoncé has received numerous awards, and is the most-awarded female artist of all time. As a solo artist she has sold over 17 million albums in the US, and over 75 million worldwide (as of February 2013). Having sold over 100 million records worldwide (a further 60 million additionally with Destiny's Child), Beyoncé is one of the best-selling music artists of all time. The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) listed Beyoncé as the top certified artist of the 2000s decade, with a total of 64 certifications. Her songs "Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)", "Halo", and "Irreplaceable" are some of the best-selling singles of all time worldwide. In 2009, Billboard named her the Top Female Artist and Top Radio Songs Artist of the Decade. In 2010, Billboard named her in their Top 50 R&B/Hip-Hop Artists of the Past 25 Years list at number 15. In 2012, VH1 ranked her third on their list of the "100 Greatest Women in Music", behind Mariah Carey and Madonna. In 2002, she received Songwriter of the Year from American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers becoming the First African American woman to win the award. In 2004 and 2019, she received NAACP Image Award for Entertainer of the Year and the Soul Train Music Award for Sammy Davis Jr. – Entertainer of the Year.
In 2005, she also received APEX Award at the Trumpet Award honoring achievements of Black African Americans. In 2007, Beyoncé received the International Artist of Excellence award by the American Music Awards. She also received Honorary Otto at the Bravo Otto. The following year, she received the Legend Award for Outstanding Contribution to the Arts at the World Music Awards and Career Achievement Award at the LOS40 Music Awards. In 2010, she received Award of Honor for Artist of the Decade at the NRJ Music Award and at the 2011 Billboard Music Awards, Beyoncé received the inaugural Billboard Millennium Award. Beyoncé received the Michael Jackson Video Vanguard Award at the 2014 MTV Video Music Awards and was honored as Honorary Mother of the Year at the Australian Mother of the Year Award in Barnardo's Australia for her Humanitarian Effort in the region and the Council of Fashion Designers of America Fashion Icon Award in 2016. In 2019, alongside Jay-Z, she received GLAAD Vanguard Award that is presented to a member of the entertainment community who does not identify as LGBT but who has made a significant difference in promoting equal rights for LGBT people. In 2020, she was awarded the BET Humanitarian Award. Consequence of Sound named her the 30th best singer of all time.
Beyoncé has won 28 Grammy Awards, both as a solo artist and member of Destiny's Child and The Carters, making her the most honored singer, male or female, by the Grammys. She is also the most nominated artist in Grammy Award history with a total of 79 nominations. "Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)" won Song of the Year in 2010 while "Say My Name", "Crazy in Love" and "Drunk in Love" have each won Best R&B Song. Dangerously in Love, B'Day and I Am... Sasha Fierce have all won Best Contemporary R&B Album, while Lemonade has won Best Urban Contemporary Album. Beyoncé set the record for the most Grammy awards won by a female artist in one night in 2010 when she won six awards, breaking the tie she previously held with Alicia Keys, Norah Jones, Alison Krauss, and Amy Winehouse, with Adele equaling this in 2012.
Beyoncé has also won 24 MTV Video Music Awards, making her the most-awarded artist in Video Music Award history. She won two awards each with The Carters and Destiny's Child making her lifetime total of 28 VMAs. "Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)" and "Formation" won Video of the Year in 2009 and 2016 respectively. Beyoncé tied the record set by Lady Gaga in 2010 for the most VMAs won in one night for a female artist with eight in 2016. She is also the most-awarded and nominated artist in BET Award history, winning 29 awards from a total of 60 nominations, the most-awarded person at the Soul Train Music Awards with 17 awards as a solo artist, and the most-awarded person at the NAACP Image Awards with 24 awards as a solo artist.
Following her role in Dreamgirls, Beyoncé was nominated for Best Original Song for "Listen" and Best Actress at the Golden Globe Awards, and Outstanding Actress in a Motion Picture at the NAACP Image Awards. Beyoncé won two awards at the Broadcast Film Critics Association Awards 2006; Best Song for "Listen" and Best Original Soundtrack for Dreamgirls: Music from the Motion Picture. According to Fuse in 2014, Beyoncé is the second-most award-winning artist of all time, after Michael Jackson. Lemonade won a Peabody Award in 2017.
She was named on the 2016 BBC Radio 4 Woman's Hour Power List as one of seven women judged to have had the biggest impact on women's lives over the past 70 years, alongside Margaret Thatcher, Barbara Castle, Helen Brook, Germaine Greer, Jayaben Desai and Bridget Jones, She was named the Most Powerful Woman in Music on the same list in 2020. In the same year, Billboard named her with Destiny's Child the third Greatest Music Video artists of all time, behind Madonna and Michael Jackson.
On June 16, 2021, Beyoncé was among several celebrities at the Pollstar Awards where she won the award of "top touring artist" of the decade (2010s). On June 17, 2021, Beyoncé was inducted into the Black Music & Entertainment Walk of Fame as a member of the inaugural class.
Business and ventures
In 2010, Beyoncé founded her own entertainment company Parkwood Entertainment which formed as an imprint based from Columbia Records, the company began as a production unit for videos and films in 2008. Parkwood Entertainment is named after a street in Houston, Texas where Beyoncé once lived. With headquarters in New York City, the company serves as an umbrella for the entertainer's various brands in music, movies, videos, and fashion. The staff of Parkwood Entertainment have experiences in arts and entertainment, from filmmaking and video production to web and fashion design. In addition to departments in marketing, digital, creative, publicity, fashion design and merchandising, the company houses a state-of-the-art editing suite, where Beyoncé works on content for her worldwide tours, music videos, and television specials. Parkwood Entertainment's first production was the musical biopic Cadillac Records (2008), in which Beyoncé starred and co-produced. The company has also distributed Beyoncé's albums such as her self-titled fifth studio album (2013), Lemonade (2016) and The Carters, Everything is Love (2018). Beyoncé has also signed other artists to Parkwood such as Chloe x Halle, who performed at Super Bowl LIII in February 2019.
Endorsements and partnerships
Beyoncé has worked with Pepsi since 2002, and in 2004 appeared in a Gladiator-themed commercial with Britney Spears, Pink, and Enrique Iglesias. In 2012, Beyoncé signed a $50 million deal to endorse Pepsi. The Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPINET) wrote Beyoncé an open letter asking her to reconsider the deal because of the unhealthiness of the product and to donate the proceeds to a medical organisation. Nevertheless, NetBase found that Beyoncé's campaign was the most talked about endorsement in April 2013, with a 70 percent positive audience response to the commercial and print ads.
Beyoncé has worked with Tommy Hilfiger for the fragrances True Star (singing a cover version of "Wishing on a Star") and True Star Gold; she also promoted Emporio Armani's Diamonds fragrance in 2007. Beyoncé launched her first official fragrance, Heat, in 2010. The commercial, which featured the 1956 song "Fever", was shown after the watershed in the United Kingdom as it begins with an image of Beyoncé appearing to lie naked in a room. In February 2011, Beyoncé launched her second fragrance, Heat Rush. Beyoncé's third fragrance, Pulse, was launched in September 2011. In 2013, The Mrs. Carter Show Limited Edition version of Heat was released. The six editions of Heat are the world's best-selling celebrity fragrance line, with sales of over $400 million.
The release of a video-game Starpower: Beyoncé was cancelled after Beyoncé pulled out of a $100 million with GateFive who alleged the cancellation meant the sacking of 70 staff and millions of pounds lost in development. It was settled out of court by her lawyers in June 2013 who said that they had cancelled because GateFive had lost its financial backers. Beyoncé also has had deals with American Express, Nintendo DS and L'Oréal since the age of 18.
In March 2015, Beyoncé became a co-owner, with other artists, of the music streaming service Tidal. The service specializes in lossless audio and high definition music videos. Beyoncé's husband Jay-Z acquired the parent company of Tidal, Aspiro, in the first quarter of 2015. Including Beyoncé and Jay-Z, sixteen artist stakeholders (such as Kanye West, Rihanna, Madonna, Chris Martin, Nicki Minaj and more) co-own Tidal, with the majority owning a 3% equity stake. The idea of having an all artist owned streaming service was created by those involved to adapt to the increased demand for streaming within the current music industry.
In November 2020, Beyoncé formed a multi-year partnership with exercise equipment and media company Peloton. The partnership was formed to celebrate homecoming season in historically black colleges and universities, providing themed workout experiences inspired by Beyoncé's 2019 Homecoming film and live album after 2020's homecoming celebrations were cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic. As part of the partnership, Beyoncé and Peloton are donating free memberships to all students at 10 HBCUs, and Peloton are pursuing long-term recruiting partnerships at the HCBUs. Gwen Bethel Riley, head of music at Peloton, said: "When we had conversations with Beyoncé around how critical a social impact component was to all of us, it crystallized how important it was to embrace Homecoming as an opportunity to celebrate and create dialogue around Black culture and music, in partnership with HBCUs." Upon news of the partnership, a decline in Peloton's shares reversed, and its shares rose by 8.6%.
In 2021, Beyoncé and Jay-Z partnered with Tiffany & Co. for the company's "About Love" campaign. Beyoncé became the fourth woman, and first Black woman, to wear the Tiffany Yellow Diamond. The campaign featured a robin egg blue painting by Jean-Michel Basquiat titled Equals Pi (1982).
Fashion lines
Beyoncé and her mother introduced House of Deréon, a contemporary women's fashion line, in 2005. The concept is inspired by three generations of women in their family, with the name paying tribute to Beyoncé's grandmother, Agnèz Deréon, a respected seamstress. According to Tina, the overall style of the line best reflects her and Beyoncé's taste and style. Beyoncé and her mother founded their family's company Beyond Productions, which provides the licensing and brand management for House of Deréon, and its junior collection, Deréon. House of Deréon pieces were exhibited in Destiny's Child's shows and tours, during their Destiny Fulfilled era. The collection features sportswear, denim offerings with fur, outerwear and accessories that include handbags and footwear, and are available at department and specialty stores across the U.S. and Canada.
In 2005, Beyoncé teamed up with House of Brands, a shoe company, to produce a range of footwear for House of Deréon. In January 2008, Starwave Mobile launched Beyoncé Fashion Diva, a "high-style" mobile game with a social networking component, featuring the House of Deréon collection. In July 2009, Beyoncé and her mother launched a new junior apparel label, Sasha Fierce for Deréon, for back-to-school selling. The collection included sportswear, outerwear, handbags, footwear, eyewear, lingerie and jewelry. It was available at department stores including Macy's and Dillard's, and specialty stores Jimmy Jazz and Against All Odds. On May 27, 2010, Beyoncé teamed up with clothing store C&A to launch Deréon by Beyoncé at their stores in Brazil. The collection included tailored blazers with padded shoulders, little black dresses, embroidered tops and shirts and bandage dresses.
In October 2014, Beyoncé signed a deal to launch an activewear line of clothing with British fashion retailer Topshop. The 50–50 venture is called Ivy Park and was launched in April 2016. The brand's name is a nod to Beyoncé's daughter and her favourite number four (IV in roman numerals), and also references the park where she used to run in Texas. She has since bought out Topshop owner Philip Green from his 50% share after he was alleged to have sexually harassed, bullied and racially abused employees. She now owns the brand herself. On April 4, 2019, it was announced that Beyoncé would become a creative partner with Adidas and further develop her athletic brand Ivy Park with the company. Knowles will also develop new clothes and footwear for Adidas. Shares for the company rose 1.3% upon the news release. On December 9, 2019, they announced a launch date of January 18, 2020. Beyoncé uploaded a teaser on her website and Instagram. The collection was also previewed on the upcoming Elle January 2020 issue, where Beyoncé is seen wearing several garments, accessories and footwear from the first collection.
Philanthropy
In 2002, Beyoncé, Kelly Rowland and Tina Knowles built the Knowles-Rowland Center for Youth, a community center in Downtown Houston. After Hurricane Katrina in 2005, Beyoncé and Rowland founded the Survivor Foundation to provide transitional housing to displaced families and provide means for new building construction, to which Beyoncé contributed an initial $250,000. The foundation has since expanded to work with other charities in the city, and also provided relief following Hurricane Ike three years later. Beyoncé also donated $100,000 to the Gulf Coast Ike Relief Fund. In 2007, Beyoncé founded the Knowles-Temenos Place Apartments, a housing complex offering living space for 43 displaced individuals. As of 2016, Beyoncé had donated $7 million for the maintenance of the complex.
After starring in Cadillac Records in 2009 and learning about Phoenix House, a non-profit drug and alcohol rehabilitation organization, Beyoncé donated her full $4 million salary from the film to the organization. Beyoncé and her mother subsequently established the Beyoncé Cosmetology Center, which offers a seven-month cosmetology training course helping Phoenix House's clients gain career skills during their recovery.
In January 2010, Beyoncé participated in George Clooney and Wyclef Jean's Hope for Haiti Now: A Global Benefit for Earthquake Relief telethon, donated a large sum to the organization, and was named the official face of the limited edition CFDA "Fashion For Haiti" T-shirt, made by Theory which raised a total of $1 million. In April 2011, Beyoncé joined forces with U.S. First Lady Michelle Obama and the National Association of Broadcasters Education Foundation, to help boost the latter's campaign against child obesity by reworking her single "Get Me Bodied". Following the death of Osama bin Laden, Beyoncé released her cover of the Lee Greenwood song "God Bless the USA", as a charity single to help raise funds for the New York Police and Fire Widows' and Children's Benefit Fund.
Beyoncé became an ambassador for the 2012 World Humanitarian Day campaign donating her song "I Was Here" and its music video, shot in the UN, to the campaign. In 2013, it was announced that Beyoncé would work with Salma Hayek and Frida Giannini on a Gucci "Chime for Change" campaign that aims to spread female empowerment. The campaign, which aired on February 28, was set to her new music. A concert for the cause took place on June 1, 2013, in London. With help of the crowdfunding platform Catapult, visitors of the concert could choose between several projects promoting education of women and girls. Beyoncé also took part in "Miss a Meal", a food-donation campaign, and supported Goodwill Industries through online charity auctions at Charitybuzz that support job creation throughout Europe and the U.S.
Beyoncé and Jay-Z secretly donated tens of thousands of dollars to bail out Black Lives Matter protesters in Baltimore and Ferguson, as well as funded infrastructure for the establishment of Black Lives Matter chapters across the US. Before Beyoncé's Formation World Tour show in Tampa, her team held a private luncheon for more than 20 community leaders to discuss how Beyoncé could support local charitable initiatives, including pledging on the spot to fund 10 scholarships to provide students with financial aid. Tampa Sports Authority board member Thomas Scott said: "I don't know of a prior artist meeting with the community, seeing what their needs are, seeing how they can invest in the community. It says a lot to me about Beyoncé. She not only goes into a community and walks away with (money), but she also gives money back to that community." In June 2016, Beyoncé donated over $82,000 to the United Way of Genesee County to support victims of the Flint water crisis. Beyoncé additionally donated money to support 14 students in Michigan with their college expenses. In August 2016, Beyoncé and Jay-Z donated $1.5 million to civil rights groups including Black Lives Matter, Hands Up United and Dream Defenders. After Hurricane Matthew, Beyoncé and Jay-Z donated $15 million to the Usain Bolt Foundation to support its efforts in rebuilding homes in Haiti. In December 2016, Beyoncé was named the Most Charitable Celebrity of the year.
During Hurricane Harvey in August 2017, Beyoncé launched BeyGOOD Houston to support those affected by the hurricane in Houston. The organization donated necessities such as cots, blankets, pillows, baby products, feminine products and wheelchairs, and funded long-term revitalization projects. On September 8, Beyoncé visited Houston, where she sponsored a lunch for 400 survivors at her local church, visited the George R Brown Convention Center to discuss with people displaced by the flooding about their needs, served meals to those who lost their homes, and made a significant donation to local causes. Beyoncé additionally donated $75,000 worth of new mattresses to survivors of the hurricane. Later that month, Beyoncé released a remix of J Balvin and Willy William's "Mi Gente", with all of her proceeds being donated to disaster relief charities in Puerto Rico, Mexico, the U.S. and the Caribbean after hurricanes Harvey, Irma and Maria, and the Chiapas and Puebla earthquakes.
In April 2020, Beyoncé donated $6 million to the National Alliance in Mental Health, UCLA and local community-based organizations in order to provide mental health and personal wellness services to essential workers during the COVID-19 pandemic. BeyGOOD also teamed up with local organizations to help provide resources to communities of color, including food, water, cleaning supplies, medicines and face masks. The same month Beyoncé released a remix of Megan Thee Stallion's "Savage", with all proceeds benefiting Bread of Life Houston's COVID-19 relief efforts, which includes providing over 14 tons of food and supplies to 500 families and 100 senior citizens in Houston weekly. In May 2020, Beyoncé provided 1,000 free COVID-19 tests in Houston as part of her and her mother's #IDidMyPart initiative, which was established due to the disproportionate deaths in African-American communities. Additionally, 1,000 gloves, masks, hot meals, essential vitamins, grocery vouchers and household items were provided. In July 2020, Beyoncé established the Black-Owned Small Business Impact Fund in partnership with the NAACP, which offers $10,000 grants to black-owned small businesses in need following the George Floyd protests. All proceeds from Beyoncé's single "Black Parade" were donated to the fund. In September 2020, Beyoncé announced that she had donated an additional $1 million to the fund. As of December 31, 2020, the fund had given 715 grants to black-owned small businesses, amounting to $7.15 million donated. In October 2020, Beyoncé released a statement that she has been working with the Feminist Coalition to assist supporters of the End Sars movement in Nigeria, including covering medical costs for injured protestors, covering legal fees for arrested protestors, and providing food, emergency shelter, transportation and telecommunication means to those in need. Beyoncé also showed support for those fighting against other issues in Africa, such as the Anglophone Crisis in Cameroon, ShutItAllDown in Namibia, Zimbabwean Lives Matter in Zimbabwe and the Rape National Emergency in Liberia. In December 2020, Beyoncé donated $500,000 to help alleviate the housing crisis in the U.S. caused by the cessation of the eviction moratorium, giving 100 $5,000 grants to individuals and families facing foreclosures and evictions.
Discography
Dangerously in Love (2003)
B'Day (2006)
I Am... Sasha Fierce (2008)
4 (2011)
Beyoncé (2013)
Lemonade (2016)
Filmography
Films starred
Carmen: A Hip Hopera (2001)
Austin Powers in Goldmember (2002)
The Fighting Temptations (2003)
Fade to Black (2004)
The Pink Panther (2006)
Dreamgirls (2006)
Cadillac Records (2008)
Obsessed (2009)
Epic (2013)
The Lion King (2019)
Films directed
Life Is But a Dream (2013)
Beyoncé: Lemonade (2016)
Homecoming (2019)
Black Is King (2020)
Tours and residencies
Headlining tours
Dangerously in Love Tour (2003)
The Beyoncé Experience (2007)
I Am... World Tour (2009–2010)
The Mrs. Carter Show World Tour (2013–2014)
The Formation World Tour (2016)
Co-headlining tours
Verizon Ladies First Tour (with Alicia Keys and Missy Elliott) (2004)
On the Run Tour (with Jay-Z) (2014)
On the Run II Tour (with Jay-Z) (2018)
Residencies
I Am... Yours (2009)
4 Intimate Nights with Beyoncé (2011)
Revel Presents: Beyoncé Live (2012)
See also
Album era
Honorific nicknames in popular music
List of artists who reached number one in the United States
List of artists with the most number ones on the U.S. dance chart
List of Billboard Social 50 number-one artists
List of black Golden Globe Award winners and nominees
List of highest-grossing concert tours
Best-selling female artists of all time
List of most-followed Instagram accounts
Notes
References
External links
1981 births
Living people
20th-century American businesspeople
20th-century American businesswomen
20th-century American singers
20th-century American women singers
21st-century American actresses
21st-century American businesspeople
21st-century American businesswomen
21st-century American singers
21st-century American women singers
Actresses from Houston
African-American actresses
African-American artists
African-American businesspeople
African-American choreographers
African-American dancers
African-American fashion designers
American fashion designers
African-American female dancers
African-American women rappers
African-American women singers
African-American feminists
African-American Methodists
African-American record producers
African-American women in business
African-American women writers
American women business executives
American choreographers
American contemporary R&B singers
American cosmetics businesspeople
American fashion businesspeople
American women pop singers
American film actresses
American hip hop record producers
American female hip hop singers
American hip hop singers
American mezzo-sopranos
American music publishers (people)
American music video directors
American people of Creole descent
American retail chief executives
American soul singers
American television actresses
American United Methodists
American voice actresses
American women philanthropists
American women record producers
Black Lives Matter people
Brit Award winners
Businesspeople from Houston
Columbia Records artists
Dance-pop musicians
Destiny's Child members
Female music video directors
Feminist musicians
Gold Star Records artists
Grammy Award winners
Grammy Award winners for rap music
High School for the Performing and Visual Arts alumni
Ivor Novello Award winners
Jay-Z
Solange Knowles
Louisiana Creole people
MTV Europe Music Award winners
Music video codirectors
Musicians from Houston
NME Awards winners
Parkwood Entertainment artists
Record producers from Texas
Shoe designers
Singers from Texas
Singers with a four-octave vocal range
Texas Democrats
Women hip hop record producers
World Music Awards winners
Writers from Houston | false | [
"Space is the third extended play (EP) by British YouTuber and rapper KSI. It was independently released for digital download and streaming on 30 June 2017. The EP was preceded by its first and only single, \"Creature\".\n\nBackground \nIn February 2017, KSI \"blacked out\" all of his YouTube and social media accounts, as well as deleting around 600 YouTube videos, worth over two billion views, and deleting all of his social media posts. On 23 February 2017, in an interview with DramaAlert, KSI explained his actions, confirming that he wasn't \"promoting anything\". He continued to say that he doesn't \"care about the fame or the money\" and he is \"sick of trying to portray himself as a certain thing which he isn't\", describing himself as being \"a clown for many years\". He confirmed that he would not be uploading to YouTube for the foreseeable future.\n\nSpeaking to GRM Daily in July 2017 about his break from YouTube, KSI said, \"I feel like with the whole KSI thing, it was sick don't get me wrong, I've enjoyed making all these videos, entertaining people, making people laugh and all that. But it's kind of to the point where I've been there, done that, now I wanna do what I wanna do. I felt like an evolution was needed to prove to people that I can do what I feel is necessary in my life, and that was the same feeling with this whole Space EP. I just wanted it to be truthful. I want people to actually see how I was feeling from my eyes about what I was going through\". He continued, \"I think it was near the end of last year when I was doing a book, a movie, dropped an EP, lots of youtube videos, I was just doing so much it got to the point where I started getting stressed and it really started to hinder me. I started getting ill and everything. It was just a bit too much and I was like \"yo, right now what do I wanna do with myself?\"\"\n\nPromotion and release \nSpace was independently released for digital download and streaming on 30 June 2017.\n\nSingles \n\"Creature\" was released as the Lead single from the EP on 23 June 2017. An accompanying music video for the song was released on 27 June 2017.\n\nTrack listing\n\nCredits and personnel \nCredits adapted from Tidal.\n\n KSIsongwriting , vocals \n DJ Turkishengineering \n Zagorproduction , songwriting \n Oscar LoBruttoengineering \n Swayproduction , songwriting \n Charles Cookproduction , songwriting , engineering \n GK Beatsproduction , songwriting \n Sammy Sosoproduction , songwriting\n\nCharts\n\nRelease history\n\nNotes\n\nReferences \n\n2017 EPs\nKSI albums\nRBC Records albums\nBMG Rights Management albums",
"\"War with God\" is a song on the album Release Therapy by rapper Ludacris. Released in July 2006, the song saw Ludacris return to music after some time off to concentrate on his acting career.\n\nSynopsis\nIn the track, Ludacris goes on the offensive against an unknown rapper who has sold drugs, and makes repeated references to firing guns in his songs, isn't as rich as Ludacris himself and likes to give himself titles; these allegations are directed toward T.I.\n\nT.I. responds to this song on the remix of \"Umma Do Me\" by Rocko saying:\n\nMoney you say u get 30 mil. in six yearsListen, Forbes put me down fa 20, dat was dis yearAnd let's get dis clear just between you and meDat apology was for B.E.T not D.T.P\n\nLudacris recently stated that the song was deeper than just a diss, and the song is more about him than anyone else, it's showing that he isn't just the 'cartoon entertainer' type rapper that he has been portrayed as. When asked about who specific rhymes were aimed at, he said \"The guilty will speak\".\n\nLater, in SOHH.com's Pre VMA Interview, Ludacris was asked if the song was self-referential. Ludacris replied, \"Man, somebody misquoted me talking about...they misquoted me saying it was about me. What I was telling them was that I devote a lot of information about myself, and I think they're taking that in. I'm not battling myself on the record, that's ridiculous. What happens is you got a lot of people taking subliminal shots, but nobody ever says my name. I'm not for sure, so that record is like my way of taking subliminal shots right back. Don't get it misquoted, don't get it messed up. That's basically what it is man. It's like, you know, like I said I do devote a lot of information about myself on there. I started to wreck it up by saying I'm the best, and there's nothing you could do about it. [They say] I've never done this I've never done that, so you know when you look into it, it's a lot more records where it comes from on the album, September 26, Release Therapy, where it's the most personal album I've done. It's nothing but honesty so you can criticize it all you want to but at the end of the day you got to respect it cause I'm coming straight from the heart. [I'm] just telling the truth, [and] that's all you gotta know.\"\n\nCredits and personnel\n\nRecording\n Recorded at: The Ludaplex in Atlanta, Georgia.\n\nPersonnel\n Ludacris – vocals, songwriting \n Dre & Vidal – producers, songwriting\n Don Cheegro – co-producer\n Alexander Chiger – songwriting\n Harry \"Dirty Harry\" Zelnick – songwriting, co-producer\n Joshua Monroy – recording\n Leon Huff – songwriting\n Kenny Gamble – songwriting\n Vincent Dilorenzo – mixing\n Phil Tan – mixing\n Michael Tsarfati – recording, assistant mixer\n Bernie Grundman – mastering\n\nSamples\n Contains an excerpt of \"War of the Gods\", performed by Billy Paul and written by Leon Huff and Kenny Gamble.\n\nReferences\n\nLudacris songs\nSongs written by Ludacris\n2006 songs\nSongs written by Leon Huff\nSongs written by Kenny Gamble\nSongs written by Vidal Davis\nSongs written by Andre Harris\nSong recordings produced by Dre & Vidal"
]
|
[
"Beyoncé",
"Voice and songwriting",
"what happened with voice and songwriting?",
"Jody Rosen highlights her tone and timbre as particularly distinctive, describing her voice as \"one of the most compelling instruments in popular music",
"what else does she say about her voice?",
"Her vocal abilities mean she is identified as the centerpiece of Destiny's Child.",
"did anyone else have anything to say about her voice? good or bad.",
"Jon Pareles of The New York Times commented that her voice is \"velvety yet tart,",
"what else did he comment about her voice?",
"\"velvety yet tart, with an insistent flutter and reserves of soul belting\".",
"what do people have to say about her songwriting?",
"She has received co-writing credits for most of the songs recorded with Destiny's Child and her solo efforts."
]
| C_1128b8d67bcb48feb77ec450ae614b45_1 | did she win any awards at all? | 6 | Did Beyonce win any awards at all? | Beyoncé | Jody Rosen highlights her tone and timbre as particularly distinctive, describing her voice as "one of the most compelling instruments in popular music". Her vocal abilities mean she is identified as the centerpiece of Destiny's Child. Jon Pareles of The New York Times commented that her voice is "velvety yet tart, with an insistent flutter and reserves of soul belting". Rosen notes that the hip hop era highly influenced Beyonce's unique rhythmic vocal style, but also finds her quite traditionalist in her use of balladry, gospel and falsetto. Other critics praise her range and power, with Chris Richards of The Washington Post saying she was "capable of punctuating any beat with goose-bump-inducing whispers or full-bore diva-roars." Beyonce's music is generally R&B, but she also incorporates pop, soul and funk into her songs. 4 demonstrated Beyonce's exploration of 1990s-style R&B, as well as further use of soul and hip hop than compared to previous releases. While she almost exclusively releases English songs, Beyonce recorded several Spanish songs for Irreemplazable (re-recordings of songs from B'Day for a Spanish-language audience), and the re-release of B'Day. To record these, Beyonce was coached phonetically by American record producer Rudy Perez. She has received co-writing credits for most of the songs recorded with Destiny's Child and her solo efforts. Her early songs were personally driven and female-empowerment themed compositions like "Independent Women" and "Survivor", but after the start of her relationship with Jay-Z, she transitioned to more man-tending anthems such as "Cater 2 U". Beyonce has also received co-producing credits for most of the records in which she has been involved, especially during her solo efforts. However, she does not formulate beats herself, but typically comes up with melodies and ideas during production, sharing them with producers. In 2001, she became the first black woman and second female lyricist to win the Pop Songwriter of the Year award at the American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers Pop Music Awards. Beyonce was the third woman to have writing credits on three number one songs ("Irreplaceable", "Grillz" and "Check on It") in the same year, after Carole King in 1971 and Mariah Carey in 1991. She is tied with American lyricist Diane Warren at third with nine song-writing credits on number-one singles. (The latter wrote her 9/11-motivated song "I Was Here" for 4.) In May 2011, Billboard magazine listed Beyonce at number 17 on their list of the "Top 20 Hot 100 Songwriters", for having co-written eight singles that hit number one on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. She was one of only three women on that list, along with Alicia Keys and Taylor Swift. CANNOTANSWER | In 2001, she became the first black woman and second female lyricist to win the Pop Songwriter of the Year award | Beyoncé Giselle Knowles-Carter ( ; born September 4, 1981) is an American singer, songwriter, and actress. Born and raised in Houston, Texas, Beyoncé performed in various singing and dancing competitions as a child. She rose to fame in the late 1990s as the lead singer of Destiny's Child, one of the best-selling girl groups of all time. Their hiatus saw the release of her debut solo album Dangerously in Love (2003), which featured the US Billboard Hot 100 number-one singles "Crazy in Love" and "Baby Boy".
Following the 2006 disbanding of Destiny's Child, she released her second solo album, B'Day, which contained singles "Irreplaceable" and "Beautiful Liar". Beyoncé also starred in multiple films such as The Pink Panther (2006), Dreamgirls (2006), Obsessed (2009), and The Lion King (2019). Her marriage to Jay-Z and her portrayal of Etta James in Cadillac Records (2008) influenced her third album, I Am... Sasha Fierce (2008), which earned a record-setting six Grammy Awards in 2010. It spawned the successful singles "If I Were a Boy", "Single Ladies", and "Halo".
After splitting from her manager and father Mathew Knowles in 2010, Beyoncé released her musically diverse fourth album 4 in 2011. She later achieved universal acclaim for her sonically experimental visual albums, Beyoncé (2013) and Lemonade (2016), the latter of which was the world's best-selling album of 2016 and the most acclaimed album of her career, exploring themes of infidelity and womanism. In 2018, she released Everything Is Love, a collaborative album with her husband, Jay-Z, as the Carters. As a featured artist, Beyoncé topped the Billboard Hot 100 with the remixes of "Perfect" by Ed Sheeran in 2017 and "Savage" by Megan Thee Stallion in 2020. The same year, she released the musical film and visual album Black Is King to widespread acclaim.
Beyoncé is one of the world's best-selling recording artists, having sold 120 million records worldwide. She is the first solo artist to have their first six studio albums debut at number one on the Billboard 200. Her success during the 2000s was recognized with the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA)'s Top Certified Artist of the Decade as well as Billboard Top Female Artist of the Decade. Beyoncé's accolades include 28 Grammy Awards, 26 MTV Video Music Awards (including the Michael Jackson Video Vanguard Award in 2014), 24 NAACP Image Awards, 31 BET Awards, and 17 Soul Train Music Awards; all of which are more than any other singer. In 2014, Billboard named her the highest-earning black musician of all time, while in 2020, she was included on Times list of 100 women who defined the last century.
Life and career
1981–1996: Early life and career beginnings
Beyonce Giselle Knowles was born on September 4, 1981, in Houston, Texas, to Celestine "Tina" Knowles (née Beyonce), a hairdresser and salon owner, and Mathew Knowles, a Xerox sales manager; Tina is Louisiana Creole, and Mathew is African American. Beyonce's younger sister Solange Knowles is also a singer and a former backup dancer for Destiny's Child. Solange and Beyoncé are the first sisters to have both had No. 1 albums.
Beyoncé's maternal grandparents, Lumas Beyince, and Agnez Dereon (daughter of Odilia Broussard and Eugene DeRouen), were French-speaking Louisiana Creoles, with roots in New Iberia. Beyoncé is considered a Creole, passed on to her by her grandparents. Through her mother, Beyoncé is a descendant of many French aristocrats from the southwest of France, including the family of the Viscounts de Béarn since the 9th century, and the Viscounts de Belzunce. She is also a descendant of Jean-Vincent d'Abbadie de Saint-Castin, a French nobleman and military leader who fought along the indigenous Abenaki against the British in Acadia and of Acadian leader Joseph Broussard. Her fourth great-grandmother, Marie-Françoise Trahan, was born in 1774 in Bangor, located on Belle Île, France. Trahan was a daughter of Acadians who had taken refuge on Belle Île after the British deportation. The Estates of Brittany had divided the lands of Belle Île to distribute them among 78 other Acadian families and the already settled inhabitants. The Trahan family lived on Belle Île for over ten years before immigrating to Louisiana, where she married a Broussard descendant. Beyoncé researched her ancestry and discovered that she is descended from a slave owner who married his slave.
Beyoncé was raised Catholic and attended St. Mary's Montessori School in Houston, where she enrolled in dance classes. Her singing was discovered when dance instructor Darlette Johnson began humming a song and she finished it, able to hit the high-pitched notes. Beyoncé's interest in music and performing continued after winning a school talent show at age seven, singing John Lennon's "Imagine" to beat 15/16-year-olds. In the fall of 1990, Beyoncé enrolled in Parker Elementary School, a music magnet school in Houston, where she would perform with the school's choir. She also attended the High School for the Performing and Visual Arts and later Alief Elsik High School. Beyoncé was also a member of the choir at St. John's United Methodist Church as a soloist for two years.
When Beyoncé was eight, she met LaTavia Roberson at an audition for an all-girl entertainment group. They were placed into a group called Girl's Tyme with three other girls, and rapped and danced on the talent show circuit in Houston. After seeing the group, R&B producer Arne Frager brought them to his Northern California studio and placed them in Star Search, the largest talent show on national TV at the time. Girl's Tyme failed to win, and Beyoncé later said the song they performed was not good. In 1995, Beyoncé's father resigned from his job to manage the group. The move reduced Beyoncé's family's income by half, and her parents were forced to move into separated apartments. Mathew cut the original line-up to four and the group continued performing as an opening act for other established R&B girl groups. The girls auditioned before record labels and were finally signed to Elektra Records, moving to Atlanta Records briefly to work on their first recording, only to be cut by the company. This put further strain on the family, and Beyoncé's parents separated. On October 5, 1995, Dwayne Wiggins's Grass Roots Entertainment signed the group. In 1996, the girls began recording their debut album under an agreement with Sony Music, the Knowles family reunited, and shortly after, the group got a contract with Columbia Records.
1997–2002: Destiny's Child
The group changed their name to Destiny's Child in 1996, based upon a passage in the Book of Isaiah. In 1997, Destiny's Child released their major label debut song "Killing Time" on the soundtrack to the 1997 film Men in Black. In November, the group released their debut single and first major hit, "No, No, No". They released their self-titled debut album in February 1998, which established the group as a viable act in the music industry, with moderate sales and winning the group three Soul Train Lady of Soul Awards for Best R&B/Soul Album of the Year, Best R&B/Soul or Rap New Artist, and Best R&B/Soul Single for "No, No, No". The group released their Multi-Platinum second album The Writing's on the Wall in 1999. The record features some of the group's most widely known songs such as "Bills, Bills, Bills", the group's first number-one single, "Jumpin' Jumpin' and "Say My Name", which became their most successful song at the time, and would remain one of their signature songs. "Say My Name" won the Best R&B Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocals and the Best R&B Song at the 43rd Annual Grammy Awards. The Writing's on the Wall sold more than eight million copies worldwide. During this time, Beyoncé recorded a duet with Marc Nelson, an original member of Boyz II Men, on the song "After All Is Said and Done" for the soundtrack to the 1999 film, The Best Man.
LeToya Luckett and Roberson became unhappy with Mathew's managing of the band and eventually were replaced by Farrah Franklin and Michelle Williams. Beyoncé experienced depression following the split with Luckett and Roberson after being publicly blamed by the media, critics, and blogs for its cause. Her long-standing boyfriend left her at this time. The depression was so severe it lasted for a couple of years, during which she occasionally kept herself in her bedroom for days and refused to eat anything. Beyoncé stated that she struggled to speak about her depression because Destiny's Child had just won their first Grammy Award, and she feared no one would take her seriously. Beyoncé would later speak of her mother as the person who helped her fight it. Franklin was then dismissed, leaving just Beyoncé, Rowland, and Williams.
The remaining band members recorded "Independent Women Part I", which appeared on the soundtrack to the 2000 film Charlie's Angels. It became their best-charting single, topping the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 chart for eleven consecutive weeks. In early 2001, while Destiny's Child was completing their third album, Beyoncé landed a major role in the MTV made-for-television film, Carmen: A Hip Hopera, starring alongside American actor Mekhi Phifer. Set in Philadelphia, the film is a modern interpretation of the 19th-century opera Carmen by French composer Georges Bizet. When the third album Survivor was released in May 2001, Luckett and Roberson filed a lawsuit claiming that the songs were aimed at them. The album debuted at number one on the U.S. Billboard 200, with first-week sales of 663,000 copies sold. The album spawned other number-one hits, "Bootylicious" and the title track, "Survivor", the latter of which earned the group a Grammy Award for Best R&B Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocals. After releasing their holiday album 8 Days of Christmas in October 2001, the group announced a hiatus to further pursue solo careers.
In July 2002, Beyoncé made her theatrical film debut, playing Foxxy Cleopatra alongside Mike Myers in the comedy film Austin Powers in Goldmember, which spent its first weekend atop the U.S. box office and grossed $73 million. Beyoncé released "Work It Out" as the lead single from its soundtrack album which entered the top ten in the UK, Norway, and Belgium. In 2003, Beyoncé starred opposite Cuba Gooding, Jr., in the musical comedy The Fighting Temptations as Lilly, a single mother with whom Gooding's character falls in love. The film received mixed reviews from critics but grossed $30 million in the U.S. Beyoncé released "Fighting Temptation" as the lead single from the film's soundtrack album, with Missy Elliott, MC Lyte, and Free which was also used to promote the film. Another of Beyoncé's contributions to the soundtrack, "Summertime", fared better on the U.S. charts.
2003–2005: Dangerously in Love and Destiny Fulfilled
Beyoncé's first solo recording was a feature on Jay-Z's song '03 Bonnie & Clyde" that was released in October 2002, peaking at number four on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 chart. On June 14, 2003, Beyoncé premiered songs from her first solo album Dangerously in Love during her first solo concert and the pay-per-view television special, "Ford Presents Beyoncé Knowles, Friends & Family, Live From Ford's 100th Anniversary Celebration in Dearborn, Michigan". The album was released on June 24, 2003, after Michelle Williams and Kelly Rowland had released their solo efforts. The album sold 317,000 copies in its first week, debuted atop the Billboard 200, and has since sold 11 million copies worldwide. The album's lead single, "Crazy in Love", featuring Jay-Z, became Beyoncé's first number-one single as a solo artist in the US. The single "Baby Boy" also reached number one, and singles, "Me, Myself and I" and "Naughty Girl", both reached the top-five. The album earned Beyoncé a then record-tying five awards at the 46th Annual Grammy Awards; Best Contemporary R&B Album, Best Female R&B Vocal Performance for "Dangerously in Love 2", Best R&B Song and Best Rap/Sung Collaboration for "Crazy in Love", and Best R&B Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocals for "The Closer I Get to You" with Luther Vandross. During the ceremony, she performed with Prince.
In November 2003, she embarked on the Dangerously in Love Tour in Europe and later toured alongside Missy Elliott and Alicia Keys for the Verizon Ladies First Tour in North America. On February 1, 2004, Beyoncé performed the American national anthem at Super Bowl XXXVIII, at the Reliant Stadium in Houston, Texas. After the release of Dangerously in Love, Beyoncé had planned to produce a follow-up album using several of the left-over tracks. However, this was put on hold so she could concentrate on recording Destiny Fulfilled, the final studio album by Destiny's Child. Released on November 15, 2004, in the US and peaking at number two on the Billboard 200, Destiny Fulfilled included the singles "Lose My Breath" and "Soldier", which reached the top five on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. Destiny's Child embarked on a worldwide concert tour, Destiny Fulfilled... and Lovin' It sponsored by McDonald's Corporation, and performed hits such as "No, No, No", "Survivor", "Say My Name", "Independent Women" and "Lose My Breath". In addition to renditions of the group's recorded material, they also performed songs from each singer's solo careers, most notably numbers from Dangerously in Love. and during the last stop of their European tour, in Barcelona on June 11, 2005, Rowland announced that Destiny's Child would disband following the North American leg of the tour. The group released their first compilation album Number 1's on October 25, 2005, in the US and accepted a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in March 2006. The group has sold 60 million records worldwide.
2006–2007: B'Day and Dreamgirls
Beyoncé's second solo album B'Day was released on September 4, 2006, in the US, to coincide with her twenty-fifth birthday. It sold 541,000 copies in its first week and debuted atop the Billboard 200, becoming Beyoncé's second consecutive number-one album in the United States. The album's lead single "Déjà Vu", featuring Jay-Z, reached the top five on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. The second international single "Irreplaceable" was a commercial success worldwide, reaching number one in Australia, Hungary, Ireland, New Zealand and the United States. B'Day also produced three other singles; "Ring the Alarm", "Get Me Bodied", and "Green Light" (released in the United Kingdom only).
At the 49th Annual Grammy Awards (2007), B'Day was nominated for five Grammy Awards, including Best Contemporary R&B Album, Best Female R&B Vocal Performance for "Ring the Alarm" and Best R&B Song and Best Rap/Sung Collaboration"for "Déjà Vu"; the Freemasons club mix of "Déjà Vu" without the rap was put forward in the Best Remixed Recording, Non-Classical category. B'Day won the award for Best Contemporary R&B Album. The following year, B'Day received two nominations – for Record of the Year for "Irreplaceable" and Best Pop Collaboration with Vocals for "Beautiful Liar" (with Shakira), also receiving a nomination for Best Compilation Soundtrack Album for Motion Pictures, Television or Other Visual Media for her appearance on Dreamgirls: Music from the Motion Picture (2006).
Her first acting role of 2006 was in the comedy film The Pink Panther starring opposite Steve Martin, grossing $158.8 million at the box office worldwide. Her second film Dreamgirls, the film version of the 1981 Broadway musical loosely based on The Supremes, received acclaim from critics and grossed $154 million internationally. In it, she starred opposite Jennifer Hudson, Jamie Foxx, and Eddie Murphy playing a pop singer based on Diana Ross. To promote the film, Beyoncé released "Listen" as the lead single from the soundtrack album. In April 2007, Beyoncé embarked on The Beyoncé Experience, her first worldwide concert tour, visiting 97 venues and grossed over $24 million. Beyoncé conducted pre-concert food donation drives during six major stops in conjunction with her pastor at St. John's and America's Second Harvest. At the same time, B'Day was re-released with five additional songs, including her duet with Shakira "Beautiful Liar".
2008–2010: I Am... Sasha Fierce
I Am... Sasha Fierce was released on November 18, 2008, in the United States. The album formally introduces Beyoncé's alter ego Sasha Fierce, conceived during the making of her 2003 single "Crazy in Love". It was met with generally mediocre reviews from critics, but sold 482,000 copies in its first week, debuting atop the Billboard 200, and giving Beyoncé her third consecutive number-one album in the US. The album featured the number-one song "Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)" and the top-five songs "If I Were a Boy" and "Halo". Achieving the accomplishment of becoming her longest-running Hot 100 single in her career, "Halos success in the U.S. helped Beyoncé attain more top-ten singles on the list than any other woman during the 2000s. It also included the successful "Sweet Dreams", and singles "Diva", "Ego", "Broken-Hearted Girl" and "Video Phone". The music video for "Single Ladies" has been parodied and imitated around the world, spawning the "first major dance craze" of the Internet age according to the Toronto Star. The video has won several awards, including Best Video at the 2009 MTV Europe Music Awards, the 2009 Scottish MOBO Awards, and the 2009 BET Awards. At the 2009 MTV Video Music Awards, the video was nominated for nine awards, ultimately winning three including Video of the Year. Its failure to win the Best Female Video category, which went to American singer-songwriter Taylor Swift's "You Belong with Me", led to Kanye West interrupting the ceremony and Beyoncé improvising a re-presentation of Swift's award during her own acceptance speech. In March 2009, Beyoncé embarked on the I Am... World Tour, her second headlining worldwide concert tour, consisting of 108 shows, grossing $119.5 million.
Beyoncé further expanded her acting career, starring as blues singer Etta James in the 2008 musical biopic Cadillac Records. Her performance in the film received praise from critics, and she garnered several nominations for her portrayal of James, including a Satellite Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress, and a NAACP Image Award nomination for Outstanding Supporting Actress. Beyoncé donated her entire salary from the film to Phoenix House, an organization of rehabilitation centers for heroin addicts around the country. On January 20, 2009, Beyoncé performed James' "At Last" at First Couple Barack and Michelle Obama's first inaugural ball. Beyoncé starred opposite Ali Larter and Idris Elba in the thriller, Obsessed. She played Sharon Charles, a mother and wife whose family is threatened by her husband's stalker. Although the film received negative reviews from critics, the movie did well at the U.S. box office, grossing $68 million – $60 million more than Cadillac Records – on a budget of $20 million. The fight scene finale between Sharon and the character played by Ali Larter also won the 2010 MTV Movie Award for Best Fight.
At the 52nd Annual Grammy Awards, Beyoncé received ten nominations, including Album of the Year for I Am... Sasha Fierce, Record of the Year for "Halo", and Song of the Year for "Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)", among others. She tied with Lauryn Hill for most Grammy nominations in a single year by a female artist. Beyoncé went on to win six of those nominations, breaking a record she previously tied in 2004 for the most Grammy awards won in a single night by a female artist with six. In 2010, Beyoncé was featured on Lady Gaga's single "Telephone" and appeared in its music video. The song topped the U.S. Pop Songs chart, becoming the sixth number-one for both Beyoncé and Gaga, tying them with Mariah Carey for most number-ones since the Nielsen Top 40 airplay chart launched in 1992. "Telephone" received a Grammy Award nomination for Best Pop Collaboration with Vocals.
Beyoncé announced a hiatus from her music career in January 2010, heeding her mother's advice, "to live life, to be inspired by things again". During the break she and her father parted ways as business partners. Beyoncé's musical break lasted nine months and saw her visit multiple European cities, the Great Wall of China, the Egyptian pyramids, Australia, English music festivals and various museums and ballet performances.
2011–2013: 4 and Super Bowl XLVII halftime show
On June 26, 2011, she became the first solo female artist to headline the main Pyramid stage at the 2011 Glastonbury Festival in over twenty years. Her fourth studio album 4 was released two days later in the US. 4 sold 310,000 copies in its first week and debuted atop the Billboard 200 chart, giving Beyoncé her fourth consecutive number-one album in the US. The album was preceded by two of its singles "Run the World (Girls)" and "Best Thing I Never Had". The fourth single "Love on Top" spent seven consecutive weeks at number one on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart, while peaking at number 20 on the Billboard Hot 100, the highest peak from the album. 4 also produced four other singles; "Party", "Countdown", "I Care" and "End of Time". "Eat, Play, Love", a cover story written by Beyoncé for Essence that detailed her 2010 career break, won her a writing award from the New York Association of Black Journalists. In late 2011, she took the stage at New York's Roseland Ballroom for four nights of special performances: the 4 Intimate Nights with Beyoncé concerts saw the performance of her 4 album to a standing room only. On August 1, 2011, the album was certified platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), having shipped 1 million copies to retail stores. By December 2015, it reached sales of 1.5 million copies in the US. The album reached one billion Spotify streams on February 5, 2018, making Beyoncé the first female artist to have three of their albums surpass one billion streams on the platform.
In June 2012, she performed for four nights at Revel Atlantic City's Ovation Hall to celebrate the resort's opening, her first performances since giving birth to her daughter.
In January 2013, Destiny's Child released Love Songs, a compilation album of the romance-themed songs from their previous albums and a newly recorded track, "Nuclear". Beyoncé performed the American national anthem singing along with a pre-recorded track at President Obama's second inauguration in Washington, D.C. The following month, Beyoncé performed at the Super Bowl XLVII halftime show, held at the Mercedes-Benz Superdome in New Orleans. The performance stands as the second most tweeted about moment in history at 268,000 tweets per minute. At the 55th Annual Grammy Awards, Beyoncé won for Best Traditional R&B Performance for "Love on Top". Her feature-length documentary film, Life Is But a Dream, first aired on HBO on February 16, 2013. The film was co-directed by Beyoncé herself.
2013–2015: Beyoncé
Beyoncé embarked on The Mrs. Carter Show World Tour on April 15 in Belgrade, Serbia; the tour included 132 dates that ran through to March 2014. It became the most successful tour of her career and one of the most successful tours of all time. In May, Beyoncé's cover of Amy Winehouse's "Back to Black" with André 3000 on The Great Gatsby soundtrack was released. Beyoncé voiced Queen Tara in the 3D CGI animated film, Epic, released by 20th Century Fox on May 24, and recorded an original song for the film, "Rise Up", co-written with Sia.
On December 13, 2013, Beyoncé unexpectedly released her eponymous fifth studio album on the iTunes Store without any prior announcement or promotion. The album debuted atop the Billboard 200 chart, giving Beyoncé her fifth consecutive number-one album in the US. This made her the first woman in the chart's history to have her first five studio albums debut at number one. Beyoncé received critical acclaim and commercial success, selling one million digital copies worldwide in six days; Musically an electro-R&B album, it concerns darker themes previously unexplored in her work, such as "bulimia, postnatal depression [and] the fears and insecurities of marriage and motherhood". The single "Drunk in Love", featuring Jay-Z, peaked at number two on the Billboard Hot 100 chart.
In April 2014, Beyoncé and Jay-Z officially announced their On the Run Tour. It served as the couple's first co-headlining stadium tour together. On August 24, 2014, she received the Michael Jackson Video Vanguard Award at the 2014 MTV Video Music Awards. Beyoncé also won home three competitive awards: Best Video with a Social Message and Best Cinematography for "Pretty Hurts", as well as best collaboration for "Drunk in Love". In November, Forbes reported that Beyoncé was the top-earning woman in music for the second year in a row – earning $115 million in the year, more than double her earnings in 2013. Beyoncé was reissued with new material in three forms: as an extended play, a box set, as well as a full platinum edition. According to the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI), in the last 19 days of 2013, the album sold 2.3 million units worldwide, becoming the tenth best-selling album of 2013. The album also went on to become the twentieth best-selling album of 2014. , Beyoncé has sold over 5 million copies worldwide and has generated over 1 billion streams, .
At the 57th Annual Grammy Awards in February 2015, Beyoncé was nominated for six awards, ultimately winning three: Best R&B Performance and Best R&B Song for "Drunk in Love", and Best Surround Sound Album for Beyoncé. She was nominated for Album of the Year, but the award went to Beck for his album Morning Phase.
2016–2018: Lemonade and Everything Is Love
On February 6, 2016, Beyoncé released "Formation" and its accompanying music video exclusively on the music streaming platform Tidal; the song was made available to download for free. She performed "Formation" live for the first time during the NFL Super Bowl 50 halftime show. The appearance was considered controversial as it appeared to reference the 50th anniversary of the Black Panther Party and the NFL forbids political statements in its performances. Immediately following the performance, Beyoncé announced The Formation World Tour, which highlighted stops in both North America, and Europe. It ended on October 7, with Beyoncé bringing out her husband Jay-Z, Kendrick Lamar, and Serena Williams for the last show. The tour went on to win Tour of the Year at the 44th American Music Awards.
On April 16, 2016, Beyoncé released a teaser clip for a project called Lemonade. It turned out to be a one-hour film which aired on HBO exactly a week later; a corresponding album with the same title was released on the same day exclusively on Tidal. Lemonade debuted at number one on the U.S. Billboard 200, making Beyoncé the first act in Billboard history to have their first six studio albums debut atop the chart; she broke a record previously tied with DMX in 2013. With all 12 tracks of Lemonade debuting on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, Beyoncé also became the first female act to chart 12 or more songs at the same time. Additionally, Lemonade was streamed 115 million times through Tidal, setting a record for the most-streamed album in a single week by a female artist in history. It was 2016's third highest-selling album in the U.S. with 1.554 million copies sold in that time period within the country as well as the best-selling album worldwide with global sales of 2.5 million throughout the year. In June 2019, Lemonade was certified 3× Platinum, having sold up to 3 million album-equivalent units in the United States alone.
Lemonade became her most critically acclaimed work to date, receiving universal acclaim according to Metacritic, a website collecting reviews from professional music critics. Several music publications included the album among the best of 2016, including Rolling Stone, which listed Lemonade at number one. The album's visuals were nominated in 11 categories at the 2016 MTV Video Music Awards, the most ever received by Beyoncé in a single year, and went on to win 8 awards, including Video of the Year for "Formation". The eight wins made Beyoncé the most-awarded artist in the history of the VMAs (24), surpassing Madonna (20). Beyoncé occupied the sixth place for Time magazine's 2016 Person of the Year.
In January 2017, it was announced that Beyoncé would headline the Coachella Music and Arts Festival. This would make Beyoncé only the second female headliner of the festival since it was founded in 1999. It was later announced on February 23, 2017, that Beyoncé would no longer be able to perform at the festival due to doctor's concerns regarding her pregnancy. The festival owners announced that she will instead headline the 2018 festival. Upon the announcement of Beyoncé's departure from the festival lineup, ticket prices dropped by 12%. At the 59th Grammy Awards in February 2017, Lemonade led the nominations with nine, including Album, Record, and Song of the Year for Lemonade and "Formation" respectively. and ultimately won two, Best Urban Contemporary Album for Lemonade and Best Music Video for "Formation". Adele, upon winning her Grammy for Album of the Year, stated Lemonade was monumental and more deserving.
In September 2017, Beyoncé collaborated with J Balvin and Willy William, to release a remix of the song "Mi Gente". Beyoncé donated all proceeds from the song to hurricane charities for those affected by Hurricane Harvey and Hurricane Irma in Texas, Mexico, Puerto Rico, and other Caribbean Islands. On November 10, Eminem released "Walk on Water" featuring Beyoncé as the lead single from his album Revival. On November 30, Ed Sheeran announced that Beyoncé would feature on the remix to his song "Perfect". "Perfect Duet" was released on December 1, 2017. The song reached number-one in the United States, becoming Beyoncé's sixth song of her solo career to do so.
On January 4, 2018, the music video of Beyoncé and Jay-Z's 4:44 collaboration, "Family Feud" was released. It was directed by Ava DuVernay. On March 1, 2018, DJ Khaled released "Top Off" as the first single from his forthcoming album Father of Asahd featuring Beyoncé, husband Jay-Z, and Future. On March 5, 2018, a joint tour with Knowles's husband Jay-Z, was leaked on Facebook. Information about the tour was later taken down. The couple announced the joint tour officially as On the Run II Tour on March 12 and simultaneously released a trailer for the tour on YouTube. On March 20, 2018, the couple traveled to Jamaica to film a music video directed by Melina Matsoukas.
On April 14, 2018, Beyoncé played the first of two weekends as the headlining act of the Coachella Music Festival. Her performance of April 14, attended by 125,000 festival-goers, was immediately praised, with multiple media outlets describing it as historic. The performance became the most-tweeted-about performance of weekend one, as well as the most-watched live Coachella performance and the most-watched live performance on YouTube of all time. The show paid tribute to black culture, specifically historically black colleges and universities and featured a live band with over 100 dancers. Destiny's Child also reunited during the show.
On June 6, 2018, Beyoncé and husband Jay-Z kicked-off the On the Run II Tour in Cardiff, United Kingdom. Ten days later, at their final London performance, the pair unveiled Everything Is Love, their joint studio album, credited under the name The Carters, and initially available exclusively on Tidal. The pair also released the video for the album's lead single, "Apeshit", on Beyoncé's official YouTube channel. Everything Is Love received generally positive reviews, and debuted at number two on the U.S. Billboard 200, with 123,000 album-equivalent units, of which 70,000 were pure album sales. On December 2, 2018, Beyoncé alongside Jay-Z headlined the Global Citizen Festival: Mandela 100 which was held at FNB Stadium in Johannesburg, South Africa. Their 2-hour performance had concepts similar to the On the Run II Tour and Beyoncé was praised for her outfits, which paid tribute to Africa's diversity.
2019–present: Homecoming, The Lion King and Black Is King
Homecoming, a documentary and concert film focusing on Beyoncé's historic 2018 Coachella performances, was released by Netflix on April 17, 2019. The film was accompanied by the surprise live album Homecoming: The Live Album. It was later reported that Beyoncé and Netflix had signed a $60 million deal to produce three different projects, one of which is Homecoming. Homecoming received six nominations at the 71st Primetime Creative Arts Emmy Awards.
Beyoncé starred as the voice of Nala in the remake The Lion King, which was released on July 19, 2019. Beyoncé is featured on the film's soundtrack, released on July 11, 2019, with a remake of the song "Can You Feel the Love Tonight" alongside Donald Glover, Billy Eichner and Seth Rogen, which was originally composed by Elton John. Additionally, an original song from the film by Beyoncé, "Spirit", was released as the lead single from both the soundtrack and The Lion King: The Gift – a companion album released alongside the film, produced and curated by Beyoncé. Beyoncé called The Lion King: The Gift a "sonic cinema". She also stated that the album is influenced by everything from R&B, pop, hip hop and Afro Beat. The songs were additionally produced by African producers, which Beyoncé said was because "authenticity and heart were important to [her]", since the film is set in Africa. In September of the same year, a documentary chronicling the development, production and early music video filming of The Lion King: The Gift entitled "Beyoncé Presents: Making The Gift" was aired on ABC.
On April 29, 2020, Beyoncé was featured on the remix of Megan Thee Stallion's song "Savage", marking her first material of music for the year. The song peaked at number one on the Billboard Hot 100, marking Beyoncé's eleventh song to do so across all acts. On June 19, 2020, Beyoncé released the nonprofit charity single "Black Parade". On June 23, she followed up the release of its studio version with an a capella version exclusively on Tidal. Black Is King, a visual album based on the music of The Lion King: The Gift, premiered globally on Disney+ on July 31, 2020. Produced by Disney and Parkwood Entertainment, the film was written, directed and executive produced by Beyoncé. The film was described by Disney as "a celebratory memoir for the world on the Black experience". Beyoncé received the most nominations (9) at the 63rd Annual Grammy Awards and the most awards (4), which made her the most-awarded singer, most-awarded female artist, and second-most-awarded artist in Grammy history.
Beyoncé wrote and recorded a song titled "Be Alive" for the biographical drama film King Richard. She received her first Academy Award nomination for Best Original Song at the 94th Academy Awards for the song, alongside co-writer DIXSON.
Artistry
Voice and musical style
Beyoncé's voice type is classified as dramatic mezzo-soprano. Jody Rosen highlights her tone and timbre as particularly distinctive, describing her voice as "one of the most compelling instruments in popular music". Her vocal abilities mean she is identified as the centerpiece of Destiny's Child. Jon Pareles of The New York Times commented that her voice is "velvety yet tart, with an insistent flutter and reserves of soul belting". Rosen notes that the hip hop era highly influenced Beyoncé's unique rhythmic vocal style, but also finds her quite traditionalist in her use of balladry, gospel and falsetto. Other critics praise her range and power, with Chris Richards of The Washington Post saying she was "capable of punctuating any beat with goose-bump-inducing whispers or full-bore diva-roars."
Beyoncé's music is generally R&B, pop and hip hop but she also incorporates soul and funk into her songs. 4 demonstrated Beyoncé's exploration of 1990s-style R&B, as well as further use of soul and hip hop than compared to previous releases. While she almost exclusively releases English songs, Beyoncé recorded several Spanish songs for Irreemplazable (re-recordings of songs from B'Day for a Spanish-language audience), and the re-release of B'Day. To record these, Beyoncé was coached phonetically by American record producer Rudy Perez.
Songwriting
Beyoncé has received co-writing credits for most of her songs. In regards to the way she approaches collaborative songwriting, Beyoncé explained: "I love being around great writers because I'm finding that a lot of the things I want to say, I don't articulate as good as maybe Amanda Ghost, so I want to keep collaborating with writers, and I love classics and I want to make sure years from now the song is still something that's relevant." Her early songs with Destiny's Child were personally driven and female-empowerment themed compositions like "Independent Women" and "Survivor", but after the start of her relationship with Jay-Z, she transitioned to more man-tending anthems such as "Cater 2 U".
In 2001, she became the first Black woman and second female lyricist to win the Pop Songwriter of the Year award at the ASCAP Pop Music Awards. Beyoncé was the third woman to have writing credits on three number-one songs ("Irreplaceable", "Grillz" and "Check on It") in the same year, after Carole King in 1971 and Mariah Carey in 1991. She is tied with American lyricist Diane Warren at third with nine songwriting credits on number-one singles. The latter wrote her 9/11-motivated song "I Was Here" for 4. In May 2011, Billboard magazine listed Beyoncé at number 17 on their list of the Top 20 Hot 100 Songwriters for having co-written eight singles that hit number one on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. She was one of only three women on that list, along with Alicia Keys and Taylor Swift.
Beyoncé has long received criticism, including from journalists and musicians, for the extensive writing credits on her songs. The controversy surrounding her songwriting credits began with interviews in which she attributed herself as the songwriter for songs in which she was a co-writer or for which her contributions were marginal. In a cover story for Vanity Fair in 2005, she claimed to have "written" several number-one songs for Destiny's Child, contrary to the credits, which list her as a co-writer among others. In a 2007 interview with Barbara Walters, she claimed to have conceived the musical idea for the Destiny's Child hit "Bootylicious", which provoked the song's producer Rob Fusari to call her father and then-manager Mathew Knowles in protest over the claim. As Fusari tells Billboard, "[Knowles] explained to me, in a nice way, he said, 'People don't want to hear about Rob Fusari, producer from Livingston, N.J. No offense, but that's not what sells records. What sells records is people believing that the artist is everything. However, in an interview for Entertainment Weekly in 2016, Fusari said Beyoncé "had the 'Bootylicious' concept in her head. That was totally her. She knew what she wanted to say. It was very urban pop angle that they were taking on the record."
In 2007, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences ruled out Beyoncé as a songwriter on "Listen" (from Dreamgirls) for its Oscar nomination in the Best Original Song category. Responding to a then-new three-writer limit, the Academy deemed her contribution the least significant for inclusion. In 2009, Ryan Tedder's original demo for "Halo" leaked on the Internet, revealing an identical resemblance to Beyoncé's recording, for which she received a writing credit. When interviewed by The Guardian, Tedder explained that Beyoncé had edited the bridge of the song vocally and thus earned the credit, although he vaguely questioned the ethics of her possible "demand" for a writing credit in other instances. Tedder elaborated when speaking to Gigwise that "She does stuff on any given song that, when you go from the demo to the final version, takes it to another level that you never would have thought of as the writer. For instance, on 'Halo,' that bridge on her version is completely different to my original one. Basically, she came in, ditched that, edited it, did her vocal thing on it, and now it's become one of my favorite parts of the song. The whole melody, she wrote it spontaneously in the studio. So her credit on that song stems from that." In 2014, the popular industry songwriter Linda Perry responded to a question about Beyoncé receiving a co-writing credit for changing one lyric to a song: "Well haha um that's not songwriting but some of these artists believe if it wasn't for them your song would never get out there so they take a cut just because they are who they are. But everyone knows the real truth about Beyoncé. She is talented but in a completely different way." Perry's remarks were echoed by Frank Ocean, who acknowledged the trend of recording artists forcing writing credits while jokingly suggesting Beyoncé had an exceptional status.
Reflecting on the controversy, Sunday Independent columnist Alexis Kritselis wrote in 2014, "It seems as though our love for all things Beyoncé has blinded us to the very real claims of theft and plagiarism that have plagued her career for years", and that, "because of her power and influence in the music industry, it may be hard for some songwriters to 'just say no' to Beyoncé." While reporting on her controversial writing record, pop culture critics such as Roger Friedman and The Daily Beasts Kevin Fallon said the trend has redefined popular conceptions of songwriting, with Fallon saying, "the village of authors and composers that populate Lemonade, [Kanye West']s Life of Pablo, [Rihanna's] Anti, or [Drake's] Views – all of which are still reflective of an artist's voice and vision ... speaks to the truth of the way the industry's top artists create their music today: by committee." James S. Murphy of Vanity Fair suggests Beyoncé is among the major artists like Frank Sinatra and Billie Holiday who are "celebrated [not] because [they] write such good parts, but because [they] create them out of the words that are given".
Meanwhile, Everything Is Love producers Cool & Dre stated that Beyoncé is "100 percent involved" in writing her own songs, with Dre saying that "She put her mind to the music and did her thing. If she had a melody idea, she came up with the words. If we had the words, she came up with the melody. She's a beast", when speaking on the writing process of Everything Is Love. Ne-Yo, when asked about his collaborative writing experience with Beyoncé on "Irreplaceable", said that they both wrote "two damn totally different songs ... So, yeah, I gave her writer's credit. Because that counts. That's writing ... She put her spin on it." As for Drake: Pound Cake' happened while I was writing for Beyoncé or working with Beyoncé, not writing for, working with. I hate saying writing for 'cause she's a phenomenal writer. She has bars on bars." The-Dream revealed: "We did a whole Fela album that didn't go up. It was right before we did 4. We did a whole different sounding thing, about twenty songs. She said she wanted to do something that sounds like Fela. That's why there's so much of that sound in the 'End of Time.' There's always multiple albums being made. Most of the time we're just being creative, period. We're talking about B, somebody who sings all day long and somebody who writes all day long. There's probably a hundred records just sitting around."
Influences
Beyoncé names Michael Jackson as her major musical influence. Aged five, Beyoncé attended her first ever concert where Jackson performed and she claims to have realized her purpose. When she presented him with a tribute award at the World Music Awards in 2006, Beyoncé said, "if it wasn't for Michael Jackson, I would never ever have performed." Beyoncé was heavily influenced by Tina Turner, who she said "Tina Turner is someone that I admire, because she made her strength feminine and sexy". She admires Diana Ross as an "all-around entertainer", and Whitney Houston, who she said "inspired me to get up there and do what she did." Beyoncé cited Madonna as an influence "not only for her musical style, but also for her business sense", saying that she wanted to "follow in the footsteps of Madonna and be a powerhouse and have my own empire." She also credits Mariah Carey's singing and her song "Vision of Love" as influencing her to begin practicing vocal runs as a child. Her other musical influences include Prince, Shakira, Lauryn Hill, Sade Adu, Donna Summer, Mary J. Blige, Anita Baker, and Toni Braxton.
The feminism and female empowerment themes on Beyoncé's second solo album B'Day were inspired by her role in Dreamgirls and by singer Josephine Baker. Beyoncé paid homage to Baker by performing "Déjà Vu" at the 2006 Fashion Rocks concert wearing Baker's trademark mini-hula skirt embellished with fake bananas. Beyoncé's third solo album, I Am... Sasha Fierce, was inspired by Jay-Z and especially by Etta James, whose "boldness" inspired Beyoncé to explore other musical genres and styles. Her fourth solo album, 4, was inspired by Fela Kuti, 1990s R&B, Earth, Wind & Fire, DeBarge, Lionel Richie, Teena Marie, The Jackson 5, New Edition, Adele, Florence and the Machine, and Prince.
Beyoncé has stated that she is personally inspired by Michelle Obama (the 44th First Lady of the United States), saying "she proves you can do it all", and has described Oprah Winfrey as "the definition of inspiration and a strong woman." She has also discussed how Jay-Z is a continuing inspiration to her, both with what she describes as his lyrical genius and in the obstacles he has overcome in his life. Beyoncé has expressed admiration for the artist Jean-Michel Basquiat, posting in a letter "what I find in the work of Jean-Michel Basquiat, I search for in every day in music ... he is lyrical and raw". Beyoncé also cited Cher as a fashion inspiration.
Music videos and stage
In 2006, Beyoncé introduced her all-female tour band Suga Mama (also the name of a song on B'Day) which includes bassists, drummers, guitarists, horn players, keyboardists and percussionists. Her background singers, The Mamas, consist of Montina Cooper-Donnell, Crystal Collins and Tiffany Moniqué Riddick. They made their debut appearance at the 2006 BET Awards and re-appeared in the music videos for "Irreplaceable" and "Green Light". The band have supported Beyoncé in most subsequent live performances, including her 2007 concert tour The Beyoncé Experience, I Am... World Tour (2009–2010), The Mrs. Carter Show World Tour (2013–2014) and The Formation World Tour (2016).
Beyoncé has received praise for her stage presence and voice during live performances. Jarett Wieselman of the New York Post placed her at number one on her list of the Five Best Singer/Dancers. According to Barbara Ellen of The Guardian Beyoncé is the most in-charge female artist she's seen onstage, while Alice Jones of The Independent wrote she "takes her role as entertainer so seriously she's almost too good." The ex-President of Def Jam L.A. Reid has described Beyoncé as the greatest entertainer alive. Jim Farber of the Daily News and Stephanie Classen of The StarPhoenix both praised her strong voice and her stage presence. Beyoncé's stage outfits have been met with criticism from many countries, such as Malaysia, where she has postponed or cancelled performances due to the country's strict laws banning revealing costumes.
Beyoncé has worked with numerous directors for her music videos throughout her career, including Melina Matsoukas, Jonas Åkerlund, and Jake Nava. Bill Condon, director of Beauty and the Beast, stated that the Lemonade visuals in particular served as inspiration for his film, commenting, "You look at Beyoncé's brilliant movie Lemonade, this genre is taking on so many different forms ... I do think that this very old-school break-out-into-song traditional musical is something that people understand again and really want."
Alter ego
Described as being "sexy, seductive and provocative" when performing on stage, Beyoncé has said that she originally created the alter ego "Sasha Fierce" to keep that stage persona separate from who she really is. She described Sasha as being "too aggressive, too strong, too sassy [and] too sexy", stating, "I'm not like her in real life at all." Sasha was conceived during the making of "Crazy in Love", and Beyoncé introduced her with the release of her 2008 album, I Am... Sasha Fierce. In February 2010, she announced in an interview with Allure magazine that she was comfortable enough with herself to no longer need Sasha Fierce. However, Beyoncé announced in May 2012 that she would bring her back for her Revel Presents: Beyoncé Live shows later that month.
Public image
Beyoncé has been described as having a wide-ranging sex appeal, with music journalist Touré writing that since the release of Dangerously in Love, she has "become a crossover sex symbol". Offstage Beyoncé says that while she likes to dress sexily, her onstage dress "is absolutely for the stage". Due to her curves and the term's catchiness, in the 2000s, the media often used the term "bootylicious" (a portmanteau of the words "booty" and "delicious") to describe Beyoncé, the term popularized by Destiny's Child's single of the same name. In 2006, it was added to the Oxford English Dictionary.
In September 2010, Beyoncé made her runway modelling debut at Tom Ford's Spring/Summer 2011 fashion show. She was named the "World's Most Beautiful Woman" by People and the "Hottest Female Singer of All Time" by Complex in 2012. In January 2013, GQ placed her on its cover, featuring her atop its "100 Sexiest Women of the 21st Century" list. VH1 listed her at number 1 on its 100 Sexiest Artists list. Several wax figures of Beyoncé are found at Madame Tussauds Wax Museums in major cities around the world, including New York, Washington, D.C., Amsterdam, Bangkok, Hollywood and Sydney.
According to Italian fashion designer Roberto Cavalli, Beyoncé uses different fashion styles to work with her music while performing. Her mother co-wrote a book, published in 2002, titled Destiny's Style, an account of how fashion affected the trio's success. The B'Day Anthology Video Album showed many instances of fashion-oriented footage, depicting classic to contemporary wardrobe styles. In 2007, Beyoncé was featured on the cover of the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue, becoming the second African American woman after Tyra Banks, and People magazine recognized Beyoncé as the best-dressed celebrity.
Beyoncé has been named "Queen Bey" from publications over the years. The term is a reference to the common phrase "queen bee", a term used for the leader of a group of females. The nickname also refers to the queen of a beehive, with her fan base being named "The BeyHive". The BeyHive was previously titled "The Beyontourage", (a portmanteau of Beyoncé and entourage), but was changed after online petitions on Twitter and online news reports during competitions. The BeyHive has been named one of the most loyal and defensive fan bases and has achieved notoriety for being fiercely protective of Beyoncé.
In 2006, the animal rights organization People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), criticized Beyoncé for wearing and using fur in her clothing line House of Deréon. In 2011, she appeared on the cover of French fashion magazine L'Officiel, in blackface and tribal makeup that drew criticism from the media. A statement released from a spokesperson for the magazine said that Beyoncé's look was "far from the glamorous Sasha Fierce" and that it was "a return to her African roots".
Beyoncé's lighter skin color and costuming has drawn criticism from some in the African-American community. Emmett Price, a professor of music at Northeastern University, wrote in 2007 that he thinks race plays a role in many of these criticisms, saying white celebrities who dress similarly do not attract as many comments. In 2008, L'Oréal was accused of whitening her skin in their Feria hair color advertisements, responding that "it is categorically untrue", and in 2013, Beyoncé herself criticized H&M for their proposed "retouching" of promotional images of her, and according to Vogue requested that only "natural pictures be used".
Beyoncé has been a vocal advocate for the Black Lives Matter movement. The release of "Formation" on February 6, 2016 saw her celebrate her heritage, with the song's music video featuring pro-black imagery and most notably a shot of wall graffiti that says "Stop shooting us". The day after the song's release she performed it at the 2016 Super Bowl halftime show with back up dancers dressed to represent the Black Panther Party. This incited criticism from politicians and police officers, with some police boycotting Beyoncé's then upcoming Formation World Tour. Beyoncé responded to the backlash by releasing tour merchandise that said "Boycott Beyoncé", and later clarified her sentiment, saying: “Anyone who perceives my message as anti-police is completely mistaken. I have so much admiration and respect for officers and the families of officers who sacrifice themselves to keep us safe,” Beyoncé said. “But let’s be clear: I am against police brutality and injustice. Those are two separate things.”
Personal life
Marriage and children
Beyoncé started a relationship with Jay-Z after their collaboration on '03 Bonnie & Clyde", which appeared on his seventh album The Blueprint 2: The Gift & The Curse (2002). Beyoncé appeared as Jay-Z's girlfriend in the music video for the song, fueling speculation about their relationship. On April 4, 2008, Beyoncé and Jay-Z married without publicity. , the couple had sold a combined 300 million records together. They are known for their private relationship, although they have appeared to become more relaxed in recent years. Both have acknowledged difficulty that arose in their marriage after Jay-Z had an affair.
Beyoncé miscarried around 2010 or 2011, describing it as "the saddest thing" she had ever endured. She returned to the studio and wrote music to cope with the loss. In April 2011, Beyoncé and Jay-Z traveled to Paris to shoot the album cover for 4, and she unexpectedly became pregnant in Paris. In August, the couple attended the 2011 MTV Video Music Awards, at which Beyoncé performed "Love on Top" and ended the performance by revealing she was pregnant. Her appearance helped that year's MTV Video Music Awards become the most-watched broadcast in MTV history, pulling in 12.4 million viewers; the announcement was listed in Guinness World Records for "most tweets per second recorded for a single event" on Twitter, receiving 8,868 tweets per second and "Beyonce pregnant" was the most Googled phrase the week of August 29, 2011. On January 7, 2012, Beyoncé gave birth to a daughter, Blue Ivy, at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City.
Following the release of Lemonade, which included the single "Sorry", in 2016, speculations arose about Jay-Z's alleged infidelity with a mistress referred to as "Becky". Jon Pareles in The New York Times pointed out that many of the accusations were "aimed specifically and recognizably" at him. Similarly, Rob Sheffield of Rolling Stone magazine noted the lines "Suck on my balls, I've had enough" were an "unmistakable hint" that the lyrics revolve around Jay-Z.
On February 1, 2017, she revealed on her Instagram account that she was expecting twins. Her announcement gained over 6.3 million likes within eight hours, breaking the world record for the most liked image on the website at the time. On July 13, 2017, Beyoncé uploaded the first image of herself and the twins onto her Instagram account, confirming their birth date as a month prior, on June 13, 2017, with the post becoming the second most liked on Instagram, behind her own pregnancy announcement. The twins, a daughter named Rumi and a son named Sir, were born at Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center in California. She wrote of her pregnancy and its aftermath in the September 2018 issue of Vogue, in which she had full control of the cover, shot at Hammerwood Park by photographer Tyler Mitchell.
Activism
Beyoncé performed "America the Beautiful" at President Barack Obama's 2009 presidential inauguration, as well as "At Last" during the first inaugural dance at the Neighborhood Ball two days later. The couple held a fundraiser at Jay-Z's 40/40 Club in Manhattan for President Obama's 2012 presidential campaign which raised $4 million. In the 2012 presidential election, the singer voted for President Obama. She performed the American national anthem "The Star-Spangled Banner" at his second inauguration in January 2013.
The Washington Post reported in May 2015, that Beyoncé attended a major celebrity fundraiser for 2016 presidential nominee Hillary Clinton. She also headlined for Clinton in a concert held the weekend before Election Day the next year. In this performance, Beyoncé and her entourage of backup dancers wore pantsuits; a clear allusion to Clinton's frequent dress-of-choice. The backup dancers also wore "I'm with her" tee shirts, the campaign slogan for Clinton. In a brief speech at this performance Beyoncé said, "I want my daughter to grow up seeing a woman lead our country and knowing that her possibilities are limitless." She endorsed the bid of Beto O'Rourke during the 2018 United States Senate election in Texas.
In 2013, Beyoncé stated in an interview in Vogue that she considered herself to be "a modern-day feminist". She would later align herself more publicly with the movement, sampling "We should all be feminists", a speech delivered by Nigerian author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie at a TEDx talk in April 2013, in her song "Flawless", released later that year. The next year she performed live at the MTV Video Awards in front a giant backdrop reading "Feminist". Her self-identification incited a circulation of opinions and debate about whether her feminism is aligned with older, more established feminist ideals. Annie Lennox, celebrated artist and feminist advocate, referred to Beyoncé's use of her word feminist as 'feminist lite'. bell hooks critiqued Beyoncé, referring to her as a "terrorist" towards feminism, harmfully impacting her audience of young girls. Adichie responded with "her type of feminism is not mine, as it is the kind that, at the same time, gives quite a lot of space to the necessity of men." Adichie expands upon what 'feminist lite' means to her, referring that "more troubling is the idea, in Feminism Lite, that men are naturally superior but should be expected to "treat women well" and "we judge powerful women more harshly than we judge powerful men. And Feminism Lite enables this." Beyoncé responded about her intent by utilizing the definition of feminist with her platform was to "give clarity to the true meaning" behind it. She says to understand what being a feminist is, "it's very simple. It's someone who believes in equal rights for men and women." She advocated to provide equal opportunities for young boys and girls, men and women must begin to understand the double standards that remain persistent in our societies and the issue must be illuminated in effort to start making changes.
She has also contributed to the Ban Bossy campaign, which uses TV and social media to encourage leadership in girls. Following Beyoncé's public identification as a feminist, the sexualized nature of her performances and the fact that she championed her marriage was questioned.
In December 2012, Beyoncé along with a variety of other celebrities teamed up and produced a video campaign for "Demand A Plan", a bipartisan effort by a group of 950 U.S. mayors and others designed to influence the federal government into rethinking its gun control laws, following the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting. Beyoncé publicly endorsed same-sex marriage on March 26, 2013, after the Supreme Court debate on California's Proposition 8. She spoke against North Carolina's Public Facilities Privacy & Security Act, a bill passed (and later repealed) that discriminated against the LGBT community in public places in a statement during her concert in Raleigh as part of the Formation World Tour in 2016. She has also condemned police brutality against black Americans. She and Jay-Z attended a rally in 2013 in response to the acquittal of George Zimmerman for the killing of Trayvon Martin. The film for her sixth album Lemonade included the mothers of Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown and Eric Garner, holding pictures of their sons in the video for "Freedom". In a 2016 interview with Elle, Beyoncé responded to the controversy surrounding her song "Formation" which was perceived to be critical of the police. She clarified, "I am against police brutality and injustice. Those are two separate things. If celebrating my roots and culture during Black History Month made anyone uncomfortable, those feelings were there long before a video and long before me".
In February 2017, Beyoncé spoke out against the withdrawal of protections for transgender students in public schools by Donald Trump's presidential administration. Posting a link to the 100 Days of Kindness campaign on her Facebook page, Beyoncé voiced her support for transgender youth and joined a roster of celebrities who spoke out against Trump's decision.
In November 2017, Beyoncé presented Colin Kaepernick with the 2017 Sports Illustrated Muhammad Ali Legacy Award, stating, "Thank you for your selfless heart and your conviction, thank you for your personal sacrifice", and that "Colin took action with no fear of consequence ... To change perception, to change the way we treat each other, especially people of color. We're still waiting for the world to catch up." Muhammad Ali was heavily penalized in his career for protesting the status quo of US civil rights through opposition to the Vietnam War, by refusing to serve in the military. 40 years later, Kaepernick had already lost one professional year due to taking a much quieter and legal stand "for people that are oppressed".
Wealth
Forbes magazine began reporting on Beyoncé's earnings in 2008, calculating that the $80 million earned between June 2007 to June 2008, for her music, tour, films and clothing line made her the world's best-paid music personality at the time, above Madonna and Celine Dion. It placed her fourth on the Celebrity 100 list in 2009
and ninth on the "Most Powerful Women in the World" list in 2010. The following year, the magazine placed her eighth on the "Best-Paid Celebrities Under 30" list, having earned $35 million in the past year for her clothing line and endorsement deals. In 2012, Forbes placed Beyoncé at number 16 on the Celebrity 100 list, twelve places lower than three years ago yet still having earned $40 million in the past year for her album 4, clothing line and endorsement deals. In the same year, Beyoncé and Jay-Z placed at number one on the "World's Highest-Paid Celebrity Couples", for collectively earning $78 million. The couple made it into the previous year's Guinness World Records as the "highest-earning power couple" for collectively earning $122 million in 2009. For the years 2009 to 2011, Beyoncé earned an average of $70 million per year, and earned $40 million in 2012. In 2013, Beyoncé's endorsements of Pepsi and H&M made her and Jay-Z the world's first billion dollar couple in the music industry. That year, Beyoncé was published as the fourth most-powerful celebrity in the Forbes rankings.
MTV estimated that by the end of 2014, Beyoncé would become the highest-paid Black musician in history; this became the case in April 2014. In June 2014, Beyoncé ranked at number one on the Forbes Celebrity 100 list, earning an estimated $115 million throughout June 2013 – June 2014. This in turn was the first time she had topped the Celebrity 100 list as well as being her highest yearly earnings to date. In 2016, Beyoncé ranked at number 34 on the Celebrity 100 list with earnings of $54 million. She and Jay-Z also topped the highest paid celebrity couple list, with combined earnings of $107.5 million. , Forbes calculated her net worth to be $355 million, and in June of the same year, ranked her as the 35th highest earning celebrity with annual earnings of $60 million. This tied Beyoncé with Madonna as the only two female artists to earn more than $100 million within a single year twice. As a couple, Beyoncé and Jay-Z have a combined net worth of $1.16 billion. In July 2017, Billboard announced that Beyoncé was the highest paid musician of 2016, with an estimated total of $62.1 million.
Impact
Beyoncé's success has led to her becoming a cultural icon and earning her the nickname "Queen Bey". In The New Yorker, music critic Jody Rosen described Beyoncé as "the most important and compelling popular musician of the twenty-first century ... the result, the logical end point, of a century-plus of pop." Author James Clear, in his book Atomic Habits (2018), draws a parallel between the singer's success and the dramatic transformations in modern society: "In the last one hundred years, we have seen the rise of the car, the airplane, the television, the personal computer, the internet, the smartphone, and Beyoncé." The Observer named her Artist of the Decade (2000s) in 2009.
Writing for Entertainment Weekly, Alex Suskind noticed how Beyoncé was the decade's (2010s) defining pop star, stating that "no one dominated music in the 2010s like Queen Bey", explaining that her "songs, album rollouts, stage presence, social justice initiatives, and disruptive public relations strategy have influenced the way we've viewed music since 2010." British publication NME also shared similar thoughts on her impact in the 2010s, including Beyoncé on their list of the "10 Artists Who Defined The Decade". In 2018, Rolling Stone included her on its Millennial 100 list.
Beyoncé is credited with the invention of the staccato rap-singing style that has since dominated pop, R&B and rap music. Lakin Starling of The Fader wrote that Beyoncé's innovative implementation of the delivery style on Destiny's Child's 1999 album The Writing's on the Wall invented a new form of R&B. Beyoncé's new style subsequently changed the nature of music, revolutionizing both singing in urban music and rapping in pop music, and becoming the dominant sound of both genres. The style helped to redefine both the breadth of commercial R&B and the sound of hip hop, with artists such as Kanye West and Drake implementing Beyoncé's cadence in the late 2000s and early 2010s. The staccato rap-singing style continued to be used in the music industry in the late 2010s and early 2020s; Aaron Williams of Uproxx described Beyoncé as the "primary pioneer" of the rapping style that dominates the music industry today, with many contemporary rappers implementing Beyoncé's rap-singing. Michael Eric Dyson agrees, saying that Beyoncé "changed the whole genre" and has become the "godmother" of mumble rappers, who use the staccato rap-singing cadence. Dyson added: "She doesn't get credit for the remarkable way in which she changed the musical vocabulary of contemporary art."
Beyoncé has been credited with reviving the album as an art form in an era dominated by singles and streaming. This started with her 2011 album 4; while mainstream R&B artists were forgoing albums-led R&B in favor of singles-led EDM, Beyoncé aimed to place the focus back on albums as an artform and re-establish R&B as a mainstream concern. This remained a focus of Beyoncé's, and in 2013, she made her eponymous album only available to purchase as a full album on iTunes, rather than being able to purchase individual tracks or consume the album via streaming. Kaitlin Menza of Marie Claire wrote that this made listeners "experience the album as one whole sonic experience, the way people used to, noting the musical and lyrical themes". Jamieson Cox for The Verge described how Beyoncé's 2013 album initiated a gradual trend of albums becoming more cohesive and self-referential, and this phenomenon reached its endpoint with Lemonade, which set "a new standard for pop storytelling at the highest possible scale". Megan Carpentier of The Guardian wrote that with Lemonade, Beyoncé has "almost revived the album format" by releasing an album that can only be listened to in its entirety. Myf Warhurst on Double J's "Lunch With Myf" explained that while most artists' albums consist of a few singles plus filler songs, Beyoncé "brought the album back", changing the art form of the album "to a narrative with an arc and a story and you have to listen to the entire thing to get the concept".
Several recording artists have cited Beyoncé as their influence. Lady Gaga explained how Beyoncé gave her the determination to become a musician, recalling seeing her in a Destiny's Child music video and saying: "Oh, she's a star. I want that." Rihanna was similarly inspired to start her singing career after watching Beyoncé, telling etalk that after Beyoncé released Dangerously In Love (2003), "I was like 'wow, I want to be just like that.' She's huge and just an inspiration." Lizzo was also first inspired by Beyoncé to start singing after watching her perform at a Destiny's Child concert. Lizzo also taught herself to sing by copying Beyoncé's B'Day (2006). Similarly, Ariana Grande said she learned to sing by mimicking Beyoncé. Adele cited Beyoncé as her inspiration and favorite artist, telling Vogue: "She's been a huge and constant part of my life as an artist since I was about ten or eleven ... I think she's really inspiring. She's beautiful. She's ridiculously talented, and she is one of the kindest people I've ever met ... She makes me want to do things with my life." Both Paul McCartney and Garth Brooks said they watch Beyoncé's performances to get inspiration for their own shows, with Brooks saying that when you watch one of her performances, "take out your notebook and take notes. No matter how long you've been on the stage – take notes on that one."
She is known for coining popular phrases such as "put a ring on it", a euphemism for marriage proposal, "I woke up like this", which started a trend of posting morning selfies with the hashtag #iwokeuplikethis, and "boy, bye", which was used as part of the Democratic National Committee's campaign for the 2020 election. Similarly, she also came up with the phrase "visual album" following the release of her fifth studio album, which had a video for every song. This has been recreated by many other artists since, such as Frank Ocean and Melanie Martinez. The album also popularized surprise releases, with many artists releasing songs, videos or albums with no prior announcement, such as Taylor Swift, Nicki Minaj, Eminem, Frank Ocean, Jay-Z and Drake.
In January 2012, research scientist Bryan Lessard named Scaptia beyonceae, a species of horse-fly found in Northern Queensland, Australia after Beyoncé due to the fly's unique golden hairs on its abdomen. In 2018, the City of Columbia, South Carolina declared August 21 the Beyoncé Knowles-Carter Day in the city after presenting her with the keys to Columbia.
Achievements
Beyoncé has received numerous awards, and is the most-awarded female artist of all time. As a solo artist she has sold over 17 million albums in the US, and over 75 million worldwide (as of February 2013). Having sold over 100 million records worldwide (a further 60 million additionally with Destiny's Child), Beyoncé is one of the best-selling music artists of all time. The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) listed Beyoncé as the top certified artist of the 2000s decade, with a total of 64 certifications. Her songs "Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)", "Halo", and "Irreplaceable" are some of the best-selling singles of all time worldwide. In 2009, Billboard named her the Top Female Artist and Top Radio Songs Artist of the Decade. In 2010, Billboard named her in their Top 50 R&B/Hip-Hop Artists of the Past 25 Years list at number 15. In 2012, VH1 ranked her third on their list of the "100 Greatest Women in Music", behind Mariah Carey and Madonna. In 2002, she received Songwriter of the Year from American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers becoming the First African American woman to win the award. In 2004 and 2019, she received NAACP Image Award for Entertainer of the Year and the Soul Train Music Award for Sammy Davis Jr. – Entertainer of the Year.
In 2005, she also received APEX Award at the Trumpet Award honoring achievements of Black African Americans. In 2007, Beyoncé received the International Artist of Excellence award by the American Music Awards. She also received Honorary Otto at the Bravo Otto. The following year, she received the Legend Award for Outstanding Contribution to the Arts at the World Music Awards and Career Achievement Award at the LOS40 Music Awards. In 2010, she received Award of Honor for Artist of the Decade at the NRJ Music Award and at the 2011 Billboard Music Awards, Beyoncé received the inaugural Billboard Millennium Award. Beyoncé received the Michael Jackson Video Vanguard Award at the 2014 MTV Video Music Awards and was honored as Honorary Mother of the Year at the Australian Mother of the Year Award in Barnardo's Australia for her Humanitarian Effort in the region and the Council of Fashion Designers of America Fashion Icon Award in 2016. In 2019, alongside Jay-Z, she received GLAAD Vanguard Award that is presented to a member of the entertainment community who does not identify as LGBT but who has made a significant difference in promoting equal rights for LGBT people. In 2020, she was awarded the BET Humanitarian Award. Consequence of Sound named her the 30th best singer of all time.
Beyoncé has won 28 Grammy Awards, both as a solo artist and member of Destiny's Child and The Carters, making her the most honored singer, male or female, by the Grammys. She is also the most nominated artist in Grammy Award history with a total of 79 nominations. "Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)" won Song of the Year in 2010 while "Say My Name", "Crazy in Love" and "Drunk in Love" have each won Best R&B Song. Dangerously in Love, B'Day and I Am... Sasha Fierce have all won Best Contemporary R&B Album, while Lemonade has won Best Urban Contemporary Album. Beyoncé set the record for the most Grammy awards won by a female artist in one night in 2010 when she won six awards, breaking the tie she previously held with Alicia Keys, Norah Jones, Alison Krauss, and Amy Winehouse, with Adele equaling this in 2012.
Beyoncé has also won 24 MTV Video Music Awards, making her the most-awarded artist in Video Music Award history. She won two awards each with The Carters and Destiny's Child making her lifetime total of 28 VMAs. "Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)" and "Formation" won Video of the Year in 2009 and 2016 respectively. Beyoncé tied the record set by Lady Gaga in 2010 for the most VMAs won in one night for a female artist with eight in 2016. She is also the most-awarded and nominated artist in BET Award history, winning 29 awards from a total of 60 nominations, the most-awarded person at the Soul Train Music Awards with 17 awards as a solo artist, and the most-awarded person at the NAACP Image Awards with 24 awards as a solo artist.
Following her role in Dreamgirls, Beyoncé was nominated for Best Original Song for "Listen" and Best Actress at the Golden Globe Awards, and Outstanding Actress in a Motion Picture at the NAACP Image Awards. Beyoncé won two awards at the Broadcast Film Critics Association Awards 2006; Best Song for "Listen" and Best Original Soundtrack for Dreamgirls: Music from the Motion Picture. According to Fuse in 2014, Beyoncé is the second-most award-winning artist of all time, after Michael Jackson. Lemonade won a Peabody Award in 2017.
She was named on the 2016 BBC Radio 4 Woman's Hour Power List as one of seven women judged to have had the biggest impact on women's lives over the past 70 years, alongside Margaret Thatcher, Barbara Castle, Helen Brook, Germaine Greer, Jayaben Desai and Bridget Jones, She was named the Most Powerful Woman in Music on the same list in 2020. In the same year, Billboard named her with Destiny's Child the third Greatest Music Video artists of all time, behind Madonna and Michael Jackson.
On June 16, 2021, Beyoncé was among several celebrities at the Pollstar Awards where she won the award of "top touring artist" of the decade (2010s). On June 17, 2021, Beyoncé was inducted into the Black Music & Entertainment Walk of Fame as a member of the inaugural class.
Business and ventures
In 2010, Beyoncé founded her own entertainment company Parkwood Entertainment which formed as an imprint based from Columbia Records, the company began as a production unit for videos and films in 2008. Parkwood Entertainment is named after a street in Houston, Texas where Beyoncé once lived. With headquarters in New York City, the company serves as an umbrella for the entertainer's various brands in music, movies, videos, and fashion. The staff of Parkwood Entertainment have experiences in arts and entertainment, from filmmaking and video production to web and fashion design. In addition to departments in marketing, digital, creative, publicity, fashion design and merchandising, the company houses a state-of-the-art editing suite, where Beyoncé works on content for her worldwide tours, music videos, and television specials. Parkwood Entertainment's first production was the musical biopic Cadillac Records (2008), in which Beyoncé starred and co-produced. The company has also distributed Beyoncé's albums such as her self-titled fifth studio album (2013), Lemonade (2016) and The Carters, Everything is Love (2018). Beyoncé has also signed other artists to Parkwood such as Chloe x Halle, who performed at Super Bowl LIII in February 2019.
Endorsements and partnerships
Beyoncé has worked with Pepsi since 2002, and in 2004 appeared in a Gladiator-themed commercial with Britney Spears, Pink, and Enrique Iglesias. In 2012, Beyoncé signed a $50 million deal to endorse Pepsi. The Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPINET) wrote Beyoncé an open letter asking her to reconsider the deal because of the unhealthiness of the product and to donate the proceeds to a medical organisation. Nevertheless, NetBase found that Beyoncé's campaign was the most talked about endorsement in April 2013, with a 70 percent positive audience response to the commercial and print ads.
Beyoncé has worked with Tommy Hilfiger for the fragrances True Star (singing a cover version of "Wishing on a Star") and True Star Gold; she also promoted Emporio Armani's Diamonds fragrance in 2007. Beyoncé launched her first official fragrance, Heat, in 2010. The commercial, which featured the 1956 song "Fever", was shown after the watershed in the United Kingdom as it begins with an image of Beyoncé appearing to lie naked in a room. In February 2011, Beyoncé launched her second fragrance, Heat Rush. Beyoncé's third fragrance, Pulse, was launched in September 2011. In 2013, The Mrs. Carter Show Limited Edition version of Heat was released. The six editions of Heat are the world's best-selling celebrity fragrance line, with sales of over $400 million.
The release of a video-game Starpower: Beyoncé was cancelled after Beyoncé pulled out of a $100 million with GateFive who alleged the cancellation meant the sacking of 70 staff and millions of pounds lost in development. It was settled out of court by her lawyers in June 2013 who said that they had cancelled because GateFive had lost its financial backers. Beyoncé also has had deals with American Express, Nintendo DS and L'Oréal since the age of 18.
In March 2015, Beyoncé became a co-owner, with other artists, of the music streaming service Tidal. The service specializes in lossless audio and high definition music videos. Beyoncé's husband Jay-Z acquired the parent company of Tidal, Aspiro, in the first quarter of 2015. Including Beyoncé and Jay-Z, sixteen artist stakeholders (such as Kanye West, Rihanna, Madonna, Chris Martin, Nicki Minaj and more) co-own Tidal, with the majority owning a 3% equity stake. The idea of having an all artist owned streaming service was created by those involved to adapt to the increased demand for streaming within the current music industry.
In November 2020, Beyoncé formed a multi-year partnership with exercise equipment and media company Peloton. The partnership was formed to celebrate homecoming season in historically black colleges and universities, providing themed workout experiences inspired by Beyoncé's 2019 Homecoming film and live album after 2020's homecoming celebrations were cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic. As part of the partnership, Beyoncé and Peloton are donating free memberships to all students at 10 HBCUs, and Peloton are pursuing long-term recruiting partnerships at the HCBUs. Gwen Bethel Riley, head of music at Peloton, said: "When we had conversations with Beyoncé around how critical a social impact component was to all of us, it crystallized how important it was to embrace Homecoming as an opportunity to celebrate and create dialogue around Black culture and music, in partnership with HBCUs." Upon news of the partnership, a decline in Peloton's shares reversed, and its shares rose by 8.6%.
In 2021, Beyoncé and Jay-Z partnered with Tiffany & Co. for the company's "About Love" campaign. Beyoncé became the fourth woman, and first Black woman, to wear the Tiffany Yellow Diamond. The campaign featured a robin egg blue painting by Jean-Michel Basquiat titled Equals Pi (1982).
Fashion lines
Beyoncé and her mother introduced House of Deréon, a contemporary women's fashion line, in 2005. The concept is inspired by three generations of women in their family, with the name paying tribute to Beyoncé's grandmother, Agnèz Deréon, a respected seamstress. According to Tina, the overall style of the line best reflects her and Beyoncé's taste and style. Beyoncé and her mother founded their family's company Beyond Productions, which provides the licensing and brand management for House of Deréon, and its junior collection, Deréon. House of Deréon pieces were exhibited in Destiny's Child's shows and tours, during their Destiny Fulfilled era. The collection features sportswear, denim offerings with fur, outerwear and accessories that include handbags and footwear, and are available at department and specialty stores across the U.S. and Canada.
In 2005, Beyoncé teamed up with House of Brands, a shoe company, to produce a range of footwear for House of Deréon. In January 2008, Starwave Mobile launched Beyoncé Fashion Diva, a "high-style" mobile game with a social networking component, featuring the House of Deréon collection. In July 2009, Beyoncé and her mother launched a new junior apparel label, Sasha Fierce for Deréon, for back-to-school selling. The collection included sportswear, outerwear, handbags, footwear, eyewear, lingerie and jewelry. It was available at department stores including Macy's and Dillard's, and specialty stores Jimmy Jazz and Against All Odds. On May 27, 2010, Beyoncé teamed up with clothing store C&A to launch Deréon by Beyoncé at their stores in Brazil. The collection included tailored blazers with padded shoulders, little black dresses, embroidered tops and shirts and bandage dresses.
In October 2014, Beyoncé signed a deal to launch an activewear line of clothing with British fashion retailer Topshop. The 50–50 venture is called Ivy Park and was launched in April 2016. The brand's name is a nod to Beyoncé's daughter and her favourite number four (IV in roman numerals), and also references the park where she used to run in Texas. She has since bought out Topshop owner Philip Green from his 50% share after he was alleged to have sexually harassed, bullied and racially abused employees. She now owns the brand herself. On April 4, 2019, it was announced that Beyoncé would become a creative partner with Adidas and further develop her athletic brand Ivy Park with the company. Knowles will also develop new clothes and footwear for Adidas. Shares for the company rose 1.3% upon the news release. On December 9, 2019, they announced a launch date of January 18, 2020. Beyoncé uploaded a teaser on her website and Instagram. The collection was also previewed on the upcoming Elle January 2020 issue, where Beyoncé is seen wearing several garments, accessories and footwear from the first collection.
Philanthropy
In 2002, Beyoncé, Kelly Rowland and Tina Knowles built the Knowles-Rowland Center for Youth, a community center in Downtown Houston. After Hurricane Katrina in 2005, Beyoncé and Rowland founded the Survivor Foundation to provide transitional housing to displaced families and provide means for new building construction, to which Beyoncé contributed an initial $250,000. The foundation has since expanded to work with other charities in the city, and also provided relief following Hurricane Ike three years later. Beyoncé also donated $100,000 to the Gulf Coast Ike Relief Fund. In 2007, Beyoncé founded the Knowles-Temenos Place Apartments, a housing complex offering living space for 43 displaced individuals. As of 2016, Beyoncé had donated $7 million for the maintenance of the complex.
After starring in Cadillac Records in 2009 and learning about Phoenix House, a non-profit drug and alcohol rehabilitation organization, Beyoncé donated her full $4 million salary from the film to the organization. Beyoncé and her mother subsequently established the Beyoncé Cosmetology Center, which offers a seven-month cosmetology training course helping Phoenix House's clients gain career skills during their recovery.
In January 2010, Beyoncé participated in George Clooney and Wyclef Jean's Hope for Haiti Now: A Global Benefit for Earthquake Relief telethon, donated a large sum to the organization, and was named the official face of the limited edition CFDA "Fashion For Haiti" T-shirt, made by Theory which raised a total of $1 million. In April 2011, Beyoncé joined forces with U.S. First Lady Michelle Obama and the National Association of Broadcasters Education Foundation, to help boost the latter's campaign against child obesity by reworking her single "Get Me Bodied". Following the death of Osama bin Laden, Beyoncé released her cover of the Lee Greenwood song "God Bless the USA", as a charity single to help raise funds for the New York Police and Fire Widows' and Children's Benefit Fund.
Beyoncé became an ambassador for the 2012 World Humanitarian Day campaign donating her song "I Was Here" and its music video, shot in the UN, to the campaign. In 2013, it was announced that Beyoncé would work with Salma Hayek and Frida Giannini on a Gucci "Chime for Change" campaign that aims to spread female empowerment. The campaign, which aired on February 28, was set to her new music. A concert for the cause took place on June 1, 2013, in London. With help of the crowdfunding platform Catapult, visitors of the concert could choose between several projects promoting education of women and girls. Beyoncé also took part in "Miss a Meal", a food-donation campaign, and supported Goodwill Industries through online charity auctions at Charitybuzz that support job creation throughout Europe and the U.S.
Beyoncé and Jay-Z secretly donated tens of thousands of dollars to bail out Black Lives Matter protesters in Baltimore and Ferguson, as well as funded infrastructure for the establishment of Black Lives Matter chapters across the US. Before Beyoncé's Formation World Tour show in Tampa, her team held a private luncheon for more than 20 community leaders to discuss how Beyoncé could support local charitable initiatives, including pledging on the spot to fund 10 scholarships to provide students with financial aid. Tampa Sports Authority board member Thomas Scott said: "I don't know of a prior artist meeting with the community, seeing what their needs are, seeing how they can invest in the community. It says a lot to me about Beyoncé. She not only goes into a community and walks away with (money), but she also gives money back to that community." In June 2016, Beyoncé donated over $82,000 to the United Way of Genesee County to support victims of the Flint water crisis. Beyoncé additionally donated money to support 14 students in Michigan with their college expenses. In August 2016, Beyoncé and Jay-Z donated $1.5 million to civil rights groups including Black Lives Matter, Hands Up United and Dream Defenders. After Hurricane Matthew, Beyoncé and Jay-Z donated $15 million to the Usain Bolt Foundation to support its efforts in rebuilding homes in Haiti. In December 2016, Beyoncé was named the Most Charitable Celebrity of the year.
During Hurricane Harvey in August 2017, Beyoncé launched BeyGOOD Houston to support those affected by the hurricane in Houston. The organization donated necessities such as cots, blankets, pillows, baby products, feminine products and wheelchairs, and funded long-term revitalization projects. On September 8, Beyoncé visited Houston, where she sponsored a lunch for 400 survivors at her local church, visited the George R Brown Convention Center to discuss with people displaced by the flooding about their needs, served meals to those who lost their homes, and made a significant donation to local causes. Beyoncé additionally donated $75,000 worth of new mattresses to survivors of the hurricane. Later that month, Beyoncé released a remix of J Balvin and Willy William's "Mi Gente", with all of her proceeds being donated to disaster relief charities in Puerto Rico, Mexico, the U.S. and the Caribbean after hurricanes Harvey, Irma and Maria, and the Chiapas and Puebla earthquakes.
In April 2020, Beyoncé donated $6 million to the National Alliance in Mental Health, UCLA and local community-based organizations in order to provide mental health and personal wellness services to essential workers during the COVID-19 pandemic. BeyGOOD also teamed up with local organizations to help provide resources to communities of color, including food, water, cleaning supplies, medicines and face masks. The same month Beyoncé released a remix of Megan Thee Stallion's "Savage", with all proceeds benefiting Bread of Life Houston's COVID-19 relief efforts, which includes providing over 14 tons of food and supplies to 500 families and 100 senior citizens in Houston weekly. In May 2020, Beyoncé provided 1,000 free COVID-19 tests in Houston as part of her and her mother's #IDidMyPart initiative, which was established due to the disproportionate deaths in African-American communities. Additionally, 1,000 gloves, masks, hot meals, essential vitamins, grocery vouchers and household items were provided. In July 2020, Beyoncé established the Black-Owned Small Business Impact Fund in partnership with the NAACP, which offers $10,000 grants to black-owned small businesses in need following the George Floyd protests. All proceeds from Beyoncé's single "Black Parade" were donated to the fund. In September 2020, Beyoncé announced that she had donated an additional $1 million to the fund. As of December 31, 2020, the fund had given 715 grants to black-owned small businesses, amounting to $7.15 million donated. In October 2020, Beyoncé released a statement that she has been working with the Feminist Coalition to assist supporters of the End Sars movement in Nigeria, including covering medical costs for injured protestors, covering legal fees for arrested protestors, and providing food, emergency shelter, transportation and telecommunication means to those in need. Beyoncé also showed support for those fighting against other issues in Africa, such as the Anglophone Crisis in Cameroon, ShutItAllDown in Namibia, Zimbabwean Lives Matter in Zimbabwe and the Rape National Emergency in Liberia. In December 2020, Beyoncé donated $500,000 to help alleviate the housing crisis in the U.S. caused by the cessation of the eviction moratorium, giving 100 $5,000 grants to individuals and families facing foreclosures and evictions.
Discography
Dangerously in Love (2003)
B'Day (2006)
I Am... Sasha Fierce (2008)
4 (2011)
Beyoncé (2013)
Lemonade (2016)
Filmography
Films starred
Carmen: A Hip Hopera (2001)
Austin Powers in Goldmember (2002)
The Fighting Temptations (2003)
Fade to Black (2004)
The Pink Panther (2006)
Dreamgirls (2006)
Cadillac Records (2008)
Obsessed (2009)
Epic (2013)
The Lion King (2019)
Films directed
Life Is But a Dream (2013)
Beyoncé: Lemonade (2016)
Homecoming (2019)
Black Is King (2020)
Tours and residencies
Headlining tours
Dangerously in Love Tour (2003)
The Beyoncé Experience (2007)
I Am... World Tour (2009–2010)
The Mrs. Carter Show World Tour (2013–2014)
The Formation World Tour (2016)
Co-headlining tours
Verizon Ladies First Tour (with Alicia Keys and Missy Elliott) (2004)
On the Run Tour (with Jay-Z) (2014)
On the Run II Tour (with Jay-Z) (2018)
Residencies
I Am... Yours (2009)
4 Intimate Nights with Beyoncé (2011)
Revel Presents: Beyoncé Live (2012)
See also
Album era
Honorific nicknames in popular music
List of artists who reached number one in the United States
List of artists with the most number ones on the U.S. dance chart
List of Billboard Social 50 number-one artists
List of black Golden Globe Award winners and nominees
List of highest-grossing concert tours
Best-selling female artists of all time
List of most-followed Instagram accounts
Notes
References
External links
1981 births
Living people
20th-century American businesspeople
20th-century American businesswomen
20th-century American singers
20th-century American women singers
21st-century American actresses
21st-century American businesspeople
21st-century American businesswomen
21st-century American singers
21st-century American women singers
Actresses from Houston
African-American actresses
African-American artists
African-American businesspeople
African-American choreographers
African-American dancers
African-American fashion designers
American fashion designers
African-American female dancers
African-American women rappers
African-American women singers
African-American feminists
African-American Methodists
African-American record producers
African-American women in business
African-American women writers
American women business executives
American choreographers
American contemporary R&B singers
American cosmetics businesspeople
American fashion businesspeople
American women pop singers
American film actresses
American hip hop record producers
American female hip hop singers
American hip hop singers
American mezzo-sopranos
American music publishers (people)
American music video directors
American people of Creole descent
American retail chief executives
American soul singers
American television actresses
American United Methodists
American voice actresses
American women philanthropists
American women record producers
Black Lives Matter people
Brit Award winners
Businesspeople from Houston
Columbia Records artists
Dance-pop musicians
Destiny's Child members
Female music video directors
Feminist musicians
Gold Star Records artists
Grammy Award winners
Grammy Award winners for rap music
High School for the Performing and Visual Arts alumni
Ivor Novello Award winners
Jay-Z
Solange Knowles
Louisiana Creole people
MTV Europe Music Award winners
Music video codirectors
Musicians from Houston
NME Awards winners
Parkwood Entertainment artists
Record producers from Texas
Shoe designers
Singers from Texas
Singers with a four-octave vocal range
Texas Democrats
Women hip hop record producers
World Music Awards winners
Writers from Houston | true | [
"Nena Danevic is a film editor who was nominated at the 57th Academy Awards for Best Film Editing. She was nominated for Amadeus. She shared her nomination with Michael Chandler.\n\nShe did win at the 39th British Academy Film Awards for Best Editing. Also for Amadeus with Michael Chandler.\n\nShe also won at the American Cinema Editors awards.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n \n\nBest Editing BAFTA Award winners\nFilm editors\nPossibly living people\nYear of birth missing (living people)",
"Smok'n Frolic (foaled April 9th, 1999) is an American Thoroughbred racehorse and the winner of the Next Move Handicap.\n\nCareer\n\nSmok'n Frolic's first race was on April 13th, 2001, at Keeneland, where he came in fourth. She then won her next two races at Belmont Park, winning a Maiden Special Weight race and the 2001 Fashion Stakes\n\nShe raced in the Spinaway Stakes coming in 2nd, and picked up his first graded win at the 2001 Tempted Stakes. She followed that victory up with another win the following month at the 2001 Demoiselle Stakes.\n\nShe competed in multiple stakes races throughout 2002, but did not win any until she won the 2001 Cotillion Handicap in October. \n\nShe started off 2003 with a January win at the Vessels Stallion Farm Distaff Stakes. She then picked up another graded win in March at the 2003 Next Move Handicap. She won the 2003 Turfway Breeders' Cup Stakes, which was the last win of her season.\n\nHer final win took place on March 14th, 2004 at the Next Move Handicap. She continued racing until she finished her career off with a 5th place finish at the Ballerina Handicap.\n\nPedigree\n\nReferences\n\n1999 racehorse births"
]
|
[
"Beyoncé",
"Voice and songwriting",
"what happened with voice and songwriting?",
"Jody Rosen highlights her tone and timbre as particularly distinctive, describing her voice as \"one of the most compelling instruments in popular music",
"what else does she say about her voice?",
"Her vocal abilities mean she is identified as the centerpiece of Destiny's Child.",
"did anyone else have anything to say about her voice? good or bad.",
"Jon Pareles of The New York Times commented that her voice is \"velvety yet tart,",
"what else did he comment about her voice?",
"\"velvety yet tart, with an insistent flutter and reserves of soul belting\".",
"what do people have to say about her songwriting?",
"She has received co-writing credits for most of the songs recorded with Destiny's Child and her solo efforts.",
"did she win any awards at all?",
"In 2001, she became the first black woman and second female lyricist to win the Pop Songwriter of the Year award"
]
| C_1128b8d67bcb48feb77ec450ae614b45_1 | what was her greatest accomplishment? | 7 | What was Beyonce's greatest accomplishment? | Beyoncé | Jody Rosen highlights her tone and timbre as particularly distinctive, describing her voice as "one of the most compelling instruments in popular music". Her vocal abilities mean she is identified as the centerpiece of Destiny's Child. Jon Pareles of The New York Times commented that her voice is "velvety yet tart, with an insistent flutter and reserves of soul belting". Rosen notes that the hip hop era highly influenced Beyonce's unique rhythmic vocal style, but also finds her quite traditionalist in her use of balladry, gospel and falsetto. Other critics praise her range and power, with Chris Richards of The Washington Post saying she was "capable of punctuating any beat with goose-bump-inducing whispers or full-bore diva-roars." Beyonce's music is generally R&B, but she also incorporates pop, soul and funk into her songs. 4 demonstrated Beyonce's exploration of 1990s-style R&B, as well as further use of soul and hip hop than compared to previous releases. While she almost exclusively releases English songs, Beyonce recorded several Spanish songs for Irreemplazable (re-recordings of songs from B'Day for a Spanish-language audience), and the re-release of B'Day. To record these, Beyonce was coached phonetically by American record producer Rudy Perez. She has received co-writing credits for most of the songs recorded with Destiny's Child and her solo efforts. Her early songs were personally driven and female-empowerment themed compositions like "Independent Women" and "Survivor", but after the start of her relationship with Jay-Z, she transitioned to more man-tending anthems such as "Cater 2 U". Beyonce has also received co-producing credits for most of the records in which she has been involved, especially during her solo efforts. However, she does not formulate beats herself, but typically comes up with melodies and ideas during production, sharing them with producers. In 2001, she became the first black woman and second female lyricist to win the Pop Songwriter of the Year award at the American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers Pop Music Awards. Beyonce was the third woman to have writing credits on three number one songs ("Irreplaceable", "Grillz" and "Check on It") in the same year, after Carole King in 1971 and Mariah Carey in 1991. She is tied with American lyricist Diane Warren at third with nine song-writing credits on number-one singles. (The latter wrote her 9/11-motivated song "I Was Here" for 4.) In May 2011, Billboard magazine listed Beyonce at number 17 on their list of the "Top 20 Hot 100 Songwriters", for having co-written eight singles that hit number one on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. She was one of only three women on that list, along with Alicia Keys and Taylor Swift. CANNOTANSWER | She was one of only three women on that list, along with Alicia Keys and Taylor Swift. | Beyoncé Giselle Knowles-Carter ( ; born September 4, 1981) is an American singer, songwriter, and actress. Born and raised in Houston, Texas, Beyoncé performed in various singing and dancing competitions as a child. She rose to fame in the late 1990s as the lead singer of Destiny's Child, one of the best-selling girl groups of all time. Their hiatus saw the release of her debut solo album Dangerously in Love (2003), which featured the US Billboard Hot 100 number-one singles "Crazy in Love" and "Baby Boy".
Following the 2006 disbanding of Destiny's Child, she released her second solo album, B'Day, which contained singles "Irreplaceable" and "Beautiful Liar". Beyoncé also starred in multiple films such as The Pink Panther (2006), Dreamgirls (2006), Obsessed (2009), and The Lion King (2019). Her marriage to Jay-Z and her portrayal of Etta James in Cadillac Records (2008) influenced her third album, I Am... Sasha Fierce (2008), which earned a record-setting six Grammy Awards in 2010. It spawned the successful singles "If I Were a Boy", "Single Ladies", and "Halo".
After splitting from her manager and father Mathew Knowles in 2010, Beyoncé released her musically diverse fourth album 4 in 2011. She later achieved universal acclaim for her sonically experimental visual albums, Beyoncé (2013) and Lemonade (2016), the latter of which was the world's best-selling album of 2016 and the most acclaimed album of her career, exploring themes of infidelity and womanism. In 2018, she released Everything Is Love, a collaborative album with her husband, Jay-Z, as the Carters. As a featured artist, Beyoncé topped the Billboard Hot 100 with the remixes of "Perfect" by Ed Sheeran in 2017 and "Savage" by Megan Thee Stallion in 2020. The same year, she released the musical film and visual album Black Is King to widespread acclaim.
Beyoncé is one of the world's best-selling recording artists, having sold 120 million records worldwide. She is the first solo artist to have their first six studio albums debut at number one on the Billboard 200. Her success during the 2000s was recognized with the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA)'s Top Certified Artist of the Decade as well as Billboard Top Female Artist of the Decade. Beyoncé's accolades include 28 Grammy Awards, 26 MTV Video Music Awards (including the Michael Jackson Video Vanguard Award in 2014), 24 NAACP Image Awards, 31 BET Awards, and 17 Soul Train Music Awards; all of which are more than any other singer. In 2014, Billboard named her the highest-earning black musician of all time, while in 2020, she was included on Times list of 100 women who defined the last century.
Life and career
1981–1996: Early life and career beginnings
Beyonce Giselle Knowles was born on September 4, 1981, in Houston, Texas, to Celestine "Tina" Knowles (née Beyonce), a hairdresser and salon owner, and Mathew Knowles, a Xerox sales manager; Tina is Louisiana Creole, and Mathew is African American. Beyonce's younger sister Solange Knowles is also a singer and a former backup dancer for Destiny's Child. Solange and Beyoncé are the first sisters to have both had No. 1 albums.
Beyoncé's maternal grandparents, Lumas Beyince, and Agnez Dereon (daughter of Odilia Broussard and Eugene DeRouen), were French-speaking Louisiana Creoles, with roots in New Iberia. Beyoncé is considered a Creole, passed on to her by her grandparents. Through her mother, Beyoncé is a descendant of many French aristocrats from the southwest of France, including the family of the Viscounts de Béarn since the 9th century, and the Viscounts de Belzunce. She is also a descendant of Jean-Vincent d'Abbadie de Saint-Castin, a French nobleman and military leader who fought along the indigenous Abenaki against the British in Acadia and of Acadian leader Joseph Broussard. Her fourth great-grandmother, Marie-Françoise Trahan, was born in 1774 in Bangor, located on Belle Île, France. Trahan was a daughter of Acadians who had taken refuge on Belle Île after the British deportation. The Estates of Brittany had divided the lands of Belle Île to distribute them among 78 other Acadian families and the already settled inhabitants. The Trahan family lived on Belle Île for over ten years before immigrating to Louisiana, where she married a Broussard descendant. Beyoncé researched her ancestry and discovered that she is descended from a slave owner who married his slave.
Beyoncé was raised Catholic and attended St. Mary's Montessori School in Houston, where she enrolled in dance classes. Her singing was discovered when dance instructor Darlette Johnson began humming a song and she finished it, able to hit the high-pitched notes. Beyoncé's interest in music and performing continued after winning a school talent show at age seven, singing John Lennon's "Imagine" to beat 15/16-year-olds. In the fall of 1990, Beyoncé enrolled in Parker Elementary School, a music magnet school in Houston, where she would perform with the school's choir. She also attended the High School for the Performing and Visual Arts and later Alief Elsik High School. Beyoncé was also a member of the choir at St. John's United Methodist Church as a soloist for two years.
When Beyoncé was eight, she met LaTavia Roberson at an audition for an all-girl entertainment group. They were placed into a group called Girl's Tyme with three other girls, and rapped and danced on the talent show circuit in Houston. After seeing the group, R&B producer Arne Frager brought them to his Northern California studio and placed them in Star Search, the largest talent show on national TV at the time. Girl's Tyme failed to win, and Beyoncé later said the song they performed was not good. In 1995, Beyoncé's father resigned from his job to manage the group. The move reduced Beyoncé's family's income by half, and her parents were forced to move into separated apartments. Mathew cut the original line-up to four and the group continued performing as an opening act for other established R&B girl groups. The girls auditioned before record labels and were finally signed to Elektra Records, moving to Atlanta Records briefly to work on their first recording, only to be cut by the company. This put further strain on the family, and Beyoncé's parents separated. On October 5, 1995, Dwayne Wiggins's Grass Roots Entertainment signed the group. In 1996, the girls began recording their debut album under an agreement with Sony Music, the Knowles family reunited, and shortly after, the group got a contract with Columbia Records.
1997–2002: Destiny's Child
The group changed their name to Destiny's Child in 1996, based upon a passage in the Book of Isaiah. In 1997, Destiny's Child released their major label debut song "Killing Time" on the soundtrack to the 1997 film Men in Black. In November, the group released their debut single and first major hit, "No, No, No". They released their self-titled debut album in February 1998, which established the group as a viable act in the music industry, with moderate sales and winning the group three Soul Train Lady of Soul Awards for Best R&B/Soul Album of the Year, Best R&B/Soul or Rap New Artist, and Best R&B/Soul Single for "No, No, No". The group released their Multi-Platinum second album The Writing's on the Wall in 1999. The record features some of the group's most widely known songs such as "Bills, Bills, Bills", the group's first number-one single, "Jumpin' Jumpin' and "Say My Name", which became their most successful song at the time, and would remain one of their signature songs. "Say My Name" won the Best R&B Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocals and the Best R&B Song at the 43rd Annual Grammy Awards. The Writing's on the Wall sold more than eight million copies worldwide. During this time, Beyoncé recorded a duet with Marc Nelson, an original member of Boyz II Men, on the song "After All Is Said and Done" for the soundtrack to the 1999 film, The Best Man.
LeToya Luckett and Roberson became unhappy with Mathew's managing of the band and eventually were replaced by Farrah Franklin and Michelle Williams. Beyoncé experienced depression following the split with Luckett and Roberson after being publicly blamed by the media, critics, and blogs for its cause. Her long-standing boyfriend left her at this time. The depression was so severe it lasted for a couple of years, during which she occasionally kept herself in her bedroom for days and refused to eat anything. Beyoncé stated that she struggled to speak about her depression because Destiny's Child had just won their first Grammy Award, and she feared no one would take her seriously. Beyoncé would later speak of her mother as the person who helped her fight it. Franklin was then dismissed, leaving just Beyoncé, Rowland, and Williams.
The remaining band members recorded "Independent Women Part I", which appeared on the soundtrack to the 2000 film Charlie's Angels. It became their best-charting single, topping the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 chart for eleven consecutive weeks. In early 2001, while Destiny's Child was completing their third album, Beyoncé landed a major role in the MTV made-for-television film, Carmen: A Hip Hopera, starring alongside American actor Mekhi Phifer. Set in Philadelphia, the film is a modern interpretation of the 19th-century opera Carmen by French composer Georges Bizet. When the third album Survivor was released in May 2001, Luckett and Roberson filed a lawsuit claiming that the songs were aimed at them. The album debuted at number one on the U.S. Billboard 200, with first-week sales of 663,000 copies sold. The album spawned other number-one hits, "Bootylicious" and the title track, "Survivor", the latter of which earned the group a Grammy Award for Best R&B Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocals. After releasing their holiday album 8 Days of Christmas in October 2001, the group announced a hiatus to further pursue solo careers.
In July 2002, Beyoncé made her theatrical film debut, playing Foxxy Cleopatra alongside Mike Myers in the comedy film Austin Powers in Goldmember, which spent its first weekend atop the U.S. box office and grossed $73 million. Beyoncé released "Work It Out" as the lead single from its soundtrack album which entered the top ten in the UK, Norway, and Belgium. In 2003, Beyoncé starred opposite Cuba Gooding, Jr., in the musical comedy The Fighting Temptations as Lilly, a single mother with whom Gooding's character falls in love. The film received mixed reviews from critics but grossed $30 million in the U.S. Beyoncé released "Fighting Temptation" as the lead single from the film's soundtrack album, with Missy Elliott, MC Lyte, and Free which was also used to promote the film. Another of Beyoncé's contributions to the soundtrack, "Summertime", fared better on the U.S. charts.
2003–2005: Dangerously in Love and Destiny Fulfilled
Beyoncé's first solo recording was a feature on Jay-Z's song '03 Bonnie & Clyde" that was released in October 2002, peaking at number four on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 chart. On June 14, 2003, Beyoncé premiered songs from her first solo album Dangerously in Love during her first solo concert and the pay-per-view television special, "Ford Presents Beyoncé Knowles, Friends & Family, Live From Ford's 100th Anniversary Celebration in Dearborn, Michigan". The album was released on June 24, 2003, after Michelle Williams and Kelly Rowland had released their solo efforts. The album sold 317,000 copies in its first week, debuted atop the Billboard 200, and has since sold 11 million copies worldwide. The album's lead single, "Crazy in Love", featuring Jay-Z, became Beyoncé's first number-one single as a solo artist in the US. The single "Baby Boy" also reached number one, and singles, "Me, Myself and I" and "Naughty Girl", both reached the top-five. The album earned Beyoncé a then record-tying five awards at the 46th Annual Grammy Awards; Best Contemporary R&B Album, Best Female R&B Vocal Performance for "Dangerously in Love 2", Best R&B Song and Best Rap/Sung Collaboration for "Crazy in Love", and Best R&B Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocals for "The Closer I Get to You" with Luther Vandross. During the ceremony, she performed with Prince.
In November 2003, she embarked on the Dangerously in Love Tour in Europe and later toured alongside Missy Elliott and Alicia Keys for the Verizon Ladies First Tour in North America. On February 1, 2004, Beyoncé performed the American national anthem at Super Bowl XXXVIII, at the Reliant Stadium in Houston, Texas. After the release of Dangerously in Love, Beyoncé had planned to produce a follow-up album using several of the left-over tracks. However, this was put on hold so she could concentrate on recording Destiny Fulfilled, the final studio album by Destiny's Child. Released on November 15, 2004, in the US and peaking at number two on the Billboard 200, Destiny Fulfilled included the singles "Lose My Breath" and "Soldier", which reached the top five on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. Destiny's Child embarked on a worldwide concert tour, Destiny Fulfilled... and Lovin' It sponsored by McDonald's Corporation, and performed hits such as "No, No, No", "Survivor", "Say My Name", "Independent Women" and "Lose My Breath". In addition to renditions of the group's recorded material, they also performed songs from each singer's solo careers, most notably numbers from Dangerously in Love. and during the last stop of their European tour, in Barcelona on June 11, 2005, Rowland announced that Destiny's Child would disband following the North American leg of the tour. The group released their first compilation album Number 1's on October 25, 2005, in the US and accepted a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in March 2006. The group has sold 60 million records worldwide.
2006–2007: B'Day and Dreamgirls
Beyoncé's second solo album B'Day was released on September 4, 2006, in the US, to coincide with her twenty-fifth birthday. It sold 541,000 copies in its first week and debuted atop the Billboard 200, becoming Beyoncé's second consecutive number-one album in the United States. The album's lead single "Déjà Vu", featuring Jay-Z, reached the top five on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. The second international single "Irreplaceable" was a commercial success worldwide, reaching number one in Australia, Hungary, Ireland, New Zealand and the United States. B'Day also produced three other singles; "Ring the Alarm", "Get Me Bodied", and "Green Light" (released in the United Kingdom only).
At the 49th Annual Grammy Awards (2007), B'Day was nominated for five Grammy Awards, including Best Contemporary R&B Album, Best Female R&B Vocal Performance for "Ring the Alarm" and Best R&B Song and Best Rap/Sung Collaboration"for "Déjà Vu"; the Freemasons club mix of "Déjà Vu" without the rap was put forward in the Best Remixed Recording, Non-Classical category. B'Day won the award for Best Contemporary R&B Album. The following year, B'Day received two nominations – for Record of the Year for "Irreplaceable" and Best Pop Collaboration with Vocals for "Beautiful Liar" (with Shakira), also receiving a nomination for Best Compilation Soundtrack Album for Motion Pictures, Television or Other Visual Media for her appearance on Dreamgirls: Music from the Motion Picture (2006).
Her first acting role of 2006 was in the comedy film The Pink Panther starring opposite Steve Martin, grossing $158.8 million at the box office worldwide. Her second film Dreamgirls, the film version of the 1981 Broadway musical loosely based on The Supremes, received acclaim from critics and grossed $154 million internationally. In it, she starred opposite Jennifer Hudson, Jamie Foxx, and Eddie Murphy playing a pop singer based on Diana Ross. To promote the film, Beyoncé released "Listen" as the lead single from the soundtrack album. In April 2007, Beyoncé embarked on The Beyoncé Experience, her first worldwide concert tour, visiting 97 venues and grossed over $24 million. Beyoncé conducted pre-concert food donation drives during six major stops in conjunction with her pastor at St. John's and America's Second Harvest. At the same time, B'Day was re-released with five additional songs, including her duet with Shakira "Beautiful Liar".
2008–2010: I Am... Sasha Fierce
I Am... Sasha Fierce was released on November 18, 2008, in the United States. The album formally introduces Beyoncé's alter ego Sasha Fierce, conceived during the making of her 2003 single "Crazy in Love". It was met with generally mediocre reviews from critics, but sold 482,000 copies in its first week, debuting atop the Billboard 200, and giving Beyoncé her third consecutive number-one album in the US. The album featured the number-one song "Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)" and the top-five songs "If I Were a Boy" and "Halo". Achieving the accomplishment of becoming her longest-running Hot 100 single in her career, "Halos success in the U.S. helped Beyoncé attain more top-ten singles on the list than any other woman during the 2000s. It also included the successful "Sweet Dreams", and singles "Diva", "Ego", "Broken-Hearted Girl" and "Video Phone". The music video for "Single Ladies" has been parodied and imitated around the world, spawning the "first major dance craze" of the Internet age according to the Toronto Star. The video has won several awards, including Best Video at the 2009 MTV Europe Music Awards, the 2009 Scottish MOBO Awards, and the 2009 BET Awards. At the 2009 MTV Video Music Awards, the video was nominated for nine awards, ultimately winning three including Video of the Year. Its failure to win the Best Female Video category, which went to American singer-songwriter Taylor Swift's "You Belong with Me", led to Kanye West interrupting the ceremony and Beyoncé improvising a re-presentation of Swift's award during her own acceptance speech. In March 2009, Beyoncé embarked on the I Am... World Tour, her second headlining worldwide concert tour, consisting of 108 shows, grossing $119.5 million.
Beyoncé further expanded her acting career, starring as blues singer Etta James in the 2008 musical biopic Cadillac Records. Her performance in the film received praise from critics, and she garnered several nominations for her portrayal of James, including a Satellite Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress, and a NAACP Image Award nomination for Outstanding Supporting Actress. Beyoncé donated her entire salary from the film to Phoenix House, an organization of rehabilitation centers for heroin addicts around the country. On January 20, 2009, Beyoncé performed James' "At Last" at First Couple Barack and Michelle Obama's first inaugural ball. Beyoncé starred opposite Ali Larter and Idris Elba in the thriller, Obsessed. She played Sharon Charles, a mother and wife whose family is threatened by her husband's stalker. Although the film received negative reviews from critics, the movie did well at the U.S. box office, grossing $68 million – $60 million more than Cadillac Records – on a budget of $20 million. The fight scene finale between Sharon and the character played by Ali Larter also won the 2010 MTV Movie Award for Best Fight.
At the 52nd Annual Grammy Awards, Beyoncé received ten nominations, including Album of the Year for I Am... Sasha Fierce, Record of the Year for "Halo", and Song of the Year for "Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)", among others. She tied with Lauryn Hill for most Grammy nominations in a single year by a female artist. Beyoncé went on to win six of those nominations, breaking a record she previously tied in 2004 for the most Grammy awards won in a single night by a female artist with six. In 2010, Beyoncé was featured on Lady Gaga's single "Telephone" and appeared in its music video. The song topped the U.S. Pop Songs chart, becoming the sixth number-one for both Beyoncé and Gaga, tying them with Mariah Carey for most number-ones since the Nielsen Top 40 airplay chart launched in 1992. "Telephone" received a Grammy Award nomination for Best Pop Collaboration with Vocals.
Beyoncé announced a hiatus from her music career in January 2010, heeding her mother's advice, "to live life, to be inspired by things again". During the break she and her father parted ways as business partners. Beyoncé's musical break lasted nine months and saw her visit multiple European cities, the Great Wall of China, the Egyptian pyramids, Australia, English music festivals and various museums and ballet performances.
2011–2013: 4 and Super Bowl XLVII halftime show
On June 26, 2011, she became the first solo female artist to headline the main Pyramid stage at the 2011 Glastonbury Festival in over twenty years. Her fourth studio album 4 was released two days later in the US. 4 sold 310,000 copies in its first week and debuted atop the Billboard 200 chart, giving Beyoncé her fourth consecutive number-one album in the US. The album was preceded by two of its singles "Run the World (Girls)" and "Best Thing I Never Had". The fourth single "Love on Top" spent seven consecutive weeks at number one on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart, while peaking at number 20 on the Billboard Hot 100, the highest peak from the album. 4 also produced four other singles; "Party", "Countdown", "I Care" and "End of Time". "Eat, Play, Love", a cover story written by Beyoncé for Essence that detailed her 2010 career break, won her a writing award from the New York Association of Black Journalists. In late 2011, she took the stage at New York's Roseland Ballroom for four nights of special performances: the 4 Intimate Nights with Beyoncé concerts saw the performance of her 4 album to a standing room only. On August 1, 2011, the album was certified platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), having shipped 1 million copies to retail stores. By December 2015, it reached sales of 1.5 million copies in the US. The album reached one billion Spotify streams on February 5, 2018, making Beyoncé the first female artist to have three of their albums surpass one billion streams on the platform.
In June 2012, she performed for four nights at Revel Atlantic City's Ovation Hall to celebrate the resort's opening, her first performances since giving birth to her daughter.
In January 2013, Destiny's Child released Love Songs, a compilation album of the romance-themed songs from their previous albums and a newly recorded track, "Nuclear". Beyoncé performed the American national anthem singing along with a pre-recorded track at President Obama's second inauguration in Washington, D.C. The following month, Beyoncé performed at the Super Bowl XLVII halftime show, held at the Mercedes-Benz Superdome in New Orleans. The performance stands as the second most tweeted about moment in history at 268,000 tweets per minute. At the 55th Annual Grammy Awards, Beyoncé won for Best Traditional R&B Performance for "Love on Top". Her feature-length documentary film, Life Is But a Dream, first aired on HBO on February 16, 2013. The film was co-directed by Beyoncé herself.
2013–2015: Beyoncé
Beyoncé embarked on The Mrs. Carter Show World Tour on April 15 in Belgrade, Serbia; the tour included 132 dates that ran through to March 2014. It became the most successful tour of her career and one of the most successful tours of all time. In May, Beyoncé's cover of Amy Winehouse's "Back to Black" with André 3000 on The Great Gatsby soundtrack was released. Beyoncé voiced Queen Tara in the 3D CGI animated film, Epic, released by 20th Century Fox on May 24, and recorded an original song for the film, "Rise Up", co-written with Sia.
On December 13, 2013, Beyoncé unexpectedly released her eponymous fifth studio album on the iTunes Store without any prior announcement or promotion. The album debuted atop the Billboard 200 chart, giving Beyoncé her fifth consecutive number-one album in the US. This made her the first woman in the chart's history to have her first five studio albums debut at number one. Beyoncé received critical acclaim and commercial success, selling one million digital copies worldwide in six days; Musically an electro-R&B album, it concerns darker themes previously unexplored in her work, such as "bulimia, postnatal depression [and] the fears and insecurities of marriage and motherhood". The single "Drunk in Love", featuring Jay-Z, peaked at number two on the Billboard Hot 100 chart.
In April 2014, Beyoncé and Jay-Z officially announced their On the Run Tour. It served as the couple's first co-headlining stadium tour together. On August 24, 2014, she received the Michael Jackson Video Vanguard Award at the 2014 MTV Video Music Awards. Beyoncé also won home three competitive awards: Best Video with a Social Message and Best Cinematography for "Pretty Hurts", as well as best collaboration for "Drunk in Love". In November, Forbes reported that Beyoncé was the top-earning woman in music for the second year in a row – earning $115 million in the year, more than double her earnings in 2013. Beyoncé was reissued with new material in three forms: as an extended play, a box set, as well as a full platinum edition. According to the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI), in the last 19 days of 2013, the album sold 2.3 million units worldwide, becoming the tenth best-selling album of 2013. The album also went on to become the twentieth best-selling album of 2014. , Beyoncé has sold over 5 million copies worldwide and has generated over 1 billion streams, .
At the 57th Annual Grammy Awards in February 2015, Beyoncé was nominated for six awards, ultimately winning three: Best R&B Performance and Best R&B Song for "Drunk in Love", and Best Surround Sound Album for Beyoncé. She was nominated for Album of the Year, but the award went to Beck for his album Morning Phase.
2016–2018: Lemonade and Everything Is Love
On February 6, 2016, Beyoncé released "Formation" and its accompanying music video exclusively on the music streaming platform Tidal; the song was made available to download for free. She performed "Formation" live for the first time during the NFL Super Bowl 50 halftime show. The appearance was considered controversial as it appeared to reference the 50th anniversary of the Black Panther Party and the NFL forbids political statements in its performances. Immediately following the performance, Beyoncé announced The Formation World Tour, which highlighted stops in both North America, and Europe. It ended on October 7, with Beyoncé bringing out her husband Jay-Z, Kendrick Lamar, and Serena Williams for the last show. The tour went on to win Tour of the Year at the 44th American Music Awards.
On April 16, 2016, Beyoncé released a teaser clip for a project called Lemonade. It turned out to be a one-hour film which aired on HBO exactly a week later; a corresponding album with the same title was released on the same day exclusively on Tidal. Lemonade debuted at number one on the U.S. Billboard 200, making Beyoncé the first act in Billboard history to have their first six studio albums debut atop the chart; she broke a record previously tied with DMX in 2013. With all 12 tracks of Lemonade debuting on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, Beyoncé also became the first female act to chart 12 or more songs at the same time. Additionally, Lemonade was streamed 115 million times through Tidal, setting a record for the most-streamed album in a single week by a female artist in history. It was 2016's third highest-selling album in the U.S. with 1.554 million copies sold in that time period within the country as well as the best-selling album worldwide with global sales of 2.5 million throughout the year. In June 2019, Lemonade was certified 3× Platinum, having sold up to 3 million album-equivalent units in the United States alone.
Lemonade became her most critically acclaimed work to date, receiving universal acclaim according to Metacritic, a website collecting reviews from professional music critics. Several music publications included the album among the best of 2016, including Rolling Stone, which listed Lemonade at number one. The album's visuals were nominated in 11 categories at the 2016 MTV Video Music Awards, the most ever received by Beyoncé in a single year, and went on to win 8 awards, including Video of the Year for "Formation". The eight wins made Beyoncé the most-awarded artist in the history of the VMAs (24), surpassing Madonna (20). Beyoncé occupied the sixth place for Time magazine's 2016 Person of the Year.
In January 2017, it was announced that Beyoncé would headline the Coachella Music and Arts Festival. This would make Beyoncé only the second female headliner of the festival since it was founded in 1999. It was later announced on February 23, 2017, that Beyoncé would no longer be able to perform at the festival due to doctor's concerns regarding her pregnancy. The festival owners announced that she will instead headline the 2018 festival. Upon the announcement of Beyoncé's departure from the festival lineup, ticket prices dropped by 12%. At the 59th Grammy Awards in February 2017, Lemonade led the nominations with nine, including Album, Record, and Song of the Year for Lemonade and "Formation" respectively. and ultimately won two, Best Urban Contemporary Album for Lemonade and Best Music Video for "Formation". Adele, upon winning her Grammy for Album of the Year, stated Lemonade was monumental and more deserving.
In September 2017, Beyoncé collaborated with J Balvin and Willy William, to release a remix of the song "Mi Gente". Beyoncé donated all proceeds from the song to hurricane charities for those affected by Hurricane Harvey and Hurricane Irma in Texas, Mexico, Puerto Rico, and other Caribbean Islands. On November 10, Eminem released "Walk on Water" featuring Beyoncé as the lead single from his album Revival. On November 30, Ed Sheeran announced that Beyoncé would feature on the remix to his song "Perfect". "Perfect Duet" was released on December 1, 2017. The song reached number-one in the United States, becoming Beyoncé's sixth song of her solo career to do so.
On January 4, 2018, the music video of Beyoncé and Jay-Z's 4:44 collaboration, "Family Feud" was released. It was directed by Ava DuVernay. On March 1, 2018, DJ Khaled released "Top Off" as the first single from his forthcoming album Father of Asahd featuring Beyoncé, husband Jay-Z, and Future. On March 5, 2018, a joint tour with Knowles's husband Jay-Z, was leaked on Facebook. Information about the tour was later taken down. The couple announced the joint tour officially as On the Run II Tour on March 12 and simultaneously released a trailer for the tour on YouTube. On March 20, 2018, the couple traveled to Jamaica to film a music video directed by Melina Matsoukas.
On April 14, 2018, Beyoncé played the first of two weekends as the headlining act of the Coachella Music Festival. Her performance of April 14, attended by 125,000 festival-goers, was immediately praised, with multiple media outlets describing it as historic. The performance became the most-tweeted-about performance of weekend one, as well as the most-watched live Coachella performance and the most-watched live performance on YouTube of all time. The show paid tribute to black culture, specifically historically black colleges and universities and featured a live band with over 100 dancers. Destiny's Child also reunited during the show.
On June 6, 2018, Beyoncé and husband Jay-Z kicked-off the On the Run II Tour in Cardiff, United Kingdom. Ten days later, at their final London performance, the pair unveiled Everything Is Love, their joint studio album, credited under the name The Carters, and initially available exclusively on Tidal. The pair also released the video for the album's lead single, "Apeshit", on Beyoncé's official YouTube channel. Everything Is Love received generally positive reviews, and debuted at number two on the U.S. Billboard 200, with 123,000 album-equivalent units, of which 70,000 were pure album sales. On December 2, 2018, Beyoncé alongside Jay-Z headlined the Global Citizen Festival: Mandela 100 which was held at FNB Stadium in Johannesburg, South Africa. Their 2-hour performance had concepts similar to the On the Run II Tour and Beyoncé was praised for her outfits, which paid tribute to Africa's diversity.
2019–present: Homecoming, The Lion King and Black Is King
Homecoming, a documentary and concert film focusing on Beyoncé's historic 2018 Coachella performances, was released by Netflix on April 17, 2019. The film was accompanied by the surprise live album Homecoming: The Live Album. It was later reported that Beyoncé and Netflix had signed a $60 million deal to produce three different projects, one of which is Homecoming. Homecoming received six nominations at the 71st Primetime Creative Arts Emmy Awards.
Beyoncé starred as the voice of Nala in the remake The Lion King, which was released on July 19, 2019. Beyoncé is featured on the film's soundtrack, released on July 11, 2019, with a remake of the song "Can You Feel the Love Tonight" alongside Donald Glover, Billy Eichner and Seth Rogen, which was originally composed by Elton John. Additionally, an original song from the film by Beyoncé, "Spirit", was released as the lead single from both the soundtrack and The Lion King: The Gift – a companion album released alongside the film, produced and curated by Beyoncé. Beyoncé called The Lion King: The Gift a "sonic cinema". She also stated that the album is influenced by everything from R&B, pop, hip hop and Afro Beat. The songs were additionally produced by African producers, which Beyoncé said was because "authenticity and heart were important to [her]", since the film is set in Africa. In September of the same year, a documentary chronicling the development, production and early music video filming of The Lion King: The Gift entitled "Beyoncé Presents: Making The Gift" was aired on ABC.
On April 29, 2020, Beyoncé was featured on the remix of Megan Thee Stallion's song "Savage", marking her first material of music for the year. The song peaked at number one on the Billboard Hot 100, marking Beyoncé's eleventh song to do so across all acts. On June 19, 2020, Beyoncé released the nonprofit charity single "Black Parade". On June 23, she followed up the release of its studio version with an a capella version exclusively on Tidal. Black Is King, a visual album based on the music of The Lion King: The Gift, premiered globally on Disney+ on July 31, 2020. Produced by Disney and Parkwood Entertainment, the film was written, directed and executive produced by Beyoncé. The film was described by Disney as "a celebratory memoir for the world on the Black experience". Beyoncé received the most nominations (9) at the 63rd Annual Grammy Awards and the most awards (4), which made her the most-awarded singer, most-awarded female artist, and second-most-awarded artist in Grammy history.
Beyoncé wrote and recorded a song titled "Be Alive" for the biographical drama film King Richard. She received her first Academy Award nomination for Best Original Song at the 94th Academy Awards for the song, alongside co-writer DIXSON.
Artistry
Voice and musical style
Beyoncé's voice type is classified as dramatic mezzo-soprano. Jody Rosen highlights her tone and timbre as particularly distinctive, describing her voice as "one of the most compelling instruments in popular music". Her vocal abilities mean she is identified as the centerpiece of Destiny's Child. Jon Pareles of The New York Times commented that her voice is "velvety yet tart, with an insistent flutter and reserves of soul belting". Rosen notes that the hip hop era highly influenced Beyoncé's unique rhythmic vocal style, but also finds her quite traditionalist in her use of balladry, gospel and falsetto. Other critics praise her range and power, with Chris Richards of The Washington Post saying she was "capable of punctuating any beat with goose-bump-inducing whispers or full-bore diva-roars."
Beyoncé's music is generally R&B, pop and hip hop but she also incorporates soul and funk into her songs. 4 demonstrated Beyoncé's exploration of 1990s-style R&B, as well as further use of soul and hip hop than compared to previous releases. While she almost exclusively releases English songs, Beyoncé recorded several Spanish songs for Irreemplazable (re-recordings of songs from B'Day for a Spanish-language audience), and the re-release of B'Day. To record these, Beyoncé was coached phonetically by American record producer Rudy Perez.
Songwriting
Beyoncé has received co-writing credits for most of her songs. In regards to the way she approaches collaborative songwriting, Beyoncé explained: "I love being around great writers because I'm finding that a lot of the things I want to say, I don't articulate as good as maybe Amanda Ghost, so I want to keep collaborating with writers, and I love classics and I want to make sure years from now the song is still something that's relevant." Her early songs with Destiny's Child were personally driven and female-empowerment themed compositions like "Independent Women" and "Survivor", but after the start of her relationship with Jay-Z, she transitioned to more man-tending anthems such as "Cater 2 U".
In 2001, she became the first Black woman and second female lyricist to win the Pop Songwriter of the Year award at the ASCAP Pop Music Awards. Beyoncé was the third woman to have writing credits on three number-one songs ("Irreplaceable", "Grillz" and "Check on It") in the same year, after Carole King in 1971 and Mariah Carey in 1991. She is tied with American lyricist Diane Warren at third with nine songwriting credits on number-one singles. The latter wrote her 9/11-motivated song "I Was Here" for 4. In May 2011, Billboard magazine listed Beyoncé at number 17 on their list of the Top 20 Hot 100 Songwriters for having co-written eight singles that hit number one on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. She was one of only three women on that list, along with Alicia Keys and Taylor Swift.
Beyoncé has long received criticism, including from journalists and musicians, for the extensive writing credits on her songs. The controversy surrounding her songwriting credits began with interviews in which she attributed herself as the songwriter for songs in which she was a co-writer or for which her contributions were marginal. In a cover story for Vanity Fair in 2005, she claimed to have "written" several number-one songs for Destiny's Child, contrary to the credits, which list her as a co-writer among others. In a 2007 interview with Barbara Walters, she claimed to have conceived the musical idea for the Destiny's Child hit "Bootylicious", which provoked the song's producer Rob Fusari to call her father and then-manager Mathew Knowles in protest over the claim. As Fusari tells Billboard, "[Knowles] explained to me, in a nice way, he said, 'People don't want to hear about Rob Fusari, producer from Livingston, N.J. No offense, but that's not what sells records. What sells records is people believing that the artist is everything. However, in an interview for Entertainment Weekly in 2016, Fusari said Beyoncé "had the 'Bootylicious' concept in her head. That was totally her. She knew what she wanted to say. It was very urban pop angle that they were taking on the record."
In 2007, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences ruled out Beyoncé as a songwriter on "Listen" (from Dreamgirls) for its Oscar nomination in the Best Original Song category. Responding to a then-new three-writer limit, the Academy deemed her contribution the least significant for inclusion. In 2009, Ryan Tedder's original demo for "Halo" leaked on the Internet, revealing an identical resemblance to Beyoncé's recording, for which she received a writing credit. When interviewed by The Guardian, Tedder explained that Beyoncé had edited the bridge of the song vocally and thus earned the credit, although he vaguely questioned the ethics of her possible "demand" for a writing credit in other instances. Tedder elaborated when speaking to Gigwise that "She does stuff on any given song that, when you go from the demo to the final version, takes it to another level that you never would have thought of as the writer. For instance, on 'Halo,' that bridge on her version is completely different to my original one. Basically, she came in, ditched that, edited it, did her vocal thing on it, and now it's become one of my favorite parts of the song. The whole melody, she wrote it spontaneously in the studio. So her credit on that song stems from that." In 2014, the popular industry songwriter Linda Perry responded to a question about Beyoncé receiving a co-writing credit for changing one lyric to a song: "Well haha um that's not songwriting but some of these artists believe if it wasn't for them your song would never get out there so they take a cut just because they are who they are. But everyone knows the real truth about Beyoncé. She is talented but in a completely different way." Perry's remarks were echoed by Frank Ocean, who acknowledged the trend of recording artists forcing writing credits while jokingly suggesting Beyoncé had an exceptional status.
Reflecting on the controversy, Sunday Independent columnist Alexis Kritselis wrote in 2014, "It seems as though our love for all things Beyoncé has blinded us to the very real claims of theft and plagiarism that have plagued her career for years", and that, "because of her power and influence in the music industry, it may be hard for some songwriters to 'just say no' to Beyoncé." While reporting on her controversial writing record, pop culture critics such as Roger Friedman and The Daily Beasts Kevin Fallon said the trend has redefined popular conceptions of songwriting, with Fallon saying, "the village of authors and composers that populate Lemonade, [Kanye West']s Life of Pablo, [Rihanna's] Anti, or [Drake's] Views – all of which are still reflective of an artist's voice and vision ... speaks to the truth of the way the industry's top artists create their music today: by committee." James S. Murphy of Vanity Fair suggests Beyoncé is among the major artists like Frank Sinatra and Billie Holiday who are "celebrated [not] because [they] write such good parts, but because [they] create them out of the words that are given".
Meanwhile, Everything Is Love producers Cool & Dre stated that Beyoncé is "100 percent involved" in writing her own songs, with Dre saying that "She put her mind to the music and did her thing. If she had a melody idea, she came up with the words. If we had the words, she came up with the melody. She's a beast", when speaking on the writing process of Everything Is Love. Ne-Yo, when asked about his collaborative writing experience with Beyoncé on "Irreplaceable", said that they both wrote "two damn totally different songs ... So, yeah, I gave her writer's credit. Because that counts. That's writing ... She put her spin on it." As for Drake: Pound Cake' happened while I was writing for Beyoncé or working with Beyoncé, not writing for, working with. I hate saying writing for 'cause she's a phenomenal writer. She has bars on bars." The-Dream revealed: "We did a whole Fela album that didn't go up. It was right before we did 4. We did a whole different sounding thing, about twenty songs. She said she wanted to do something that sounds like Fela. That's why there's so much of that sound in the 'End of Time.' There's always multiple albums being made. Most of the time we're just being creative, period. We're talking about B, somebody who sings all day long and somebody who writes all day long. There's probably a hundred records just sitting around."
Influences
Beyoncé names Michael Jackson as her major musical influence. Aged five, Beyoncé attended her first ever concert where Jackson performed and she claims to have realized her purpose. When she presented him with a tribute award at the World Music Awards in 2006, Beyoncé said, "if it wasn't for Michael Jackson, I would never ever have performed." Beyoncé was heavily influenced by Tina Turner, who she said "Tina Turner is someone that I admire, because she made her strength feminine and sexy". She admires Diana Ross as an "all-around entertainer", and Whitney Houston, who she said "inspired me to get up there and do what she did." Beyoncé cited Madonna as an influence "not only for her musical style, but also for her business sense", saying that she wanted to "follow in the footsteps of Madonna and be a powerhouse and have my own empire." She also credits Mariah Carey's singing and her song "Vision of Love" as influencing her to begin practicing vocal runs as a child. Her other musical influences include Prince, Shakira, Lauryn Hill, Sade Adu, Donna Summer, Mary J. Blige, Anita Baker, and Toni Braxton.
The feminism and female empowerment themes on Beyoncé's second solo album B'Day were inspired by her role in Dreamgirls and by singer Josephine Baker. Beyoncé paid homage to Baker by performing "Déjà Vu" at the 2006 Fashion Rocks concert wearing Baker's trademark mini-hula skirt embellished with fake bananas. Beyoncé's third solo album, I Am... Sasha Fierce, was inspired by Jay-Z and especially by Etta James, whose "boldness" inspired Beyoncé to explore other musical genres and styles. Her fourth solo album, 4, was inspired by Fela Kuti, 1990s R&B, Earth, Wind & Fire, DeBarge, Lionel Richie, Teena Marie, The Jackson 5, New Edition, Adele, Florence and the Machine, and Prince.
Beyoncé has stated that she is personally inspired by Michelle Obama (the 44th First Lady of the United States), saying "she proves you can do it all", and has described Oprah Winfrey as "the definition of inspiration and a strong woman." She has also discussed how Jay-Z is a continuing inspiration to her, both with what she describes as his lyrical genius and in the obstacles he has overcome in his life. Beyoncé has expressed admiration for the artist Jean-Michel Basquiat, posting in a letter "what I find in the work of Jean-Michel Basquiat, I search for in every day in music ... he is lyrical and raw". Beyoncé also cited Cher as a fashion inspiration.
Music videos and stage
In 2006, Beyoncé introduced her all-female tour band Suga Mama (also the name of a song on B'Day) which includes bassists, drummers, guitarists, horn players, keyboardists and percussionists. Her background singers, The Mamas, consist of Montina Cooper-Donnell, Crystal Collins and Tiffany Moniqué Riddick. They made their debut appearance at the 2006 BET Awards and re-appeared in the music videos for "Irreplaceable" and "Green Light". The band have supported Beyoncé in most subsequent live performances, including her 2007 concert tour The Beyoncé Experience, I Am... World Tour (2009–2010), The Mrs. Carter Show World Tour (2013–2014) and The Formation World Tour (2016).
Beyoncé has received praise for her stage presence and voice during live performances. Jarett Wieselman of the New York Post placed her at number one on her list of the Five Best Singer/Dancers. According to Barbara Ellen of The Guardian Beyoncé is the most in-charge female artist she's seen onstage, while Alice Jones of The Independent wrote she "takes her role as entertainer so seriously she's almost too good." The ex-President of Def Jam L.A. Reid has described Beyoncé as the greatest entertainer alive. Jim Farber of the Daily News and Stephanie Classen of The StarPhoenix both praised her strong voice and her stage presence. Beyoncé's stage outfits have been met with criticism from many countries, such as Malaysia, where she has postponed or cancelled performances due to the country's strict laws banning revealing costumes.
Beyoncé has worked with numerous directors for her music videos throughout her career, including Melina Matsoukas, Jonas Åkerlund, and Jake Nava. Bill Condon, director of Beauty and the Beast, stated that the Lemonade visuals in particular served as inspiration for his film, commenting, "You look at Beyoncé's brilliant movie Lemonade, this genre is taking on so many different forms ... I do think that this very old-school break-out-into-song traditional musical is something that people understand again and really want."
Alter ego
Described as being "sexy, seductive and provocative" when performing on stage, Beyoncé has said that she originally created the alter ego "Sasha Fierce" to keep that stage persona separate from who she really is. She described Sasha as being "too aggressive, too strong, too sassy [and] too sexy", stating, "I'm not like her in real life at all." Sasha was conceived during the making of "Crazy in Love", and Beyoncé introduced her with the release of her 2008 album, I Am... Sasha Fierce. In February 2010, she announced in an interview with Allure magazine that she was comfortable enough with herself to no longer need Sasha Fierce. However, Beyoncé announced in May 2012 that she would bring her back for her Revel Presents: Beyoncé Live shows later that month.
Public image
Beyoncé has been described as having a wide-ranging sex appeal, with music journalist Touré writing that since the release of Dangerously in Love, she has "become a crossover sex symbol". Offstage Beyoncé says that while she likes to dress sexily, her onstage dress "is absolutely for the stage". Due to her curves and the term's catchiness, in the 2000s, the media often used the term "bootylicious" (a portmanteau of the words "booty" and "delicious") to describe Beyoncé, the term popularized by Destiny's Child's single of the same name. In 2006, it was added to the Oxford English Dictionary.
In September 2010, Beyoncé made her runway modelling debut at Tom Ford's Spring/Summer 2011 fashion show. She was named the "World's Most Beautiful Woman" by People and the "Hottest Female Singer of All Time" by Complex in 2012. In January 2013, GQ placed her on its cover, featuring her atop its "100 Sexiest Women of the 21st Century" list. VH1 listed her at number 1 on its 100 Sexiest Artists list. Several wax figures of Beyoncé are found at Madame Tussauds Wax Museums in major cities around the world, including New York, Washington, D.C., Amsterdam, Bangkok, Hollywood and Sydney.
According to Italian fashion designer Roberto Cavalli, Beyoncé uses different fashion styles to work with her music while performing. Her mother co-wrote a book, published in 2002, titled Destiny's Style, an account of how fashion affected the trio's success. The B'Day Anthology Video Album showed many instances of fashion-oriented footage, depicting classic to contemporary wardrobe styles. In 2007, Beyoncé was featured on the cover of the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue, becoming the second African American woman after Tyra Banks, and People magazine recognized Beyoncé as the best-dressed celebrity.
Beyoncé has been named "Queen Bey" from publications over the years. The term is a reference to the common phrase "queen bee", a term used for the leader of a group of females. The nickname also refers to the queen of a beehive, with her fan base being named "The BeyHive". The BeyHive was previously titled "The Beyontourage", (a portmanteau of Beyoncé and entourage), but was changed after online petitions on Twitter and online news reports during competitions. The BeyHive has been named one of the most loyal and defensive fan bases and has achieved notoriety for being fiercely protective of Beyoncé.
In 2006, the animal rights organization People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), criticized Beyoncé for wearing and using fur in her clothing line House of Deréon. In 2011, she appeared on the cover of French fashion magazine L'Officiel, in blackface and tribal makeup that drew criticism from the media. A statement released from a spokesperson for the magazine said that Beyoncé's look was "far from the glamorous Sasha Fierce" and that it was "a return to her African roots".
Beyoncé's lighter skin color and costuming has drawn criticism from some in the African-American community. Emmett Price, a professor of music at Northeastern University, wrote in 2007 that he thinks race plays a role in many of these criticisms, saying white celebrities who dress similarly do not attract as many comments. In 2008, L'Oréal was accused of whitening her skin in their Feria hair color advertisements, responding that "it is categorically untrue", and in 2013, Beyoncé herself criticized H&M for their proposed "retouching" of promotional images of her, and according to Vogue requested that only "natural pictures be used".
Beyoncé has been a vocal advocate for the Black Lives Matter movement. The release of "Formation" on February 6, 2016 saw her celebrate her heritage, with the song's music video featuring pro-black imagery and most notably a shot of wall graffiti that says "Stop shooting us". The day after the song's release she performed it at the 2016 Super Bowl halftime show with back up dancers dressed to represent the Black Panther Party. This incited criticism from politicians and police officers, with some police boycotting Beyoncé's then upcoming Formation World Tour. Beyoncé responded to the backlash by releasing tour merchandise that said "Boycott Beyoncé", and later clarified her sentiment, saying: “Anyone who perceives my message as anti-police is completely mistaken. I have so much admiration and respect for officers and the families of officers who sacrifice themselves to keep us safe,” Beyoncé said. “But let’s be clear: I am against police brutality and injustice. Those are two separate things.”
Personal life
Marriage and children
Beyoncé started a relationship with Jay-Z after their collaboration on '03 Bonnie & Clyde", which appeared on his seventh album The Blueprint 2: The Gift & The Curse (2002). Beyoncé appeared as Jay-Z's girlfriend in the music video for the song, fueling speculation about their relationship. On April 4, 2008, Beyoncé and Jay-Z married without publicity. , the couple had sold a combined 300 million records together. They are known for their private relationship, although they have appeared to become more relaxed in recent years. Both have acknowledged difficulty that arose in their marriage after Jay-Z had an affair.
Beyoncé miscarried around 2010 or 2011, describing it as "the saddest thing" she had ever endured. She returned to the studio and wrote music to cope with the loss. In April 2011, Beyoncé and Jay-Z traveled to Paris to shoot the album cover for 4, and she unexpectedly became pregnant in Paris. In August, the couple attended the 2011 MTV Video Music Awards, at which Beyoncé performed "Love on Top" and ended the performance by revealing she was pregnant. Her appearance helped that year's MTV Video Music Awards become the most-watched broadcast in MTV history, pulling in 12.4 million viewers; the announcement was listed in Guinness World Records for "most tweets per second recorded for a single event" on Twitter, receiving 8,868 tweets per second and "Beyonce pregnant" was the most Googled phrase the week of August 29, 2011. On January 7, 2012, Beyoncé gave birth to a daughter, Blue Ivy, at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City.
Following the release of Lemonade, which included the single "Sorry", in 2016, speculations arose about Jay-Z's alleged infidelity with a mistress referred to as "Becky". Jon Pareles in The New York Times pointed out that many of the accusations were "aimed specifically and recognizably" at him. Similarly, Rob Sheffield of Rolling Stone magazine noted the lines "Suck on my balls, I've had enough" were an "unmistakable hint" that the lyrics revolve around Jay-Z.
On February 1, 2017, she revealed on her Instagram account that she was expecting twins. Her announcement gained over 6.3 million likes within eight hours, breaking the world record for the most liked image on the website at the time. On July 13, 2017, Beyoncé uploaded the first image of herself and the twins onto her Instagram account, confirming their birth date as a month prior, on June 13, 2017, with the post becoming the second most liked on Instagram, behind her own pregnancy announcement. The twins, a daughter named Rumi and a son named Sir, were born at Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center in California. She wrote of her pregnancy and its aftermath in the September 2018 issue of Vogue, in which she had full control of the cover, shot at Hammerwood Park by photographer Tyler Mitchell.
Activism
Beyoncé performed "America the Beautiful" at President Barack Obama's 2009 presidential inauguration, as well as "At Last" during the first inaugural dance at the Neighborhood Ball two days later. The couple held a fundraiser at Jay-Z's 40/40 Club in Manhattan for President Obama's 2012 presidential campaign which raised $4 million. In the 2012 presidential election, the singer voted for President Obama. She performed the American national anthem "The Star-Spangled Banner" at his second inauguration in January 2013.
The Washington Post reported in May 2015, that Beyoncé attended a major celebrity fundraiser for 2016 presidential nominee Hillary Clinton. She also headlined for Clinton in a concert held the weekend before Election Day the next year. In this performance, Beyoncé and her entourage of backup dancers wore pantsuits; a clear allusion to Clinton's frequent dress-of-choice. The backup dancers also wore "I'm with her" tee shirts, the campaign slogan for Clinton. In a brief speech at this performance Beyoncé said, "I want my daughter to grow up seeing a woman lead our country and knowing that her possibilities are limitless." She endorsed the bid of Beto O'Rourke during the 2018 United States Senate election in Texas.
In 2013, Beyoncé stated in an interview in Vogue that she considered herself to be "a modern-day feminist". She would later align herself more publicly with the movement, sampling "We should all be feminists", a speech delivered by Nigerian author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie at a TEDx talk in April 2013, in her song "Flawless", released later that year. The next year she performed live at the MTV Video Awards in front a giant backdrop reading "Feminist". Her self-identification incited a circulation of opinions and debate about whether her feminism is aligned with older, more established feminist ideals. Annie Lennox, celebrated artist and feminist advocate, referred to Beyoncé's use of her word feminist as 'feminist lite'. bell hooks critiqued Beyoncé, referring to her as a "terrorist" towards feminism, harmfully impacting her audience of young girls. Adichie responded with "her type of feminism is not mine, as it is the kind that, at the same time, gives quite a lot of space to the necessity of men." Adichie expands upon what 'feminist lite' means to her, referring that "more troubling is the idea, in Feminism Lite, that men are naturally superior but should be expected to "treat women well" and "we judge powerful women more harshly than we judge powerful men. And Feminism Lite enables this." Beyoncé responded about her intent by utilizing the definition of feminist with her platform was to "give clarity to the true meaning" behind it. She says to understand what being a feminist is, "it's very simple. It's someone who believes in equal rights for men and women." She advocated to provide equal opportunities for young boys and girls, men and women must begin to understand the double standards that remain persistent in our societies and the issue must be illuminated in effort to start making changes.
She has also contributed to the Ban Bossy campaign, which uses TV and social media to encourage leadership in girls. Following Beyoncé's public identification as a feminist, the sexualized nature of her performances and the fact that she championed her marriage was questioned.
In December 2012, Beyoncé along with a variety of other celebrities teamed up and produced a video campaign for "Demand A Plan", a bipartisan effort by a group of 950 U.S. mayors and others designed to influence the federal government into rethinking its gun control laws, following the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting. Beyoncé publicly endorsed same-sex marriage on March 26, 2013, after the Supreme Court debate on California's Proposition 8. She spoke against North Carolina's Public Facilities Privacy & Security Act, a bill passed (and later repealed) that discriminated against the LGBT community in public places in a statement during her concert in Raleigh as part of the Formation World Tour in 2016. She has also condemned police brutality against black Americans. She and Jay-Z attended a rally in 2013 in response to the acquittal of George Zimmerman for the killing of Trayvon Martin. The film for her sixth album Lemonade included the mothers of Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown and Eric Garner, holding pictures of their sons in the video for "Freedom". In a 2016 interview with Elle, Beyoncé responded to the controversy surrounding her song "Formation" which was perceived to be critical of the police. She clarified, "I am against police brutality and injustice. Those are two separate things. If celebrating my roots and culture during Black History Month made anyone uncomfortable, those feelings were there long before a video and long before me".
In February 2017, Beyoncé spoke out against the withdrawal of protections for transgender students in public schools by Donald Trump's presidential administration. Posting a link to the 100 Days of Kindness campaign on her Facebook page, Beyoncé voiced her support for transgender youth and joined a roster of celebrities who spoke out against Trump's decision.
In November 2017, Beyoncé presented Colin Kaepernick with the 2017 Sports Illustrated Muhammad Ali Legacy Award, stating, "Thank you for your selfless heart and your conviction, thank you for your personal sacrifice", and that "Colin took action with no fear of consequence ... To change perception, to change the way we treat each other, especially people of color. We're still waiting for the world to catch up." Muhammad Ali was heavily penalized in his career for protesting the status quo of US civil rights through opposition to the Vietnam War, by refusing to serve in the military. 40 years later, Kaepernick had already lost one professional year due to taking a much quieter and legal stand "for people that are oppressed".
Wealth
Forbes magazine began reporting on Beyoncé's earnings in 2008, calculating that the $80 million earned between June 2007 to June 2008, for her music, tour, films and clothing line made her the world's best-paid music personality at the time, above Madonna and Celine Dion. It placed her fourth on the Celebrity 100 list in 2009
and ninth on the "Most Powerful Women in the World" list in 2010. The following year, the magazine placed her eighth on the "Best-Paid Celebrities Under 30" list, having earned $35 million in the past year for her clothing line and endorsement deals. In 2012, Forbes placed Beyoncé at number 16 on the Celebrity 100 list, twelve places lower than three years ago yet still having earned $40 million in the past year for her album 4, clothing line and endorsement deals. In the same year, Beyoncé and Jay-Z placed at number one on the "World's Highest-Paid Celebrity Couples", for collectively earning $78 million. The couple made it into the previous year's Guinness World Records as the "highest-earning power couple" for collectively earning $122 million in 2009. For the years 2009 to 2011, Beyoncé earned an average of $70 million per year, and earned $40 million in 2012. In 2013, Beyoncé's endorsements of Pepsi and H&M made her and Jay-Z the world's first billion dollar couple in the music industry. That year, Beyoncé was published as the fourth most-powerful celebrity in the Forbes rankings.
MTV estimated that by the end of 2014, Beyoncé would become the highest-paid Black musician in history; this became the case in April 2014. In June 2014, Beyoncé ranked at number one on the Forbes Celebrity 100 list, earning an estimated $115 million throughout June 2013 – June 2014. This in turn was the first time she had topped the Celebrity 100 list as well as being her highest yearly earnings to date. In 2016, Beyoncé ranked at number 34 on the Celebrity 100 list with earnings of $54 million. She and Jay-Z also topped the highest paid celebrity couple list, with combined earnings of $107.5 million. , Forbes calculated her net worth to be $355 million, and in June of the same year, ranked her as the 35th highest earning celebrity with annual earnings of $60 million. This tied Beyoncé with Madonna as the only two female artists to earn more than $100 million within a single year twice. As a couple, Beyoncé and Jay-Z have a combined net worth of $1.16 billion. In July 2017, Billboard announced that Beyoncé was the highest paid musician of 2016, with an estimated total of $62.1 million.
Impact
Beyoncé's success has led to her becoming a cultural icon and earning her the nickname "Queen Bey". In The New Yorker, music critic Jody Rosen described Beyoncé as "the most important and compelling popular musician of the twenty-first century ... the result, the logical end point, of a century-plus of pop." Author James Clear, in his book Atomic Habits (2018), draws a parallel between the singer's success and the dramatic transformations in modern society: "In the last one hundred years, we have seen the rise of the car, the airplane, the television, the personal computer, the internet, the smartphone, and Beyoncé." The Observer named her Artist of the Decade (2000s) in 2009.
Writing for Entertainment Weekly, Alex Suskind noticed how Beyoncé was the decade's (2010s) defining pop star, stating that "no one dominated music in the 2010s like Queen Bey", explaining that her "songs, album rollouts, stage presence, social justice initiatives, and disruptive public relations strategy have influenced the way we've viewed music since 2010." British publication NME also shared similar thoughts on her impact in the 2010s, including Beyoncé on their list of the "10 Artists Who Defined The Decade". In 2018, Rolling Stone included her on its Millennial 100 list.
Beyoncé is credited with the invention of the staccato rap-singing style that has since dominated pop, R&B and rap music. Lakin Starling of The Fader wrote that Beyoncé's innovative implementation of the delivery style on Destiny's Child's 1999 album The Writing's on the Wall invented a new form of R&B. Beyoncé's new style subsequently changed the nature of music, revolutionizing both singing in urban music and rapping in pop music, and becoming the dominant sound of both genres. The style helped to redefine both the breadth of commercial R&B and the sound of hip hop, with artists such as Kanye West and Drake implementing Beyoncé's cadence in the late 2000s and early 2010s. The staccato rap-singing style continued to be used in the music industry in the late 2010s and early 2020s; Aaron Williams of Uproxx described Beyoncé as the "primary pioneer" of the rapping style that dominates the music industry today, with many contemporary rappers implementing Beyoncé's rap-singing. Michael Eric Dyson agrees, saying that Beyoncé "changed the whole genre" and has become the "godmother" of mumble rappers, who use the staccato rap-singing cadence. Dyson added: "She doesn't get credit for the remarkable way in which she changed the musical vocabulary of contemporary art."
Beyoncé has been credited with reviving the album as an art form in an era dominated by singles and streaming. This started with her 2011 album 4; while mainstream R&B artists were forgoing albums-led R&B in favor of singles-led EDM, Beyoncé aimed to place the focus back on albums as an artform and re-establish R&B as a mainstream concern. This remained a focus of Beyoncé's, and in 2013, she made her eponymous album only available to purchase as a full album on iTunes, rather than being able to purchase individual tracks or consume the album via streaming. Kaitlin Menza of Marie Claire wrote that this made listeners "experience the album as one whole sonic experience, the way people used to, noting the musical and lyrical themes". Jamieson Cox for The Verge described how Beyoncé's 2013 album initiated a gradual trend of albums becoming more cohesive and self-referential, and this phenomenon reached its endpoint with Lemonade, which set "a new standard for pop storytelling at the highest possible scale". Megan Carpentier of The Guardian wrote that with Lemonade, Beyoncé has "almost revived the album format" by releasing an album that can only be listened to in its entirety. Myf Warhurst on Double J's "Lunch With Myf" explained that while most artists' albums consist of a few singles plus filler songs, Beyoncé "brought the album back", changing the art form of the album "to a narrative with an arc and a story and you have to listen to the entire thing to get the concept".
Several recording artists have cited Beyoncé as their influence. Lady Gaga explained how Beyoncé gave her the determination to become a musician, recalling seeing her in a Destiny's Child music video and saying: "Oh, she's a star. I want that." Rihanna was similarly inspired to start her singing career after watching Beyoncé, telling etalk that after Beyoncé released Dangerously In Love (2003), "I was like 'wow, I want to be just like that.' She's huge and just an inspiration." Lizzo was also first inspired by Beyoncé to start singing after watching her perform at a Destiny's Child concert. Lizzo also taught herself to sing by copying Beyoncé's B'Day (2006). Similarly, Ariana Grande said she learned to sing by mimicking Beyoncé. Adele cited Beyoncé as her inspiration and favorite artist, telling Vogue: "She's been a huge and constant part of my life as an artist since I was about ten or eleven ... I think she's really inspiring. She's beautiful. She's ridiculously talented, and she is one of the kindest people I've ever met ... She makes me want to do things with my life." Both Paul McCartney and Garth Brooks said they watch Beyoncé's performances to get inspiration for their own shows, with Brooks saying that when you watch one of her performances, "take out your notebook and take notes. No matter how long you've been on the stage – take notes on that one."
She is known for coining popular phrases such as "put a ring on it", a euphemism for marriage proposal, "I woke up like this", which started a trend of posting morning selfies with the hashtag #iwokeuplikethis, and "boy, bye", which was used as part of the Democratic National Committee's campaign for the 2020 election. Similarly, she also came up with the phrase "visual album" following the release of her fifth studio album, which had a video for every song. This has been recreated by many other artists since, such as Frank Ocean and Melanie Martinez. The album also popularized surprise releases, with many artists releasing songs, videos or albums with no prior announcement, such as Taylor Swift, Nicki Minaj, Eminem, Frank Ocean, Jay-Z and Drake.
In January 2012, research scientist Bryan Lessard named Scaptia beyonceae, a species of horse-fly found in Northern Queensland, Australia after Beyoncé due to the fly's unique golden hairs on its abdomen. In 2018, the City of Columbia, South Carolina declared August 21 the Beyoncé Knowles-Carter Day in the city after presenting her with the keys to Columbia.
Achievements
Beyoncé has received numerous awards, and is the most-awarded female artist of all time. As a solo artist she has sold over 17 million albums in the US, and over 75 million worldwide (as of February 2013). Having sold over 100 million records worldwide (a further 60 million additionally with Destiny's Child), Beyoncé is one of the best-selling music artists of all time. The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) listed Beyoncé as the top certified artist of the 2000s decade, with a total of 64 certifications. Her songs "Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)", "Halo", and "Irreplaceable" are some of the best-selling singles of all time worldwide. In 2009, Billboard named her the Top Female Artist and Top Radio Songs Artist of the Decade. In 2010, Billboard named her in their Top 50 R&B/Hip-Hop Artists of the Past 25 Years list at number 15. In 2012, VH1 ranked her third on their list of the "100 Greatest Women in Music", behind Mariah Carey and Madonna. In 2002, she received Songwriter of the Year from American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers becoming the First African American woman to win the award. In 2004 and 2019, she received NAACP Image Award for Entertainer of the Year and the Soul Train Music Award for Sammy Davis Jr. – Entertainer of the Year.
In 2005, she also received APEX Award at the Trumpet Award honoring achievements of Black African Americans. In 2007, Beyoncé received the International Artist of Excellence award by the American Music Awards. She also received Honorary Otto at the Bravo Otto. The following year, she received the Legend Award for Outstanding Contribution to the Arts at the World Music Awards and Career Achievement Award at the LOS40 Music Awards. In 2010, she received Award of Honor for Artist of the Decade at the NRJ Music Award and at the 2011 Billboard Music Awards, Beyoncé received the inaugural Billboard Millennium Award. Beyoncé received the Michael Jackson Video Vanguard Award at the 2014 MTV Video Music Awards and was honored as Honorary Mother of the Year at the Australian Mother of the Year Award in Barnardo's Australia for her Humanitarian Effort in the region and the Council of Fashion Designers of America Fashion Icon Award in 2016. In 2019, alongside Jay-Z, she received GLAAD Vanguard Award that is presented to a member of the entertainment community who does not identify as LGBT but who has made a significant difference in promoting equal rights for LGBT people. In 2020, she was awarded the BET Humanitarian Award. Consequence of Sound named her the 30th best singer of all time.
Beyoncé has won 28 Grammy Awards, both as a solo artist and member of Destiny's Child and The Carters, making her the most honored singer, male or female, by the Grammys. She is also the most nominated artist in Grammy Award history with a total of 79 nominations. "Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)" won Song of the Year in 2010 while "Say My Name", "Crazy in Love" and "Drunk in Love" have each won Best R&B Song. Dangerously in Love, B'Day and I Am... Sasha Fierce have all won Best Contemporary R&B Album, while Lemonade has won Best Urban Contemporary Album. Beyoncé set the record for the most Grammy awards won by a female artist in one night in 2010 when she won six awards, breaking the tie she previously held with Alicia Keys, Norah Jones, Alison Krauss, and Amy Winehouse, with Adele equaling this in 2012.
Beyoncé has also won 24 MTV Video Music Awards, making her the most-awarded artist in Video Music Award history. She won two awards each with The Carters and Destiny's Child making her lifetime total of 28 VMAs. "Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)" and "Formation" won Video of the Year in 2009 and 2016 respectively. Beyoncé tied the record set by Lady Gaga in 2010 for the most VMAs won in one night for a female artist with eight in 2016. She is also the most-awarded and nominated artist in BET Award history, winning 29 awards from a total of 60 nominations, the most-awarded person at the Soul Train Music Awards with 17 awards as a solo artist, and the most-awarded person at the NAACP Image Awards with 24 awards as a solo artist.
Following her role in Dreamgirls, Beyoncé was nominated for Best Original Song for "Listen" and Best Actress at the Golden Globe Awards, and Outstanding Actress in a Motion Picture at the NAACP Image Awards. Beyoncé won two awards at the Broadcast Film Critics Association Awards 2006; Best Song for "Listen" and Best Original Soundtrack for Dreamgirls: Music from the Motion Picture. According to Fuse in 2014, Beyoncé is the second-most award-winning artist of all time, after Michael Jackson. Lemonade won a Peabody Award in 2017.
She was named on the 2016 BBC Radio 4 Woman's Hour Power List as one of seven women judged to have had the biggest impact on women's lives over the past 70 years, alongside Margaret Thatcher, Barbara Castle, Helen Brook, Germaine Greer, Jayaben Desai and Bridget Jones, She was named the Most Powerful Woman in Music on the same list in 2020. In the same year, Billboard named her with Destiny's Child the third Greatest Music Video artists of all time, behind Madonna and Michael Jackson.
On June 16, 2021, Beyoncé was among several celebrities at the Pollstar Awards where she won the award of "top touring artist" of the decade (2010s). On June 17, 2021, Beyoncé was inducted into the Black Music & Entertainment Walk of Fame as a member of the inaugural class.
Business and ventures
In 2010, Beyoncé founded her own entertainment company Parkwood Entertainment which formed as an imprint based from Columbia Records, the company began as a production unit for videos and films in 2008. Parkwood Entertainment is named after a street in Houston, Texas where Beyoncé once lived. With headquarters in New York City, the company serves as an umbrella for the entertainer's various brands in music, movies, videos, and fashion. The staff of Parkwood Entertainment have experiences in arts and entertainment, from filmmaking and video production to web and fashion design. In addition to departments in marketing, digital, creative, publicity, fashion design and merchandising, the company houses a state-of-the-art editing suite, where Beyoncé works on content for her worldwide tours, music videos, and television specials. Parkwood Entertainment's first production was the musical biopic Cadillac Records (2008), in which Beyoncé starred and co-produced. The company has also distributed Beyoncé's albums such as her self-titled fifth studio album (2013), Lemonade (2016) and The Carters, Everything is Love (2018). Beyoncé has also signed other artists to Parkwood such as Chloe x Halle, who performed at Super Bowl LIII in February 2019.
Endorsements and partnerships
Beyoncé has worked with Pepsi since 2002, and in 2004 appeared in a Gladiator-themed commercial with Britney Spears, Pink, and Enrique Iglesias. In 2012, Beyoncé signed a $50 million deal to endorse Pepsi. The Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPINET) wrote Beyoncé an open letter asking her to reconsider the deal because of the unhealthiness of the product and to donate the proceeds to a medical organisation. Nevertheless, NetBase found that Beyoncé's campaign was the most talked about endorsement in April 2013, with a 70 percent positive audience response to the commercial and print ads.
Beyoncé has worked with Tommy Hilfiger for the fragrances True Star (singing a cover version of "Wishing on a Star") and True Star Gold; she also promoted Emporio Armani's Diamonds fragrance in 2007. Beyoncé launched her first official fragrance, Heat, in 2010. The commercial, which featured the 1956 song "Fever", was shown after the watershed in the United Kingdom as it begins with an image of Beyoncé appearing to lie naked in a room. In February 2011, Beyoncé launched her second fragrance, Heat Rush. Beyoncé's third fragrance, Pulse, was launched in September 2011. In 2013, The Mrs. Carter Show Limited Edition version of Heat was released. The six editions of Heat are the world's best-selling celebrity fragrance line, with sales of over $400 million.
The release of a video-game Starpower: Beyoncé was cancelled after Beyoncé pulled out of a $100 million with GateFive who alleged the cancellation meant the sacking of 70 staff and millions of pounds lost in development. It was settled out of court by her lawyers in June 2013 who said that they had cancelled because GateFive had lost its financial backers. Beyoncé also has had deals with American Express, Nintendo DS and L'Oréal since the age of 18.
In March 2015, Beyoncé became a co-owner, with other artists, of the music streaming service Tidal. The service specializes in lossless audio and high definition music videos. Beyoncé's husband Jay-Z acquired the parent company of Tidal, Aspiro, in the first quarter of 2015. Including Beyoncé and Jay-Z, sixteen artist stakeholders (such as Kanye West, Rihanna, Madonna, Chris Martin, Nicki Minaj and more) co-own Tidal, with the majority owning a 3% equity stake. The idea of having an all artist owned streaming service was created by those involved to adapt to the increased demand for streaming within the current music industry.
In November 2020, Beyoncé formed a multi-year partnership with exercise equipment and media company Peloton. The partnership was formed to celebrate homecoming season in historically black colleges and universities, providing themed workout experiences inspired by Beyoncé's 2019 Homecoming film and live album after 2020's homecoming celebrations were cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic. As part of the partnership, Beyoncé and Peloton are donating free memberships to all students at 10 HBCUs, and Peloton are pursuing long-term recruiting partnerships at the HCBUs. Gwen Bethel Riley, head of music at Peloton, said: "When we had conversations with Beyoncé around how critical a social impact component was to all of us, it crystallized how important it was to embrace Homecoming as an opportunity to celebrate and create dialogue around Black culture and music, in partnership with HBCUs." Upon news of the partnership, a decline in Peloton's shares reversed, and its shares rose by 8.6%.
In 2021, Beyoncé and Jay-Z partnered with Tiffany & Co. for the company's "About Love" campaign. Beyoncé became the fourth woman, and first Black woman, to wear the Tiffany Yellow Diamond. The campaign featured a robin egg blue painting by Jean-Michel Basquiat titled Equals Pi (1982).
Fashion lines
Beyoncé and her mother introduced House of Deréon, a contemporary women's fashion line, in 2005. The concept is inspired by three generations of women in their family, with the name paying tribute to Beyoncé's grandmother, Agnèz Deréon, a respected seamstress. According to Tina, the overall style of the line best reflects her and Beyoncé's taste and style. Beyoncé and her mother founded their family's company Beyond Productions, which provides the licensing and brand management for House of Deréon, and its junior collection, Deréon. House of Deréon pieces were exhibited in Destiny's Child's shows and tours, during their Destiny Fulfilled era. The collection features sportswear, denim offerings with fur, outerwear and accessories that include handbags and footwear, and are available at department and specialty stores across the U.S. and Canada.
In 2005, Beyoncé teamed up with House of Brands, a shoe company, to produce a range of footwear for House of Deréon. In January 2008, Starwave Mobile launched Beyoncé Fashion Diva, a "high-style" mobile game with a social networking component, featuring the House of Deréon collection. In July 2009, Beyoncé and her mother launched a new junior apparel label, Sasha Fierce for Deréon, for back-to-school selling. The collection included sportswear, outerwear, handbags, footwear, eyewear, lingerie and jewelry. It was available at department stores including Macy's and Dillard's, and specialty stores Jimmy Jazz and Against All Odds. On May 27, 2010, Beyoncé teamed up with clothing store C&A to launch Deréon by Beyoncé at their stores in Brazil. The collection included tailored blazers with padded shoulders, little black dresses, embroidered tops and shirts and bandage dresses.
In October 2014, Beyoncé signed a deal to launch an activewear line of clothing with British fashion retailer Topshop. The 50–50 venture is called Ivy Park and was launched in April 2016. The brand's name is a nod to Beyoncé's daughter and her favourite number four (IV in roman numerals), and also references the park where she used to run in Texas. She has since bought out Topshop owner Philip Green from his 50% share after he was alleged to have sexually harassed, bullied and racially abused employees. She now owns the brand herself. On April 4, 2019, it was announced that Beyoncé would become a creative partner with Adidas and further develop her athletic brand Ivy Park with the company. Knowles will also develop new clothes and footwear for Adidas. Shares for the company rose 1.3% upon the news release. On December 9, 2019, they announced a launch date of January 18, 2020. Beyoncé uploaded a teaser on her website and Instagram. The collection was also previewed on the upcoming Elle January 2020 issue, where Beyoncé is seen wearing several garments, accessories and footwear from the first collection.
Philanthropy
In 2002, Beyoncé, Kelly Rowland and Tina Knowles built the Knowles-Rowland Center for Youth, a community center in Downtown Houston. After Hurricane Katrina in 2005, Beyoncé and Rowland founded the Survivor Foundation to provide transitional housing to displaced families and provide means for new building construction, to which Beyoncé contributed an initial $250,000. The foundation has since expanded to work with other charities in the city, and also provided relief following Hurricane Ike three years later. Beyoncé also donated $100,000 to the Gulf Coast Ike Relief Fund. In 2007, Beyoncé founded the Knowles-Temenos Place Apartments, a housing complex offering living space for 43 displaced individuals. As of 2016, Beyoncé had donated $7 million for the maintenance of the complex.
After starring in Cadillac Records in 2009 and learning about Phoenix House, a non-profit drug and alcohol rehabilitation organization, Beyoncé donated her full $4 million salary from the film to the organization. Beyoncé and her mother subsequently established the Beyoncé Cosmetology Center, which offers a seven-month cosmetology training course helping Phoenix House's clients gain career skills during their recovery.
In January 2010, Beyoncé participated in George Clooney and Wyclef Jean's Hope for Haiti Now: A Global Benefit for Earthquake Relief telethon, donated a large sum to the organization, and was named the official face of the limited edition CFDA "Fashion For Haiti" T-shirt, made by Theory which raised a total of $1 million. In April 2011, Beyoncé joined forces with U.S. First Lady Michelle Obama and the National Association of Broadcasters Education Foundation, to help boost the latter's campaign against child obesity by reworking her single "Get Me Bodied". Following the death of Osama bin Laden, Beyoncé released her cover of the Lee Greenwood song "God Bless the USA", as a charity single to help raise funds for the New York Police and Fire Widows' and Children's Benefit Fund.
Beyoncé became an ambassador for the 2012 World Humanitarian Day campaign donating her song "I Was Here" and its music video, shot in the UN, to the campaign. In 2013, it was announced that Beyoncé would work with Salma Hayek and Frida Giannini on a Gucci "Chime for Change" campaign that aims to spread female empowerment. The campaign, which aired on February 28, was set to her new music. A concert for the cause took place on June 1, 2013, in London. With help of the crowdfunding platform Catapult, visitors of the concert could choose between several projects promoting education of women and girls. Beyoncé also took part in "Miss a Meal", a food-donation campaign, and supported Goodwill Industries through online charity auctions at Charitybuzz that support job creation throughout Europe and the U.S.
Beyoncé and Jay-Z secretly donated tens of thousands of dollars to bail out Black Lives Matter protesters in Baltimore and Ferguson, as well as funded infrastructure for the establishment of Black Lives Matter chapters across the US. Before Beyoncé's Formation World Tour show in Tampa, her team held a private luncheon for more than 20 community leaders to discuss how Beyoncé could support local charitable initiatives, including pledging on the spot to fund 10 scholarships to provide students with financial aid. Tampa Sports Authority board member Thomas Scott said: "I don't know of a prior artist meeting with the community, seeing what their needs are, seeing how they can invest in the community. It says a lot to me about Beyoncé. She not only goes into a community and walks away with (money), but she also gives money back to that community." In June 2016, Beyoncé donated over $82,000 to the United Way of Genesee County to support victims of the Flint water crisis. Beyoncé additionally donated money to support 14 students in Michigan with their college expenses. In August 2016, Beyoncé and Jay-Z donated $1.5 million to civil rights groups including Black Lives Matter, Hands Up United and Dream Defenders. After Hurricane Matthew, Beyoncé and Jay-Z donated $15 million to the Usain Bolt Foundation to support its efforts in rebuilding homes in Haiti. In December 2016, Beyoncé was named the Most Charitable Celebrity of the year.
During Hurricane Harvey in August 2017, Beyoncé launched BeyGOOD Houston to support those affected by the hurricane in Houston. The organization donated necessities such as cots, blankets, pillows, baby products, feminine products and wheelchairs, and funded long-term revitalization projects. On September 8, Beyoncé visited Houston, where she sponsored a lunch for 400 survivors at her local church, visited the George R Brown Convention Center to discuss with people displaced by the flooding about their needs, served meals to those who lost their homes, and made a significant donation to local causes. Beyoncé additionally donated $75,000 worth of new mattresses to survivors of the hurricane. Later that month, Beyoncé released a remix of J Balvin and Willy William's "Mi Gente", with all of her proceeds being donated to disaster relief charities in Puerto Rico, Mexico, the U.S. and the Caribbean after hurricanes Harvey, Irma and Maria, and the Chiapas and Puebla earthquakes.
In April 2020, Beyoncé donated $6 million to the National Alliance in Mental Health, UCLA and local community-based organizations in order to provide mental health and personal wellness services to essential workers during the COVID-19 pandemic. BeyGOOD also teamed up with local organizations to help provide resources to communities of color, including food, water, cleaning supplies, medicines and face masks. The same month Beyoncé released a remix of Megan Thee Stallion's "Savage", with all proceeds benefiting Bread of Life Houston's COVID-19 relief efforts, which includes providing over 14 tons of food and supplies to 500 families and 100 senior citizens in Houston weekly. In May 2020, Beyoncé provided 1,000 free COVID-19 tests in Houston as part of her and her mother's #IDidMyPart initiative, which was established due to the disproportionate deaths in African-American communities. Additionally, 1,000 gloves, masks, hot meals, essential vitamins, grocery vouchers and household items were provided. In July 2020, Beyoncé established the Black-Owned Small Business Impact Fund in partnership with the NAACP, which offers $10,000 grants to black-owned small businesses in need following the George Floyd protests. All proceeds from Beyoncé's single "Black Parade" were donated to the fund. In September 2020, Beyoncé announced that she had donated an additional $1 million to the fund. As of December 31, 2020, the fund had given 715 grants to black-owned small businesses, amounting to $7.15 million donated. In October 2020, Beyoncé released a statement that she has been working with the Feminist Coalition to assist supporters of the End Sars movement in Nigeria, including covering medical costs for injured protestors, covering legal fees for arrested protestors, and providing food, emergency shelter, transportation and telecommunication means to those in need. Beyoncé also showed support for those fighting against other issues in Africa, such as the Anglophone Crisis in Cameroon, ShutItAllDown in Namibia, Zimbabwean Lives Matter in Zimbabwe and the Rape National Emergency in Liberia. In December 2020, Beyoncé donated $500,000 to help alleviate the housing crisis in the U.S. caused by the cessation of the eviction moratorium, giving 100 $5,000 grants to individuals and families facing foreclosures and evictions.
Discography
Dangerously in Love (2003)
B'Day (2006)
I Am... Sasha Fierce (2008)
4 (2011)
Beyoncé (2013)
Lemonade (2016)
Filmography
Films starred
Carmen: A Hip Hopera (2001)
Austin Powers in Goldmember (2002)
The Fighting Temptations (2003)
Fade to Black (2004)
The Pink Panther (2006)
Dreamgirls (2006)
Cadillac Records (2008)
Obsessed (2009)
Epic (2013)
The Lion King (2019)
Films directed
Life Is But a Dream (2013)
Beyoncé: Lemonade (2016)
Homecoming (2019)
Black Is King (2020)
Tours and residencies
Headlining tours
Dangerously in Love Tour (2003)
The Beyoncé Experience (2007)
I Am... World Tour (2009–2010)
The Mrs. Carter Show World Tour (2013–2014)
The Formation World Tour (2016)
Co-headlining tours
Verizon Ladies First Tour (with Alicia Keys and Missy Elliott) (2004)
On the Run Tour (with Jay-Z) (2014)
On the Run II Tour (with Jay-Z) (2018)
Residencies
I Am... Yours (2009)
4 Intimate Nights with Beyoncé (2011)
Revel Presents: Beyoncé Live (2012)
See also
Album era
Honorific nicknames in popular music
List of artists who reached number one in the United States
List of artists with the most number ones on the U.S. dance chart
List of Billboard Social 50 number-one artists
List of black Golden Globe Award winners and nominees
List of highest-grossing concert tours
Best-selling female artists of all time
List of most-followed Instagram accounts
Notes
References
External links
1981 births
Living people
20th-century American businesspeople
20th-century American businesswomen
20th-century American singers
20th-century American women singers
21st-century American actresses
21st-century American businesspeople
21st-century American businesswomen
21st-century American singers
21st-century American women singers
Actresses from Houston
African-American actresses
African-American artists
African-American businesspeople
African-American choreographers
African-American dancers
African-American fashion designers
American fashion designers
African-American female dancers
African-American women rappers
African-American women singers
African-American feminists
African-American Methodists
African-American record producers
African-American women in business
African-American women writers
American women business executives
American choreographers
American contemporary R&B singers
American cosmetics businesspeople
American fashion businesspeople
American women pop singers
American film actresses
American hip hop record producers
American female hip hop singers
American hip hop singers
American mezzo-sopranos
American music publishers (people)
American music video directors
American people of Creole descent
American retail chief executives
American soul singers
American television actresses
American United Methodists
American voice actresses
American women philanthropists
American women record producers
Black Lives Matter people
Brit Award winners
Businesspeople from Houston
Columbia Records artists
Dance-pop musicians
Destiny's Child members
Female music video directors
Feminist musicians
Gold Star Records artists
Grammy Award winners
Grammy Award winners for rap music
High School for the Performing and Visual Arts alumni
Ivor Novello Award winners
Jay-Z
Solange Knowles
Louisiana Creole people
MTV Europe Music Award winners
Music video codirectors
Musicians from Houston
NME Awards winners
Parkwood Entertainment artists
Record producers from Texas
Shoe designers
Singers from Texas
Singers with a four-octave vocal range
Texas Democrats
Women hip hop record producers
World Music Awards winners
Writers from Houston | true | [
"was a professional Go player.\n\nHe is well known in the Western go world for his book Lessons in the Fundamentals of Go.\n\nBiography \nKageyama was born in Shizuoka Prefecture, Japan. In 1948, he won the biggest amateur Go tournament in Japan, the All-Amateur Honinbo. The year after that, he passed the pro exam. \n\nFor two years straight, Kageyama was runner up for the Prime Minister Cup. First, against Otake Hideo, then Hoshino Toshi. His style was a very calm one with deep calculations, similar to what Ishida Yoshio would use later on. The greatest accomplishment of his life, in his own opinion, was beating Rin Kaiho in the Prime Minister Cup semi-finals. At the time, Rin was the Meijin, the top player in Japan. Kageyama gave a commentary on this game in his book \"Lessons in the Fundamentals of Go\", where he wrote\n\nPromotion record\n\nRunners-up\n\nAwards\nTakamatsu-no-miya Prize once (1967)\n\nBibliography \nLessons in the Fundamentals of Go \nKage's Secret Chronicles of Handicap Go\n\nReferences\n\n1926 births\n1990 deaths\nJapanese Go players\nGo writers",
"Hans Christian Harald Tegner, known as Hans Tegner (30 November 1853 – 2 April 1932), was a Danish artist and illustrator. He is primarily known for his illustrations of literary works by Hans Christian Andersen and Ludvig Holberg and for his work for the Bing & Grøndahl porcelain factory.\n\nEarly life and education\nSon of lithographer Isac Wilhelm Tegner, Hans studied at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts from 1869 to 1878.\n\nCareer\nHis first art exhibition was in 1882, featuring watercolour illustrations of Hans Christian Andersen's story The Tinderbox. His second, and last, exhibition in 1889 was a watercolour painting celebrating the 50-year jubilee of the Constitution of Denmark, and was bought by king Christian IX of Denmark. From 1883 to 1888, Tegner painted a series of illustrations for the works of Ludvig Holberg, his greatest artistic accomplishment. The second great accomplishment of Tegner, was his exquisite illustrations produced for the so-called international selection () of Andersen's fairy tales, finished in 1901.\n\nTegner was made professor at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts in 1897. He illustrated a number of other books, as well as postal stamps, and the first 5-Danish krone note in 1898. He was the leader of Kunsthåndværkerskolen (a part of what is now Danmarks Designskole) from 1901 to 1917, and chief designer at porcelain manufacturer Bing & Grøndahl from 1907 to 1932. He died on April 2, 1932, in Fredensborg.\n\npersonal life\n\nTegner married Helga Byberg (13 January 1862 - 26 February 1945), a daughter of merchant Ole Strib Hansen Byberg (1812–82) and Karen Møller (1821–89), on 24 November 1896 in Sundby.\n\nHe died on 2 April 1932 and is buried in Asminderød Cemetery\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n\n1853 births\n1932 deaths\nDanish artists\nRoyal Danish Academy of Fine Arts faculty\nRoyal Danish Academy of Fine Arts alumni\n19th-century illustrators of fairy tales\n20th-century illustrators of fairy tales"
]
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[
"Beyoncé",
"Voice and songwriting",
"what happened with voice and songwriting?",
"Jody Rosen highlights her tone and timbre as particularly distinctive, describing her voice as \"one of the most compelling instruments in popular music",
"what else does she say about her voice?",
"Her vocal abilities mean she is identified as the centerpiece of Destiny's Child.",
"did anyone else have anything to say about her voice? good or bad.",
"Jon Pareles of The New York Times commented that her voice is \"velvety yet tart,",
"what else did he comment about her voice?",
"\"velvety yet tart, with an insistent flutter and reserves of soul belting\".",
"what do people have to say about her songwriting?",
"She has received co-writing credits for most of the songs recorded with Destiny's Child and her solo efforts.",
"did she win any awards at all?",
"In 2001, she became the first black woman and second female lyricist to win the Pop Songwriter of the Year award",
"what was her greatest accomplishment?",
"She was one of only three women on that list, along with Alicia Keys and Taylor Swift."
]
| C_1128b8d67bcb48feb77ec450ae614b45_1 | who did she work with? | 8 | Who did Beyonce work with? | Beyoncé | Jody Rosen highlights her tone and timbre as particularly distinctive, describing her voice as "one of the most compelling instruments in popular music". Her vocal abilities mean she is identified as the centerpiece of Destiny's Child. Jon Pareles of The New York Times commented that her voice is "velvety yet tart, with an insistent flutter and reserves of soul belting". Rosen notes that the hip hop era highly influenced Beyonce's unique rhythmic vocal style, but also finds her quite traditionalist in her use of balladry, gospel and falsetto. Other critics praise her range and power, with Chris Richards of The Washington Post saying she was "capable of punctuating any beat with goose-bump-inducing whispers or full-bore diva-roars." Beyonce's music is generally R&B, but she also incorporates pop, soul and funk into her songs. 4 demonstrated Beyonce's exploration of 1990s-style R&B, as well as further use of soul and hip hop than compared to previous releases. While she almost exclusively releases English songs, Beyonce recorded several Spanish songs for Irreemplazable (re-recordings of songs from B'Day for a Spanish-language audience), and the re-release of B'Day. To record these, Beyonce was coached phonetically by American record producer Rudy Perez. She has received co-writing credits for most of the songs recorded with Destiny's Child and her solo efforts. Her early songs were personally driven and female-empowerment themed compositions like "Independent Women" and "Survivor", but after the start of her relationship with Jay-Z, she transitioned to more man-tending anthems such as "Cater 2 U". Beyonce has also received co-producing credits for most of the records in which she has been involved, especially during her solo efforts. However, she does not formulate beats herself, but typically comes up with melodies and ideas during production, sharing them with producers. In 2001, she became the first black woman and second female lyricist to win the Pop Songwriter of the Year award at the American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers Pop Music Awards. Beyonce was the third woman to have writing credits on three number one songs ("Irreplaceable", "Grillz" and "Check on It") in the same year, after Carole King in 1971 and Mariah Carey in 1991. She is tied with American lyricist Diane Warren at third with nine song-writing credits on number-one singles. (The latter wrote her 9/11-motivated song "I Was Here" for 4.) In May 2011, Billboard magazine listed Beyonce at number 17 on their list of the "Top 20 Hot 100 Songwriters", for having co-written eight singles that hit number one on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. She was one of only three women on that list, along with Alicia Keys and Taylor Swift. CANNOTANSWER | Beyonce has also received co-producing credits for most of the records in which she has been involved, | Beyoncé Giselle Knowles-Carter ( ; born September 4, 1981) is an American singer, songwriter, and actress. Born and raised in Houston, Texas, Beyoncé performed in various singing and dancing competitions as a child. She rose to fame in the late 1990s as the lead singer of Destiny's Child, one of the best-selling girl groups of all time. Their hiatus saw the release of her debut solo album Dangerously in Love (2003), which featured the US Billboard Hot 100 number-one singles "Crazy in Love" and "Baby Boy".
Following the 2006 disbanding of Destiny's Child, she released her second solo album, B'Day, which contained singles "Irreplaceable" and "Beautiful Liar". Beyoncé also starred in multiple films such as The Pink Panther (2006), Dreamgirls (2006), Obsessed (2009), and The Lion King (2019). Her marriage to Jay-Z and her portrayal of Etta James in Cadillac Records (2008) influenced her third album, I Am... Sasha Fierce (2008), which earned a record-setting six Grammy Awards in 2010. It spawned the successful singles "If I Were a Boy", "Single Ladies", and "Halo".
After splitting from her manager and father Mathew Knowles in 2010, Beyoncé released her musically diverse fourth album 4 in 2011. She later achieved universal acclaim for her sonically experimental visual albums, Beyoncé (2013) and Lemonade (2016), the latter of which was the world's best-selling album of 2016 and the most acclaimed album of her career, exploring themes of infidelity and womanism. In 2018, she released Everything Is Love, a collaborative album with her husband, Jay-Z, as the Carters. As a featured artist, Beyoncé topped the Billboard Hot 100 with the remixes of "Perfect" by Ed Sheeran in 2017 and "Savage" by Megan Thee Stallion in 2020. The same year, she released the musical film and visual album Black Is King to widespread acclaim.
Beyoncé is one of the world's best-selling recording artists, having sold 120 million records worldwide. She is the first solo artist to have their first six studio albums debut at number one on the Billboard 200. Her success during the 2000s was recognized with the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA)'s Top Certified Artist of the Decade as well as Billboard Top Female Artist of the Decade. Beyoncé's accolades include 28 Grammy Awards, 26 MTV Video Music Awards (including the Michael Jackson Video Vanguard Award in 2014), 24 NAACP Image Awards, 31 BET Awards, and 17 Soul Train Music Awards; all of which are more than any other singer. In 2014, Billboard named her the highest-earning black musician of all time, while in 2020, she was included on Times list of 100 women who defined the last century.
Life and career
1981–1996: Early life and career beginnings
Beyonce Giselle Knowles was born on September 4, 1981, in Houston, Texas, to Celestine "Tina" Knowles (née Beyonce), a hairdresser and salon owner, and Mathew Knowles, a Xerox sales manager; Tina is Louisiana Creole, and Mathew is African American. Beyonce's younger sister Solange Knowles is also a singer and a former backup dancer for Destiny's Child. Solange and Beyoncé are the first sisters to have both had No. 1 albums.
Beyoncé's maternal grandparents, Lumas Beyince, and Agnez Dereon (daughter of Odilia Broussard and Eugene DeRouen), were French-speaking Louisiana Creoles, with roots in New Iberia. Beyoncé is considered a Creole, passed on to her by her grandparents. Through her mother, Beyoncé is a descendant of many French aristocrats from the southwest of France, including the family of the Viscounts de Béarn since the 9th century, and the Viscounts de Belzunce. She is also a descendant of Jean-Vincent d'Abbadie de Saint-Castin, a French nobleman and military leader who fought along the indigenous Abenaki against the British in Acadia and of Acadian leader Joseph Broussard. Her fourth great-grandmother, Marie-Françoise Trahan, was born in 1774 in Bangor, located on Belle Île, France. Trahan was a daughter of Acadians who had taken refuge on Belle Île after the British deportation. The Estates of Brittany had divided the lands of Belle Île to distribute them among 78 other Acadian families and the already settled inhabitants. The Trahan family lived on Belle Île for over ten years before immigrating to Louisiana, where she married a Broussard descendant. Beyoncé researched her ancestry and discovered that she is descended from a slave owner who married his slave.
Beyoncé was raised Catholic and attended St. Mary's Montessori School in Houston, where she enrolled in dance classes. Her singing was discovered when dance instructor Darlette Johnson began humming a song and she finished it, able to hit the high-pitched notes. Beyoncé's interest in music and performing continued after winning a school talent show at age seven, singing John Lennon's "Imagine" to beat 15/16-year-olds. In the fall of 1990, Beyoncé enrolled in Parker Elementary School, a music magnet school in Houston, where she would perform with the school's choir. She also attended the High School for the Performing and Visual Arts and later Alief Elsik High School. Beyoncé was also a member of the choir at St. John's United Methodist Church as a soloist for two years.
When Beyoncé was eight, she met LaTavia Roberson at an audition for an all-girl entertainment group. They were placed into a group called Girl's Tyme with three other girls, and rapped and danced on the talent show circuit in Houston. After seeing the group, R&B producer Arne Frager brought them to his Northern California studio and placed them in Star Search, the largest talent show on national TV at the time. Girl's Tyme failed to win, and Beyoncé later said the song they performed was not good. In 1995, Beyoncé's father resigned from his job to manage the group. The move reduced Beyoncé's family's income by half, and her parents were forced to move into separated apartments. Mathew cut the original line-up to four and the group continued performing as an opening act for other established R&B girl groups. The girls auditioned before record labels and were finally signed to Elektra Records, moving to Atlanta Records briefly to work on their first recording, only to be cut by the company. This put further strain on the family, and Beyoncé's parents separated. On October 5, 1995, Dwayne Wiggins's Grass Roots Entertainment signed the group. In 1996, the girls began recording their debut album under an agreement with Sony Music, the Knowles family reunited, and shortly after, the group got a contract with Columbia Records.
1997–2002: Destiny's Child
The group changed their name to Destiny's Child in 1996, based upon a passage in the Book of Isaiah. In 1997, Destiny's Child released their major label debut song "Killing Time" on the soundtrack to the 1997 film Men in Black. In November, the group released their debut single and first major hit, "No, No, No". They released their self-titled debut album in February 1998, which established the group as a viable act in the music industry, with moderate sales and winning the group three Soul Train Lady of Soul Awards for Best R&B/Soul Album of the Year, Best R&B/Soul or Rap New Artist, and Best R&B/Soul Single for "No, No, No". The group released their Multi-Platinum second album The Writing's on the Wall in 1999. The record features some of the group's most widely known songs such as "Bills, Bills, Bills", the group's first number-one single, "Jumpin' Jumpin' and "Say My Name", which became their most successful song at the time, and would remain one of their signature songs. "Say My Name" won the Best R&B Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocals and the Best R&B Song at the 43rd Annual Grammy Awards. The Writing's on the Wall sold more than eight million copies worldwide. During this time, Beyoncé recorded a duet with Marc Nelson, an original member of Boyz II Men, on the song "After All Is Said and Done" for the soundtrack to the 1999 film, The Best Man.
LeToya Luckett and Roberson became unhappy with Mathew's managing of the band and eventually were replaced by Farrah Franklin and Michelle Williams. Beyoncé experienced depression following the split with Luckett and Roberson after being publicly blamed by the media, critics, and blogs for its cause. Her long-standing boyfriend left her at this time. The depression was so severe it lasted for a couple of years, during which she occasionally kept herself in her bedroom for days and refused to eat anything. Beyoncé stated that she struggled to speak about her depression because Destiny's Child had just won their first Grammy Award, and she feared no one would take her seriously. Beyoncé would later speak of her mother as the person who helped her fight it. Franklin was then dismissed, leaving just Beyoncé, Rowland, and Williams.
The remaining band members recorded "Independent Women Part I", which appeared on the soundtrack to the 2000 film Charlie's Angels. It became their best-charting single, topping the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 chart for eleven consecutive weeks. In early 2001, while Destiny's Child was completing their third album, Beyoncé landed a major role in the MTV made-for-television film, Carmen: A Hip Hopera, starring alongside American actor Mekhi Phifer. Set in Philadelphia, the film is a modern interpretation of the 19th-century opera Carmen by French composer Georges Bizet. When the third album Survivor was released in May 2001, Luckett and Roberson filed a lawsuit claiming that the songs were aimed at them. The album debuted at number one on the U.S. Billboard 200, with first-week sales of 663,000 copies sold. The album spawned other number-one hits, "Bootylicious" and the title track, "Survivor", the latter of which earned the group a Grammy Award for Best R&B Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocals. After releasing their holiday album 8 Days of Christmas in October 2001, the group announced a hiatus to further pursue solo careers.
In July 2002, Beyoncé made her theatrical film debut, playing Foxxy Cleopatra alongside Mike Myers in the comedy film Austin Powers in Goldmember, which spent its first weekend atop the U.S. box office and grossed $73 million. Beyoncé released "Work It Out" as the lead single from its soundtrack album which entered the top ten in the UK, Norway, and Belgium. In 2003, Beyoncé starred opposite Cuba Gooding, Jr., in the musical comedy The Fighting Temptations as Lilly, a single mother with whom Gooding's character falls in love. The film received mixed reviews from critics but grossed $30 million in the U.S. Beyoncé released "Fighting Temptation" as the lead single from the film's soundtrack album, with Missy Elliott, MC Lyte, and Free which was also used to promote the film. Another of Beyoncé's contributions to the soundtrack, "Summertime", fared better on the U.S. charts.
2003–2005: Dangerously in Love and Destiny Fulfilled
Beyoncé's first solo recording was a feature on Jay-Z's song '03 Bonnie & Clyde" that was released in October 2002, peaking at number four on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 chart. On June 14, 2003, Beyoncé premiered songs from her first solo album Dangerously in Love during her first solo concert and the pay-per-view television special, "Ford Presents Beyoncé Knowles, Friends & Family, Live From Ford's 100th Anniversary Celebration in Dearborn, Michigan". The album was released on June 24, 2003, after Michelle Williams and Kelly Rowland had released their solo efforts. The album sold 317,000 copies in its first week, debuted atop the Billboard 200, and has since sold 11 million copies worldwide. The album's lead single, "Crazy in Love", featuring Jay-Z, became Beyoncé's first number-one single as a solo artist in the US. The single "Baby Boy" also reached number one, and singles, "Me, Myself and I" and "Naughty Girl", both reached the top-five. The album earned Beyoncé a then record-tying five awards at the 46th Annual Grammy Awards; Best Contemporary R&B Album, Best Female R&B Vocal Performance for "Dangerously in Love 2", Best R&B Song and Best Rap/Sung Collaboration for "Crazy in Love", and Best R&B Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocals for "The Closer I Get to You" with Luther Vandross. During the ceremony, she performed with Prince.
In November 2003, she embarked on the Dangerously in Love Tour in Europe and later toured alongside Missy Elliott and Alicia Keys for the Verizon Ladies First Tour in North America. On February 1, 2004, Beyoncé performed the American national anthem at Super Bowl XXXVIII, at the Reliant Stadium in Houston, Texas. After the release of Dangerously in Love, Beyoncé had planned to produce a follow-up album using several of the left-over tracks. However, this was put on hold so she could concentrate on recording Destiny Fulfilled, the final studio album by Destiny's Child. Released on November 15, 2004, in the US and peaking at number two on the Billboard 200, Destiny Fulfilled included the singles "Lose My Breath" and "Soldier", which reached the top five on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. Destiny's Child embarked on a worldwide concert tour, Destiny Fulfilled... and Lovin' It sponsored by McDonald's Corporation, and performed hits such as "No, No, No", "Survivor", "Say My Name", "Independent Women" and "Lose My Breath". In addition to renditions of the group's recorded material, they also performed songs from each singer's solo careers, most notably numbers from Dangerously in Love. and during the last stop of their European tour, in Barcelona on June 11, 2005, Rowland announced that Destiny's Child would disband following the North American leg of the tour. The group released their first compilation album Number 1's on October 25, 2005, in the US and accepted a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in March 2006. The group has sold 60 million records worldwide.
2006–2007: B'Day and Dreamgirls
Beyoncé's second solo album B'Day was released on September 4, 2006, in the US, to coincide with her twenty-fifth birthday. It sold 541,000 copies in its first week and debuted atop the Billboard 200, becoming Beyoncé's second consecutive number-one album in the United States. The album's lead single "Déjà Vu", featuring Jay-Z, reached the top five on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. The second international single "Irreplaceable" was a commercial success worldwide, reaching number one in Australia, Hungary, Ireland, New Zealand and the United States. B'Day also produced three other singles; "Ring the Alarm", "Get Me Bodied", and "Green Light" (released in the United Kingdom only).
At the 49th Annual Grammy Awards (2007), B'Day was nominated for five Grammy Awards, including Best Contemporary R&B Album, Best Female R&B Vocal Performance for "Ring the Alarm" and Best R&B Song and Best Rap/Sung Collaboration"for "Déjà Vu"; the Freemasons club mix of "Déjà Vu" without the rap was put forward in the Best Remixed Recording, Non-Classical category. B'Day won the award for Best Contemporary R&B Album. The following year, B'Day received two nominations – for Record of the Year for "Irreplaceable" and Best Pop Collaboration with Vocals for "Beautiful Liar" (with Shakira), also receiving a nomination for Best Compilation Soundtrack Album for Motion Pictures, Television or Other Visual Media for her appearance on Dreamgirls: Music from the Motion Picture (2006).
Her first acting role of 2006 was in the comedy film The Pink Panther starring opposite Steve Martin, grossing $158.8 million at the box office worldwide. Her second film Dreamgirls, the film version of the 1981 Broadway musical loosely based on The Supremes, received acclaim from critics and grossed $154 million internationally. In it, she starred opposite Jennifer Hudson, Jamie Foxx, and Eddie Murphy playing a pop singer based on Diana Ross. To promote the film, Beyoncé released "Listen" as the lead single from the soundtrack album. In April 2007, Beyoncé embarked on The Beyoncé Experience, her first worldwide concert tour, visiting 97 venues and grossed over $24 million. Beyoncé conducted pre-concert food donation drives during six major stops in conjunction with her pastor at St. John's and America's Second Harvest. At the same time, B'Day was re-released with five additional songs, including her duet with Shakira "Beautiful Liar".
2008–2010: I Am... Sasha Fierce
I Am... Sasha Fierce was released on November 18, 2008, in the United States. The album formally introduces Beyoncé's alter ego Sasha Fierce, conceived during the making of her 2003 single "Crazy in Love". It was met with generally mediocre reviews from critics, but sold 482,000 copies in its first week, debuting atop the Billboard 200, and giving Beyoncé her third consecutive number-one album in the US. The album featured the number-one song "Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)" and the top-five songs "If I Were a Boy" and "Halo". Achieving the accomplishment of becoming her longest-running Hot 100 single in her career, "Halos success in the U.S. helped Beyoncé attain more top-ten singles on the list than any other woman during the 2000s. It also included the successful "Sweet Dreams", and singles "Diva", "Ego", "Broken-Hearted Girl" and "Video Phone". The music video for "Single Ladies" has been parodied and imitated around the world, spawning the "first major dance craze" of the Internet age according to the Toronto Star. The video has won several awards, including Best Video at the 2009 MTV Europe Music Awards, the 2009 Scottish MOBO Awards, and the 2009 BET Awards. At the 2009 MTV Video Music Awards, the video was nominated for nine awards, ultimately winning three including Video of the Year. Its failure to win the Best Female Video category, which went to American singer-songwriter Taylor Swift's "You Belong with Me", led to Kanye West interrupting the ceremony and Beyoncé improvising a re-presentation of Swift's award during her own acceptance speech. In March 2009, Beyoncé embarked on the I Am... World Tour, her second headlining worldwide concert tour, consisting of 108 shows, grossing $119.5 million.
Beyoncé further expanded her acting career, starring as blues singer Etta James in the 2008 musical biopic Cadillac Records. Her performance in the film received praise from critics, and she garnered several nominations for her portrayal of James, including a Satellite Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress, and a NAACP Image Award nomination for Outstanding Supporting Actress. Beyoncé donated her entire salary from the film to Phoenix House, an organization of rehabilitation centers for heroin addicts around the country. On January 20, 2009, Beyoncé performed James' "At Last" at First Couple Barack and Michelle Obama's first inaugural ball. Beyoncé starred opposite Ali Larter and Idris Elba in the thriller, Obsessed. She played Sharon Charles, a mother and wife whose family is threatened by her husband's stalker. Although the film received negative reviews from critics, the movie did well at the U.S. box office, grossing $68 million – $60 million more than Cadillac Records – on a budget of $20 million. The fight scene finale between Sharon and the character played by Ali Larter also won the 2010 MTV Movie Award for Best Fight.
At the 52nd Annual Grammy Awards, Beyoncé received ten nominations, including Album of the Year for I Am... Sasha Fierce, Record of the Year for "Halo", and Song of the Year for "Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)", among others. She tied with Lauryn Hill for most Grammy nominations in a single year by a female artist. Beyoncé went on to win six of those nominations, breaking a record she previously tied in 2004 for the most Grammy awards won in a single night by a female artist with six. In 2010, Beyoncé was featured on Lady Gaga's single "Telephone" and appeared in its music video. The song topped the U.S. Pop Songs chart, becoming the sixth number-one for both Beyoncé and Gaga, tying them with Mariah Carey for most number-ones since the Nielsen Top 40 airplay chart launched in 1992. "Telephone" received a Grammy Award nomination for Best Pop Collaboration with Vocals.
Beyoncé announced a hiatus from her music career in January 2010, heeding her mother's advice, "to live life, to be inspired by things again". During the break she and her father parted ways as business partners. Beyoncé's musical break lasted nine months and saw her visit multiple European cities, the Great Wall of China, the Egyptian pyramids, Australia, English music festivals and various museums and ballet performances.
2011–2013: 4 and Super Bowl XLVII halftime show
On June 26, 2011, she became the first solo female artist to headline the main Pyramid stage at the 2011 Glastonbury Festival in over twenty years. Her fourth studio album 4 was released two days later in the US. 4 sold 310,000 copies in its first week and debuted atop the Billboard 200 chart, giving Beyoncé her fourth consecutive number-one album in the US. The album was preceded by two of its singles "Run the World (Girls)" and "Best Thing I Never Had". The fourth single "Love on Top" spent seven consecutive weeks at number one on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart, while peaking at number 20 on the Billboard Hot 100, the highest peak from the album. 4 also produced four other singles; "Party", "Countdown", "I Care" and "End of Time". "Eat, Play, Love", a cover story written by Beyoncé for Essence that detailed her 2010 career break, won her a writing award from the New York Association of Black Journalists. In late 2011, she took the stage at New York's Roseland Ballroom for four nights of special performances: the 4 Intimate Nights with Beyoncé concerts saw the performance of her 4 album to a standing room only. On August 1, 2011, the album was certified platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), having shipped 1 million copies to retail stores. By December 2015, it reached sales of 1.5 million copies in the US. The album reached one billion Spotify streams on February 5, 2018, making Beyoncé the first female artist to have three of their albums surpass one billion streams on the platform.
In June 2012, she performed for four nights at Revel Atlantic City's Ovation Hall to celebrate the resort's opening, her first performances since giving birth to her daughter.
In January 2013, Destiny's Child released Love Songs, a compilation album of the romance-themed songs from their previous albums and a newly recorded track, "Nuclear". Beyoncé performed the American national anthem singing along with a pre-recorded track at President Obama's second inauguration in Washington, D.C. The following month, Beyoncé performed at the Super Bowl XLVII halftime show, held at the Mercedes-Benz Superdome in New Orleans. The performance stands as the second most tweeted about moment in history at 268,000 tweets per minute. At the 55th Annual Grammy Awards, Beyoncé won for Best Traditional R&B Performance for "Love on Top". Her feature-length documentary film, Life Is But a Dream, first aired on HBO on February 16, 2013. The film was co-directed by Beyoncé herself.
2013–2015: Beyoncé
Beyoncé embarked on The Mrs. Carter Show World Tour on April 15 in Belgrade, Serbia; the tour included 132 dates that ran through to March 2014. It became the most successful tour of her career and one of the most successful tours of all time. In May, Beyoncé's cover of Amy Winehouse's "Back to Black" with André 3000 on The Great Gatsby soundtrack was released. Beyoncé voiced Queen Tara in the 3D CGI animated film, Epic, released by 20th Century Fox on May 24, and recorded an original song for the film, "Rise Up", co-written with Sia.
On December 13, 2013, Beyoncé unexpectedly released her eponymous fifth studio album on the iTunes Store without any prior announcement or promotion. The album debuted atop the Billboard 200 chart, giving Beyoncé her fifth consecutive number-one album in the US. This made her the first woman in the chart's history to have her first five studio albums debut at number one. Beyoncé received critical acclaim and commercial success, selling one million digital copies worldwide in six days; Musically an electro-R&B album, it concerns darker themes previously unexplored in her work, such as "bulimia, postnatal depression [and] the fears and insecurities of marriage and motherhood". The single "Drunk in Love", featuring Jay-Z, peaked at number two on the Billboard Hot 100 chart.
In April 2014, Beyoncé and Jay-Z officially announced their On the Run Tour. It served as the couple's first co-headlining stadium tour together. On August 24, 2014, she received the Michael Jackson Video Vanguard Award at the 2014 MTV Video Music Awards. Beyoncé also won home three competitive awards: Best Video with a Social Message and Best Cinematography for "Pretty Hurts", as well as best collaboration for "Drunk in Love". In November, Forbes reported that Beyoncé was the top-earning woman in music for the second year in a row – earning $115 million in the year, more than double her earnings in 2013. Beyoncé was reissued with new material in three forms: as an extended play, a box set, as well as a full platinum edition. According to the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI), in the last 19 days of 2013, the album sold 2.3 million units worldwide, becoming the tenth best-selling album of 2013. The album also went on to become the twentieth best-selling album of 2014. , Beyoncé has sold over 5 million copies worldwide and has generated over 1 billion streams, .
At the 57th Annual Grammy Awards in February 2015, Beyoncé was nominated for six awards, ultimately winning three: Best R&B Performance and Best R&B Song for "Drunk in Love", and Best Surround Sound Album for Beyoncé. She was nominated for Album of the Year, but the award went to Beck for his album Morning Phase.
2016–2018: Lemonade and Everything Is Love
On February 6, 2016, Beyoncé released "Formation" and its accompanying music video exclusively on the music streaming platform Tidal; the song was made available to download for free. She performed "Formation" live for the first time during the NFL Super Bowl 50 halftime show. The appearance was considered controversial as it appeared to reference the 50th anniversary of the Black Panther Party and the NFL forbids political statements in its performances. Immediately following the performance, Beyoncé announced The Formation World Tour, which highlighted stops in both North America, and Europe. It ended on October 7, with Beyoncé bringing out her husband Jay-Z, Kendrick Lamar, and Serena Williams for the last show. The tour went on to win Tour of the Year at the 44th American Music Awards.
On April 16, 2016, Beyoncé released a teaser clip for a project called Lemonade. It turned out to be a one-hour film which aired on HBO exactly a week later; a corresponding album with the same title was released on the same day exclusively on Tidal. Lemonade debuted at number one on the U.S. Billboard 200, making Beyoncé the first act in Billboard history to have their first six studio albums debut atop the chart; she broke a record previously tied with DMX in 2013. With all 12 tracks of Lemonade debuting on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, Beyoncé also became the first female act to chart 12 or more songs at the same time. Additionally, Lemonade was streamed 115 million times through Tidal, setting a record for the most-streamed album in a single week by a female artist in history. It was 2016's third highest-selling album in the U.S. with 1.554 million copies sold in that time period within the country as well as the best-selling album worldwide with global sales of 2.5 million throughout the year. In June 2019, Lemonade was certified 3× Platinum, having sold up to 3 million album-equivalent units in the United States alone.
Lemonade became her most critically acclaimed work to date, receiving universal acclaim according to Metacritic, a website collecting reviews from professional music critics. Several music publications included the album among the best of 2016, including Rolling Stone, which listed Lemonade at number one. The album's visuals were nominated in 11 categories at the 2016 MTV Video Music Awards, the most ever received by Beyoncé in a single year, and went on to win 8 awards, including Video of the Year for "Formation". The eight wins made Beyoncé the most-awarded artist in the history of the VMAs (24), surpassing Madonna (20). Beyoncé occupied the sixth place for Time magazine's 2016 Person of the Year.
In January 2017, it was announced that Beyoncé would headline the Coachella Music and Arts Festival. This would make Beyoncé only the second female headliner of the festival since it was founded in 1999. It was later announced on February 23, 2017, that Beyoncé would no longer be able to perform at the festival due to doctor's concerns regarding her pregnancy. The festival owners announced that she will instead headline the 2018 festival. Upon the announcement of Beyoncé's departure from the festival lineup, ticket prices dropped by 12%. At the 59th Grammy Awards in February 2017, Lemonade led the nominations with nine, including Album, Record, and Song of the Year for Lemonade and "Formation" respectively. and ultimately won two, Best Urban Contemporary Album for Lemonade and Best Music Video for "Formation". Adele, upon winning her Grammy for Album of the Year, stated Lemonade was monumental and more deserving.
In September 2017, Beyoncé collaborated with J Balvin and Willy William, to release a remix of the song "Mi Gente". Beyoncé donated all proceeds from the song to hurricane charities for those affected by Hurricane Harvey and Hurricane Irma in Texas, Mexico, Puerto Rico, and other Caribbean Islands. On November 10, Eminem released "Walk on Water" featuring Beyoncé as the lead single from his album Revival. On November 30, Ed Sheeran announced that Beyoncé would feature on the remix to his song "Perfect". "Perfect Duet" was released on December 1, 2017. The song reached number-one in the United States, becoming Beyoncé's sixth song of her solo career to do so.
On January 4, 2018, the music video of Beyoncé and Jay-Z's 4:44 collaboration, "Family Feud" was released. It was directed by Ava DuVernay. On March 1, 2018, DJ Khaled released "Top Off" as the first single from his forthcoming album Father of Asahd featuring Beyoncé, husband Jay-Z, and Future. On March 5, 2018, a joint tour with Knowles's husband Jay-Z, was leaked on Facebook. Information about the tour was later taken down. The couple announced the joint tour officially as On the Run II Tour on March 12 and simultaneously released a trailer for the tour on YouTube. On March 20, 2018, the couple traveled to Jamaica to film a music video directed by Melina Matsoukas.
On April 14, 2018, Beyoncé played the first of two weekends as the headlining act of the Coachella Music Festival. Her performance of April 14, attended by 125,000 festival-goers, was immediately praised, with multiple media outlets describing it as historic. The performance became the most-tweeted-about performance of weekend one, as well as the most-watched live Coachella performance and the most-watched live performance on YouTube of all time. The show paid tribute to black culture, specifically historically black colleges and universities and featured a live band with over 100 dancers. Destiny's Child also reunited during the show.
On June 6, 2018, Beyoncé and husband Jay-Z kicked-off the On the Run II Tour in Cardiff, United Kingdom. Ten days later, at their final London performance, the pair unveiled Everything Is Love, their joint studio album, credited under the name The Carters, and initially available exclusively on Tidal. The pair also released the video for the album's lead single, "Apeshit", on Beyoncé's official YouTube channel. Everything Is Love received generally positive reviews, and debuted at number two on the U.S. Billboard 200, with 123,000 album-equivalent units, of which 70,000 were pure album sales. On December 2, 2018, Beyoncé alongside Jay-Z headlined the Global Citizen Festival: Mandela 100 which was held at FNB Stadium in Johannesburg, South Africa. Their 2-hour performance had concepts similar to the On the Run II Tour and Beyoncé was praised for her outfits, which paid tribute to Africa's diversity.
2019–present: Homecoming, The Lion King and Black Is King
Homecoming, a documentary and concert film focusing on Beyoncé's historic 2018 Coachella performances, was released by Netflix on April 17, 2019. The film was accompanied by the surprise live album Homecoming: The Live Album. It was later reported that Beyoncé and Netflix had signed a $60 million deal to produce three different projects, one of which is Homecoming. Homecoming received six nominations at the 71st Primetime Creative Arts Emmy Awards.
Beyoncé starred as the voice of Nala in the remake The Lion King, which was released on July 19, 2019. Beyoncé is featured on the film's soundtrack, released on July 11, 2019, with a remake of the song "Can You Feel the Love Tonight" alongside Donald Glover, Billy Eichner and Seth Rogen, which was originally composed by Elton John. Additionally, an original song from the film by Beyoncé, "Spirit", was released as the lead single from both the soundtrack and The Lion King: The Gift – a companion album released alongside the film, produced and curated by Beyoncé. Beyoncé called The Lion King: The Gift a "sonic cinema". She also stated that the album is influenced by everything from R&B, pop, hip hop and Afro Beat. The songs were additionally produced by African producers, which Beyoncé said was because "authenticity and heart were important to [her]", since the film is set in Africa. In September of the same year, a documentary chronicling the development, production and early music video filming of The Lion King: The Gift entitled "Beyoncé Presents: Making The Gift" was aired on ABC.
On April 29, 2020, Beyoncé was featured on the remix of Megan Thee Stallion's song "Savage", marking her first material of music for the year. The song peaked at number one on the Billboard Hot 100, marking Beyoncé's eleventh song to do so across all acts. On June 19, 2020, Beyoncé released the nonprofit charity single "Black Parade". On June 23, she followed up the release of its studio version with an a capella version exclusively on Tidal. Black Is King, a visual album based on the music of The Lion King: The Gift, premiered globally on Disney+ on July 31, 2020. Produced by Disney and Parkwood Entertainment, the film was written, directed and executive produced by Beyoncé. The film was described by Disney as "a celebratory memoir for the world on the Black experience". Beyoncé received the most nominations (9) at the 63rd Annual Grammy Awards and the most awards (4), which made her the most-awarded singer, most-awarded female artist, and second-most-awarded artist in Grammy history.
Beyoncé wrote and recorded a song titled "Be Alive" for the biographical drama film King Richard. She received her first Academy Award nomination for Best Original Song at the 94th Academy Awards for the song, alongside co-writer DIXSON.
Artistry
Voice and musical style
Beyoncé's voice type is classified as dramatic mezzo-soprano. Jody Rosen highlights her tone and timbre as particularly distinctive, describing her voice as "one of the most compelling instruments in popular music". Her vocal abilities mean she is identified as the centerpiece of Destiny's Child. Jon Pareles of The New York Times commented that her voice is "velvety yet tart, with an insistent flutter and reserves of soul belting". Rosen notes that the hip hop era highly influenced Beyoncé's unique rhythmic vocal style, but also finds her quite traditionalist in her use of balladry, gospel and falsetto. Other critics praise her range and power, with Chris Richards of The Washington Post saying she was "capable of punctuating any beat with goose-bump-inducing whispers or full-bore diva-roars."
Beyoncé's music is generally R&B, pop and hip hop but she also incorporates soul and funk into her songs. 4 demonstrated Beyoncé's exploration of 1990s-style R&B, as well as further use of soul and hip hop than compared to previous releases. While she almost exclusively releases English songs, Beyoncé recorded several Spanish songs for Irreemplazable (re-recordings of songs from B'Day for a Spanish-language audience), and the re-release of B'Day. To record these, Beyoncé was coached phonetically by American record producer Rudy Perez.
Songwriting
Beyoncé has received co-writing credits for most of her songs. In regards to the way she approaches collaborative songwriting, Beyoncé explained: "I love being around great writers because I'm finding that a lot of the things I want to say, I don't articulate as good as maybe Amanda Ghost, so I want to keep collaborating with writers, and I love classics and I want to make sure years from now the song is still something that's relevant." Her early songs with Destiny's Child were personally driven and female-empowerment themed compositions like "Independent Women" and "Survivor", but after the start of her relationship with Jay-Z, she transitioned to more man-tending anthems such as "Cater 2 U".
In 2001, she became the first Black woman and second female lyricist to win the Pop Songwriter of the Year award at the ASCAP Pop Music Awards. Beyoncé was the third woman to have writing credits on three number-one songs ("Irreplaceable", "Grillz" and "Check on It") in the same year, after Carole King in 1971 and Mariah Carey in 1991. She is tied with American lyricist Diane Warren at third with nine songwriting credits on number-one singles. The latter wrote her 9/11-motivated song "I Was Here" for 4. In May 2011, Billboard magazine listed Beyoncé at number 17 on their list of the Top 20 Hot 100 Songwriters for having co-written eight singles that hit number one on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. She was one of only three women on that list, along with Alicia Keys and Taylor Swift.
Beyoncé has long received criticism, including from journalists and musicians, for the extensive writing credits on her songs. The controversy surrounding her songwriting credits began with interviews in which she attributed herself as the songwriter for songs in which she was a co-writer or for which her contributions were marginal. In a cover story for Vanity Fair in 2005, she claimed to have "written" several number-one songs for Destiny's Child, contrary to the credits, which list her as a co-writer among others. In a 2007 interview with Barbara Walters, she claimed to have conceived the musical idea for the Destiny's Child hit "Bootylicious", which provoked the song's producer Rob Fusari to call her father and then-manager Mathew Knowles in protest over the claim. As Fusari tells Billboard, "[Knowles] explained to me, in a nice way, he said, 'People don't want to hear about Rob Fusari, producer from Livingston, N.J. No offense, but that's not what sells records. What sells records is people believing that the artist is everything. However, in an interview for Entertainment Weekly in 2016, Fusari said Beyoncé "had the 'Bootylicious' concept in her head. That was totally her. She knew what she wanted to say. It was very urban pop angle that they were taking on the record."
In 2007, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences ruled out Beyoncé as a songwriter on "Listen" (from Dreamgirls) for its Oscar nomination in the Best Original Song category. Responding to a then-new three-writer limit, the Academy deemed her contribution the least significant for inclusion. In 2009, Ryan Tedder's original demo for "Halo" leaked on the Internet, revealing an identical resemblance to Beyoncé's recording, for which she received a writing credit. When interviewed by The Guardian, Tedder explained that Beyoncé had edited the bridge of the song vocally and thus earned the credit, although he vaguely questioned the ethics of her possible "demand" for a writing credit in other instances. Tedder elaborated when speaking to Gigwise that "She does stuff on any given song that, when you go from the demo to the final version, takes it to another level that you never would have thought of as the writer. For instance, on 'Halo,' that bridge on her version is completely different to my original one. Basically, she came in, ditched that, edited it, did her vocal thing on it, and now it's become one of my favorite parts of the song. The whole melody, she wrote it spontaneously in the studio. So her credit on that song stems from that." In 2014, the popular industry songwriter Linda Perry responded to a question about Beyoncé receiving a co-writing credit for changing one lyric to a song: "Well haha um that's not songwriting but some of these artists believe if it wasn't for them your song would never get out there so they take a cut just because they are who they are. But everyone knows the real truth about Beyoncé. She is talented but in a completely different way." Perry's remarks were echoed by Frank Ocean, who acknowledged the trend of recording artists forcing writing credits while jokingly suggesting Beyoncé had an exceptional status.
Reflecting on the controversy, Sunday Independent columnist Alexis Kritselis wrote in 2014, "It seems as though our love for all things Beyoncé has blinded us to the very real claims of theft and plagiarism that have plagued her career for years", and that, "because of her power and influence in the music industry, it may be hard for some songwriters to 'just say no' to Beyoncé." While reporting on her controversial writing record, pop culture critics such as Roger Friedman and The Daily Beasts Kevin Fallon said the trend has redefined popular conceptions of songwriting, with Fallon saying, "the village of authors and composers that populate Lemonade, [Kanye West']s Life of Pablo, [Rihanna's] Anti, or [Drake's] Views – all of which are still reflective of an artist's voice and vision ... speaks to the truth of the way the industry's top artists create their music today: by committee." James S. Murphy of Vanity Fair suggests Beyoncé is among the major artists like Frank Sinatra and Billie Holiday who are "celebrated [not] because [they] write such good parts, but because [they] create them out of the words that are given".
Meanwhile, Everything Is Love producers Cool & Dre stated that Beyoncé is "100 percent involved" in writing her own songs, with Dre saying that "She put her mind to the music and did her thing. If she had a melody idea, she came up with the words. If we had the words, she came up with the melody. She's a beast", when speaking on the writing process of Everything Is Love. Ne-Yo, when asked about his collaborative writing experience with Beyoncé on "Irreplaceable", said that they both wrote "two damn totally different songs ... So, yeah, I gave her writer's credit. Because that counts. That's writing ... She put her spin on it." As for Drake: Pound Cake' happened while I was writing for Beyoncé or working with Beyoncé, not writing for, working with. I hate saying writing for 'cause she's a phenomenal writer. She has bars on bars." The-Dream revealed: "We did a whole Fela album that didn't go up. It was right before we did 4. We did a whole different sounding thing, about twenty songs. She said she wanted to do something that sounds like Fela. That's why there's so much of that sound in the 'End of Time.' There's always multiple albums being made. Most of the time we're just being creative, period. We're talking about B, somebody who sings all day long and somebody who writes all day long. There's probably a hundred records just sitting around."
Influences
Beyoncé names Michael Jackson as her major musical influence. Aged five, Beyoncé attended her first ever concert where Jackson performed and she claims to have realized her purpose. When she presented him with a tribute award at the World Music Awards in 2006, Beyoncé said, "if it wasn't for Michael Jackson, I would never ever have performed." Beyoncé was heavily influenced by Tina Turner, who she said "Tina Turner is someone that I admire, because she made her strength feminine and sexy". She admires Diana Ross as an "all-around entertainer", and Whitney Houston, who she said "inspired me to get up there and do what she did." Beyoncé cited Madonna as an influence "not only for her musical style, but also for her business sense", saying that she wanted to "follow in the footsteps of Madonna and be a powerhouse and have my own empire." She also credits Mariah Carey's singing and her song "Vision of Love" as influencing her to begin practicing vocal runs as a child. Her other musical influences include Prince, Shakira, Lauryn Hill, Sade Adu, Donna Summer, Mary J. Blige, Anita Baker, and Toni Braxton.
The feminism and female empowerment themes on Beyoncé's second solo album B'Day were inspired by her role in Dreamgirls and by singer Josephine Baker. Beyoncé paid homage to Baker by performing "Déjà Vu" at the 2006 Fashion Rocks concert wearing Baker's trademark mini-hula skirt embellished with fake bananas. Beyoncé's third solo album, I Am... Sasha Fierce, was inspired by Jay-Z and especially by Etta James, whose "boldness" inspired Beyoncé to explore other musical genres and styles. Her fourth solo album, 4, was inspired by Fela Kuti, 1990s R&B, Earth, Wind & Fire, DeBarge, Lionel Richie, Teena Marie, The Jackson 5, New Edition, Adele, Florence and the Machine, and Prince.
Beyoncé has stated that she is personally inspired by Michelle Obama (the 44th First Lady of the United States), saying "she proves you can do it all", and has described Oprah Winfrey as "the definition of inspiration and a strong woman." She has also discussed how Jay-Z is a continuing inspiration to her, both with what she describes as his lyrical genius and in the obstacles he has overcome in his life. Beyoncé has expressed admiration for the artist Jean-Michel Basquiat, posting in a letter "what I find in the work of Jean-Michel Basquiat, I search for in every day in music ... he is lyrical and raw". Beyoncé also cited Cher as a fashion inspiration.
Music videos and stage
In 2006, Beyoncé introduced her all-female tour band Suga Mama (also the name of a song on B'Day) which includes bassists, drummers, guitarists, horn players, keyboardists and percussionists. Her background singers, The Mamas, consist of Montina Cooper-Donnell, Crystal Collins and Tiffany Moniqué Riddick. They made their debut appearance at the 2006 BET Awards and re-appeared in the music videos for "Irreplaceable" and "Green Light". The band have supported Beyoncé in most subsequent live performances, including her 2007 concert tour The Beyoncé Experience, I Am... World Tour (2009–2010), The Mrs. Carter Show World Tour (2013–2014) and The Formation World Tour (2016).
Beyoncé has received praise for her stage presence and voice during live performances. Jarett Wieselman of the New York Post placed her at number one on her list of the Five Best Singer/Dancers. According to Barbara Ellen of The Guardian Beyoncé is the most in-charge female artist she's seen onstage, while Alice Jones of The Independent wrote she "takes her role as entertainer so seriously she's almost too good." The ex-President of Def Jam L.A. Reid has described Beyoncé as the greatest entertainer alive. Jim Farber of the Daily News and Stephanie Classen of The StarPhoenix both praised her strong voice and her stage presence. Beyoncé's stage outfits have been met with criticism from many countries, such as Malaysia, where she has postponed or cancelled performances due to the country's strict laws banning revealing costumes.
Beyoncé has worked with numerous directors for her music videos throughout her career, including Melina Matsoukas, Jonas Åkerlund, and Jake Nava. Bill Condon, director of Beauty and the Beast, stated that the Lemonade visuals in particular served as inspiration for his film, commenting, "You look at Beyoncé's brilliant movie Lemonade, this genre is taking on so many different forms ... I do think that this very old-school break-out-into-song traditional musical is something that people understand again and really want."
Alter ego
Described as being "sexy, seductive and provocative" when performing on stage, Beyoncé has said that she originally created the alter ego "Sasha Fierce" to keep that stage persona separate from who she really is. She described Sasha as being "too aggressive, too strong, too sassy [and] too sexy", stating, "I'm not like her in real life at all." Sasha was conceived during the making of "Crazy in Love", and Beyoncé introduced her with the release of her 2008 album, I Am... Sasha Fierce. In February 2010, she announced in an interview with Allure magazine that she was comfortable enough with herself to no longer need Sasha Fierce. However, Beyoncé announced in May 2012 that she would bring her back for her Revel Presents: Beyoncé Live shows later that month.
Public image
Beyoncé has been described as having a wide-ranging sex appeal, with music journalist Touré writing that since the release of Dangerously in Love, she has "become a crossover sex symbol". Offstage Beyoncé says that while she likes to dress sexily, her onstage dress "is absolutely for the stage". Due to her curves and the term's catchiness, in the 2000s, the media often used the term "bootylicious" (a portmanteau of the words "booty" and "delicious") to describe Beyoncé, the term popularized by Destiny's Child's single of the same name. In 2006, it was added to the Oxford English Dictionary.
In September 2010, Beyoncé made her runway modelling debut at Tom Ford's Spring/Summer 2011 fashion show. She was named the "World's Most Beautiful Woman" by People and the "Hottest Female Singer of All Time" by Complex in 2012. In January 2013, GQ placed her on its cover, featuring her atop its "100 Sexiest Women of the 21st Century" list. VH1 listed her at number 1 on its 100 Sexiest Artists list. Several wax figures of Beyoncé are found at Madame Tussauds Wax Museums in major cities around the world, including New York, Washington, D.C., Amsterdam, Bangkok, Hollywood and Sydney.
According to Italian fashion designer Roberto Cavalli, Beyoncé uses different fashion styles to work with her music while performing. Her mother co-wrote a book, published in 2002, titled Destiny's Style, an account of how fashion affected the trio's success. The B'Day Anthology Video Album showed many instances of fashion-oriented footage, depicting classic to contemporary wardrobe styles. In 2007, Beyoncé was featured on the cover of the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue, becoming the second African American woman after Tyra Banks, and People magazine recognized Beyoncé as the best-dressed celebrity.
Beyoncé has been named "Queen Bey" from publications over the years. The term is a reference to the common phrase "queen bee", a term used for the leader of a group of females. The nickname also refers to the queen of a beehive, with her fan base being named "The BeyHive". The BeyHive was previously titled "The Beyontourage", (a portmanteau of Beyoncé and entourage), but was changed after online petitions on Twitter and online news reports during competitions. The BeyHive has been named one of the most loyal and defensive fan bases and has achieved notoriety for being fiercely protective of Beyoncé.
In 2006, the animal rights organization People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), criticized Beyoncé for wearing and using fur in her clothing line House of Deréon. In 2011, she appeared on the cover of French fashion magazine L'Officiel, in blackface and tribal makeup that drew criticism from the media. A statement released from a spokesperson for the magazine said that Beyoncé's look was "far from the glamorous Sasha Fierce" and that it was "a return to her African roots".
Beyoncé's lighter skin color and costuming has drawn criticism from some in the African-American community. Emmett Price, a professor of music at Northeastern University, wrote in 2007 that he thinks race plays a role in many of these criticisms, saying white celebrities who dress similarly do not attract as many comments. In 2008, L'Oréal was accused of whitening her skin in their Feria hair color advertisements, responding that "it is categorically untrue", and in 2013, Beyoncé herself criticized H&M for their proposed "retouching" of promotional images of her, and according to Vogue requested that only "natural pictures be used".
Beyoncé has been a vocal advocate for the Black Lives Matter movement. The release of "Formation" on February 6, 2016 saw her celebrate her heritage, with the song's music video featuring pro-black imagery and most notably a shot of wall graffiti that says "Stop shooting us". The day after the song's release she performed it at the 2016 Super Bowl halftime show with back up dancers dressed to represent the Black Panther Party. This incited criticism from politicians and police officers, with some police boycotting Beyoncé's then upcoming Formation World Tour. Beyoncé responded to the backlash by releasing tour merchandise that said "Boycott Beyoncé", and later clarified her sentiment, saying: “Anyone who perceives my message as anti-police is completely mistaken. I have so much admiration and respect for officers and the families of officers who sacrifice themselves to keep us safe,” Beyoncé said. “But let’s be clear: I am against police brutality and injustice. Those are two separate things.”
Personal life
Marriage and children
Beyoncé started a relationship with Jay-Z after their collaboration on '03 Bonnie & Clyde", which appeared on his seventh album The Blueprint 2: The Gift & The Curse (2002). Beyoncé appeared as Jay-Z's girlfriend in the music video for the song, fueling speculation about their relationship. On April 4, 2008, Beyoncé and Jay-Z married without publicity. , the couple had sold a combined 300 million records together. They are known for their private relationship, although they have appeared to become more relaxed in recent years. Both have acknowledged difficulty that arose in their marriage after Jay-Z had an affair.
Beyoncé miscarried around 2010 or 2011, describing it as "the saddest thing" she had ever endured. She returned to the studio and wrote music to cope with the loss. In April 2011, Beyoncé and Jay-Z traveled to Paris to shoot the album cover for 4, and she unexpectedly became pregnant in Paris. In August, the couple attended the 2011 MTV Video Music Awards, at which Beyoncé performed "Love on Top" and ended the performance by revealing she was pregnant. Her appearance helped that year's MTV Video Music Awards become the most-watched broadcast in MTV history, pulling in 12.4 million viewers; the announcement was listed in Guinness World Records for "most tweets per second recorded for a single event" on Twitter, receiving 8,868 tweets per second and "Beyonce pregnant" was the most Googled phrase the week of August 29, 2011. On January 7, 2012, Beyoncé gave birth to a daughter, Blue Ivy, at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City.
Following the release of Lemonade, which included the single "Sorry", in 2016, speculations arose about Jay-Z's alleged infidelity with a mistress referred to as "Becky". Jon Pareles in The New York Times pointed out that many of the accusations were "aimed specifically and recognizably" at him. Similarly, Rob Sheffield of Rolling Stone magazine noted the lines "Suck on my balls, I've had enough" were an "unmistakable hint" that the lyrics revolve around Jay-Z.
On February 1, 2017, she revealed on her Instagram account that she was expecting twins. Her announcement gained over 6.3 million likes within eight hours, breaking the world record for the most liked image on the website at the time. On July 13, 2017, Beyoncé uploaded the first image of herself and the twins onto her Instagram account, confirming their birth date as a month prior, on June 13, 2017, with the post becoming the second most liked on Instagram, behind her own pregnancy announcement. The twins, a daughter named Rumi and a son named Sir, were born at Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center in California. She wrote of her pregnancy and its aftermath in the September 2018 issue of Vogue, in which she had full control of the cover, shot at Hammerwood Park by photographer Tyler Mitchell.
Activism
Beyoncé performed "America the Beautiful" at President Barack Obama's 2009 presidential inauguration, as well as "At Last" during the first inaugural dance at the Neighborhood Ball two days later. The couple held a fundraiser at Jay-Z's 40/40 Club in Manhattan for President Obama's 2012 presidential campaign which raised $4 million. In the 2012 presidential election, the singer voted for President Obama. She performed the American national anthem "The Star-Spangled Banner" at his second inauguration in January 2013.
The Washington Post reported in May 2015, that Beyoncé attended a major celebrity fundraiser for 2016 presidential nominee Hillary Clinton. She also headlined for Clinton in a concert held the weekend before Election Day the next year. In this performance, Beyoncé and her entourage of backup dancers wore pantsuits; a clear allusion to Clinton's frequent dress-of-choice. The backup dancers also wore "I'm with her" tee shirts, the campaign slogan for Clinton. In a brief speech at this performance Beyoncé said, "I want my daughter to grow up seeing a woman lead our country and knowing that her possibilities are limitless." She endorsed the bid of Beto O'Rourke during the 2018 United States Senate election in Texas.
In 2013, Beyoncé stated in an interview in Vogue that she considered herself to be "a modern-day feminist". She would later align herself more publicly with the movement, sampling "We should all be feminists", a speech delivered by Nigerian author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie at a TEDx talk in April 2013, in her song "Flawless", released later that year. The next year she performed live at the MTV Video Awards in front a giant backdrop reading "Feminist". Her self-identification incited a circulation of opinions and debate about whether her feminism is aligned with older, more established feminist ideals. Annie Lennox, celebrated artist and feminist advocate, referred to Beyoncé's use of her word feminist as 'feminist lite'. bell hooks critiqued Beyoncé, referring to her as a "terrorist" towards feminism, harmfully impacting her audience of young girls. Adichie responded with "her type of feminism is not mine, as it is the kind that, at the same time, gives quite a lot of space to the necessity of men." Adichie expands upon what 'feminist lite' means to her, referring that "more troubling is the idea, in Feminism Lite, that men are naturally superior but should be expected to "treat women well" and "we judge powerful women more harshly than we judge powerful men. And Feminism Lite enables this." Beyoncé responded about her intent by utilizing the definition of feminist with her platform was to "give clarity to the true meaning" behind it. She says to understand what being a feminist is, "it's very simple. It's someone who believes in equal rights for men and women." She advocated to provide equal opportunities for young boys and girls, men and women must begin to understand the double standards that remain persistent in our societies and the issue must be illuminated in effort to start making changes.
She has also contributed to the Ban Bossy campaign, which uses TV and social media to encourage leadership in girls. Following Beyoncé's public identification as a feminist, the sexualized nature of her performances and the fact that she championed her marriage was questioned.
In December 2012, Beyoncé along with a variety of other celebrities teamed up and produced a video campaign for "Demand A Plan", a bipartisan effort by a group of 950 U.S. mayors and others designed to influence the federal government into rethinking its gun control laws, following the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting. Beyoncé publicly endorsed same-sex marriage on March 26, 2013, after the Supreme Court debate on California's Proposition 8. She spoke against North Carolina's Public Facilities Privacy & Security Act, a bill passed (and later repealed) that discriminated against the LGBT community in public places in a statement during her concert in Raleigh as part of the Formation World Tour in 2016. She has also condemned police brutality against black Americans. She and Jay-Z attended a rally in 2013 in response to the acquittal of George Zimmerman for the killing of Trayvon Martin. The film for her sixth album Lemonade included the mothers of Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown and Eric Garner, holding pictures of their sons in the video for "Freedom". In a 2016 interview with Elle, Beyoncé responded to the controversy surrounding her song "Formation" which was perceived to be critical of the police. She clarified, "I am against police brutality and injustice. Those are two separate things. If celebrating my roots and culture during Black History Month made anyone uncomfortable, those feelings were there long before a video and long before me".
In February 2017, Beyoncé spoke out against the withdrawal of protections for transgender students in public schools by Donald Trump's presidential administration. Posting a link to the 100 Days of Kindness campaign on her Facebook page, Beyoncé voiced her support for transgender youth and joined a roster of celebrities who spoke out against Trump's decision.
In November 2017, Beyoncé presented Colin Kaepernick with the 2017 Sports Illustrated Muhammad Ali Legacy Award, stating, "Thank you for your selfless heart and your conviction, thank you for your personal sacrifice", and that "Colin took action with no fear of consequence ... To change perception, to change the way we treat each other, especially people of color. We're still waiting for the world to catch up." Muhammad Ali was heavily penalized in his career for protesting the status quo of US civil rights through opposition to the Vietnam War, by refusing to serve in the military. 40 years later, Kaepernick had already lost one professional year due to taking a much quieter and legal stand "for people that are oppressed".
Wealth
Forbes magazine began reporting on Beyoncé's earnings in 2008, calculating that the $80 million earned between June 2007 to June 2008, for her music, tour, films and clothing line made her the world's best-paid music personality at the time, above Madonna and Celine Dion. It placed her fourth on the Celebrity 100 list in 2009
and ninth on the "Most Powerful Women in the World" list in 2010. The following year, the magazine placed her eighth on the "Best-Paid Celebrities Under 30" list, having earned $35 million in the past year for her clothing line and endorsement deals. In 2012, Forbes placed Beyoncé at number 16 on the Celebrity 100 list, twelve places lower than three years ago yet still having earned $40 million in the past year for her album 4, clothing line and endorsement deals. In the same year, Beyoncé and Jay-Z placed at number one on the "World's Highest-Paid Celebrity Couples", for collectively earning $78 million. The couple made it into the previous year's Guinness World Records as the "highest-earning power couple" for collectively earning $122 million in 2009. For the years 2009 to 2011, Beyoncé earned an average of $70 million per year, and earned $40 million in 2012. In 2013, Beyoncé's endorsements of Pepsi and H&M made her and Jay-Z the world's first billion dollar couple in the music industry. That year, Beyoncé was published as the fourth most-powerful celebrity in the Forbes rankings.
MTV estimated that by the end of 2014, Beyoncé would become the highest-paid Black musician in history; this became the case in April 2014. In June 2014, Beyoncé ranked at number one on the Forbes Celebrity 100 list, earning an estimated $115 million throughout June 2013 – June 2014. This in turn was the first time she had topped the Celebrity 100 list as well as being her highest yearly earnings to date. In 2016, Beyoncé ranked at number 34 on the Celebrity 100 list with earnings of $54 million. She and Jay-Z also topped the highest paid celebrity couple list, with combined earnings of $107.5 million. , Forbes calculated her net worth to be $355 million, and in June of the same year, ranked her as the 35th highest earning celebrity with annual earnings of $60 million. This tied Beyoncé with Madonna as the only two female artists to earn more than $100 million within a single year twice. As a couple, Beyoncé and Jay-Z have a combined net worth of $1.16 billion. In July 2017, Billboard announced that Beyoncé was the highest paid musician of 2016, with an estimated total of $62.1 million.
Impact
Beyoncé's success has led to her becoming a cultural icon and earning her the nickname "Queen Bey". In The New Yorker, music critic Jody Rosen described Beyoncé as "the most important and compelling popular musician of the twenty-first century ... the result, the logical end point, of a century-plus of pop." Author James Clear, in his book Atomic Habits (2018), draws a parallel between the singer's success and the dramatic transformations in modern society: "In the last one hundred years, we have seen the rise of the car, the airplane, the television, the personal computer, the internet, the smartphone, and Beyoncé." The Observer named her Artist of the Decade (2000s) in 2009.
Writing for Entertainment Weekly, Alex Suskind noticed how Beyoncé was the decade's (2010s) defining pop star, stating that "no one dominated music in the 2010s like Queen Bey", explaining that her "songs, album rollouts, stage presence, social justice initiatives, and disruptive public relations strategy have influenced the way we've viewed music since 2010." British publication NME also shared similar thoughts on her impact in the 2010s, including Beyoncé on their list of the "10 Artists Who Defined The Decade". In 2018, Rolling Stone included her on its Millennial 100 list.
Beyoncé is credited with the invention of the staccato rap-singing style that has since dominated pop, R&B and rap music. Lakin Starling of The Fader wrote that Beyoncé's innovative implementation of the delivery style on Destiny's Child's 1999 album The Writing's on the Wall invented a new form of R&B. Beyoncé's new style subsequently changed the nature of music, revolutionizing both singing in urban music and rapping in pop music, and becoming the dominant sound of both genres. The style helped to redefine both the breadth of commercial R&B and the sound of hip hop, with artists such as Kanye West and Drake implementing Beyoncé's cadence in the late 2000s and early 2010s. The staccato rap-singing style continued to be used in the music industry in the late 2010s and early 2020s; Aaron Williams of Uproxx described Beyoncé as the "primary pioneer" of the rapping style that dominates the music industry today, with many contemporary rappers implementing Beyoncé's rap-singing. Michael Eric Dyson agrees, saying that Beyoncé "changed the whole genre" and has become the "godmother" of mumble rappers, who use the staccato rap-singing cadence. Dyson added: "She doesn't get credit for the remarkable way in which she changed the musical vocabulary of contemporary art."
Beyoncé has been credited with reviving the album as an art form in an era dominated by singles and streaming. This started with her 2011 album 4; while mainstream R&B artists were forgoing albums-led R&B in favor of singles-led EDM, Beyoncé aimed to place the focus back on albums as an artform and re-establish R&B as a mainstream concern. This remained a focus of Beyoncé's, and in 2013, she made her eponymous album only available to purchase as a full album on iTunes, rather than being able to purchase individual tracks or consume the album via streaming. Kaitlin Menza of Marie Claire wrote that this made listeners "experience the album as one whole sonic experience, the way people used to, noting the musical and lyrical themes". Jamieson Cox for The Verge described how Beyoncé's 2013 album initiated a gradual trend of albums becoming more cohesive and self-referential, and this phenomenon reached its endpoint with Lemonade, which set "a new standard for pop storytelling at the highest possible scale". Megan Carpentier of The Guardian wrote that with Lemonade, Beyoncé has "almost revived the album format" by releasing an album that can only be listened to in its entirety. Myf Warhurst on Double J's "Lunch With Myf" explained that while most artists' albums consist of a few singles plus filler songs, Beyoncé "brought the album back", changing the art form of the album "to a narrative with an arc and a story and you have to listen to the entire thing to get the concept".
Several recording artists have cited Beyoncé as their influence. Lady Gaga explained how Beyoncé gave her the determination to become a musician, recalling seeing her in a Destiny's Child music video and saying: "Oh, she's a star. I want that." Rihanna was similarly inspired to start her singing career after watching Beyoncé, telling etalk that after Beyoncé released Dangerously In Love (2003), "I was like 'wow, I want to be just like that.' She's huge and just an inspiration." Lizzo was also first inspired by Beyoncé to start singing after watching her perform at a Destiny's Child concert. Lizzo also taught herself to sing by copying Beyoncé's B'Day (2006). Similarly, Ariana Grande said she learned to sing by mimicking Beyoncé. Adele cited Beyoncé as her inspiration and favorite artist, telling Vogue: "She's been a huge and constant part of my life as an artist since I was about ten or eleven ... I think she's really inspiring. She's beautiful. She's ridiculously talented, and she is one of the kindest people I've ever met ... She makes me want to do things with my life." Both Paul McCartney and Garth Brooks said they watch Beyoncé's performances to get inspiration for their own shows, with Brooks saying that when you watch one of her performances, "take out your notebook and take notes. No matter how long you've been on the stage – take notes on that one."
She is known for coining popular phrases such as "put a ring on it", a euphemism for marriage proposal, "I woke up like this", which started a trend of posting morning selfies with the hashtag #iwokeuplikethis, and "boy, bye", which was used as part of the Democratic National Committee's campaign for the 2020 election. Similarly, she also came up with the phrase "visual album" following the release of her fifth studio album, which had a video for every song. This has been recreated by many other artists since, such as Frank Ocean and Melanie Martinez. The album also popularized surprise releases, with many artists releasing songs, videos or albums with no prior announcement, such as Taylor Swift, Nicki Minaj, Eminem, Frank Ocean, Jay-Z and Drake.
In January 2012, research scientist Bryan Lessard named Scaptia beyonceae, a species of horse-fly found in Northern Queensland, Australia after Beyoncé due to the fly's unique golden hairs on its abdomen. In 2018, the City of Columbia, South Carolina declared August 21 the Beyoncé Knowles-Carter Day in the city after presenting her with the keys to Columbia.
Achievements
Beyoncé has received numerous awards, and is the most-awarded female artist of all time. As a solo artist she has sold over 17 million albums in the US, and over 75 million worldwide (as of February 2013). Having sold over 100 million records worldwide (a further 60 million additionally with Destiny's Child), Beyoncé is one of the best-selling music artists of all time. The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) listed Beyoncé as the top certified artist of the 2000s decade, with a total of 64 certifications. Her songs "Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)", "Halo", and "Irreplaceable" are some of the best-selling singles of all time worldwide. In 2009, Billboard named her the Top Female Artist and Top Radio Songs Artist of the Decade. In 2010, Billboard named her in their Top 50 R&B/Hip-Hop Artists of the Past 25 Years list at number 15. In 2012, VH1 ranked her third on their list of the "100 Greatest Women in Music", behind Mariah Carey and Madonna. In 2002, she received Songwriter of the Year from American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers becoming the First African American woman to win the award. In 2004 and 2019, she received NAACP Image Award for Entertainer of the Year and the Soul Train Music Award for Sammy Davis Jr. – Entertainer of the Year.
In 2005, she also received APEX Award at the Trumpet Award honoring achievements of Black African Americans. In 2007, Beyoncé received the International Artist of Excellence award by the American Music Awards. She also received Honorary Otto at the Bravo Otto. The following year, she received the Legend Award for Outstanding Contribution to the Arts at the World Music Awards and Career Achievement Award at the LOS40 Music Awards. In 2010, she received Award of Honor for Artist of the Decade at the NRJ Music Award and at the 2011 Billboard Music Awards, Beyoncé received the inaugural Billboard Millennium Award. Beyoncé received the Michael Jackson Video Vanguard Award at the 2014 MTV Video Music Awards and was honored as Honorary Mother of the Year at the Australian Mother of the Year Award in Barnardo's Australia for her Humanitarian Effort in the region and the Council of Fashion Designers of America Fashion Icon Award in 2016. In 2019, alongside Jay-Z, she received GLAAD Vanguard Award that is presented to a member of the entertainment community who does not identify as LGBT but who has made a significant difference in promoting equal rights for LGBT people. In 2020, she was awarded the BET Humanitarian Award. Consequence of Sound named her the 30th best singer of all time.
Beyoncé has won 28 Grammy Awards, both as a solo artist and member of Destiny's Child and The Carters, making her the most honored singer, male or female, by the Grammys. She is also the most nominated artist in Grammy Award history with a total of 79 nominations. "Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)" won Song of the Year in 2010 while "Say My Name", "Crazy in Love" and "Drunk in Love" have each won Best R&B Song. Dangerously in Love, B'Day and I Am... Sasha Fierce have all won Best Contemporary R&B Album, while Lemonade has won Best Urban Contemporary Album. Beyoncé set the record for the most Grammy awards won by a female artist in one night in 2010 when she won six awards, breaking the tie she previously held with Alicia Keys, Norah Jones, Alison Krauss, and Amy Winehouse, with Adele equaling this in 2012.
Beyoncé has also won 24 MTV Video Music Awards, making her the most-awarded artist in Video Music Award history. She won two awards each with The Carters and Destiny's Child making her lifetime total of 28 VMAs. "Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)" and "Formation" won Video of the Year in 2009 and 2016 respectively. Beyoncé tied the record set by Lady Gaga in 2010 for the most VMAs won in one night for a female artist with eight in 2016. She is also the most-awarded and nominated artist in BET Award history, winning 29 awards from a total of 60 nominations, the most-awarded person at the Soul Train Music Awards with 17 awards as a solo artist, and the most-awarded person at the NAACP Image Awards with 24 awards as a solo artist.
Following her role in Dreamgirls, Beyoncé was nominated for Best Original Song for "Listen" and Best Actress at the Golden Globe Awards, and Outstanding Actress in a Motion Picture at the NAACP Image Awards. Beyoncé won two awards at the Broadcast Film Critics Association Awards 2006; Best Song for "Listen" and Best Original Soundtrack for Dreamgirls: Music from the Motion Picture. According to Fuse in 2014, Beyoncé is the second-most award-winning artist of all time, after Michael Jackson. Lemonade won a Peabody Award in 2017.
She was named on the 2016 BBC Radio 4 Woman's Hour Power List as one of seven women judged to have had the biggest impact on women's lives over the past 70 years, alongside Margaret Thatcher, Barbara Castle, Helen Brook, Germaine Greer, Jayaben Desai and Bridget Jones, She was named the Most Powerful Woman in Music on the same list in 2020. In the same year, Billboard named her with Destiny's Child the third Greatest Music Video artists of all time, behind Madonna and Michael Jackson.
On June 16, 2021, Beyoncé was among several celebrities at the Pollstar Awards where she won the award of "top touring artist" of the decade (2010s). On June 17, 2021, Beyoncé was inducted into the Black Music & Entertainment Walk of Fame as a member of the inaugural class.
Business and ventures
In 2010, Beyoncé founded her own entertainment company Parkwood Entertainment which formed as an imprint based from Columbia Records, the company began as a production unit for videos and films in 2008. Parkwood Entertainment is named after a street in Houston, Texas where Beyoncé once lived. With headquarters in New York City, the company serves as an umbrella for the entertainer's various brands in music, movies, videos, and fashion. The staff of Parkwood Entertainment have experiences in arts and entertainment, from filmmaking and video production to web and fashion design. In addition to departments in marketing, digital, creative, publicity, fashion design and merchandising, the company houses a state-of-the-art editing suite, where Beyoncé works on content for her worldwide tours, music videos, and television specials. Parkwood Entertainment's first production was the musical biopic Cadillac Records (2008), in which Beyoncé starred and co-produced. The company has also distributed Beyoncé's albums such as her self-titled fifth studio album (2013), Lemonade (2016) and The Carters, Everything is Love (2018). Beyoncé has also signed other artists to Parkwood such as Chloe x Halle, who performed at Super Bowl LIII in February 2019.
Endorsements and partnerships
Beyoncé has worked with Pepsi since 2002, and in 2004 appeared in a Gladiator-themed commercial with Britney Spears, Pink, and Enrique Iglesias. In 2012, Beyoncé signed a $50 million deal to endorse Pepsi. The Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPINET) wrote Beyoncé an open letter asking her to reconsider the deal because of the unhealthiness of the product and to donate the proceeds to a medical organisation. Nevertheless, NetBase found that Beyoncé's campaign was the most talked about endorsement in April 2013, with a 70 percent positive audience response to the commercial and print ads.
Beyoncé has worked with Tommy Hilfiger for the fragrances True Star (singing a cover version of "Wishing on a Star") and True Star Gold; she also promoted Emporio Armani's Diamonds fragrance in 2007. Beyoncé launched her first official fragrance, Heat, in 2010. The commercial, which featured the 1956 song "Fever", was shown after the watershed in the United Kingdom as it begins with an image of Beyoncé appearing to lie naked in a room. In February 2011, Beyoncé launched her second fragrance, Heat Rush. Beyoncé's third fragrance, Pulse, was launched in September 2011. In 2013, The Mrs. Carter Show Limited Edition version of Heat was released. The six editions of Heat are the world's best-selling celebrity fragrance line, with sales of over $400 million.
The release of a video-game Starpower: Beyoncé was cancelled after Beyoncé pulled out of a $100 million with GateFive who alleged the cancellation meant the sacking of 70 staff and millions of pounds lost in development. It was settled out of court by her lawyers in June 2013 who said that they had cancelled because GateFive had lost its financial backers. Beyoncé also has had deals with American Express, Nintendo DS and L'Oréal since the age of 18.
In March 2015, Beyoncé became a co-owner, with other artists, of the music streaming service Tidal. The service specializes in lossless audio and high definition music videos. Beyoncé's husband Jay-Z acquired the parent company of Tidal, Aspiro, in the first quarter of 2015. Including Beyoncé and Jay-Z, sixteen artist stakeholders (such as Kanye West, Rihanna, Madonna, Chris Martin, Nicki Minaj and more) co-own Tidal, with the majority owning a 3% equity stake. The idea of having an all artist owned streaming service was created by those involved to adapt to the increased demand for streaming within the current music industry.
In November 2020, Beyoncé formed a multi-year partnership with exercise equipment and media company Peloton. The partnership was formed to celebrate homecoming season in historically black colleges and universities, providing themed workout experiences inspired by Beyoncé's 2019 Homecoming film and live album after 2020's homecoming celebrations were cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic. As part of the partnership, Beyoncé and Peloton are donating free memberships to all students at 10 HBCUs, and Peloton are pursuing long-term recruiting partnerships at the HCBUs. Gwen Bethel Riley, head of music at Peloton, said: "When we had conversations with Beyoncé around how critical a social impact component was to all of us, it crystallized how important it was to embrace Homecoming as an opportunity to celebrate and create dialogue around Black culture and music, in partnership with HBCUs." Upon news of the partnership, a decline in Peloton's shares reversed, and its shares rose by 8.6%.
In 2021, Beyoncé and Jay-Z partnered with Tiffany & Co. for the company's "About Love" campaign. Beyoncé became the fourth woman, and first Black woman, to wear the Tiffany Yellow Diamond. The campaign featured a robin egg blue painting by Jean-Michel Basquiat titled Equals Pi (1982).
Fashion lines
Beyoncé and her mother introduced House of Deréon, a contemporary women's fashion line, in 2005. The concept is inspired by three generations of women in their family, with the name paying tribute to Beyoncé's grandmother, Agnèz Deréon, a respected seamstress. According to Tina, the overall style of the line best reflects her and Beyoncé's taste and style. Beyoncé and her mother founded their family's company Beyond Productions, which provides the licensing and brand management for House of Deréon, and its junior collection, Deréon. House of Deréon pieces were exhibited in Destiny's Child's shows and tours, during their Destiny Fulfilled era. The collection features sportswear, denim offerings with fur, outerwear and accessories that include handbags and footwear, and are available at department and specialty stores across the U.S. and Canada.
In 2005, Beyoncé teamed up with House of Brands, a shoe company, to produce a range of footwear for House of Deréon. In January 2008, Starwave Mobile launched Beyoncé Fashion Diva, a "high-style" mobile game with a social networking component, featuring the House of Deréon collection. In July 2009, Beyoncé and her mother launched a new junior apparel label, Sasha Fierce for Deréon, for back-to-school selling. The collection included sportswear, outerwear, handbags, footwear, eyewear, lingerie and jewelry. It was available at department stores including Macy's and Dillard's, and specialty stores Jimmy Jazz and Against All Odds. On May 27, 2010, Beyoncé teamed up with clothing store C&A to launch Deréon by Beyoncé at their stores in Brazil. The collection included tailored blazers with padded shoulders, little black dresses, embroidered tops and shirts and bandage dresses.
In October 2014, Beyoncé signed a deal to launch an activewear line of clothing with British fashion retailer Topshop. The 50–50 venture is called Ivy Park and was launched in April 2016. The brand's name is a nod to Beyoncé's daughter and her favourite number four (IV in roman numerals), and also references the park where she used to run in Texas. She has since bought out Topshop owner Philip Green from his 50% share after he was alleged to have sexually harassed, bullied and racially abused employees. She now owns the brand herself. On April 4, 2019, it was announced that Beyoncé would become a creative partner with Adidas and further develop her athletic brand Ivy Park with the company. Knowles will also develop new clothes and footwear for Adidas. Shares for the company rose 1.3% upon the news release. On December 9, 2019, they announced a launch date of January 18, 2020. Beyoncé uploaded a teaser on her website and Instagram. The collection was also previewed on the upcoming Elle January 2020 issue, where Beyoncé is seen wearing several garments, accessories and footwear from the first collection.
Philanthropy
In 2002, Beyoncé, Kelly Rowland and Tina Knowles built the Knowles-Rowland Center for Youth, a community center in Downtown Houston. After Hurricane Katrina in 2005, Beyoncé and Rowland founded the Survivor Foundation to provide transitional housing to displaced families and provide means for new building construction, to which Beyoncé contributed an initial $250,000. The foundation has since expanded to work with other charities in the city, and also provided relief following Hurricane Ike three years later. Beyoncé also donated $100,000 to the Gulf Coast Ike Relief Fund. In 2007, Beyoncé founded the Knowles-Temenos Place Apartments, a housing complex offering living space for 43 displaced individuals. As of 2016, Beyoncé had donated $7 million for the maintenance of the complex.
After starring in Cadillac Records in 2009 and learning about Phoenix House, a non-profit drug and alcohol rehabilitation organization, Beyoncé donated her full $4 million salary from the film to the organization. Beyoncé and her mother subsequently established the Beyoncé Cosmetology Center, which offers a seven-month cosmetology training course helping Phoenix House's clients gain career skills during their recovery.
In January 2010, Beyoncé participated in George Clooney and Wyclef Jean's Hope for Haiti Now: A Global Benefit for Earthquake Relief telethon, donated a large sum to the organization, and was named the official face of the limited edition CFDA "Fashion For Haiti" T-shirt, made by Theory which raised a total of $1 million. In April 2011, Beyoncé joined forces with U.S. First Lady Michelle Obama and the National Association of Broadcasters Education Foundation, to help boost the latter's campaign against child obesity by reworking her single "Get Me Bodied". Following the death of Osama bin Laden, Beyoncé released her cover of the Lee Greenwood song "God Bless the USA", as a charity single to help raise funds for the New York Police and Fire Widows' and Children's Benefit Fund.
Beyoncé became an ambassador for the 2012 World Humanitarian Day campaign donating her song "I Was Here" and its music video, shot in the UN, to the campaign. In 2013, it was announced that Beyoncé would work with Salma Hayek and Frida Giannini on a Gucci "Chime for Change" campaign that aims to spread female empowerment. The campaign, which aired on February 28, was set to her new music. A concert for the cause took place on June 1, 2013, in London. With help of the crowdfunding platform Catapult, visitors of the concert could choose between several projects promoting education of women and girls. Beyoncé also took part in "Miss a Meal", a food-donation campaign, and supported Goodwill Industries through online charity auctions at Charitybuzz that support job creation throughout Europe and the U.S.
Beyoncé and Jay-Z secretly donated tens of thousands of dollars to bail out Black Lives Matter protesters in Baltimore and Ferguson, as well as funded infrastructure for the establishment of Black Lives Matter chapters across the US. Before Beyoncé's Formation World Tour show in Tampa, her team held a private luncheon for more than 20 community leaders to discuss how Beyoncé could support local charitable initiatives, including pledging on the spot to fund 10 scholarships to provide students with financial aid. Tampa Sports Authority board member Thomas Scott said: "I don't know of a prior artist meeting with the community, seeing what their needs are, seeing how they can invest in the community. It says a lot to me about Beyoncé. She not only goes into a community and walks away with (money), but she also gives money back to that community." In June 2016, Beyoncé donated over $82,000 to the United Way of Genesee County to support victims of the Flint water crisis. Beyoncé additionally donated money to support 14 students in Michigan with their college expenses. In August 2016, Beyoncé and Jay-Z donated $1.5 million to civil rights groups including Black Lives Matter, Hands Up United and Dream Defenders. After Hurricane Matthew, Beyoncé and Jay-Z donated $15 million to the Usain Bolt Foundation to support its efforts in rebuilding homes in Haiti. In December 2016, Beyoncé was named the Most Charitable Celebrity of the year.
During Hurricane Harvey in August 2017, Beyoncé launched BeyGOOD Houston to support those affected by the hurricane in Houston. The organization donated necessities such as cots, blankets, pillows, baby products, feminine products and wheelchairs, and funded long-term revitalization projects. On September 8, Beyoncé visited Houston, where she sponsored a lunch for 400 survivors at her local church, visited the George R Brown Convention Center to discuss with people displaced by the flooding about their needs, served meals to those who lost their homes, and made a significant donation to local causes. Beyoncé additionally donated $75,000 worth of new mattresses to survivors of the hurricane. Later that month, Beyoncé released a remix of J Balvin and Willy William's "Mi Gente", with all of her proceeds being donated to disaster relief charities in Puerto Rico, Mexico, the U.S. and the Caribbean after hurricanes Harvey, Irma and Maria, and the Chiapas and Puebla earthquakes.
In April 2020, Beyoncé donated $6 million to the National Alliance in Mental Health, UCLA and local community-based organizations in order to provide mental health and personal wellness services to essential workers during the COVID-19 pandemic. BeyGOOD also teamed up with local organizations to help provide resources to communities of color, including food, water, cleaning supplies, medicines and face masks. The same month Beyoncé released a remix of Megan Thee Stallion's "Savage", with all proceeds benefiting Bread of Life Houston's COVID-19 relief efforts, which includes providing over 14 tons of food and supplies to 500 families and 100 senior citizens in Houston weekly. In May 2020, Beyoncé provided 1,000 free COVID-19 tests in Houston as part of her and her mother's #IDidMyPart initiative, which was established due to the disproportionate deaths in African-American communities. Additionally, 1,000 gloves, masks, hot meals, essential vitamins, grocery vouchers and household items were provided. In July 2020, Beyoncé established the Black-Owned Small Business Impact Fund in partnership with the NAACP, which offers $10,000 grants to black-owned small businesses in need following the George Floyd protests. All proceeds from Beyoncé's single "Black Parade" were donated to the fund. In September 2020, Beyoncé announced that she had donated an additional $1 million to the fund. As of December 31, 2020, the fund had given 715 grants to black-owned small businesses, amounting to $7.15 million donated. In October 2020, Beyoncé released a statement that she has been working with the Feminist Coalition to assist supporters of the End Sars movement in Nigeria, including covering medical costs for injured protestors, covering legal fees for arrested protestors, and providing food, emergency shelter, transportation and telecommunication means to those in need. Beyoncé also showed support for those fighting against other issues in Africa, such as the Anglophone Crisis in Cameroon, ShutItAllDown in Namibia, Zimbabwean Lives Matter in Zimbabwe and the Rape National Emergency in Liberia. In December 2020, Beyoncé donated $500,000 to help alleviate the housing crisis in the U.S. caused by the cessation of the eviction moratorium, giving 100 $5,000 grants to individuals and families facing foreclosures and evictions.
Discography
Dangerously in Love (2003)
B'Day (2006)
I Am... Sasha Fierce (2008)
4 (2011)
Beyoncé (2013)
Lemonade (2016)
Filmography
Films starred
Carmen: A Hip Hopera (2001)
Austin Powers in Goldmember (2002)
The Fighting Temptations (2003)
Fade to Black (2004)
The Pink Panther (2006)
Dreamgirls (2006)
Cadillac Records (2008)
Obsessed (2009)
Epic (2013)
The Lion King (2019)
Films directed
Life Is But a Dream (2013)
Beyoncé: Lemonade (2016)
Homecoming (2019)
Black Is King (2020)
Tours and residencies
Headlining tours
Dangerously in Love Tour (2003)
The Beyoncé Experience (2007)
I Am... World Tour (2009–2010)
The Mrs. Carter Show World Tour (2013–2014)
The Formation World Tour (2016)
Co-headlining tours
Verizon Ladies First Tour (with Alicia Keys and Missy Elliott) (2004)
On the Run Tour (with Jay-Z) (2014)
On the Run II Tour (with Jay-Z) (2018)
Residencies
I Am... Yours (2009)
4 Intimate Nights with Beyoncé (2011)
Revel Presents: Beyoncé Live (2012)
See also
Album era
Honorific nicknames in popular music
List of artists who reached number one in the United States
List of artists with the most number ones on the U.S. dance chart
List of Billboard Social 50 number-one artists
List of black Golden Globe Award winners and nominees
List of highest-grossing concert tours
Best-selling female artists of all time
List of most-followed Instagram accounts
Notes
References
External links
1981 births
Living people
20th-century American businesspeople
20th-century American businesswomen
20th-century American singers
20th-century American women singers
21st-century American actresses
21st-century American businesspeople
21st-century American businesswomen
21st-century American singers
21st-century American women singers
Actresses from Houston
African-American actresses
African-American artists
African-American businesspeople
African-American choreographers
African-American dancers
African-American fashion designers
American fashion designers
African-American female dancers
African-American women rappers
African-American women singers
African-American feminists
African-American Methodists
African-American record producers
African-American women in business
African-American women writers
American women business executives
American choreographers
American contemporary R&B singers
American cosmetics businesspeople
American fashion businesspeople
American women pop singers
American film actresses
American hip hop record producers
American female hip hop singers
American hip hop singers
American mezzo-sopranos
American music publishers (people)
American music video directors
American people of Creole descent
American retail chief executives
American soul singers
American television actresses
American United Methodists
American voice actresses
American women philanthropists
American women record producers
Black Lives Matter people
Brit Award winners
Businesspeople from Houston
Columbia Records artists
Dance-pop musicians
Destiny's Child members
Female music video directors
Feminist musicians
Gold Star Records artists
Grammy Award winners
Grammy Award winners for rap music
High School for the Performing and Visual Arts alumni
Ivor Novello Award winners
Jay-Z
Solange Knowles
Louisiana Creole people
MTV Europe Music Award winners
Music video codirectors
Musicians from Houston
NME Awards winners
Parkwood Entertainment artists
Record producers from Texas
Shoe designers
Singers from Texas
Singers with a four-octave vocal range
Texas Democrats
Women hip hop record producers
World Music Awards winners
Writers from Houston | false | [
"Ha Soo Whang (1892-1984), also known as Hwang Hae-su, was a social worker. She was the first Korean social worker in Hawaii, and acted as a bilingual interpreter for the families under her care. A graduate of Athens College, she was affiliated with the YWCA's International Institute. She is credited with spreading the art of Korean dance in Hawaii.\n\nCareer \nWhang was born in Korea and was educated in missionary schools there. She came to America for college. On her way back to Korea in 1922, she stopped in Hawaii, and was offered a job at the YWCA International Institute. While there, she started the HyungJay Club, where young Korean-American women could learn about traditional Korean culture, and the Mother's club, where elderly Korean women could become more familiar with American culture. Her goal was to bridge the gap between first- and second-generation Korean-Americans, but was foremost concerned with the well-being of the Korean community in Hawaii.\n\nDance \nBefore Whang began her work, \"respectable\" Korean women did not dance, and men did so only when they were intoxicated. Whang did not teach dance herself, but rather found dancers who were willing to teach and connected them with students. Susan Chun Lee and Chai Yong Ha were two dancers she worked closely with in this capacity. Whang organized performances until 1942, when the International Institute was dissolved. She left Hawaii in 1943. Her work promoting Korean dance and culture in Hawaii was continued first by Halla Pai Huhm, then Mary Jo Freshley.\n\nPersonal life \nHer family was involved with the Korean National Association and her brothers were ordained Methodist ministers. Her nieces, Mary and Elizabeth, came to live with her in Hawaii after their mother, Chang Tae Sun, passed away.\n\nSee also \n Halla Pai Huhm\n\nReferences\n\nBibliography\n\nExternal links \n Interview with Mary Whang Choy about Ha Soo Whang, her aunt\n\n1892 births\n1984 deaths\nAthens State University alumni\nAmerican social workers\nAmerican people of Korean descent",
"Erin Macdonald is an astrophysicist, aerospace engineer, and science fiction consultant. She hosts the YouTube channel, Dr. Erin Explains the Universe, teaches STEM through popular culture, and consults with science fiction creators.\n\nEducation and early career \nMacdonald credits fictional characters such as Dana Scully and Kathryn Janeway (the latter of whom she even acknowledges in her Ph.D. dissertation) with providing the inspiration to pursue a science career. She earned her bachelor's degrees in astrophysics and mathematics at the University of Colorado Boulder (after transferring there from the University of New Mexico) and her Ph.D. at the University of Glasgow, where she concentrated in general relativity.\n\nMacdonald did post-doctoral work with the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) collaboration as part of an attempt to detect gravitational waves from the Crab Pulsar. She also did post-doctoral work at Cardiff University, still with LIGO, where she was the first female researcher in her department. During this period she became involved with the Actors Workshop, in Cardiff, which she credits with helping her efforts at science communication. Macdonald's first job after leaving academia was at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science. She also began teaching at local community colleges and eventually found work analyzing data in the aerospace industry.\n\nScience communication \n\nWhile searching for a better work-life balance than that provided in research and academia, Macdonald found opportunities to still teach through a combination of conducting introductory courses and speaking at science fiction conventions. She would discover that these activities put her “in front of students and kids who may find inspiration in a punk-redhead woman covered in tattoos who also happens to have a PhD.” After deciding not to pursue an academic research career, Macdonald began giving talks at science fiction conventions in the areas of her expertise that link the science to the various fandoms of her audience members. For example, she has used Voltron: Legendary Defender to teach about spacetime. She has made appearances at such conventions as Awesome Con and Dragon Con. This led her to meeting and working with science fiction writers in the entertainment industry.\n\nScience fiction consultation \nMacdonald moved to Los Angeles from Colorado and works with writers and producers in Hollywood to bring scientific accuracy to their productions. She has, for example, served as technical consultant on several episodes of Orbital Redux. In 2019, Macdonald produced a Great Courses course on the science of science fiction via Audible.\n\nIn late 2019, Macdonald became a science consultant for Star Trek. She would work with producers and writers throughout the Star Trek franchise.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links \n Official web site\n Dr. Erin Explains the Universe\n\nAmerican women physicists\nAmerican women engineers\nWomen space scientists\nScience communicators\nUniversity of Colorado Boulder alumni\nAlumni of the University of Glasgow\nYear of birth missing (living people)\nLiving people\nAerospace engineers\n21st-century American women"
]
|
[
"Beyoncé",
"Voice and songwriting",
"what happened with voice and songwriting?",
"Jody Rosen highlights her tone and timbre as particularly distinctive, describing her voice as \"one of the most compelling instruments in popular music",
"what else does she say about her voice?",
"Her vocal abilities mean she is identified as the centerpiece of Destiny's Child.",
"did anyone else have anything to say about her voice? good or bad.",
"Jon Pareles of The New York Times commented that her voice is \"velvety yet tart,",
"what else did he comment about her voice?",
"\"velvety yet tart, with an insistent flutter and reserves of soul belting\".",
"what do people have to say about her songwriting?",
"She has received co-writing credits for most of the songs recorded with Destiny's Child and her solo efforts.",
"did she win any awards at all?",
"In 2001, she became the first black woman and second female lyricist to win the Pop Songwriter of the Year award",
"what was her greatest accomplishment?",
"She was one of only three women on that list, along with Alicia Keys and Taylor Swift.",
"who did she work with?",
"Beyonce has also received co-producing credits for most of the records in which she has been involved,"
]
| C_1128b8d67bcb48feb77ec450ae614b45_1 | Are there any other interesting aspects about this article? | 9 | Are there any interesting aspects about Beyonce, her voice and songwritings besides mentioned by Jon Pareles and Jody Rosen? | Beyoncé | Jody Rosen highlights her tone and timbre as particularly distinctive, describing her voice as "one of the most compelling instruments in popular music". Her vocal abilities mean she is identified as the centerpiece of Destiny's Child. Jon Pareles of The New York Times commented that her voice is "velvety yet tart, with an insistent flutter and reserves of soul belting". Rosen notes that the hip hop era highly influenced Beyonce's unique rhythmic vocal style, but also finds her quite traditionalist in her use of balladry, gospel and falsetto. Other critics praise her range and power, with Chris Richards of The Washington Post saying she was "capable of punctuating any beat with goose-bump-inducing whispers or full-bore diva-roars." Beyonce's music is generally R&B, but she also incorporates pop, soul and funk into her songs. 4 demonstrated Beyonce's exploration of 1990s-style R&B, as well as further use of soul and hip hop than compared to previous releases. While she almost exclusively releases English songs, Beyonce recorded several Spanish songs for Irreemplazable (re-recordings of songs from B'Day for a Spanish-language audience), and the re-release of B'Day. To record these, Beyonce was coached phonetically by American record producer Rudy Perez. She has received co-writing credits for most of the songs recorded with Destiny's Child and her solo efforts. Her early songs were personally driven and female-empowerment themed compositions like "Independent Women" and "Survivor", but after the start of her relationship with Jay-Z, she transitioned to more man-tending anthems such as "Cater 2 U". Beyonce has also received co-producing credits for most of the records in which she has been involved, especially during her solo efforts. However, she does not formulate beats herself, but typically comes up with melodies and ideas during production, sharing them with producers. In 2001, she became the first black woman and second female lyricist to win the Pop Songwriter of the Year award at the American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers Pop Music Awards. Beyonce was the third woman to have writing credits on three number one songs ("Irreplaceable", "Grillz" and "Check on It") in the same year, after Carole King in 1971 and Mariah Carey in 1991. She is tied with American lyricist Diane Warren at third with nine song-writing credits on number-one singles. (The latter wrote her 9/11-motivated song "I Was Here" for 4.) In May 2011, Billboard magazine listed Beyonce at number 17 on their list of the "Top 20 Hot 100 Songwriters", for having co-written eight singles that hit number one on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. She was one of only three women on that list, along with Alicia Keys and Taylor Swift. CANNOTANSWER | after the start of her relationship with Jay-Z, she transitioned to more man-tending anthems such as "Cater 2 U". | Beyoncé Giselle Knowles-Carter ( ; born September 4, 1981) is an American singer, songwriter, and actress. Born and raised in Houston, Texas, Beyoncé performed in various singing and dancing competitions as a child. She rose to fame in the late 1990s as the lead singer of Destiny's Child, one of the best-selling girl groups of all time. Their hiatus saw the release of her debut solo album Dangerously in Love (2003), which featured the US Billboard Hot 100 number-one singles "Crazy in Love" and "Baby Boy".
Following the 2006 disbanding of Destiny's Child, she released her second solo album, B'Day, which contained singles "Irreplaceable" and "Beautiful Liar". Beyoncé also starred in multiple films such as The Pink Panther (2006), Dreamgirls (2006), Obsessed (2009), and The Lion King (2019). Her marriage to Jay-Z and her portrayal of Etta James in Cadillac Records (2008) influenced her third album, I Am... Sasha Fierce (2008), which earned a record-setting six Grammy Awards in 2010. It spawned the successful singles "If I Were a Boy", "Single Ladies", and "Halo".
After splitting from her manager and father Mathew Knowles in 2010, Beyoncé released her musically diverse fourth album 4 in 2011. She later achieved universal acclaim for her sonically experimental visual albums, Beyoncé (2013) and Lemonade (2016), the latter of which was the world's best-selling album of 2016 and the most acclaimed album of her career, exploring themes of infidelity and womanism. In 2018, she released Everything Is Love, a collaborative album with her husband, Jay-Z, as the Carters. As a featured artist, Beyoncé topped the Billboard Hot 100 with the remixes of "Perfect" by Ed Sheeran in 2017 and "Savage" by Megan Thee Stallion in 2020. The same year, she released the musical film and visual album Black Is King to widespread acclaim.
Beyoncé is one of the world's best-selling recording artists, having sold 120 million records worldwide. She is the first solo artist to have their first six studio albums debut at number one on the Billboard 200. Her success during the 2000s was recognized with the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA)'s Top Certified Artist of the Decade as well as Billboard Top Female Artist of the Decade. Beyoncé's accolades include 28 Grammy Awards, 26 MTV Video Music Awards (including the Michael Jackson Video Vanguard Award in 2014), 24 NAACP Image Awards, 31 BET Awards, and 17 Soul Train Music Awards; all of which are more than any other singer. In 2014, Billboard named her the highest-earning black musician of all time, while in 2020, she was included on Times list of 100 women who defined the last century.
Life and career
1981–1996: Early life and career beginnings
Beyonce Giselle Knowles was born on September 4, 1981, in Houston, Texas, to Celestine "Tina" Knowles (née Beyonce), a hairdresser and salon owner, and Mathew Knowles, a Xerox sales manager; Tina is Louisiana Creole, and Mathew is African American. Beyonce's younger sister Solange Knowles is also a singer and a former backup dancer for Destiny's Child. Solange and Beyoncé are the first sisters to have both had No. 1 albums.
Beyoncé's maternal grandparents, Lumas Beyince, and Agnez Dereon (daughter of Odilia Broussard and Eugene DeRouen), were French-speaking Louisiana Creoles, with roots in New Iberia. Beyoncé is considered a Creole, passed on to her by her grandparents. Through her mother, Beyoncé is a descendant of many French aristocrats from the southwest of France, including the family of the Viscounts de Béarn since the 9th century, and the Viscounts de Belzunce. She is also a descendant of Jean-Vincent d'Abbadie de Saint-Castin, a French nobleman and military leader who fought along the indigenous Abenaki against the British in Acadia and of Acadian leader Joseph Broussard. Her fourth great-grandmother, Marie-Françoise Trahan, was born in 1774 in Bangor, located on Belle Île, France. Trahan was a daughter of Acadians who had taken refuge on Belle Île after the British deportation. The Estates of Brittany had divided the lands of Belle Île to distribute them among 78 other Acadian families and the already settled inhabitants. The Trahan family lived on Belle Île for over ten years before immigrating to Louisiana, where she married a Broussard descendant. Beyoncé researched her ancestry and discovered that she is descended from a slave owner who married his slave.
Beyoncé was raised Catholic and attended St. Mary's Montessori School in Houston, where she enrolled in dance classes. Her singing was discovered when dance instructor Darlette Johnson began humming a song and she finished it, able to hit the high-pitched notes. Beyoncé's interest in music and performing continued after winning a school talent show at age seven, singing John Lennon's "Imagine" to beat 15/16-year-olds. In the fall of 1990, Beyoncé enrolled in Parker Elementary School, a music magnet school in Houston, where she would perform with the school's choir. She also attended the High School for the Performing and Visual Arts and later Alief Elsik High School. Beyoncé was also a member of the choir at St. John's United Methodist Church as a soloist for two years.
When Beyoncé was eight, she met LaTavia Roberson at an audition for an all-girl entertainment group. They were placed into a group called Girl's Tyme with three other girls, and rapped and danced on the talent show circuit in Houston. After seeing the group, R&B producer Arne Frager brought them to his Northern California studio and placed them in Star Search, the largest talent show on national TV at the time. Girl's Tyme failed to win, and Beyoncé later said the song they performed was not good. In 1995, Beyoncé's father resigned from his job to manage the group. The move reduced Beyoncé's family's income by half, and her parents were forced to move into separated apartments. Mathew cut the original line-up to four and the group continued performing as an opening act for other established R&B girl groups. The girls auditioned before record labels and were finally signed to Elektra Records, moving to Atlanta Records briefly to work on their first recording, only to be cut by the company. This put further strain on the family, and Beyoncé's parents separated. On October 5, 1995, Dwayne Wiggins's Grass Roots Entertainment signed the group. In 1996, the girls began recording their debut album under an agreement with Sony Music, the Knowles family reunited, and shortly after, the group got a contract with Columbia Records.
1997–2002: Destiny's Child
The group changed their name to Destiny's Child in 1996, based upon a passage in the Book of Isaiah. In 1997, Destiny's Child released their major label debut song "Killing Time" on the soundtrack to the 1997 film Men in Black. In November, the group released their debut single and first major hit, "No, No, No". They released their self-titled debut album in February 1998, which established the group as a viable act in the music industry, with moderate sales and winning the group three Soul Train Lady of Soul Awards for Best R&B/Soul Album of the Year, Best R&B/Soul or Rap New Artist, and Best R&B/Soul Single for "No, No, No". The group released their Multi-Platinum second album The Writing's on the Wall in 1999. The record features some of the group's most widely known songs such as "Bills, Bills, Bills", the group's first number-one single, "Jumpin' Jumpin' and "Say My Name", which became their most successful song at the time, and would remain one of their signature songs. "Say My Name" won the Best R&B Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocals and the Best R&B Song at the 43rd Annual Grammy Awards. The Writing's on the Wall sold more than eight million copies worldwide. During this time, Beyoncé recorded a duet with Marc Nelson, an original member of Boyz II Men, on the song "After All Is Said and Done" for the soundtrack to the 1999 film, The Best Man.
LeToya Luckett and Roberson became unhappy with Mathew's managing of the band and eventually were replaced by Farrah Franklin and Michelle Williams. Beyoncé experienced depression following the split with Luckett and Roberson after being publicly blamed by the media, critics, and blogs for its cause. Her long-standing boyfriend left her at this time. The depression was so severe it lasted for a couple of years, during which she occasionally kept herself in her bedroom for days and refused to eat anything. Beyoncé stated that she struggled to speak about her depression because Destiny's Child had just won their first Grammy Award, and she feared no one would take her seriously. Beyoncé would later speak of her mother as the person who helped her fight it. Franklin was then dismissed, leaving just Beyoncé, Rowland, and Williams.
The remaining band members recorded "Independent Women Part I", which appeared on the soundtrack to the 2000 film Charlie's Angels. It became their best-charting single, topping the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 chart for eleven consecutive weeks. In early 2001, while Destiny's Child was completing their third album, Beyoncé landed a major role in the MTV made-for-television film, Carmen: A Hip Hopera, starring alongside American actor Mekhi Phifer. Set in Philadelphia, the film is a modern interpretation of the 19th-century opera Carmen by French composer Georges Bizet. When the third album Survivor was released in May 2001, Luckett and Roberson filed a lawsuit claiming that the songs were aimed at them. The album debuted at number one on the U.S. Billboard 200, with first-week sales of 663,000 copies sold. The album spawned other number-one hits, "Bootylicious" and the title track, "Survivor", the latter of which earned the group a Grammy Award for Best R&B Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocals. After releasing their holiday album 8 Days of Christmas in October 2001, the group announced a hiatus to further pursue solo careers.
In July 2002, Beyoncé made her theatrical film debut, playing Foxxy Cleopatra alongside Mike Myers in the comedy film Austin Powers in Goldmember, which spent its first weekend atop the U.S. box office and grossed $73 million. Beyoncé released "Work It Out" as the lead single from its soundtrack album which entered the top ten in the UK, Norway, and Belgium. In 2003, Beyoncé starred opposite Cuba Gooding, Jr., in the musical comedy The Fighting Temptations as Lilly, a single mother with whom Gooding's character falls in love. The film received mixed reviews from critics but grossed $30 million in the U.S. Beyoncé released "Fighting Temptation" as the lead single from the film's soundtrack album, with Missy Elliott, MC Lyte, and Free which was also used to promote the film. Another of Beyoncé's contributions to the soundtrack, "Summertime", fared better on the U.S. charts.
2003–2005: Dangerously in Love and Destiny Fulfilled
Beyoncé's first solo recording was a feature on Jay-Z's song '03 Bonnie & Clyde" that was released in October 2002, peaking at number four on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 chart. On June 14, 2003, Beyoncé premiered songs from her first solo album Dangerously in Love during her first solo concert and the pay-per-view television special, "Ford Presents Beyoncé Knowles, Friends & Family, Live From Ford's 100th Anniversary Celebration in Dearborn, Michigan". The album was released on June 24, 2003, after Michelle Williams and Kelly Rowland had released their solo efforts. The album sold 317,000 copies in its first week, debuted atop the Billboard 200, and has since sold 11 million copies worldwide. The album's lead single, "Crazy in Love", featuring Jay-Z, became Beyoncé's first number-one single as a solo artist in the US. The single "Baby Boy" also reached number one, and singles, "Me, Myself and I" and "Naughty Girl", both reached the top-five. The album earned Beyoncé a then record-tying five awards at the 46th Annual Grammy Awards; Best Contemporary R&B Album, Best Female R&B Vocal Performance for "Dangerously in Love 2", Best R&B Song and Best Rap/Sung Collaboration for "Crazy in Love", and Best R&B Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocals for "The Closer I Get to You" with Luther Vandross. During the ceremony, she performed with Prince.
In November 2003, she embarked on the Dangerously in Love Tour in Europe and later toured alongside Missy Elliott and Alicia Keys for the Verizon Ladies First Tour in North America. On February 1, 2004, Beyoncé performed the American national anthem at Super Bowl XXXVIII, at the Reliant Stadium in Houston, Texas. After the release of Dangerously in Love, Beyoncé had planned to produce a follow-up album using several of the left-over tracks. However, this was put on hold so she could concentrate on recording Destiny Fulfilled, the final studio album by Destiny's Child. Released on November 15, 2004, in the US and peaking at number two on the Billboard 200, Destiny Fulfilled included the singles "Lose My Breath" and "Soldier", which reached the top five on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. Destiny's Child embarked on a worldwide concert tour, Destiny Fulfilled... and Lovin' It sponsored by McDonald's Corporation, and performed hits such as "No, No, No", "Survivor", "Say My Name", "Independent Women" and "Lose My Breath". In addition to renditions of the group's recorded material, they also performed songs from each singer's solo careers, most notably numbers from Dangerously in Love. and during the last stop of their European tour, in Barcelona on June 11, 2005, Rowland announced that Destiny's Child would disband following the North American leg of the tour. The group released their first compilation album Number 1's on October 25, 2005, in the US and accepted a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in March 2006. The group has sold 60 million records worldwide.
2006–2007: B'Day and Dreamgirls
Beyoncé's second solo album B'Day was released on September 4, 2006, in the US, to coincide with her twenty-fifth birthday. It sold 541,000 copies in its first week and debuted atop the Billboard 200, becoming Beyoncé's second consecutive number-one album in the United States. The album's lead single "Déjà Vu", featuring Jay-Z, reached the top five on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. The second international single "Irreplaceable" was a commercial success worldwide, reaching number one in Australia, Hungary, Ireland, New Zealand and the United States. B'Day also produced three other singles; "Ring the Alarm", "Get Me Bodied", and "Green Light" (released in the United Kingdom only).
At the 49th Annual Grammy Awards (2007), B'Day was nominated for five Grammy Awards, including Best Contemporary R&B Album, Best Female R&B Vocal Performance for "Ring the Alarm" and Best R&B Song and Best Rap/Sung Collaboration"for "Déjà Vu"; the Freemasons club mix of "Déjà Vu" without the rap was put forward in the Best Remixed Recording, Non-Classical category. B'Day won the award for Best Contemporary R&B Album. The following year, B'Day received two nominations – for Record of the Year for "Irreplaceable" and Best Pop Collaboration with Vocals for "Beautiful Liar" (with Shakira), also receiving a nomination for Best Compilation Soundtrack Album for Motion Pictures, Television or Other Visual Media for her appearance on Dreamgirls: Music from the Motion Picture (2006).
Her first acting role of 2006 was in the comedy film The Pink Panther starring opposite Steve Martin, grossing $158.8 million at the box office worldwide. Her second film Dreamgirls, the film version of the 1981 Broadway musical loosely based on The Supremes, received acclaim from critics and grossed $154 million internationally. In it, she starred opposite Jennifer Hudson, Jamie Foxx, and Eddie Murphy playing a pop singer based on Diana Ross. To promote the film, Beyoncé released "Listen" as the lead single from the soundtrack album. In April 2007, Beyoncé embarked on The Beyoncé Experience, her first worldwide concert tour, visiting 97 venues and grossed over $24 million. Beyoncé conducted pre-concert food donation drives during six major stops in conjunction with her pastor at St. John's and America's Second Harvest. At the same time, B'Day was re-released with five additional songs, including her duet with Shakira "Beautiful Liar".
2008–2010: I Am... Sasha Fierce
I Am... Sasha Fierce was released on November 18, 2008, in the United States. The album formally introduces Beyoncé's alter ego Sasha Fierce, conceived during the making of her 2003 single "Crazy in Love". It was met with generally mediocre reviews from critics, but sold 482,000 copies in its first week, debuting atop the Billboard 200, and giving Beyoncé her third consecutive number-one album in the US. The album featured the number-one song "Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)" and the top-five songs "If I Were a Boy" and "Halo". Achieving the accomplishment of becoming her longest-running Hot 100 single in her career, "Halos success in the U.S. helped Beyoncé attain more top-ten singles on the list than any other woman during the 2000s. It also included the successful "Sweet Dreams", and singles "Diva", "Ego", "Broken-Hearted Girl" and "Video Phone". The music video for "Single Ladies" has been parodied and imitated around the world, spawning the "first major dance craze" of the Internet age according to the Toronto Star. The video has won several awards, including Best Video at the 2009 MTV Europe Music Awards, the 2009 Scottish MOBO Awards, and the 2009 BET Awards. At the 2009 MTV Video Music Awards, the video was nominated for nine awards, ultimately winning three including Video of the Year. Its failure to win the Best Female Video category, which went to American singer-songwriter Taylor Swift's "You Belong with Me", led to Kanye West interrupting the ceremony and Beyoncé improvising a re-presentation of Swift's award during her own acceptance speech. In March 2009, Beyoncé embarked on the I Am... World Tour, her second headlining worldwide concert tour, consisting of 108 shows, grossing $119.5 million.
Beyoncé further expanded her acting career, starring as blues singer Etta James in the 2008 musical biopic Cadillac Records. Her performance in the film received praise from critics, and she garnered several nominations for her portrayal of James, including a Satellite Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress, and a NAACP Image Award nomination for Outstanding Supporting Actress. Beyoncé donated her entire salary from the film to Phoenix House, an organization of rehabilitation centers for heroin addicts around the country. On January 20, 2009, Beyoncé performed James' "At Last" at First Couple Barack and Michelle Obama's first inaugural ball. Beyoncé starred opposite Ali Larter and Idris Elba in the thriller, Obsessed. She played Sharon Charles, a mother and wife whose family is threatened by her husband's stalker. Although the film received negative reviews from critics, the movie did well at the U.S. box office, grossing $68 million – $60 million more than Cadillac Records – on a budget of $20 million. The fight scene finale between Sharon and the character played by Ali Larter also won the 2010 MTV Movie Award for Best Fight.
At the 52nd Annual Grammy Awards, Beyoncé received ten nominations, including Album of the Year for I Am... Sasha Fierce, Record of the Year for "Halo", and Song of the Year for "Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)", among others. She tied with Lauryn Hill for most Grammy nominations in a single year by a female artist. Beyoncé went on to win six of those nominations, breaking a record she previously tied in 2004 for the most Grammy awards won in a single night by a female artist with six. In 2010, Beyoncé was featured on Lady Gaga's single "Telephone" and appeared in its music video. The song topped the U.S. Pop Songs chart, becoming the sixth number-one for both Beyoncé and Gaga, tying them with Mariah Carey for most number-ones since the Nielsen Top 40 airplay chart launched in 1992. "Telephone" received a Grammy Award nomination for Best Pop Collaboration with Vocals.
Beyoncé announced a hiatus from her music career in January 2010, heeding her mother's advice, "to live life, to be inspired by things again". During the break she and her father parted ways as business partners. Beyoncé's musical break lasted nine months and saw her visit multiple European cities, the Great Wall of China, the Egyptian pyramids, Australia, English music festivals and various museums and ballet performances.
2011–2013: 4 and Super Bowl XLVII halftime show
On June 26, 2011, she became the first solo female artist to headline the main Pyramid stage at the 2011 Glastonbury Festival in over twenty years. Her fourth studio album 4 was released two days later in the US. 4 sold 310,000 copies in its first week and debuted atop the Billboard 200 chart, giving Beyoncé her fourth consecutive number-one album in the US. The album was preceded by two of its singles "Run the World (Girls)" and "Best Thing I Never Had". The fourth single "Love on Top" spent seven consecutive weeks at number one on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart, while peaking at number 20 on the Billboard Hot 100, the highest peak from the album. 4 also produced four other singles; "Party", "Countdown", "I Care" and "End of Time". "Eat, Play, Love", a cover story written by Beyoncé for Essence that detailed her 2010 career break, won her a writing award from the New York Association of Black Journalists. In late 2011, she took the stage at New York's Roseland Ballroom for four nights of special performances: the 4 Intimate Nights with Beyoncé concerts saw the performance of her 4 album to a standing room only. On August 1, 2011, the album was certified platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), having shipped 1 million copies to retail stores. By December 2015, it reached sales of 1.5 million copies in the US. The album reached one billion Spotify streams on February 5, 2018, making Beyoncé the first female artist to have three of their albums surpass one billion streams on the platform.
In June 2012, she performed for four nights at Revel Atlantic City's Ovation Hall to celebrate the resort's opening, her first performances since giving birth to her daughter.
In January 2013, Destiny's Child released Love Songs, a compilation album of the romance-themed songs from their previous albums and a newly recorded track, "Nuclear". Beyoncé performed the American national anthem singing along with a pre-recorded track at President Obama's second inauguration in Washington, D.C. The following month, Beyoncé performed at the Super Bowl XLVII halftime show, held at the Mercedes-Benz Superdome in New Orleans. The performance stands as the second most tweeted about moment in history at 268,000 tweets per minute. At the 55th Annual Grammy Awards, Beyoncé won for Best Traditional R&B Performance for "Love on Top". Her feature-length documentary film, Life Is But a Dream, first aired on HBO on February 16, 2013. The film was co-directed by Beyoncé herself.
2013–2015: Beyoncé
Beyoncé embarked on The Mrs. Carter Show World Tour on April 15 in Belgrade, Serbia; the tour included 132 dates that ran through to March 2014. It became the most successful tour of her career and one of the most successful tours of all time. In May, Beyoncé's cover of Amy Winehouse's "Back to Black" with André 3000 on The Great Gatsby soundtrack was released. Beyoncé voiced Queen Tara in the 3D CGI animated film, Epic, released by 20th Century Fox on May 24, and recorded an original song for the film, "Rise Up", co-written with Sia.
On December 13, 2013, Beyoncé unexpectedly released her eponymous fifth studio album on the iTunes Store without any prior announcement or promotion. The album debuted atop the Billboard 200 chart, giving Beyoncé her fifth consecutive number-one album in the US. This made her the first woman in the chart's history to have her first five studio albums debut at number one. Beyoncé received critical acclaim and commercial success, selling one million digital copies worldwide in six days; Musically an electro-R&B album, it concerns darker themes previously unexplored in her work, such as "bulimia, postnatal depression [and] the fears and insecurities of marriage and motherhood". The single "Drunk in Love", featuring Jay-Z, peaked at number two on the Billboard Hot 100 chart.
In April 2014, Beyoncé and Jay-Z officially announced their On the Run Tour. It served as the couple's first co-headlining stadium tour together. On August 24, 2014, she received the Michael Jackson Video Vanguard Award at the 2014 MTV Video Music Awards. Beyoncé also won home three competitive awards: Best Video with a Social Message and Best Cinematography for "Pretty Hurts", as well as best collaboration for "Drunk in Love". In November, Forbes reported that Beyoncé was the top-earning woman in music for the second year in a row – earning $115 million in the year, more than double her earnings in 2013. Beyoncé was reissued with new material in three forms: as an extended play, a box set, as well as a full platinum edition. According to the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI), in the last 19 days of 2013, the album sold 2.3 million units worldwide, becoming the tenth best-selling album of 2013. The album also went on to become the twentieth best-selling album of 2014. , Beyoncé has sold over 5 million copies worldwide and has generated over 1 billion streams, .
At the 57th Annual Grammy Awards in February 2015, Beyoncé was nominated for six awards, ultimately winning three: Best R&B Performance and Best R&B Song for "Drunk in Love", and Best Surround Sound Album for Beyoncé. She was nominated for Album of the Year, but the award went to Beck for his album Morning Phase.
2016–2018: Lemonade and Everything Is Love
On February 6, 2016, Beyoncé released "Formation" and its accompanying music video exclusively on the music streaming platform Tidal; the song was made available to download for free. She performed "Formation" live for the first time during the NFL Super Bowl 50 halftime show. The appearance was considered controversial as it appeared to reference the 50th anniversary of the Black Panther Party and the NFL forbids political statements in its performances. Immediately following the performance, Beyoncé announced The Formation World Tour, which highlighted stops in both North America, and Europe. It ended on October 7, with Beyoncé bringing out her husband Jay-Z, Kendrick Lamar, and Serena Williams for the last show. The tour went on to win Tour of the Year at the 44th American Music Awards.
On April 16, 2016, Beyoncé released a teaser clip for a project called Lemonade. It turned out to be a one-hour film which aired on HBO exactly a week later; a corresponding album with the same title was released on the same day exclusively on Tidal. Lemonade debuted at number one on the U.S. Billboard 200, making Beyoncé the first act in Billboard history to have their first six studio albums debut atop the chart; she broke a record previously tied with DMX in 2013. With all 12 tracks of Lemonade debuting on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, Beyoncé also became the first female act to chart 12 or more songs at the same time. Additionally, Lemonade was streamed 115 million times through Tidal, setting a record for the most-streamed album in a single week by a female artist in history. It was 2016's third highest-selling album in the U.S. with 1.554 million copies sold in that time period within the country as well as the best-selling album worldwide with global sales of 2.5 million throughout the year. In June 2019, Lemonade was certified 3× Platinum, having sold up to 3 million album-equivalent units in the United States alone.
Lemonade became her most critically acclaimed work to date, receiving universal acclaim according to Metacritic, a website collecting reviews from professional music critics. Several music publications included the album among the best of 2016, including Rolling Stone, which listed Lemonade at number one. The album's visuals were nominated in 11 categories at the 2016 MTV Video Music Awards, the most ever received by Beyoncé in a single year, and went on to win 8 awards, including Video of the Year for "Formation". The eight wins made Beyoncé the most-awarded artist in the history of the VMAs (24), surpassing Madonna (20). Beyoncé occupied the sixth place for Time magazine's 2016 Person of the Year.
In January 2017, it was announced that Beyoncé would headline the Coachella Music and Arts Festival. This would make Beyoncé only the second female headliner of the festival since it was founded in 1999. It was later announced on February 23, 2017, that Beyoncé would no longer be able to perform at the festival due to doctor's concerns regarding her pregnancy. The festival owners announced that she will instead headline the 2018 festival. Upon the announcement of Beyoncé's departure from the festival lineup, ticket prices dropped by 12%. At the 59th Grammy Awards in February 2017, Lemonade led the nominations with nine, including Album, Record, and Song of the Year for Lemonade and "Formation" respectively. and ultimately won two, Best Urban Contemporary Album for Lemonade and Best Music Video for "Formation". Adele, upon winning her Grammy for Album of the Year, stated Lemonade was monumental and more deserving.
In September 2017, Beyoncé collaborated with J Balvin and Willy William, to release a remix of the song "Mi Gente". Beyoncé donated all proceeds from the song to hurricane charities for those affected by Hurricane Harvey and Hurricane Irma in Texas, Mexico, Puerto Rico, and other Caribbean Islands. On November 10, Eminem released "Walk on Water" featuring Beyoncé as the lead single from his album Revival. On November 30, Ed Sheeran announced that Beyoncé would feature on the remix to his song "Perfect". "Perfect Duet" was released on December 1, 2017. The song reached number-one in the United States, becoming Beyoncé's sixth song of her solo career to do so.
On January 4, 2018, the music video of Beyoncé and Jay-Z's 4:44 collaboration, "Family Feud" was released. It was directed by Ava DuVernay. On March 1, 2018, DJ Khaled released "Top Off" as the first single from his forthcoming album Father of Asahd featuring Beyoncé, husband Jay-Z, and Future. On March 5, 2018, a joint tour with Knowles's husband Jay-Z, was leaked on Facebook. Information about the tour was later taken down. The couple announced the joint tour officially as On the Run II Tour on March 12 and simultaneously released a trailer for the tour on YouTube. On March 20, 2018, the couple traveled to Jamaica to film a music video directed by Melina Matsoukas.
On April 14, 2018, Beyoncé played the first of two weekends as the headlining act of the Coachella Music Festival. Her performance of April 14, attended by 125,000 festival-goers, was immediately praised, with multiple media outlets describing it as historic. The performance became the most-tweeted-about performance of weekend one, as well as the most-watched live Coachella performance and the most-watched live performance on YouTube of all time. The show paid tribute to black culture, specifically historically black colleges and universities and featured a live band with over 100 dancers. Destiny's Child also reunited during the show.
On June 6, 2018, Beyoncé and husband Jay-Z kicked-off the On the Run II Tour in Cardiff, United Kingdom. Ten days later, at their final London performance, the pair unveiled Everything Is Love, their joint studio album, credited under the name The Carters, and initially available exclusively on Tidal. The pair also released the video for the album's lead single, "Apeshit", on Beyoncé's official YouTube channel. Everything Is Love received generally positive reviews, and debuted at number two on the U.S. Billboard 200, with 123,000 album-equivalent units, of which 70,000 were pure album sales. On December 2, 2018, Beyoncé alongside Jay-Z headlined the Global Citizen Festival: Mandela 100 which was held at FNB Stadium in Johannesburg, South Africa. Their 2-hour performance had concepts similar to the On the Run II Tour and Beyoncé was praised for her outfits, which paid tribute to Africa's diversity.
2019–present: Homecoming, The Lion King and Black Is King
Homecoming, a documentary and concert film focusing on Beyoncé's historic 2018 Coachella performances, was released by Netflix on April 17, 2019. The film was accompanied by the surprise live album Homecoming: The Live Album. It was later reported that Beyoncé and Netflix had signed a $60 million deal to produce three different projects, one of which is Homecoming. Homecoming received six nominations at the 71st Primetime Creative Arts Emmy Awards.
Beyoncé starred as the voice of Nala in the remake The Lion King, which was released on July 19, 2019. Beyoncé is featured on the film's soundtrack, released on July 11, 2019, with a remake of the song "Can You Feel the Love Tonight" alongside Donald Glover, Billy Eichner and Seth Rogen, which was originally composed by Elton John. Additionally, an original song from the film by Beyoncé, "Spirit", was released as the lead single from both the soundtrack and The Lion King: The Gift – a companion album released alongside the film, produced and curated by Beyoncé. Beyoncé called The Lion King: The Gift a "sonic cinema". She also stated that the album is influenced by everything from R&B, pop, hip hop and Afro Beat. The songs were additionally produced by African producers, which Beyoncé said was because "authenticity and heart were important to [her]", since the film is set in Africa. In September of the same year, a documentary chronicling the development, production and early music video filming of The Lion King: The Gift entitled "Beyoncé Presents: Making The Gift" was aired on ABC.
On April 29, 2020, Beyoncé was featured on the remix of Megan Thee Stallion's song "Savage", marking her first material of music for the year. The song peaked at number one on the Billboard Hot 100, marking Beyoncé's eleventh song to do so across all acts. On June 19, 2020, Beyoncé released the nonprofit charity single "Black Parade". On June 23, she followed up the release of its studio version with an a capella version exclusively on Tidal. Black Is King, a visual album based on the music of The Lion King: The Gift, premiered globally on Disney+ on July 31, 2020. Produced by Disney and Parkwood Entertainment, the film was written, directed and executive produced by Beyoncé. The film was described by Disney as "a celebratory memoir for the world on the Black experience". Beyoncé received the most nominations (9) at the 63rd Annual Grammy Awards and the most awards (4), which made her the most-awarded singer, most-awarded female artist, and second-most-awarded artist in Grammy history.
Beyoncé wrote and recorded a song titled "Be Alive" for the biographical drama film King Richard. She received her first Academy Award nomination for Best Original Song at the 94th Academy Awards for the song, alongside co-writer DIXSON.
Artistry
Voice and musical style
Beyoncé's voice type is classified as dramatic mezzo-soprano. Jody Rosen highlights her tone and timbre as particularly distinctive, describing her voice as "one of the most compelling instruments in popular music". Her vocal abilities mean she is identified as the centerpiece of Destiny's Child. Jon Pareles of The New York Times commented that her voice is "velvety yet tart, with an insistent flutter and reserves of soul belting". Rosen notes that the hip hop era highly influenced Beyoncé's unique rhythmic vocal style, but also finds her quite traditionalist in her use of balladry, gospel and falsetto. Other critics praise her range and power, with Chris Richards of The Washington Post saying she was "capable of punctuating any beat with goose-bump-inducing whispers or full-bore diva-roars."
Beyoncé's music is generally R&B, pop and hip hop but she also incorporates soul and funk into her songs. 4 demonstrated Beyoncé's exploration of 1990s-style R&B, as well as further use of soul and hip hop than compared to previous releases. While she almost exclusively releases English songs, Beyoncé recorded several Spanish songs for Irreemplazable (re-recordings of songs from B'Day for a Spanish-language audience), and the re-release of B'Day. To record these, Beyoncé was coached phonetically by American record producer Rudy Perez.
Songwriting
Beyoncé has received co-writing credits for most of her songs. In regards to the way she approaches collaborative songwriting, Beyoncé explained: "I love being around great writers because I'm finding that a lot of the things I want to say, I don't articulate as good as maybe Amanda Ghost, so I want to keep collaborating with writers, and I love classics and I want to make sure years from now the song is still something that's relevant." Her early songs with Destiny's Child were personally driven and female-empowerment themed compositions like "Independent Women" and "Survivor", but after the start of her relationship with Jay-Z, she transitioned to more man-tending anthems such as "Cater 2 U".
In 2001, she became the first Black woman and second female lyricist to win the Pop Songwriter of the Year award at the ASCAP Pop Music Awards. Beyoncé was the third woman to have writing credits on three number-one songs ("Irreplaceable", "Grillz" and "Check on It") in the same year, after Carole King in 1971 and Mariah Carey in 1991. She is tied with American lyricist Diane Warren at third with nine songwriting credits on number-one singles. The latter wrote her 9/11-motivated song "I Was Here" for 4. In May 2011, Billboard magazine listed Beyoncé at number 17 on their list of the Top 20 Hot 100 Songwriters for having co-written eight singles that hit number one on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. She was one of only three women on that list, along with Alicia Keys and Taylor Swift.
Beyoncé has long received criticism, including from journalists and musicians, for the extensive writing credits on her songs. The controversy surrounding her songwriting credits began with interviews in which she attributed herself as the songwriter for songs in which she was a co-writer or for which her contributions were marginal. In a cover story for Vanity Fair in 2005, she claimed to have "written" several number-one songs for Destiny's Child, contrary to the credits, which list her as a co-writer among others. In a 2007 interview with Barbara Walters, she claimed to have conceived the musical idea for the Destiny's Child hit "Bootylicious", which provoked the song's producer Rob Fusari to call her father and then-manager Mathew Knowles in protest over the claim. As Fusari tells Billboard, "[Knowles] explained to me, in a nice way, he said, 'People don't want to hear about Rob Fusari, producer from Livingston, N.J. No offense, but that's not what sells records. What sells records is people believing that the artist is everything. However, in an interview for Entertainment Weekly in 2016, Fusari said Beyoncé "had the 'Bootylicious' concept in her head. That was totally her. She knew what she wanted to say. It was very urban pop angle that they were taking on the record."
In 2007, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences ruled out Beyoncé as a songwriter on "Listen" (from Dreamgirls) for its Oscar nomination in the Best Original Song category. Responding to a then-new three-writer limit, the Academy deemed her contribution the least significant for inclusion. In 2009, Ryan Tedder's original demo for "Halo" leaked on the Internet, revealing an identical resemblance to Beyoncé's recording, for which she received a writing credit. When interviewed by The Guardian, Tedder explained that Beyoncé had edited the bridge of the song vocally and thus earned the credit, although he vaguely questioned the ethics of her possible "demand" for a writing credit in other instances. Tedder elaborated when speaking to Gigwise that "She does stuff on any given song that, when you go from the demo to the final version, takes it to another level that you never would have thought of as the writer. For instance, on 'Halo,' that bridge on her version is completely different to my original one. Basically, she came in, ditched that, edited it, did her vocal thing on it, and now it's become one of my favorite parts of the song. The whole melody, she wrote it spontaneously in the studio. So her credit on that song stems from that." In 2014, the popular industry songwriter Linda Perry responded to a question about Beyoncé receiving a co-writing credit for changing one lyric to a song: "Well haha um that's not songwriting but some of these artists believe if it wasn't for them your song would never get out there so they take a cut just because they are who they are. But everyone knows the real truth about Beyoncé. She is talented but in a completely different way." Perry's remarks were echoed by Frank Ocean, who acknowledged the trend of recording artists forcing writing credits while jokingly suggesting Beyoncé had an exceptional status.
Reflecting on the controversy, Sunday Independent columnist Alexis Kritselis wrote in 2014, "It seems as though our love for all things Beyoncé has blinded us to the very real claims of theft and plagiarism that have plagued her career for years", and that, "because of her power and influence in the music industry, it may be hard for some songwriters to 'just say no' to Beyoncé." While reporting on her controversial writing record, pop culture critics such as Roger Friedman and The Daily Beasts Kevin Fallon said the trend has redefined popular conceptions of songwriting, with Fallon saying, "the village of authors and composers that populate Lemonade, [Kanye West']s Life of Pablo, [Rihanna's] Anti, or [Drake's] Views – all of which are still reflective of an artist's voice and vision ... speaks to the truth of the way the industry's top artists create their music today: by committee." James S. Murphy of Vanity Fair suggests Beyoncé is among the major artists like Frank Sinatra and Billie Holiday who are "celebrated [not] because [they] write such good parts, but because [they] create them out of the words that are given".
Meanwhile, Everything Is Love producers Cool & Dre stated that Beyoncé is "100 percent involved" in writing her own songs, with Dre saying that "She put her mind to the music and did her thing. If she had a melody idea, she came up with the words. If we had the words, she came up with the melody. She's a beast", when speaking on the writing process of Everything Is Love. Ne-Yo, when asked about his collaborative writing experience with Beyoncé on "Irreplaceable", said that they both wrote "two damn totally different songs ... So, yeah, I gave her writer's credit. Because that counts. That's writing ... She put her spin on it." As for Drake: Pound Cake' happened while I was writing for Beyoncé or working with Beyoncé, not writing for, working with. I hate saying writing for 'cause she's a phenomenal writer. She has bars on bars." The-Dream revealed: "We did a whole Fela album that didn't go up. It was right before we did 4. We did a whole different sounding thing, about twenty songs. She said she wanted to do something that sounds like Fela. That's why there's so much of that sound in the 'End of Time.' There's always multiple albums being made. Most of the time we're just being creative, period. We're talking about B, somebody who sings all day long and somebody who writes all day long. There's probably a hundred records just sitting around."
Influences
Beyoncé names Michael Jackson as her major musical influence. Aged five, Beyoncé attended her first ever concert where Jackson performed and she claims to have realized her purpose. When she presented him with a tribute award at the World Music Awards in 2006, Beyoncé said, "if it wasn't for Michael Jackson, I would never ever have performed." Beyoncé was heavily influenced by Tina Turner, who she said "Tina Turner is someone that I admire, because she made her strength feminine and sexy". She admires Diana Ross as an "all-around entertainer", and Whitney Houston, who she said "inspired me to get up there and do what she did." Beyoncé cited Madonna as an influence "not only for her musical style, but also for her business sense", saying that she wanted to "follow in the footsteps of Madonna and be a powerhouse and have my own empire." She also credits Mariah Carey's singing and her song "Vision of Love" as influencing her to begin practicing vocal runs as a child. Her other musical influences include Prince, Shakira, Lauryn Hill, Sade Adu, Donna Summer, Mary J. Blige, Anita Baker, and Toni Braxton.
The feminism and female empowerment themes on Beyoncé's second solo album B'Day were inspired by her role in Dreamgirls and by singer Josephine Baker. Beyoncé paid homage to Baker by performing "Déjà Vu" at the 2006 Fashion Rocks concert wearing Baker's trademark mini-hula skirt embellished with fake bananas. Beyoncé's third solo album, I Am... Sasha Fierce, was inspired by Jay-Z and especially by Etta James, whose "boldness" inspired Beyoncé to explore other musical genres and styles. Her fourth solo album, 4, was inspired by Fela Kuti, 1990s R&B, Earth, Wind & Fire, DeBarge, Lionel Richie, Teena Marie, The Jackson 5, New Edition, Adele, Florence and the Machine, and Prince.
Beyoncé has stated that she is personally inspired by Michelle Obama (the 44th First Lady of the United States), saying "she proves you can do it all", and has described Oprah Winfrey as "the definition of inspiration and a strong woman." She has also discussed how Jay-Z is a continuing inspiration to her, both with what she describes as his lyrical genius and in the obstacles he has overcome in his life. Beyoncé has expressed admiration for the artist Jean-Michel Basquiat, posting in a letter "what I find in the work of Jean-Michel Basquiat, I search for in every day in music ... he is lyrical and raw". Beyoncé also cited Cher as a fashion inspiration.
Music videos and stage
In 2006, Beyoncé introduced her all-female tour band Suga Mama (also the name of a song on B'Day) which includes bassists, drummers, guitarists, horn players, keyboardists and percussionists. Her background singers, The Mamas, consist of Montina Cooper-Donnell, Crystal Collins and Tiffany Moniqué Riddick. They made their debut appearance at the 2006 BET Awards and re-appeared in the music videos for "Irreplaceable" and "Green Light". The band have supported Beyoncé in most subsequent live performances, including her 2007 concert tour The Beyoncé Experience, I Am... World Tour (2009–2010), The Mrs. Carter Show World Tour (2013–2014) and The Formation World Tour (2016).
Beyoncé has received praise for her stage presence and voice during live performances. Jarett Wieselman of the New York Post placed her at number one on her list of the Five Best Singer/Dancers. According to Barbara Ellen of The Guardian Beyoncé is the most in-charge female artist she's seen onstage, while Alice Jones of The Independent wrote she "takes her role as entertainer so seriously she's almost too good." The ex-President of Def Jam L.A. Reid has described Beyoncé as the greatest entertainer alive. Jim Farber of the Daily News and Stephanie Classen of The StarPhoenix both praised her strong voice and her stage presence. Beyoncé's stage outfits have been met with criticism from many countries, such as Malaysia, where she has postponed or cancelled performances due to the country's strict laws banning revealing costumes.
Beyoncé has worked with numerous directors for her music videos throughout her career, including Melina Matsoukas, Jonas Åkerlund, and Jake Nava. Bill Condon, director of Beauty and the Beast, stated that the Lemonade visuals in particular served as inspiration for his film, commenting, "You look at Beyoncé's brilliant movie Lemonade, this genre is taking on so many different forms ... I do think that this very old-school break-out-into-song traditional musical is something that people understand again and really want."
Alter ego
Described as being "sexy, seductive and provocative" when performing on stage, Beyoncé has said that she originally created the alter ego "Sasha Fierce" to keep that stage persona separate from who she really is. She described Sasha as being "too aggressive, too strong, too sassy [and] too sexy", stating, "I'm not like her in real life at all." Sasha was conceived during the making of "Crazy in Love", and Beyoncé introduced her with the release of her 2008 album, I Am... Sasha Fierce. In February 2010, she announced in an interview with Allure magazine that she was comfortable enough with herself to no longer need Sasha Fierce. However, Beyoncé announced in May 2012 that she would bring her back for her Revel Presents: Beyoncé Live shows later that month.
Public image
Beyoncé has been described as having a wide-ranging sex appeal, with music journalist Touré writing that since the release of Dangerously in Love, she has "become a crossover sex symbol". Offstage Beyoncé says that while she likes to dress sexily, her onstage dress "is absolutely for the stage". Due to her curves and the term's catchiness, in the 2000s, the media often used the term "bootylicious" (a portmanteau of the words "booty" and "delicious") to describe Beyoncé, the term popularized by Destiny's Child's single of the same name. In 2006, it was added to the Oxford English Dictionary.
In September 2010, Beyoncé made her runway modelling debut at Tom Ford's Spring/Summer 2011 fashion show. She was named the "World's Most Beautiful Woman" by People and the "Hottest Female Singer of All Time" by Complex in 2012. In January 2013, GQ placed her on its cover, featuring her atop its "100 Sexiest Women of the 21st Century" list. VH1 listed her at number 1 on its 100 Sexiest Artists list. Several wax figures of Beyoncé are found at Madame Tussauds Wax Museums in major cities around the world, including New York, Washington, D.C., Amsterdam, Bangkok, Hollywood and Sydney.
According to Italian fashion designer Roberto Cavalli, Beyoncé uses different fashion styles to work with her music while performing. Her mother co-wrote a book, published in 2002, titled Destiny's Style, an account of how fashion affected the trio's success. The B'Day Anthology Video Album showed many instances of fashion-oriented footage, depicting classic to contemporary wardrobe styles. In 2007, Beyoncé was featured on the cover of the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue, becoming the second African American woman after Tyra Banks, and People magazine recognized Beyoncé as the best-dressed celebrity.
Beyoncé has been named "Queen Bey" from publications over the years. The term is a reference to the common phrase "queen bee", a term used for the leader of a group of females. The nickname also refers to the queen of a beehive, with her fan base being named "The BeyHive". The BeyHive was previously titled "The Beyontourage", (a portmanteau of Beyoncé and entourage), but was changed after online petitions on Twitter and online news reports during competitions. The BeyHive has been named one of the most loyal and defensive fan bases and has achieved notoriety for being fiercely protective of Beyoncé.
In 2006, the animal rights organization People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), criticized Beyoncé for wearing and using fur in her clothing line House of Deréon. In 2011, she appeared on the cover of French fashion magazine L'Officiel, in blackface and tribal makeup that drew criticism from the media. A statement released from a spokesperson for the magazine said that Beyoncé's look was "far from the glamorous Sasha Fierce" and that it was "a return to her African roots".
Beyoncé's lighter skin color and costuming has drawn criticism from some in the African-American community. Emmett Price, a professor of music at Northeastern University, wrote in 2007 that he thinks race plays a role in many of these criticisms, saying white celebrities who dress similarly do not attract as many comments. In 2008, L'Oréal was accused of whitening her skin in their Feria hair color advertisements, responding that "it is categorically untrue", and in 2013, Beyoncé herself criticized H&M for their proposed "retouching" of promotional images of her, and according to Vogue requested that only "natural pictures be used".
Beyoncé has been a vocal advocate for the Black Lives Matter movement. The release of "Formation" on February 6, 2016 saw her celebrate her heritage, with the song's music video featuring pro-black imagery and most notably a shot of wall graffiti that says "Stop shooting us". The day after the song's release she performed it at the 2016 Super Bowl halftime show with back up dancers dressed to represent the Black Panther Party. This incited criticism from politicians and police officers, with some police boycotting Beyoncé's then upcoming Formation World Tour. Beyoncé responded to the backlash by releasing tour merchandise that said "Boycott Beyoncé", and later clarified her sentiment, saying: “Anyone who perceives my message as anti-police is completely mistaken. I have so much admiration and respect for officers and the families of officers who sacrifice themselves to keep us safe,” Beyoncé said. “But let’s be clear: I am against police brutality and injustice. Those are two separate things.”
Personal life
Marriage and children
Beyoncé started a relationship with Jay-Z after their collaboration on '03 Bonnie & Clyde", which appeared on his seventh album The Blueprint 2: The Gift & The Curse (2002). Beyoncé appeared as Jay-Z's girlfriend in the music video for the song, fueling speculation about their relationship. On April 4, 2008, Beyoncé and Jay-Z married without publicity. , the couple had sold a combined 300 million records together. They are known for their private relationship, although they have appeared to become more relaxed in recent years. Both have acknowledged difficulty that arose in their marriage after Jay-Z had an affair.
Beyoncé miscarried around 2010 or 2011, describing it as "the saddest thing" she had ever endured. She returned to the studio and wrote music to cope with the loss. In April 2011, Beyoncé and Jay-Z traveled to Paris to shoot the album cover for 4, and she unexpectedly became pregnant in Paris. In August, the couple attended the 2011 MTV Video Music Awards, at which Beyoncé performed "Love on Top" and ended the performance by revealing she was pregnant. Her appearance helped that year's MTV Video Music Awards become the most-watched broadcast in MTV history, pulling in 12.4 million viewers; the announcement was listed in Guinness World Records for "most tweets per second recorded for a single event" on Twitter, receiving 8,868 tweets per second and "Beyonce pregnant" was the most Googled phrase the week of August 29, 2011. On January 7, 2012, Beyoncé gave birth to a daughter, Blue Ivy, at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City.
Following the release of Lemonade, which included the single "Sorry", in 2016, speculations arose about Jay-Z's alleged infidelity with a mistress referred to as "Becky". Jon Pareles in The New York Times pointed out that many of the accusations were "aimed specifically and recognizably" at him. Similarly, Rob Sheffield of Rolling Stone magazine noted the lines "Suck on my balls, I've had enough" were an "unmistakable hint" that the lyrics revolve around Jay-Z.
On February 1, 2017, she revealed on her Instagram account that she was expecting twins. Her announcement gained over 6.3 million likes within eight hours, breaking the world record for the most liked image on the website at the time. On July 13, 2017, Beyoncé uploaded the first image of herself and the twins onto her Instagram account, confirming their birth date as a month prior, on June 13, 2017, with the post becoming the second most liked on Instagram, behind her own pregnancy announcement. The twins, a daughter named Rumi and a son named Sir, were born at Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center in California. She wrote of her pregnancy and its aftermath in the September 2018 issue of Vogue, in which she had full control of the cover, shot at Hammerwood Park by photographer Tyler Mitchell.
Activism
Beyoncé performed "America the Beautiful" at President Barack Obama's 2009 presidential inauguration, as well as "At Last" during the first inaugural dance at the Neighborhood Ball two days later. The couple held a fundraiser at Jay-Z's 40/40 Club in Manhattan for President Obama's 2012 presidential campaign which raised $4 million. In the 2012 presidential election, the singer voted for President Obama. She performed the American national anthem "The Star-Spangled Banner" at his second inauguration in January 2013.
The Washington Post reported in May 2015, that Beyoncé attended a major celebrity fundraiser for 2016 presidential nominee Hillary Clinton. She also headlined for Clinton in a concert held the weekend before Election Day the next year. In this performance, Beyoncé and her entourage of backup dancers wore pantsuits; a clear allusion to Clinton's frequent dress-of-choice. The backup dancers also wore "I'm with her" tee shirts, the campaign slogan for Clinton. In a brief speech at this performance Beyoncé said, "I want my daughter to grow up seeing a woman lead our country and knowing that her possibilities are limitless." She endorsed the bid of Beto O'Rourke during the 2018 United States Senate election in Texas.
In 2013, Beyoncé stated in an interview in Vogue that she considered herself to be "a modern-day feminist". She would later align herself more publicly with the movement, sampling "We should all be feminists", a speech delivered by Nigerian author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie at a TEDx talk in April 2013, in her song "Flawless", released later that year. The next year she performed live at the MTV Video Awards in front a giant backdrop reading "Feminist". Her self-identification incited a circulation of opinions and debate about whether her feminism is aligned with older, more established feminist ideals. Annie Lennox, celebrated artist and feminist advocate, referred to Beyoncé's use of her word feminist as 'feminist lite'. bell hooks critiqued Beyoncé, referring to her as a "terrorist" towards feminism, harmfully impacting her audience of young girls. Adichie responded with "her type of feminism is not mine, as it is the kind that, at the same time, gives quite a lot of space to the necessity of men." Adichie expands upon what 'feminist lite' means to her, referring that "more troubling is the idea, in Feminism Lite, that men are naturally superior but should be expected to "treat women well" and "we judge powerful women more harshly than we judge powerful men. And Feminism Lite enables this." Beyoncé responded about her intent by utilizing the definition of feminist with her platform was to "give clarity to the true meaning" behind it. She says to understand what being a feminist is, "it's very simple. It's someone who believes in equal rights for men and women." She advocated to provide equal opportunities for young boys and girls, men and women must begin to understand the double standards that remain persistent in our societies and the issue must be illuminated in effort to start making changes.
She has also contributed to the Ban Bossy campaign, which uses TV and social media to encourage leadership in girls. Following Beyoncé's public identification as a feminist, the sexualized nature of her performances and the fact that she championed her marriage was questioned.
In December 2012, Beyoncé along with a variety of other celebrities teamed up and produced a video campaign for "Demand A Plan", a bipartisan effort by a group of 950 U.S. mayors and others designed to influence the federal government into rethinking its gun control laws, following the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting. Beyoncé publicly endorsed same-sex marriage on March 26, 2013, after the Supreme Court debate on California's Proposition 8. She spoke against North Carolina's Public Facilities Privacy & Security Act, a bill passed (and later repealed) that discriminated against the LGBT community in public places in a statement during her concert in Raleigh as part of the Formation World Tour in 2016. She has also condemned police brutality against black Americans. She and Jay-Z attended a rally in 2013 in response to the acquittal of George Zimmerman for the killing of Trayvon Martin. The film for her sixth album Lemonade included the mothers of Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown and Eric Garner, holding pictures of their sons in the video for "Freedom". In a 2016 interview with Elle, Beyoncé responded to the controversy surrounding her song "Formation" which was perceived to be critical of the police. She clarified, "I am against police brutality and injustice. Those are two separate things. If celebrating my roots and culture during Black History Month made anyone uncomfortable, those feelings were there long before a video and long before me".
In February 2017, Beyoncé spoke out against the withdrawal of protections for transgender students in public schools by Donald Trump's presidential administration. Posting a link to the 100 Days of Kindness campaign on her Facebook page, Beyoncé voiced her support for transgender youth and joined a roster of celebrities who spoke out against Trump's decision.
In November 2017, Beyoncé presented Colin Kaepernick with the 2017 Sports Illustrated Muhammad Ali Legacy Award, stating, "Thank you for your selfless heart and your conviction, thank you for your personal sacrifice", and that "Colin took action with no fear of consequence ... To change perception, to change the way we treat each other, especially people of color. We're still waiting for the world to catch up." Muhammad Ali was heavily penalized in his career for protesting the status quo of US civil rights through opposition to the Vietnam War, by refusing to serve in the military. 40 years later, Kaepernick had already lost one professional year due to taking a much quieter and legal stand "for people that are oppressed".
Wealth
Forbes magazine began reporting on Beyoncé's earnings in 2008, calculating that the $80 million earned between June 2007 to June 2008, for her music, tour, films and clothing line made her the world's best-paid music personality at the time, above Madonna and Celine Dion. It placed her fourth on the Celebrity 100 list in 2009
and ninth on the "Most Powerful Women in the World" list in 2010. The following year, the magazine placed her eighth on the "Best-Paid Celebrities Under 30" list, having earned $35 million in the past year for her clothing line and endorsement deals. In 2012, Forbes placed Beyoncé at number 16 on the Celebrity 100 list, twelve places lower than three years ago yet still having earned $40 million in the past year for her album 4, clothing line and endorsement deals. In the same year, Beyoncé and Jay-Z placed at number one on the "World's Highest-Paid Celebrity Couples", for collectively earning $78 million. The couple made it into the previous year's Guinness World Records as the "highest-earning power couple" for collectively earning $122 million in 2009. For the years 2009 to 2011, Beyoncé earned an average of $70 million per year, and earned $40 million in 2012. In 2013, Beyoncé's endorsements of Pepsi and H&M made her and Jay-Z the world's first billion dollar couple in the music industry. That year, Beyoncé was published as the fourth most-powerful celebrity in the Forbes rankings.
MTV estimated that by the end of 2014, Beyoncé would become the highest-paid Black musician in history; this became the case in April 2014. In June 2014, Beyoncé ranked at number one on the Forbes Celebrity 100 list, earning an estimated $115 million throughout June 2013 – June 2014. This in turn was the first time she had topped the Celebrity 100 list as well as being her highest yearly earnings to date. In 2016, Beyoncé ranked at number 34 on the Celebrity 100 list with earnings of $54 million. She and Jay-Z also topped the highest paid celebrity couple list, with combined earnings of $107.5 million. , Forbes calculated her net worth to be $355 million, and in June of the same year, ranked her as the 35th highest earning celebrity with annual earnings of $60 million. This tied Beyoncé with Madonna as the only two female artists to earn more than $100 million within a single year twice. As a couple, Beyoncé and Jay-Z have a combined net worth of $1.16 billion. In July 2017, Billboard announced that Beyoncé was the highest paid musician of 2016, with an estimated total of $62.1 million.
Impact
Beyoncé's success has led to her becoming a cultural icon and earning her the nickname "Queen Bey". In The New Yorker, music critic Jody Rosen described Beyoncé as "the most important and compelling popular musician of the twenty-first century ... the result, the logical end point, of a century-plus of pop." Author James Clear, in his book Atomic Habits (2018), draws a parallel between the singer's success and the dramatic transformations in modern society: "In the last one hundred years, we have seen the rise of the car, the airplane, the television, the personal computer, the internet, the smartphone, and Beyoncé." The Observer named her Artist of the Decade (2000s) in 2009.
Writing for Entertainment Weekly, Alex Suskind noticed how Beyoncé was the decade's (2010s) defining pop star, stating that "no one dominated music in the 2010s like Queen Bey", explaining that her "songs, album rollouts, stage presence, social justice initiatives, and disruptive public relations strategy have influenced the way we've viewed music since 2010." British publication NME also shared similar thoughts on her impact in the 2010s, including Beyoncé on their list of the "10 Artists Who Defined The Decade". In 2018, Rolling Stone included her on its Millennial 100 list.
Beyoncé is credited with the invention of the staccato rap-singing style that has since dominated pop, R&B and rap music. Lakin Starling of The Fader wrote that Beyoncé's innovative implementation of the delivery style on Destiny's Child's 1999 album The Writing's on the Wall invented a new form of R&B. Beyoncé's new style subsequently changed the nature of music, revolutionizing both singing in urban music and rapping in pop music, and becoming the dominant sound of both genres. The style helped to redefine both the breadth of commercial R&B and the sound of hip hop, with artists such as Kanye West and Drake implementing Beyoncé's cadence in the late 2000s and early 2010s. The staccato rap-singing style continued to be used in the music industry in the late 2010s and early 2020s; Aaron Williams of Uproxx described Beyoncé as the "primary pioneer" of the rapping style that dominates the music industry today, with many contemporary rappers implementing Beyoncé's rap-singing. Michael Eric Dyson agrees, saying that Beyoncé "changed the whole genre" and has become the "godmother" of mumble rappers, who use the staccato rap-singing cadence. Dyson added: "She doesn't get credit for the remarkable way in which she changed the musical vocabulary of contemporary art."
Beyoncé has been credited with reviving the album as an art form in an era dominated by singles and streaming. This started with her 2011 album 4; while mainstream R&B artists were forgoing albums-led R&B in favor of singles-led EDM, Beyoncé aimed to place the focus back on albums as an artform and re-establish R&B as a mainstream concern. This remained a focus of Beyoncé's, and in 2013, she made her eponymous album only available to purchase as a full album on iTunes, rather than being able to purchase individual tracks or consume the album via streaming. Kaitlin Menza of Marie Claire wrote that this made listeners "experience the album as one whole sonic experience, the way people used to, noting the musical and lyrical themes". Jamieson Cox for The Verge described how Beyoncé's 2013 album initiated a gradual trend of albums becoming more cohesive and self-referential, and this phenomenon reached its endpoint with Lemonade, which set "a new standard for pop storytelling at the highest possible scale". Megan Carpentier of The Guardian wrote that with Lemonade, Beyoncé has "almost revived the album format" by releasing an album that can only be listened to in its entirety. Myf Warhurst on Double J's "Lunch With Myf" explained that while most artists' albums consist of a few singles plus filler songs, Beyoncé "brought the album back", changing the art form of the album "to a narrative with an arc and a story and you have to listen to the entire thing to get the concept".
Several recording artists have cited Beyoncé as their influence. Lady Gaga explained how Beyoncé gave her the determination to become a musician, recalling seeing her in a Destiny's Child music video and saying: "Oh, she's a star. I want that." Rihanna was similarly inspired to start her singing career after watching Beyoncé, telling etalk that after Beyoncé released Dangerously In Love (2003), "I was like 'wow, I want to be just like that.' She's huge and just an inspiration." Lizzo was also first inspired by Beyoncé to start singing after watching her perform at a Destiny's Child concert. Lizzo also taught herself to sing by copying Beyoncé's B'Day (2006). Similarly, Ariana Grande said she learned to sing by mimicking Beyoncé. Adele cited Beyoncé as her inspiration and favorite artist, telling Vogue: "She's been a huge and constant part of my life as an artist since I was about ten or eleven ... I think she's really inspiring. She's beautiful. She's ridiculously talented, and she is one of the kindest people I've ever met ... She makes me want to do things with my life." Both Paul McCartney and Garth Brooks said they watch Beyoncé's performances to get inspiration for their own shows, with Brooks saying that when you watch one of her performances, "take out your notebook and take notes. No matter how long you've been on the stage – take notes on that one."
She is known for coining popular phrases such as "put a ring on it", a euphemism for marriage proposal, "I woke up like this", which started a trend of posting morning selfies with the hashtag #iwokeuplikethis, and "boy, bye", which was used as part of the Democratic National Committee's campaign for the 2020 election. Similarly, she also came up with the phrase "visual album" following the release of her fifth studio album, which had a video for every song. This has been recreated by many other artists since, such as Frank Ocean and Melanie Martinez. The album also popularized surprise releases, with many artists releasing songs, videos or albums with no prior announcement, such as Taylor Swift, Nicki Minaj, Eminem, Frank Ocean, Jay-Z and Drake.
In January 2012, research scientist Bryan Lessard named Scaptia beyonceae, a species of horse-fly found in Northern Queensland, Australia after Beyoncé due to the fly's unique golden hairs on its abdomen. In 2018, the City of Columbia, South Carolina declared August 21 the Beyoncé Knowles-Carter Day in the city after presenting her with the keys to Columbia.
Achievements
Beyoncé has received numerous awards, and is the most-awarded female artist of all time. As a solo artist she has sold over 17 million albums in the US, and over 75 million worldwide (as of February 2013). Having sold over 100 million records worldwide (a further 60 million additionally with Destiny's Child), Beyoncé is one of the best-selling music artists of all time. The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) listed Beyoncé as the top certified artist of the 2000s decade, with a total of 64 certifications. Her songs "Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)", "Halo", and "Irreplaceable" are some of the best-selling singles of all time worldwide. In 2009, Billboard named her the Top Female Artist and Top Radio Songs Artist of the Decade. In 2010, Billboard named her in their Top 50 R&B/Hip-Hop Artists of the Past 25 Years list at number 15. In 2012, VH1 ranked her third on their list of the "100 Greatest Women in Music", behind Mariah Carey and Madonna. In 2002, she received Songwriter of the Year from American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers becoming the First African American woman to win the award. In 2004 and 2019, she received NAACP Image Award for Entertainer of the Year and the Soul Train Music Award for Sammy Davis Jr. – Entertainer of the Year.
In 2005, she also received APEX Award at the Trumpet Award honoring achievements of Black African Americans. In 2007, Beyoncé received the International Artist of Excellence award by the American Music Awards. She also received Honorary Otto at the Bravo Otto. The following year, she received the Legend Award for Outstanding Contribution to the Arts at the World Music Awards and Career Achievement Award at the LOS40 Music Awards. In 2010, she received Award of Honor for Artist of the Decade at the NRJ Music Award and at the 2011 Billboard Music Awards, Beyoncé received the inaugural Billboard Millennium Award. Beyoncé received the Michael Jackson Video Vanguard Award at the 2014 MTV Video Music Awards and was honored as Honorary Mother of the Year at the Australian Mother of the Year Award in Barnardo's Australia for her Humanitarian Effort in the region and the Council of Fashion Designers of America Fashion Icon Award in 2016. In 2019, alongside Jay-Z, she received GLAAD Vanguard Award that is presented to a member of the entertainment community who does not identify as LGBT but who has made a significant difference in promoting equal rights for LGBT people. In 2020, she was awarded the BET Humanitarian Award. Consequence of Sound named her the 30th best singer of all time.
Beyoncé has won 28 Grammy Awards, both as a solo artist and member of Destiny's Child and The Carters, making her the most honored singer, male or female, by the Grammys. She is also the most nominated artist in Grammy Award history with a total of 79 nominations. "Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)" won Song of the Year in 2010 while "Say My Name", "Crazy in Love" and "Drunk in Love" have each won Best R&B Song. Dangerously in Love, B'Day and I Am... Sasha Fierce have all won Best Contemporary R&B Album, while Lemonade has won Best Urban Contemporary Album. Beyoncé set the record for the most Grammy awards won by a female artist in one night in 2010 when she won six awards, breaking the tie she previously held with Alicia Keys, Norah Jones, Alison Krauss, and Amy Winehouse, with Adele equaling this in 2012.
Beyoncé has also won 24 MTV Video Music Awards, making her the most-awarded artist in Video Music Award history. She won two awards each with The Carters and Destiny's Child making her lifetime total of 28 VMAs. "Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)" and "Formation" won Video of the Year in 2009 and 2016 respectively. Beyoncé tied the record set by Lady Gaga in 2010 for the most VMAs won in one night for a female artist with eight in 2016. She is also the most-awarded and nominated artist in BET Award history, winning 29 awards from a total of 60 nominations, the most-awarded person at the Soul Train Music Awards with 17 awards as a solo artist, and the most-awarded person at the NAACP Image Awards with 24 awards as a solo artist.
Following her role in Dreamgirls, Beyoncé was nominated for Best Original Song for "Listen" and Best Actress at the Golden Globe Awards, and Outstanding Actress in a Motion Picture at the NAACP Image Awards. Beyoncé won two awards at the Broadcast Film Critics Association Awards 2006; Best Song for "Listen" and Best Original Soundtrack for Dreamgirls: Music from the Motion Picture. According to Fuse in 2014, Beyoncé is the second-most award-winning artist of all time, after Michael Jackson. Lemonade won a Peabody Award in 2017.
She was named on the 2016 BBC Radio 4 Woman's Hour Power List as one of seven women judged to have had the biggest impact on women's lives over the past 70 years, alongside Margaret Thatcher, Barbara Castle, Helen Brook, Germaine Greer, Jayaben Desai and Bridget Jones, She was named the Most Powerful Woman in Music on the same list in 2020. In the same year, Billboard named her with Destiny's Child the third Greatest Music Video artists of all time, behind Madonna and Michael Jackson.
On June 16, 2021, Beyoncé was among several celebrities at the Pollstar Awards where she won the award of "top touring artist" of the decade (2010s). On June 17, 2021, Beyoncé was inducted into the Black Music & Entertainment Walk of Fame as a member of the inaugural class.
Business and ventures
In 2010, Beyoncé founded her own entertainment company Parkwood Entertainment which formed as an imprint based from Columbia Records, the company began as a production unit for videos and films in 2008. Parkwood Entertainment is named after a street in Houston, Texas where Beyoncé once lived. With headquarters in New York City, the company serves as an umbrella for the entertainer's various brands in music, movies, videos, and fashion. The staff of Parkwood Entertainment have experiences in arts and entertainment, from filmmaking and video production to web and fashion design. In addition to departments in marketing, digital, creative, publicity, fashion design and merchandising, the company houses a state-of-the-art editing suite, where Beyoncé works on content for her worldwide tours, music videos, and television specials. Parkwood Entertainment's first production was the musical biopic Cadillac Records (2008), in which Beyoncé starred and co-produced. The company has also distributed Beyoncé's albums such as her self-titled fifth studio album (2013), Lemonade (2016) and The Carters, Everything is Love (2018). Beyoncé has also signed other artists to Parkwood such as Chloe x Halle, who performed at Super Bowl LIII in February 2019.
Endorsements and partnerships
Beyoncé has worked with Pepsi since 2002, and in 2004 appeared in a Gladiator-themed commercial with Britney Spears, Pink, and Enrique Iglesias. In 2012, Beyoncé signed a $50 million deal to endorse Pepsi. The Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPINET) wrote Beyoncé an open letter asking her to reconsider the deal because of the unhealthiness of the product and to donate the proceeds to a medical organisation. Nevertheless, NetBase found that Beyoncé's campaign was the most talked about endorsement in April 2013, with a 70 percent positive audience response to the commercial and print ads.
Beyoncé has worked with Tommy Hilfiger for the fragrances True Star (singing a cover version of "Wishing on a Star") and True Star Gold; she also promoted Emporio Armani's Diamonds fragrance in 2007. Beyoncé launched her first official fragrance, Heat, in 2010. The commercial, which featured the 1956 song "Fever", was shown after the watershed in the United Kingdom as it begins with an image of Beyoncé appearing to lie naked in a room. In February 2011, Beyoncé launched her second fragrance, Heat Rush. Beyoncé's third fragrance, Pulse, was launched in September 2011. In 2013, The Mrs. Carter Show Limited Edition version of Heat was released. The six editions of Heat are the world's best-selling celebrity fragrance line, with sales of over $400 million.
The release of a video-game Starpower: Beyoncé was cancelled after Beyoncé pulled out of a $100 million with GateFive who alleged the cancellation meant the sacking of 70 staff and millions of pounds lost in development. It was settled out of court by her lawyers in June 2013 who said that they had cancelled because GateFive had lost its financial backers. Beyoncé also has had deals with American Express, Nintendo DS and L'Oréal since the age of 18.
In March 2015, Beyoncé became a co-owner, with other artists, of the music streaming service Tidal. The service specializes in lossless audio and high definition music videos. Beyoncé's husband Jay-Z acquired the parent company of Tidal, Aspiro, in the first quarter of 2015. Including Beyoncé and Jay-Z, sixteen artist stakeholders (such as Kanye West, Rihanna, Madonna, Chris Martin, Nicki Minaj and more) co-own Tidal, with the majority owning a 3% equity stake. The idea of having an all artist owned streaming service was created by those involved to adapt to the increased demand for streaming within the current music industry.
In November 2020, Beyoncé formed a multi-year partnership with exercise equipment and media company Peloton. The partnership was formed to celebrate homecoming season in historically black colleges and universities, providing themed workout experiences inspired by Beyoncé's 2019 Homecoming film and live album after 2020's homecoming celebrations were cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic. As part of the partnership, Beyoncé and Peloton are donating free memberships to all students at 10 HBCUs, and Peloton are pursuing long-term recruiting partnerships at the HCBUs. Gwen Bethel Riley, head of music at Peloton, said: "When we had conversations with Beyoncé around how critical a social impact component was to all of us, it crystallized how important it was to embrace Homecoming as an opportunity to celebrate and create dialogue around Black culture and music, in partnership with HBCUs." Upon news of the partnership, a decline in Peloton's shares reversed, and its shares rose by 8.6%.
In 2021, Beyoncé and Jay-Z partnered with Tiffany & Co. for the company's "About Love" campaign. Beyoncé became the fourth woman, and first Black woman, to wear the Tiffany Yellow Diamond. The campaign featured a robin egg blue painting by Jean-Michel Basquiat titled Equals Pi (1982).
Fashion lines
Beyoncé and her mother introduced House of Deréon, a contemporary women's fashion line, in 2005. The concept is inspired by three generations of women in their family, with the name paying tribute to Beyoncé's grandmother, Agnèz Deréon, a respected seamstress. According to Tina, the overall style of the line best reflects her and Beyoncé's taste and style. Beyoncé and her mother founded their family's company Beyond Productions, which provides the licensing and brand management for House of Deréon, and its junior collection, Deréon. House of Deréon pieces were exhibited in Destiny's Child's shows and tours, during their Destiny Fulfilled era. The collection features sportswear, denim offerings with fur, outerwear and accessories that include handbags and footwear, and are available at department and specialty stores across the U.S. and Canada.
In 2005, Beyoncé teamed up with House of Brands, a shoe company, to produce a range of footwear for House of Deréon. In January 2008, Starwave Mobile launched Beyoncé Fashion Diva, a "high-style" mobile game with a social networking component, featuring the House of Deréon collection. In July 2009, Beyoncé and her mother launched a new junior apparel label, Sasha Fierce for Deréon, for back-to-school selling. The collection included sportswear, outerwear, handbags, footwear, eyewear, lingerie and jewelry. It was available at department stores including Macy's and Dillard's, and specialty stores Jimmy Jazz and Against All Odds. On May 27, 2010, Beyoncé teamed up with clothing store C&A to launch Deréon by Beyoncé at their stores in Brazil. The collection included tailored blazers with padded shoulders, little black dresses, embroidered tops and shirts and bandage dresses.
In October 2014, Beyoncé signed a deal to launch an activewear line of clothing with British fashion retailer Topshop. The 50–50 venture is called Ivy Park and was launched in April 2016. The brand's name is a nod to Beyoncé's daughter and her favourite number four (IV in roman numerals), and also references the park where she used to run in Texas. She has since bought out Topshop owner Philip Green from his 50% share after he was alleged to have sexually harassed, bullied and racially abused employees. She now owns the brand herself. On April 4, 2019, it was announced that Beyoncé would become a creative partner with Adidas and further develop her athletic brand Ivy Park with the company. Knowles will also develop new clothes and footwear for Adidas. Shares for the company rose 1.3% upon the news release. On December 9, 2019, they announced a launch date of January 18, 2020. Beyoncé uploaded a teaser on her website and Instagram. The collection was also previewed on the upcoming Elle January 2020 issue, where Beyoncé is seen wearing several garments, accessories and footwear from the first collection.
Philanthropy
In 2002, Beyoncé, Kelly Rowland and Tina Knowles built the Knowles-Rowland Center for Youth, a community center in Downtown Houston. After Hurricane Katrina in 2005, Beyoncé and Rowland founded the Survivor Foundation to provide transitional housing to displaced families and provide means for new building construction, to which Beyoncé contributed an initial $250,000. The foundation has since expanded to work with other charities in the city, and also provided relief following Hurricane Ike three years later. Beyoncé also donated $100,000 to the Gulf Coast Ike Relief Fund. In 2007, Beyoncé founded the Knowles-Temenos Place Apartments, a housing complex offering living space for 43 displaced individuals. As of 2016, Beyoncé had donated $7 million for the maintenance of the complex.
After starring in Cadillac Records in 2009 and learning about Phoenix House, a non-profit drug and alcohol rehabilitation organization, Beyoncé donated her full $4 million salary from the film to the organization. Beyoncé and her mother subsequently established the Beyoncé Cosmetology Center, which offers a seven-month cosmetology training course helping Phoenix House's clients gain career skills during their recovery.
In January 2010, Beyoncé participated in George Clooney and Wyclef Jean's Hope for Haiti Now: A Global Benefit for Earthquake Relief telethon, donated a large sum to the organization, and was named the official face of the limited edition CFDA "Fashion For Haiti" T-shirt, made by Theory which raised a total of $1 million. In April 2011, Beyoncé joined forces with U.S. First Lady Michelle Obama and the National Association of Broadcasters Education Foundation, to help boost the latter's campaign against child obesity by reworking her single "Get Me Bodied". Following the death of Osama bin Laden, Beyoncé released her cover of the Lee Greenwood song "God Bless the USA", as a charity single to help raise funds for the New York Police and Fire Widows' and Children's Benefit Fund.
Beyoncé became an ambassador for the 2012 World Humanitarian Day campaign donating her song "I Was Here" and its music video, shot in the UN, to the campaign. In 2013, it was announced that Beyoncé would work with Salma Hayek and Frida Giannini on a Gucci "Chime for Change" campaign that aims to spread female empowerment. The campaign, which aired on February 28, was set to her new music. A concert for the cause took place on June 1, 2013, in London. With help of the crowdfunding platform Catapult, visitors of the concert could choose between several projects promoting education of women and girls. Beyoncé also took part in "Miss a Meal", a food-donation campaign, and supported Goodwill Industries through online charity auctions at Charitybuzz that support job creation throughout Europe and the U.S.
Beyoncé and Jay-Z secretly donated tens of thousands of dollars to bail out Black Lives Matter protesters in Baltimore and Ferguson, as well as funded infrastructure for the establishment of Black Lives Matter chapters across the US. Before Beyoncé's Formation World Tour show in Tampa, her team held a private luncheon for more than 20 community leaders to discuss how Beyoncé could support local charitable initiatives, including pledging on the spot to fund 10 scholarships to provide students with financial aid. Tampa Sports Authority board member Thomas Scott said: "I don't know of a prior artist meeting with the community, seeing what their needs are, seeing how they can invest in the community. It says a lot to me about Beyoncé. She not only goes into a community and walks away with (money), but she also gives money back to that community." In June 2016, Beyoncé donated over $82,000 to the United Way of Genesee County to support victims of the Flint water crisis. Beyoncé additionally donated money to support 14 students in Michigan with their college expenses. In August 2016, Beyoncé and Jay-Z donated $1.5 million to civil rights groups including Black Lives Matter, Hands Up United and Dream Defenders. After Hurricane Matthew, Beyoncé and Jay-Z donated $15 million to the Usain Bolt Foundation to support its efforts in rebuilding homes in Haiti. In December 2016, Beyoncé was named the Most Charitable Celebrity of the year.
During Hurricane Harvey in August 2017, Beyoncé launched BeyGOOD Houston to support those affected by the hurricane in Houston. The organization donated necessities such as cots, blankets, pillows, baby products, feminine products and wheelchairs, and funded long-term revitalization projects. On September 8, Beyoncé visited Houston, where she sponsored a lunch for 400 survivors at her local church, visited the George R Brown Convention Center to discuss with people displaced by the flooding about their needs, served meals to those who lost their homes, and made a significant donation to local causes. Beyoncé additionally donated $75,000 worth of new mattresses to survivors of the hurricane. Later that month, Beyoncé released a remix of J Balvin and Willy William's "Mi Gente", with all of her proceeds being donated to disaster relief charities in Puerto Rico, Mexico, the U.S. and the Caribbean after hurricanes Harvey, Irma and Maria, and the Chiapas and Puebla earthquakes.
In April 2020, Beyoncé donated $6 million to the National Alliance in Mental Health, UCLA and local community-based organizations in order to provide mental health and personal wellness services to essential workers during the COVID-19 pandemic. BeyGOOD also teamed up with local organizations to help provide resources to communities of color, including food, water, cleaning supplies, medicines and face masks. The same month Beyoncé released a remix of Megan Thee Stallion's "Savage", with all proceeds benefiting Bread of Life Houston's COVID-19 relief efforts, which includes providing over 14 tons of food and supplies to 500 families and 100 senior citizens in Houston weekly. In May 2020, Beyoncé provided 1,000 free COVID-19 tests in Houston as part of her and her mother's #IDidMyPart initiative, which was established due to the disproportionate deaths in African-American communities. Additionally, 1,000 gloves, masks, hot meals, essential vitamins, grocery vouchers and household items were provided. In July 2020, Beyoncé established the Black-Owned Small Business Impact Fund in partnership with the NAACP, which offers $10,000 grants to black-owned small businesses in need following the George Floyd protests. All proceeds from Beyoncé's single "Black Parade" were donated to the fund. In September 2020, Beyoncé announced that she had donated an additional $1 million to the fund. As of December 31, 2020, the fund had given 715 grants to black-owned small businesses, amounting to $7.15 million donated. In October 2020, Beyoncé released a statement that she has been working with the Feminist Coalition to assist supporters of the End Sars movement in Nigeria, including covering medical costs for injured protestors, covering legal fees for arrested protestors, and providing food, emergency shelter, transportation and telecommunication means to those in need. Beyoncé also showed support for those fighting against other issues in Africa, such as the Anglophone Crisis in Cameroon, ShutItAllDown in Namibia, Zimbabwean Lives Matter in Zimbabwe and the Rape National Emergency in Liberia. In December 2020, Beyoncé donated $500,000 to help alleviate the housing crisis in the U.S. caused by the cessation of the eviction moratorium, giving 100 $5,000 grants to individuals and families facing foreclosures and evictions.
Discography
Dangerously in Love (2003)
B'Day (2006)
I Am... Sasha Fierce (2008)
4 (2011)
Beyoncé (2013)
Lemonade (2016)
Filmography
Films starred
Carmen: A Hip Hopera (2001)
Austin Powers in Goldmember (2002)
The Fighting Temptations (2003)
Fade to Black (2004)
The Pink Panther (2006)
Dreamgirls (2006)
Cadillac Records (2008)
Obsessed (2009)
Epic (2013)
The Lion King (2019)
Films directed
Life Is But a Dream (2013)
Beyoncé: Lemonade (2016)
Homecoming (2019)
Black Is King (2020)
Tours and residencies
Headlining tours
Dangerously in Love Tour (2003)
The Beyoncé Experience (2007)
I Am... World Tour (2009–2010)
The Mrs. Carter Show World Tour (2013–2014)
The Formation World Tour (2016)
Co-headlining tours
Verizon Ladies First Tour (with Alicia Keys and Missy Elliott) (2004)
On the Run Tour (with Jay-Z) (2014)
On the Run II Tour (with Jay-Z) (2018)
Residencies
I Am... Yours (2009)
4 Intimate Nights with Beyoncé (2011)
Revel Presents: Beyoncé Live (2012)
See also
Album era
Honorific nicknames in popular music
List of artists who reached number one in the United States
List of artists with the most number ones on the U.S. dance chart
List of Billboard Social 50 number-one artists
List of black Golden Globe Award winners and nominees
List of highest-grossing concert tours
Best-selling female artists of all time
List of most-followed Instagram accounts
Notes
References
External links
1981 births
Living people
20th-century American businesspeople
20th-century American businesswomen
20th-century American singers
20th-century American women singers
21st-century American actresses
21st-century American businesspeople
21st-century American businesswomen
21st-century American singers
21st-century American women singers
Actresses from Houston
African-American actresses
African-American artists
African-American businesspeople
African-American choreographers
African-American dancers
African-American fashion designers
American fashion designers
African-American female dancers
African-American women rappers
African-American women singers
African-American feminists
African-American Methodists
African-American record producers
African-American women in business
African-American women writers
American women business executives
American choreographers
American contemporary R&B singers
American cosmetics businesspeople
American fashion businesspeople
American women pop singers
American film actresses
American hip hop record producers
American female hip hop singers
American hip hop singers
American mezzo-sopranos
American music publishers (people)
American music video directors
American people of Creole descent
American retail chief executives
American soul singers
American television actresses
American United Methodists
American voice actresses
American women philanthropists
American women record producers
Black Lives Matter people
Brit Award winners
Businesspeople from Houston
Columbia Records artists
Dance-pop musicians
Destiny's Child members
Female music video directors
Feminist musicians
Gold Star Records artists
Grammy Award winners
Grammy Award winners for rap music
High School for the Performing and Visual Arts alumni
Ivor Novello Award winners
Jay-Z
Solange Knowles
Louisiana Creole people
MTV Europe Music Award winners
Music video codirectors
Musicians from Houston
NME Awards winners
Parkwood Entertainment artists
Record producers from Texas
Shoe designers
Singers from Texas
Singers with a four-octave vocal range
Texas Democrats
Women hip hop record producers
World Music Awards winners
Writers from Houston | 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"
]
|
[
"Irving Thalberg",
"Universal Studios"
]
| C_7b8dcb999ce54951992e991787a236a9_0 | Did he work for universal? | 1 | Did Irving Thalberg work for universal studios? | Irving Thalberg | He found work as an office secretary at Universal Pictures' New York office, and later became personal secretary to the studio's founder and president, Carl Laemmle. Among Thalberg's duties were transcribing and editing notes that Laemmle had written during screenings of his films. He earned $25 weekly, becoming adept at making insightful observations, which impressed Laemmle. Laemmle took Thalberg to see his Los Angeles production facility, where he spent a month watching how movie production worked. Before returning to New York, Laemmle told Thalberg to remain and "keep an eye on things for me." Two months later, Laemmle returned to California, partly to see how well Thalberg was able to handle the responsibilities he was given. Thalberg gave him suggestions, which impressed Laemmle by his ability to understand and explain problems. Thalberg suggested, "The first thing you should do is establish a new job of studio manager and give him the responsibility of watching day-to-day operations." Laemmle immediately agreed, "All right. You're it." In shock, Thalberg replied, "I'm what?" Laemmle told him to take charge of the Los Angeles studio, which he did in early 1919. At age 20, Thalberg became responsible for immediately overseeing the nine ongoing film productions and nearly thirty scenarios then under development. In describing the rationale for this early appointment as studio manager, film historian David Thomson writes that his new job "owed nothing to nepotism, private wealth, or experience in the film industry." He reasons that despite "Thalberg's youth, modest education, and frail appearance . . . it is clear that he had the charm, insight, and ability, or the appearance of it, to captivate the film world." Thalberg was one among the majority of Hollywood film industry workers who migrated from the East Coast, primarily from New York. Some film actors, such as Conrad Nagel, did not like the 5-day train trip or the sudden warmth of the California climate. Neither did Marion Davies, who was not used to such "big wide spaces." Samuel Marx, a close friend of Thalberg's from New York, recalled how easily Thalberg adapted to Southern California, often standing outside his doorway during moments of contemplation to enjoy the scenery. "We were all young," said comedian Buster Keaton. "The air in California was like wine. Our business was also young--and growing like nothing ever seen before." CANNOTANSWER | He found work as an office secretary at Universal Pictures' New York office, | Irving Grant Thalberg (May 30, 1899 – September 14, 1936) was an American film producer during the early years of motion pictures. He was called "The Boy Wonder" for his youth and ability to select scripts, choose actors, gather production staff, and make profitable films, including Grand Hotel, China Seas, A Night at the Opera, Mutiny on the Bounty, Camille and The Good Earth. His films carved out an international market, "projecting a seductive image of American life brimming with vitality and rooted in democracy and personal freedom", states biographer Roland Flamini.
He was born in Brooklyn, New York, and as a child was afflicted with a congenital heart disease that doctors said would kill him before he reached the age of thirty. After graduating from high school he worked as a store clerk during the day and to gain some job skills took a night class in typing. He then found work as a secretary with Universal Studios' New York office, and was later made studio manager for their Los Angeles facility. There, he oversaw production of a hundred films during his three years with the company. Among the films he produced was The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1923).
In Los Angeles, he partnered with Louis B. Mayer's new studio and, after it merged with two other studios, helped create Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM). He was made head of production of MGM in 1925, at the age of twenty-six, helping MGM become the most successful studio in Hollywood. During his twelve years with MGM, until his premature death at the age of 37, he produced four hundred films, most of which bore his imprint and innovations, including story conferences with writers, sneak previews to gain early feedback, and extensive re-shooting of scenes to improve the film. In addition, he introduced horror films to audiences and coauthored the "Production Code", guidelines for morality followed by all studios. During the 1920s and 1930s, he synthesized and merged the world of stage drama and literary classics with Hollywood films.
Thalberg created numerous new stars and groomed their screen images. Among them were Lon Chaney, Ramon Novarro, Greta Garbo, John Gilbert, Lionel Barrymore, Joan Crawford, Clark Gable, Jean Harlow, Wallace Beery, Spencer Tracy, Luise Rainer, and Norma Shearer, who became his wife. He had the ability to combine quality with commercial success, and was credited with bringing his artistic aspirations in line with the demands of audiences. After his death, Hollywood's producers said he had been the world's "foremost figure in motion-picture history". President Franklin D. Roosevelt wrote, "The world of art is poorer with the passing of Irving Thalberg. His high ideals, insight and imagination went into the production of his masterpieces." The Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award, given out periodically by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences since 1937, has been awarded to producers whose body of work reflected consistently high quality films.
Early years
Thalberg was born in Brooklyn, to German Jewish immigrant parents, William and Henrietta (Haymann). Shortly after birth, he was diagnosed with "blue baby syndrome", caused by a congenital disease that limited the oxygen supply to his heart. The prognosis from the family's doctor and specialists was that he might live to the age of twenty, or at most, to thirty.
During his high school years in Brooklyn, he began having attacks of chest pains, dizziness and fatigue. This affected his ability to study, though until that time he was a good student. When he was 17 he contracted rheumatic fever, and was confined to bed for a year. His mother, in order to prevent him falling too far behind other students, brought him homework from school, books, and tutors to teach him at home. She also hoped that the schoolwork and reading would distract him from the "tantalizing sounds" of children playing outside his window.
With little to entertain him, he read books as a main activity. He devoured popular novels, classics, plays, and biographies. His books, of necessity, replaced the streets of New York, and led to his interest in classical philosophy and philosophers, such as William James.
When Thalberg returned to school, he finished high school but lacked the stamina for college, which he felt would have required constant late-night studying and cramming for exams. Instead, he took part-time jobs as a store clerk, and in the evenings, to gain some job skills, taught himself typing, shorthand and Spanish at a night vocational school. When he turned 18, he placed an advertisement in the local newspaper hoping to find better work:
Career as producer
Universal Studios
He found work as an office secretary at Universal Pictures' New York office, and later became personal secretary to the studio's founder and president, Carl Laemmle. Among Thalberg's duties were transcribing and editing notes that Laemmle had written during screenings of his films. He earned $25 weekly, becoming adept at making insightful observations, which impressed Laemmle.
Laemmle took Thalberg to see his Los Angeles production facility, where he spent a month watching how movie production worked. Before returning to New York, Laemmle told Thalberg to remain and "keep an eye on things for me." Two months later, Laemmle returned to California, partly to see how well Thalberg was able to handle the responsibilities he was given. Thalberg gave him suggestions, and thus impressed Laemmle by his ability to understand and explain problems.
Thalberg suggested, "The first thing you should do is establish a new job of studio manager and give him the responsibility of watching day-to-day operations." Laemmle immediately agreed: "All right. You're it." In shock, Thalberg replied, "I'm what?" Laemmle told him to take charge of the Los Angeles studio, which he did in early 1919. When aged 20, Thalberg became responsible for immediately overseeing the nine ongoing film productions and nearly thirty scenarios then under development.
In describing the rationale for this early appointment as studio manager, film historian David Thomson writes that his new job "owed nothing to nepotism, private wealth, or experience in the film industry." He reasons that despite "Thalberg's youth, modest education, and frail appearance ... it is clear that he had the charm, insight, and ability, or the appearance of it, to captivate the film world."
Thalberg was one among the majority of Hollywood film industry workers who migrated from the East Coast, primarily from New York. Some film actors, such as Conrad Nagel, did not like the five-day train trip or the sudden warmth of the California climate. Neither did Marion Davies, who was not used to such "big wide spaces". Samuel Marx, a close friend of Thalberg's from New York, recalled how easily Thalberg adapted to Southern California, often standing outside his doorway during moments of contemplation to enjoy the scenery. "We were all young", said comedian Buster Keaton. "The air in California was like wine. Our business was also young—and growing like nothing ever seen before."
Confrontation with Erich von Stroheim
He quickly established his tenacity as he battled with well-known director Erich von Stroheim over the length of Foolish Wives (1922). Biographer Roland Flamini notes that the film was Universal's most expensive "jewel" ever in production, and its director and star, von Stroheim, was taking the film way over budget. Thalberg, now Universal's general manager, was forced to have the director quickly finalize production before the studio's working capital was used up. Flamini describes the situation:
Thalberg had von Stroheim come to his office, which he did still wearing his film costume as a Russian Imperial Guard and escorted by members of his production team. Thalberg calmly told him, "I have seen all the film and you have all you need for the picture. I want you to stop shooting", to which von Stroheim replied, "But I have not finished as yet." "Yes, you have", said Thalberg. "You have spent all the money this company can afford. I cannot allow you to spend any more."
Thalberg quietly explained that the director worked under the producer, and it was his responsibility to control costs. Von Stroheim, surrounded by his assistants, then confronted Thalberg: "If you were not my superior, I would smash you in the face." Thalberg, unflinching, said "Don't let that stop you." The result was that Thalberg soon afterward removed the cameras from von Stroheim's studio and took over editing. The uncut footage was pared down from five-and-a-half hours to three hours, to von Stroheim's deep dissatisfaction.
A similar problem developed with von Stroheim's next film, Merry-Go-Round (1923). Although he had promised Thalberg to remain within budget this time, he continued production until it went to twice the agreed length and was not yet near completion. Flamini speculates why this happened:
Thalberg again called von Stroheim to his office, handed him a long letter written and signed by himself, describing the problems, and summarily fired von Stroheim as of that moment. Thalberg's letter stated among the reasons,
totally inexcusable and repeated acts of insubordination ... extravagant ideas which you have been unwilling to sacrifice ... unnecessary delays ... and your apparent idea that you are greater and more powerful than the organization that employs you.
His dismissal of von Stroheim was considered an "earthquake in movie circles", notes Flamini. Producer David O. Selznick said that "it was the first time a director had been fired. It took great guts and courage ... Von Stroheim was utterly indifferent over money and could have gone on and spent millions, with nobody to stop him.". The opinion was shared by director Rouben Mamoulian, who said that the "little fellow at Universal", in one bold stroke, had "asserted the primacy of the studio over the director" and forever altered the balance of power in the movie industry.
Effects of his young age
According to Flamini, his youth was a subject of conversation within the movie community. Executives from other studios, actors, and film crew, often mistook him to be a junior employee. Movie columnist Louella Parsons, upon first being introduced to him, asked, "What's the joke? Where's the new general manager?" After five minutes of talking to Thalberg, however, she later wrote about "Universal's Boy Wonder": "He might be a boy in looks and age, but it was no child's mind that was being asked to cope with the intricate politics of Universal City." Novelist Edna Ferber responded the same way, writing that "I had fancied motion-picture producers as large gentlemen smoking oversized cigars. But this young man whose word seemed so final at Universal City ... impressed me deeply."
The male actors in the studio had a similar reaction. Lionel Barrymore, who was nearly twice his age, recalled their meetings:
Thalberg likewise gained the respect of leading playwrights, some of whom also looked down on him due to his youth. George S. Kaufman, co-author of Dinner at Eight, several Marx Brothers films, and two George Gershwin plays, came from New York to meet with Thalberg. Afterward he confided to his friend, Groucho Marx: "That man has never written a word, yet he can tell me exactly what to do with a story. I didn't know you had people like that out here."
Actress Norma Shearer, whom he later married, was surprised after he greeted her at the door, then walked her to his office for her first job interview: "Then you're not the office boy?" she asked. He smiled, as he sat himself behind his desk: "No, Miss Shearer, I'm Irving Thalberg, vice-president of the Mayer Company. I'm the man who sent for you."
His younger-than-normal age for a studio executive was usually mentioned even after he left Universal to help start up MGM. Screenwriter Agnes Christine Johnson, who worked with Thalberg for years, described his contribution during meetings:
The same quality was observed by director and screenwriter Hobart Henley: "If something that read well in conference turns out not so good on the screen, I go to him and, like that—Henley snaps his fingers—he has a remedy. He's brilliant." Another assistant producer to Thalberg explains:
His youth also contributed to his open-mindedness to the ideas of others. Conrad Nagel, who starred in numerous Thalberg films, reported that Thalberg was generally empathetic to those he worked alongside: "Thalberg never raised his voice. He just looked into your eyes, spoke softly, and after a few minutes he cast a spell on you." Studio attorney Edwin Loeb, who also worked to create AMPAS, explained that "the real foundation of Irving's success was his ability to look at life through the eyes of any given person. He had a gift of empathy, and almost complete perspective." Those opinions were also shared by producer Walter Wanger: "You thought that you were talking to an Indian savant. He could cast a spell on anybody."
His talent as a producer was enhanced by his "near-miraculous" powers of concentration, notes film critic J. Hoberman. As a result, he was never bored or tired, and supplemented his spare time with reading for his own amusement, recalls screenwriter Bayard Veiller, with some of his favorite authors being Francis Bacon, Epictetus, and Immanuel Kant.
Film projects at Universal
Biographer Bob Thomas writes that after three years at the studio, Thalberg continually proved his value. Universal's pictures improved noticeably, primarily due to Thalberg's "uncanny sense of story." He took tight control over many key aspects of production, including his requirement that from then on scripts were tightly constructed before filming began, rather than during production. Thomas adds that he also "showed a remarkable capacity for working with actors, casting them aptly and advising them on their careers."
After producing two films that were in production when he began work at Universal, he presented Laemmle with his idea for a film based on one of his favorite classic stories, The Hunchback of Notre Dame. Rather than just a horror picture, Thalberg suggested turning it into a spectacle which would include a replica of the Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris. He had Lon Chaney play the hunchback. The film became Universal's most profitable silent film and established Chaney's career as a top-flight star.
After nearly three years with Universal, Thalberg had supervised over a hundred movies, reorganized the studio to give more control to the managers, and had "stopped the defection" of many of their leading stars by offering them better, higher-paying contracts. He also produced a number of Universal's prestige films, which made the company profitable. However, he decided it was time to find a studio in Los Angeles more suitable to his skills, and spread word that he was available.
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM)
Cecil B. DeMille was the first who wanted to hire him, telling his partner Jesse Lasky, "The boy is a genius. I can see it. I know it." Lasky opposed the hire, stating, "Geniuses we have all we need." Thalberg then received an offer from Hal Roach, but the offer was withdrawn because Thalberg lacked experience with slapstick comedy films. In late 1922, Thalberg was introduced to Louis B. Mayer, president of a small but dynamic and fast-growing studio. At that first meeting, Thalberg "made a deep, immediate impression on Mayer", writes Flamini. After Thalberg had left, Mayer said to studio attorney Edwin Loeb: "Tell him if he comes to work for me, I'll look after him as though he were my son."
Although their personalities were in many ways opposite, Mayer being more outspoken and nearly twice the younger man's age, Thalberg was hired as vice president in charge of production at Louis B. Mayer Productions. Years later, Mayer's daughter Irene Mayer Selznick recalled that "it was hard to believe anyone that boyish could be so important." According to Flamini, Thalberg was hired because, although Mayer was an astute businessman, "what he lacked was Thalberg's almost unerring ability to combine quality with commercial success, to bring artistic aspiration in line with the demands of the box office." Mayer's company subsequently merged with two others to become Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM), with the 24-year-old Thalberg made part-owner and accorded the same position as vice president in charge of production. Three years after the merger, MGM became the most successful studio in Hollywood.
During his twelve years at MGM, Thalberg supervised the production of over four hundred films. Although Thalberg and his colleagues at MGM knew he was "doomed" to not live much past the age of 30 due to heart disease, he loved producing films. He continued developing innovative ideas and overseeing most of MGM's pictures. Under Thalberg's management, MGM released over 40% more films yearly than Warner Brothers, and more than double Paramount's releases. From 1924 until 1936, when Thalberg died at the age of 37, "almost every film bore Thalberg's imprint", wrote Mark Vieira.
Production innovations
Thalberg's production techniques "broke new ground in filmmaking", adds Vieira. Among his contributions at MGM was his innovation of story conferences, sneak previews and scene retakes. He introduced the first horror films and coauthored the Production Code, the set of moral guidelines that all film studios agreed to follow. Thalberg helped synthesize and merge the world of stage drama and literary classics with Hollywood films.
MGM thereby became the only movie studio to consistently show a profit during the Great Depression. Flamini explains that the equation for MGM's success depended on combining stars, a Broadway hit or popular classic, and high standards of production. This combination at the time was considered a "revolutionary approach" in the film industry, which until then assumed a star was all that was needed for success, regardless of the story or production quality. The other studios began following MGM's lead with that same formula.
Production techniques
Thalberg generally followed a system in managing his productions. According to one of his assistants, Lawrence Weingarten, who later became a producer, "Thalberg directed the film on paper, and then the director directed the film on film."
Thalberg was generally opposed to location shooting overseas where he could not oversee production and control costs, as happened with Ben Hur. Thus, he kept hundreds of back-lot carpenters at work creating realistic sets, as he did for fifteenth-century Romeo and Juliet (1936), or with China Seas (1935), to replicate the harbors of Hong Kong.
Vieira points out that Thalberg's "fascination with Broadway plays" often had him create and present stories visually. For China Seas, for instance, he described for the screenwriters, director and others, exactly how he wanted the film to appear on screen:
To be certain of achieving the desired effects, Thalberg made sure his cinematographers were careful in their use of light and shadow. Vieira observes that "more than any other producer or any other studio, Thalberg and MGM manipulated lenses, filters, and lighting instruments to affect the viewer." As a result, he notes, "most of Thalberg's films contain moments such as these, in which cinematic technique transcends mere exposition and gives the viewer something to treasure."
Thalberg was supported by most of the studio in these kinds of creative decisions. "It was a big family," notes Weingarten. "If we had a success, everybody—and I mean every cutter, every painter, every plasterer—was excited about it, was abuzz, was in a tizzy about the whole idea of picture making."
Taking risks with new subjects and stars
In 1929, MGM released fifty films, and all but five showed a profit. Of those that failed, Hallelujah was also a gamble by Thalberg. When King Vidor, the film's producer and director, proposed the idea to Thalberg of a major film cast, for the first time, exclusively with African Americans, he told Thalberg directly, "I doubt that it will make a dollar at the box office." Thalberg replied, "Don't worry about that. I've told you that MGM can afford an occasional experiment."
By the early 1930s, a number of stars began failing at the box office, partly due to the Great Depression that was now undermining the economy, along with the public's ability to spend on entertainment. Thalberg began using two stars in a film, rather than one, as had been the tradition at all the studios, such as pairing Greta Garbo with John Gilbert, Clark Gable with Jean Harlow, and William Powell with Myrna Loy. After experimenting with a few such films, including Mata Hari (1931), which were profitable, he decided on a multi-star production of another Broadway play, Grand Hotel (1932). It had five major stars, including Garbo, Joan Crawford, John Barrymore, Lionel Barrymore, and Wallace Beery. "Before Thalberg," writes Vieira, "there was no Grand Hotel in the American consciousness." The film won the Oscar for Best Picture in 1932.
Thalberg went against consensus and took another risk with The Great Ziegfeld (1936), costarring Luise Rainer. Although Louis B. Mayer did not want her in the role, which he felt was too minor for a new star, Thalberg felt that "only she could play the part", wrote biographer Charles Higham. Shortly after shooting began in late 1935, doubts of Rainer's acting ability emerged in the press. However, despite her limited appearances in the film, Rainer "so impressed audiences with one highly emotional scene" that she won the Academy Award for Best Actress.
After her winning role in The Great Ziegfeld, Thalberg wanted her to play a role that was the opposite of her previous character, for The Good Earth (1937). For the part as a Chinese peasant, she was required to act totally subservient to her husband, being perpetually huddled in submission, and barely spoke a word of dialogue during the entire film. Rainer recalls that Mayer did not approve of the film being produced or her part in it: "He was horrified at Irving Thalberg's insistence for me to play O-lan, the poor uncomely little Chinese peasant." However, she again won the Oscar for Best Actress, becoming the first actress to win two consecutive Oscars, a feat not matched until Katharine Hepburn's two Oscar wins thirty years later.
Grooming new stars
Besides bringing a distinctive high quality "look" to MGM films and often recreating well-known stories or plays, Thalberg's actors themselves took on a characteristic quality. Thalberg wanted his female actors to appear "cool, classy and beautiful," notes Flamini. And he strove to make the male actors appear "worldly and in control." In general, Thalberg movies and actors came to be "luxurious," "glossy," and "technically flawless." By doing so, he made stars or boosted the careers of actors such as Lon Chaney, Ramon Novarro, John Gilbert, Greta Garbo, Joan Crawford, Clark Gable, Helen Hayes, Jean Harlow, Marie Dressler, Wallace Beery, John Barrymore, Lionel Barrymore and Luise Rainer.
Greta Garbo
In 1925, a young Greta Garbo, then twenty, and unable to speak any English, was brought over from Sweden at Mayer's request, as he saw how she looked in still photos. A Swedish friend thought he would help her by contacting Thalberg, who then agreed to give her a screen test. According to author Frederick Sands, "the result of the test was electrifying." Thalberg was impressed and began grooming the new starlet the following day: "the studio arranged to fix her teeth, made sure she lost weight, and gave her an English tutor."
Joan Crawford
Joan Crawford's first role was a Thalberg production at MGM and she became one of their leading stars for the next thirty years. Crawford was somewhat jealous of Norma Shearer as she thought she was given the better material by her husband Thalberg out of nepotism. Nevertheless, she felt that his contribution to MGM was vital to the film industry. Not long after his early death, she recalls her concerns: "Thalberg was dead and the concept of the quality 'big' picture pretty much went out the window."
Marie Dressler
Thalberg also realized that old stars few had heard of could be made into new ones. Marie Dressler, a fifty-nine-year-old early vaudeville and movie star, who had played the top-billed lead, above Charles Chaplin and Mabel Normand), in the first feature-length comedy, Tillie's Punctured Romance (1914), was unable to get any roles in films after leaving show business for some years, finally working as a maid. MGM screenwriter Frances Marion suggested to Thalberg that she might fit well in a starring role for a new film, and was surprised that he knew of her prior successes. Thalberg approved of using her without a screen test and offered his rationale:
By 1932, shortly before she died, Dressler was the country's number one box office star.
Wallace Beery
Marie Dressler was paired twice, in Min and Bill (1930) and Tugboat Annie (1933), with Wallace Beery, another major silent star who had been struggling to get work in sound pictures until Thalberg cast him. Beery had enjoyed a hugely successful silent film career dating back to 1913, but had been fired by Paramount shortly after sound pictures appeared. Thalberg cast him in the role of "Machine Gun Butch," which had been meant for recently deceased Lon Chaney, in The Big House (1930), an energetic prison picture that became a huge hit. Beery was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actor for his performance, and his burgeoning career at MGM had transformed him into the studio's highest paid actor within two more years, during which time he won the Oscar for The Champ and had become a phenomenal box office draw as a result of Thalberg's foresight.
Getting audience feedback and reshooting
According to Vieira, MGM had few failures during this period, and numerous blockbusters. Among the reasons was Thalberg's unique system of developing a script during story conferences with writers before filming began, and later giving "sneak previews" followed by audience feedback through written questionnaires. Often, where he felt improvement was needed, he arranged for scenes to be reshot. As Thalberg once stated, "The difference between something good and something superior is often very small."
Bad decisions and missed opportunities
Thalberg felt he had his "finger on the pulse of America. I know what people will do and what they won't do," he said. His judgment was not always accurate, however. Thalberg's bringing Broadway productions to the screen to develop higher picture standards sometimes resulted in "studied" acting or "stagey" sets, notes Flamini. In 1927, after the successful release of the first full-length talking picture, The Jazz Singer (1927), he nevertheless felt that talking pictures were a fad. Thalberg likewise did not think that color would replace black-and-white in movies.
When an assistant protested against a script that envisioned a love scene in Paris with an ocean background, Thalberg refused to make changes, saying "We can't cater to a handful of people who know Paris." A more serious distraction to Thalberg's efforts was his obsession with making his wife Norma Shearer a prominent star, efforts which sometimes led to "overblown and overglamous" productions. Thalberg himself admitted to his obsession years later when he told a fellow producer: "You're behaving like I did with Norma. I knew positively that she could play anything. It's a kind of romantic astigmatism that attacks producers when they fall for an actress."
Important films at MGM
Ben Hur (1925)
One of the first pictures he took charge of, Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ, was inherited and already in production by another studio when MGM was formed. The film was turning into a disastrous expense with cost overruns already in the millions due to its lavish sets and location shooting in Rome. Most studio executives chose to terminate the film to cut their losses. Thalberg, however, felt differently, and thought the film would affect movie audiences, due to its classic literary source, and would highlight MGM as a major new studio.
He, therefore, discarded much of the original footage shot in Italy and recreated the set on MGM's back lots in Culver City, which added more millions to the production, yet gave him more control over production. The new set also included a replica of Circus Maximus for the dramatic chariot race scenes. Flamini notes that Thalberg's "gamble paid off," drawing international attention to MGM, and to Thalberg within the movie industry for his bold action.
Mutiny on the Bounty (1935)
Mutiny on the Bounty was the studio's next most expensive film after Ben Hur, with some now calling it "Thalberg's masterpiece." He initially had difficulty convincing Mayer that he could make the film without making heroes of the mutineers. He achieved that by instead making a hero of the British Royal Navy, whereby the officers and shipmates would from then on display their mutual respect. Thalberg also had to convince Clark Gable to accept the role against his will. He pleaded with Gable, eventually promising him that "If it isn't one of your greatest successes, I'll never ask you again to play a part you don't want." The film's other main stars were Charles Laughton and Franchot Tone. The film was nominated for six Academy Awards, including Best Actor, and winning it for Best Picture. Thalberg accepted the award as producer from Frank Capra.
Thalberg and Mayer partnership
At first, Thalberg and studio chief Louis B. Mayer got along splendidly; however, they had different production philosophies. Thalberg preferred literary works, while Mayer preferred glitzy crowd-pleasing films. A clash was inevitable, and their relationship grew decidedly frosty. When Thalberg fell ill in the final weeks of 1932, Mayer took advantage of the situation and replaced him with David O. Selznick and Walter Wanger. Thalberg's reputation by that time for working long hours was widely known, and rumors about the related strain on his fragile health had become front-page news in entertainment trade publications. The Hollywood Reporter in January 1933 updated its readership about his condition and addressed growing concerns that he might be forced, despite his young age, to quit the business:
Once Thalberg recovered sufficiently from his bout with the "flu" and was able to return to work later in 1933, it was as one of MGM's unit producers, albeit one who had first choice on projects as well as preferential access to all the studio's resources, including over casting its stars. Thalberg's good relationship with Nicholas Schenck, then president of Loew's Incorporated, proved to be an ongoing advantage for him. Loew's was the corporate parent of MGM, so Schenck was the true power and ultimate arbiter at the studio; and he usually supported Thalberg's decisions and continued to do so whenever disagreements about projects or production needs arose. As a result, Thalberg also continued to produce or coproduce some of MGM's most prestigious and critically acclaimed ventures in this period, such as The Barretts of Wimpole Street (1934) starring his wife Norma Shearer, China Seas (1935), A Night at the Opera (1935), San Francisco (1936), and Romeo and Juliet (1936).
Personal life
During his few years with Universal while living in New York, Thalberg had become romantically involved with Carl Laemmle's daughter, Rosabelle. Still in his early twenties and later spending most of his time in Los Angeles, his feelings toward her were no longer as strong. Flamini suspects that this may have affected his position at Universal and partly caused his decision to leave the company. "The Laemmles prayed that Irving would marry Rosabelle", notes Flamini. "They wanted their sons to be educated and their daughters to marry nice Jewish boys."
Less than a year after he and Mayer took charge of the newly created MGM studios, and still only twenty-five years old, Thalberg suffered a serious heart attack due to overwork. Mayer also became aware of Thalberg's congenital heart problems and now worried about the prospect of running MGM without him. Mayer also became concerned that one of his daughters might become romantically involved, and told them so:
Thalberg, aware of Mayer's feelings, made it a point of never giving too much attention to his daughters at social events.
One of Thalberg's traits was his ability to work long hours into the night with little sign of fatigue. According to Vieira, Thalberg believed that as long as his mind was active in his work and he was not bored, he would not feel tired. Thalberg, who often got by with only five hours of sleep, felt that most people could get by with less than they realized. To keep his mental faculties at peak, he would read philosophical books by Bacon, Epictetus, or Kant. "They stimulate me. I'd drop out of sight in no time if I didn't read and keep up with current thought—and the philosophers are brain sharpeners."
During the early 1930s, Thalberg was ambivalent about political events in Europe. While he feared Nazism and the rise of Hitler, he also feared Communism. At the time, notes Vieira, "given a choice between communism and fascism, many Americans—including Thalberg—would prefer the latter." Thalberg stated his opinion:
When others suggested that many Jews could die in Germany as a result of Nazi anti-Semitism, he replied that in his opinion "Hitler and Hitlerism will pass." On one occasion, Catholic Prince Löwenstein of Germany, who himself had almost been captured before fleeing Germany, told him: "Mr. Thalberg, your own people are being systematically hunted down and rooted out of Germany." Thalberg suggested that world Jewry should nevertheless not interfere, that the Jewish race would survive Hitler. Within a few years, American film distribution was "choked off" in Germany. Led by Warner Brothers, all American studios eventually closed their German offices.
Thalberg began dating actress Norma Shearer a few years after he joined MGM. Following her conversion to Judaism, they married on Thursday, September 29, 1927, in a private ceremony in the garden of his rented house in Beverly Hills. Rabbi Edgar F. Magnin officiated at the event, with Shearer's brother Douglas Shearer giving the bride away, and Louis B. Mayer serving as best man. The couple drove to Monterey for their honeymoon and then moved into their newly constructed home in Beverly Hills.
After their second child was born, Shearer considered retiring from films, but Thalberg convinced her to continue acting, saying he could find her good roles. She went on to be one of MGM's biggest stars of the 1930s. Their two children were Irving Jr. (1930–1987) and Katharine (1935–2006).
Death
Thalberg and Shearer took a much-needed Labor Day weekend vacation in Monterey, California, in 1936, staying at the same beachfront hotel where they spent their honeymoon. A few weeks earlier, Thalberg's leading screenwriter, Al Lewin, had proposed doing a film based on a soon-to-be published book, Gone with the Wind. Although Thalberg said it would be a "sensational" role for Gable, and a "terrific picture," he decided not to do it:
Besides, Thalberg told Mayer, "[n]o Civil War picture ever made a nickel". Shortly after returning from Monterey, Thalberg was diagnosed with pneumonia. His condition worsened steadily and he eventually required an oxygen tent at home. He died on September 14, at the age of 37.
Sam Wood, while directing A Day at the Races, was given the news by phone. He returned to the set with tears in his eyes and told the others. As the news spread "the studio was paralyzed with shock", notes Thomas. "Work stopped and hundreds of people wept", with stars, writers, directors, and studio employees "all sharing a sense of loss at the death of a man who had been a part of their working lives", states Flamini.
His funeral took place two days later, and when the services began the other studios throughout Hollywood observed five minutes of silence. Producer Sam Goldwyn "wept uncontrollably for two days" and was unable to regain his composure enough to attend. The MGM studio closed for that day.
Services were held at the Wilshire Boulevard Temple that Thalberg had occasionally attended. The funeral attracted thousands of spectators who came to view the arrival of countless stars from MGM and other studios, including Greta Garbo, Jean Harlow, the Marx Brothers, Charlie Chaplin, Walt Disney, Howard Hughes, Al Jolson, Gary Cooper, Carole Lombard, Mary Pickford, and Douglas Fairbanks, among the screen luminaries. The ushers who led them to their seats included Clark Gable, Fredric March, and playwright Moss Hart. Erich von Stroheim, who had been fired by Thalberg, came to pay his respects. Producers Louis B. Mayer, the Warner brothers, Adolph Zukor, and Nicholas Schenck sat together solemnly as Rabbi Magnin gave the eulogy.
Thalberg is buried in a private marble tomb in the Great Mausoleum at Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Glendale, California, lying at rest beside his wife Norma Shearer Arrouge (Thalberg's crypt was engraved "My Sweetheart Forever" by Shearer).
Over the following days, tributes were published by the national press. Louis B. Mayer, his co-founding partner at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, said he had lost "the finest friend a man could ever have", while MGM president Nicholas Schenck stated that "Thalberg was the most important man in the production end of the motion-picture industry. Leading producers from the other studios also expressed their feelings in published tributes to Thalberg:
David O. Selznick described him as "beyond any question the greatest individual force for fine pictures." Samuel Goldwyn called him "the foremost figure in the motion-picture industry ... and an inspiration." M. H. Aylesworth, Chairman of RKO, wrote that "his integrity, vision and ability made him the spearhead of all motion-picture production throughout the world." Harry Warner, president of Warner Bros., described him as "gifted with one of the finest minds ever placed at the service of motion-picture production." Sidney R. Kent, president of Twentieth Century Fox, said that "he made the whole world richer by giving it the highest type of entertainment. He was a true genius." Columbia president Harry Cohn said the "motion picture industry has suffered a loss from which it will not soon recover...". Darryl F. Zanuck noted, "More than any other man he raised the industry to its present world prestige." Adolph Zukor, chairman of Paramount, stated, "Irving Thalberg was the most brilliant young man in the motion picture business." Jesse Lasky said, "It will be utterly impossible to replace him."
Among the condolences that came from world political leaders, President Franklin D. Roosevelt wrote, "The world of art is poorer with the passing of Irving Thalberg. His high ideals, insight and imagination went into the production of his masterpieces."
Among the pictures that were unfinished or not yet released at the time of his death were A Day at the Races, The Good Earth, Camille, Maytime, and Romeo and Juliet. Groucho Marx, star of A Day at the Races, wrote, "After Thalberg's death, my interest in the movies waned. I continued to appear in them, but ... The fun had gone out of picture making." Thalberg's widow, Norma Shearer, recalled, "Grief does very strange things to you. I didn't seem to feel the shock for two weeks afterwards. ... then, at the end of those two weeks, I collapsed."
Legacy in the movie industry
Thalberg's legacy to the movie industry is "incalculable", states biographer Bob Thomas. He notes that with his numerous production innovations and grand stories, often turning classic literature and Broadway stage productions into big-screen pictures, he managed to keep "American movies supreme throughout the world for a generation". Darryl F. Zanuck, founder of 20th Century-Fox said that during Thalberg's brief career, he had become the "most creative producer in the history of films". Thomas describes some of his contributions:
Most of MGM's major films in the 1930s were, according to Flamini, "in a very real sense", made by Thalberg. He closely supervised the making of "more pictures than any other producer in Hollywood's history", and was considered the "archetype of the creative producer", adds Flamini. Upon his early death, aged 37, an editorial in The New York Times called him "the most important force" in the motion picture industry. The paper added that for the film industry, he "set the pace and others followed ... because his way combined style, glamour, and profit." He is described by Flamini as having been "a revolutionary in a gray flannel suit".
Thalberg refused to take credit as producer, and as a result, his name never appeared on the screen while he was alive. Thalberg claimed that "credit you give yourself is not worth having". He also said "If a picture is good, they'll know who produced it. If it's bad, nobody cares." His final film, released after he died, was The Good Earth (1937), which won numerous Academy Awards. Its opening screen credit was dedicated to Thalberg:
In 1938, the new multimillion-dollar MGM administration building in Culver City was named for Thalberg. The Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award, presented by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, also named for him, awards producers for consistently high production achievements.
Cultural legacy
The Last Tycoon
In October 1939, American novelist F. Scott Fitzgerald began writing The Last Tycoon, a fictionalized biography of Thalberg, naming the protagonist Monroe Stahr to represent Thalberg. "Thalberg has always fascinated me", he wrote to an editor. "His peculiar charm, his extraordinary good looks, his bountiful success, the tragic end of his great adventure. The events I have built around him are fiction, but all of them are things which might very well have happened. ... I've long chosen him for a hero (this has been in my mind for three years) because he is one of the half-dozen men I have known who were built on a grand scale."
Thomas notes that among the reasons Fitzgerald chose to write a book about a Thalberg-like character, was that "throughout his literary career, Fitzgerald borrowed his heroes from friends he admired, and inevitably a bit of Fitzgerald entered the characterizations." Fitzgerald himself writes that "When I like men, I want to be like them ..." Fitzgerald and Thalberg had real-life similarities: both were prodigies, both had heart ailments, and they both died at early ages.
According to biographer Matthew J. Bruccoli, Fitzgerald believed that Thalberg, with his "taste and courage, represented the best of Hollywood. ... [and] saw Thalberg as a model for what could be done in the movies." Fitzgerald died before the novel was completed, however. Bruccoli writes of Fitzgerald's book:
Although parallels between Monroe Stahr in the novel and Thalberg were evident, many who knew Thalberg intimately stated that they did not see similarities in their personalities. Norma Shearer said that the Stahr character was not at all like her former husband.
In the 1976 film version, directed by Elia Kazan, Monroe Stahr was played by Robert De Niro. Kazan, in his pre-production notes, described the Stahr character as he saw him:
In the 2016 television series based on the novel, Monroe Stahr is played by Matt Bomer.
Others
Fitzgerald also based his short story "Crazy Sunday", originally published in the October 1932 issue of American Mercury, on an incident at a party thrown by Thalberg and Shearer. The story is included in Fitzgerald's collection Taps at Reveille (1935).
Thalberg was portrayed in the movie Man of a Thousand Faces (1957) by Robert Evans, who went on to become a studio head himself.
Thalberg was portrayed by Bill Cusack in Young Indiana Jones and the Hollywood Follies (1994), a TV film based on The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles, in which Indiana Jones is depicted as taking part in Thalberg's conflict with Erich von Stroheim over Foolish Wives.
In 2020, Thalberg was played by Ferdinand Kingsley in the David Fincher film Mank
Thalberg, played by Tobey Maguire, is rumored to appear in the upcoming movie Babylon.
Filmography
Producer
Reputation (1921)
The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1923)
Merry-Go-Round (1923)
His Hour (1924)
He Who Gets Slapped (1924)
The Unholy Three (1925)
The Merry Widow (1925)
The Tower of Lies (1925)
The Big Parade (1925)
Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ (1925)
Torrent (1926)
La Bohème (1926)
Brown of Harvard (1926)
The Road to Mandalay (1926)
The Temptress (1926)
Valencia (1926)
Flesh and the Devil (1926)
Twelve Miles Out (1927)
The Student Prince in Old Heidelberg (1927)
London After Midnight (1927)
The Crowd (1928)
Laugh, Clown, Laugh (1928)
White Shadows in the South Seas (1928)
Show People (1928)
West of Zanzibar (1928)
The Broadway Melody (1929)
The Trial of Mary Dugan (1929)
Voice of the City (1929)
Where East Is East (1929)
The Last of Mrs. Cheyney (1929)
The Hollywood Revue of 1929 (1929)
Hallelujah (1929)
His Glorious Night (1929)
The Kiss (1929)
Anna Christie (1930)
Redemption (1930)
The Divorcee (1930)
The Rogue Song (1930)
The Big House (1930)
The Unholy Three (1930)
Let Us Be Gay (1930)
Billy the Kid (1930)
Way for a Sailor (1930)
A Lady's Morals (1930)
Inspiration (1931)
Trader Horn (1931)
The Secret Six (1931)
A Free Soul (1931)
Just a Gigolo (1931)
Menschen hinter Gittern (1931), German-language version of The Big House (1930)
The Sin of Madelon Claudet (1931)
The Guardsman (1931)
The Champ (1931)
Possessed (1931)
Private Lives (1931)
Mata Hari (1931)
Freaks (1932)
Tarzan the Ape Man (1932)
Grand Hotel (1932)
Letty Lynton (1932)
As You Desire Me (1932)
Red-Headed Woman (1932)
Smilin' Through (1932)
Red Dust (1932)
Rasputin and the Empress (1932)
Strange Interlude (1932)
Tugboat Annie (1933)
Bombshell (1933)
Eskimo (1933)
La Veuve Joyeuse (1934) French-language version of The Merry Widow
Riptide (1934)
The Barretts of Wimpole Street (1934)
The Merry Widow (1934)
What Every Woman Knows (1934)
Biography of a Bachelor Girl (1935)
No More Ladies (1935)
China Seas (1935)
Mutiny on the Bounty (1935)
A Night at the Opera (1935)
Riffraff (1936)
Romeo and Juliet (1936)
Camille (1936)
Maytime (1937)
A Day at the Races (1937)
Broadway Melody of 1938 (1937)
The Good Earth (1937)
Marie Antoinette (1938)
Writer
The Trap (1922)
The Dangerous Little Demon (1922)
Awards
Academy Awards
Notes
Further reading
Books
Flamini, Roland. Thalberg: The Last Tycoon and the World of M-G-M (1994)
Marx, Samuel. Mayer and Thalberg: The Make-believe Saints (1975)
Thomas, Bob. Thalberg: Life and Legend (1969)
Vieira, Mark A. Irving Thalberg's M-G-M. New York: Harry N. Abrams, 2008.
Vieira, Mark A. Irving Thalberg: Boy Wonder to Producer Prince. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2009.
Articles
Starman, Ray. "Irving Thalberg", Films In Review, June/July 1987, p. 347–353
External links
Irving Thalberg at TCM
Cinemagraphe Review of the Roland Flamini biography of Thalberg: The Last Tycoon and the World of MGM
Irving Thalberg at Virtual History
Irving Thalberg profiled in Collier's Magazine (1924)
Videos
1899 births
1936 deaths
American film producers
Film producers from California
Producers who won the Best Picture Academy Award
American film studio executives
American male screenwriters
Cinema pioneers
Silent film directors
Silent film producers
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer executives
Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences founders
Businesspeople from Los Angeles
Hollywood history and culture
California Republicans
New York (state) Republicans
USC School of Cinematic Arts faculty
20th-century American businesspeople
Screenwriters from California
Screenwriters from New York (state)
People from Brooklyn
American anti-communists
American people of German-Jewish descent
Deaths from pneumonia in California
Burials at Forest Lawn Memorial Park (Glendale)
20th-century American male writers
20th-century American writers
Jewish American writers
20th-century American screenwriters | true | [
"Universal Hartland was the visual effects house of Universal Studios Hollywood. The effects studio was in operation from 1978 to 1981. The studio was created as a means for Universal to enter the visual effects field that was growing larger as well as provide in-house effects creation for Battlestar Galactica and Buck Rogers in the 25th Century. Before the facility closed its doors in 1981 it had worked on four films, six television shows (two of which they did effects for the entire run of the show), several Universal Theme Park attractions, some commercials and a few specialty projects, including the special model effects for the Horizons attraction for Disney's Epcot Center and sequences for Disney's Captain EO 3-D attraction.\n\nHistory\nUniversal Hartland started work on Universal's feature Buck Rogers in the 25th Century, in Douglas Trumbull's former \"Future General Corporation\" facilities in Marina Del Ray. In August 1978, they moved production to a newly created studio owned facility in North Hollywood and settled on Hartland Street (hence the name, \"Universal Hartland\"). This was around the same time that the Industrial Light & Magic crew started working on Battlestar Galactica. During episode two, Universal's management decided to move Battlestar Galactica to their Universal Hartland facility. For the next three years the studio created all of the visual effects for Buck Rogers and Battelstar Galactica. It would also work on The Concorde ... Airport '79, Cheech & Chong's Next Movie, Cosmos, The Nude Bomb, The Thing and model effects for Disney, ABC and NASA.\n\nClosure\nDespite the extensive body of work the facility had created, after a change of senior management at the parent company Universal Studios, Universal lost interest in their effects studio and the studio ceased production as Universal Studios owned and operated in-house visual effects facility in 1981, eventually closing completely in the 1985.\n\nList of films\n Battlestar Galactica (TV series)\n Buck Rogers in the 25th Century (movie and TV series)\n The Concorde ... Airport '79\n Cheech and Chong's Next Movie\n The Nude Bomb\n Cosmos (PBS)\n The Thing\n Captain Eo 3-D (visual effects sequences)\n\nExternal links\n Universal Hartland archive site\n\nUniversal Pictures",
"William Bowers (January 17, 1916 – March 27, 1987) was an American reporter, playwright, and screenwriter. He worked as a reporter in Long Beach, California and for Life magazine, and specialized in writing comedy-westerns. He also turned out several thrillers.\n\nCareer\n\nBowers' first play was Where Do We Go From Here? that ran for 15 performances in 1968.\n\nRKO\nBowers signed with RKO. His first credited screenplay was My Favorite Spy for Kay Kyser in 1942. Also at that studio Bowers helped write the musical comedy Seven Days' Leave (1942), which was a huge hit, and The Adventures of a Rookie (1943) with the team of Carney and Brown. He also did Higher and Higher (1943), Frank Sinatra's first movie.\n\nWar service\nDuring World War II, Bowers served in the United States Army Air Forces Civilian Pilot Training Program where he met Arch Hall Sr. Bowers later wrote a screenplay based on his experiences, The Last Time I Saw Archie, where Jack Webb played Bowers.<ref>p.3 Weaver, Tom Richard Alden Interview I Talked with a Zombie: Interviews with 23 Veterans of Horror and Sci-fi Films and Television\nMcFarland, 2009</ref>\n\nPost War\nHe wrote Sing Your Way Home (1945) with Jack Haley for RKO.\n\nFor Columbia he helped write The Notorious Lone Wolf (1946) and at Warner Bros did the Cole Porter biopic Night and Day (1946). For Republic Pictures he provided the story for The Fabulous Suzanne (1946) and he worked on Paramount's Ladies' Man (1947) for Eddie Bracken.\n\nUniversal\nAt Universal Bowers wrote The Web (1947), a noir, and Deanna Durbin's second last film Something in the Wind (1947). He provided the story for the Abbott and Costello comedy The Wistful Widow of Wagon Gap (1948) and wrote the Yvonne de Carlo-Dan Duryea Westerns Black Bart, Highwayman (1948) and River Lady (1948). He did some uncredited work on United Artists' Pitfall (1948).\n\nHe wrote a noir, Larceny (1948) then did a Sonja Henie musical, The Countess of Monte Cristo (1948).\n\nA play he wrote entitled West of Tomorrow was filmed by 20th Century Fox as Jungle Patrol. Bowers did some uncredited work on Criss Cross (1949) and provided the story for the de Carlo vehicle, The Gal Who Took the West (1949). He did some script work on Abandoned (1949).\n\nThe Gunfighter\nIn 1950 he was Oscar nominated for the gritty Gregory Peck Western, The Gunfighter at Fox.\n\nBowers wrote Convicted (1950) for Columbia, Mrs. O'Malley and Mr. Malone (1951) for MGM, Cry Danger (1951) for Robert Parrish at RKO, The Mob (1951) for Parrish at Columbia, and The San Francisco Story (1952) for Parrish at RKO.\n\nHe did Assignment: Paris (1952) for Parrish at Columbia and Split Second (1953) for Dick Powell at RKO. He did \"The Girl on the Park Bench\" (1953) for Powell's Four Star Theatre and some work on Beautiful But Dangerous (1954) for RKO.\n\nFor Where's Raymond? (1953) Bowers wrote the episodes \"Christmas\" and \"Redecorate the Coffeeshop\". He did \"Trouble with Youth\" for Ford Television Theatre (1954).\n\nAt Columbia he did Tight Spot (1955) and 5 Against the House (1955) for Phil Karlson. Bowers wrote \"Prosper's Old Mother\" (1955) and \"It's Sunny Again\" (1956) for General Electric Theatre and \"Shoot the Moon\" (1956) for Jane Wyman Presents The Fireside Theatre. At Fox he did a musical The Best Things in Life Are Free (1956).\n\nUniversal hired him for the remake of My Man Godfrey in 1957.\n\nThe Sheepman\nAt MGM he wrote The Sheepman (1958) which earned him a second Oscar nomination. He stayed on at MGM to do The Law and Jake Wade (1958), and Imitation General (1959). Bowers wrote a Bob Hope comedy for company, Alias Jesse James (1959) and did two films for Jack Webb, Deadline Midnight (1959) and The Last Time I Saw Archie (1961).\n\nBowers was reunited with Glenn Ford in Company of Cowards? (1964). He wrote a Jerry Lewis comedy, Way... Way Out (1966) and a Western The Ride to Hangman's Tree (1967).\n\nSupport Your Local Sheriff\nBowers produced the last film that he wrote, the Western parody Support Your Local Sheriff! (1969). He also had a bit part as an actor in The Godfather Part II (1974).\n\nHe wrote a TV movie for Burt Kennedy, Sidekicks (1974). He focused on TV movies and an independent production: The Gun and the Pulpit (1974), Mobile Two (1975) (which he produced) Kate Bliss and the Ticker Tape Kid (1978), Shame, Shame on the Bixby Boys (1978), The Wild Wild West Revisited (1979), and More Wild Wild West (1980).\n\nFilmography\nWriter\n My Favorite Spy (1942)\n The Fabulous Suzanne (1946)\n Larceny (1948)\n The Gunfighter (1950)\n Assignment – Paris! (1952)\n Imitation General (1958)\n -30- (1959)\n The Last Time I Saw Archie (1961)\n Support Your Local Sheriff (1969)\n\nActor\n The Godfather Part II'' (1974) - Senate Committee Chairman\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n\n1916 births\n1987 deaths\nAmerican male screenwriters\nPeople from Las Cruces, New Mexico\nScreenwriters from New Mexico\n20th-century American male writers\n20th-century American screenwriters\nUnited States Army Air Forces pilots of World War II"
]
|
[
"Irving Thalberg",
"Universal Studios",
"Did he work for universal?",
"He found work as an office secretary at Universal Pictures' New York office,"
]
| C_7b8dcb999ce54951992e991787a236a9_0 | Did he have other jobs with universal? | 2 | Did Irving Thalberg have other jobs with universal other than secretarial? | Irving Thalberg | He found work as an office secretary at Universal Pictures' New York office, and later became personal secretary to the studio's founder and president, Carl Laemmle. Among Thalberg's duties were transcribing and editing notes that Laemmle had written during screenings of his films. He earned $25 weekly, becoming adept at making insightful observations, which impressed Laemmle. Laemmle took Thalberg to see his Los Angeles production facility, where he spent a month watching how movie production worked. Before returning to New York, Laemmle told Thalberg to remain and "keep an eye on things for me." Two months later, Laemmle returned to California, partly to see how well Thalberg was able to handle the responsibilities he was given. Thalberg gave him suggestions, which impressed Laemmle by his ability to understand and explain problems. Thalberg suggested, "The first thing you should do is establish a new job of studio manager and give him the responsibility of watching day-to-day operations." Laemmle immediately agreed, "All right. You're it." In shock, Thalberg replied, "I'm what?" Laemmle told him to take charge of the Los Angeles studio, which he did in early 1919. At age 20, Thalberg became responsible for immediately overseeing the nine ongoing film productions and nearly thirty scenarios then under development. In describing the rationale for this early appointment as studio manager, film historian David Thomson writes that his new job "owed nothing to nepotism, private wealth, or experience in the film industry." He reasons that despite "Thalberg's youth, modest education, and frail appearance . . . it is clear that he had the charm, insight, and ability, or the appearance of it, to captivate the film world." Thalberg was one among the majority of Hollywood film industry workers who migrated from the East Coast, primarily from New York. Some film actors, such as Conrad Nagel, did not like the 5-day train trip or the sudden warmth of the California climate. Neither did Marion Davies, who was not used to such "big wide spaces." Samuel Marx, a close friend of Thalberg's from New York, recalled how easily Thalberg adapted to Southern California, often standing outside his doorway during moments of contemplation to enjoy the scenery. "We were all young," said comedian Buster Keaton. "The air in California was like wine. Our business was also young--and growing like nothing ever seen before." CANNOTANSWER | later became personal secretary to the studio's founder and president, Carl Laemmle. | Irving Grant Thalberg (May 30, 1899 – September 14, 1936) was an American film producer during the early years of motion pictures. He was called "The Boy Wonder" for his youth and ability to select scripts, choose actors, gather production staff, and make profitable films, including Grand Hotel, China Seas, A Night at the Opera, Mutiny on the Bounty, Camille and The Good Earth. His films carved out an international market, "projecting a seductive image of American life brimming with vitality and rooted in democracy and personal freedom", states biographer Roland Flamini.
He was born in Brooklyn, New York, and as a child was afflicted with a congenital heart disease that doctors said would kill him before he reached the age of thirty. After graduating from high school he worked as a store clerk during the day and to gain some job skills took a night class in typing. He then found work as a secretary with Universal Studios' New York office, and was later made studio manager for their Los Angeles facility. There, he oversaw production of a hundred films during his three years with the company. Among the films he produced was The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1923).
In Los Angeles, he partnered with Louis B. Mayer's new studio and, after it merged with two other studios, helped create Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM). He was made head of production of MGM in 1925, at the age of twenty-six, helping MGM become the most successful studio in Hollywood. During his twelve years with MGM, until his premature death at the age of 37, he produced four hundred films, most of which bore his imprint and innovations, including story conferences with writers, sneak previews to gain early feedback, and extensive re-shooting of scenes to improve the film. In addition, he introduced horror films to audiences and coauthored the "Production Code", guidelines for morality followed by all studios. During the 1920s and 1930s, he synthesized and merged the world of stage drama and literary classics with Hollywood films.
Thalberg created numerous new stars and groomed their screen images. Among them were Lon Chaney, Ramon Novarro, Greta Garbo, John Gilbert, Lionel Barrymore, Joan Crawford, Clark Gable, Jean Harlow, Wallace Beery, Spencer Tracy, Luise Rainer, and Norma Shearer, who became his wife. He had the ability to combine quality with commercial success, and was credited with bringing his artistic aspirations in line with the demands of audiences. After his death, Hollywood's producers said he had been the world's "foremost figure in motion-picture history". President Franklin D. Roosevelt wrote, "The world of art is poorer with the passing of Irving Thalberg. His high ideals, insight and imagination went into the production of his masterpieces." The Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award, given out periodically by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences since 1937, has been awarded to producers whose body of work reflected consistently high quality films.
Early years
Thalberg was born in Brooklyn, to German Jewish immigrant parents, William and Henrietta (Haymann). Shortly after birth, he was diagnosed with "blue baby syndrome", caused by a congenital disease that limited the oxygen supply to his heart. The prognosis from the family's doctor and specialists was that he might live to the age of twenty, or at most, to thirty.
During his high school years in Brooklyn, he began having attacks of chest pains, dizziness and fatigue. This affected his ability to study, though until that time he was a good student. When he was 17 he contracted rheumatic fever, and was confined to bed for a year. His mother, in order to prevent him falling too far behind other students, brought him homework from school, books, and tutors to teach him at home. She also hoped that the schoolwork and reading would distract him from the "tantalizing sounds" of children playing outside his window.
With little to entertain him, he read books as a main activity. He devoured popular novels, classics, plays, and biographies. His books, of necessity, replaced the streets of New York, and led to his interest in classical philosophy and philosophers, such as William James.
When Thalberg returned to school, he finished high school but lacked the stamina for college, which he felt would have required constant late-night studying and cramming for exams. Instead, he took part-time jobs as a store clerk, and in the evenings, to gain some job skills, taught himself typing, shorthand and Spanish at a night vocational school. When he turned 18, he placed an advertisement in the local newspaper hoping to find better work:
Career as producer
Universal Studios
He found work as an office secretary at Universal Pictures' New York office, and later became personal secretary to the studio's founder and president, Carl Laemmle. Among Thalberg's duties were transcribing and editing notes that Laemmle had written during screenings of his films. He earned $25 weekly, becoming adept at making insightful observations, which impressed Laemmle.
Laemmle took Thalberg to see his Los Angeles production facility, where he spent a month watching how movie production worked. Before returning to New York, Laemmle told Thalberg to remain and "keep an eye on things for me." Two months later, Laemmle returned to California, partly to see how well Thalberg was able to handle the responsibilities he was given. Thalberg gave him suggestions, and thus impressed Laemmle by his ability to understand and explain problems.
Thalberg suggested, "The first thing you should do is establish a new job of studio manager and give him the responsibility of watching day-to-day operations." Laemmle immediately agreed: "All right. You're it." In shock, Thalberg replied, "I'm what?" Laemmle told him to take charge of the Los Angeles studio, which he did in early 1919. When aged 20, Thalberg became responsible for immediately overseeing the nine ongoing film productions and nearly thirty scenarios then under development.
In describing the rationale for this early appointment as studio manager, film historian David Thomson writes that his new job "owed nothing to nepotism, private wealth, or experience in the film industry." He reasons that despite "Thalberg's youth, modest education, and frail appearance ... it is clear that he had the charm, insight, and ability, or the appearance of it, to captivate the film world."
Thalberg was one among the majority of Hollywood film industry workers who migrated from the East Coast, primarily from New York. Some film actors, such as Conrad Nagel, did not like the five-day train trip or the sudden warmth of the California climate. Neither did Marion Davies, who was not used to such "big wide spaces". Samuel Marx, a close friend of Thalberg's from New York, recalled how easily Thalberg adapted to Southern California, often standing outside his doorway during moments of contemplation to enjoy the scenery. "We were all young", said comedian Buster Keaton. "The air in California was like wine. Our business was also young—and growing like nothing ever seen before."
Confrontation with Erich von Stroheim
He quickly established his tenacity as he battled with well-known director Erich von Stroheim over the length of Foolish Wives (1922). Biographer Roland Flamini notes that the film was Universal's most expensive "jewel" ever in production, and its director and star, von Stroheim, was taking the film way over budget. Thalberg, now Universal's general manager, was forced to have the director quickly finalize production before the studio's working capital was used up. Flamini describes the situation:
Thalberg had von Stroheim come to his office, which he did still wearing his film costume as a Russian Imperial Guard and escorted by members of his production team. Thalberg calmly told him, "I have seen all the film and you have all you need for the picture. I want you to stop shooting", to which von Stroheim replied, "But I have not finished as yet." "Yes, you have", said Thalberg. "You have spent all the money this company can afford. I cannot allow you to spend any more."
Thalberg quietly explained that the director worked under the producer, and it was his responsibility to control costs. Von Stroheim, surrounded by his assistants, then confronted Thalberg: "If you were not my superior, I would smash you in the face." Thalberg, unflinching, said "Don't let that stop you." The result was that Thalberg soon afterward removed the cameras from von Stroheim's studio and took over editing. The uncut footage was pared down from five-and-a-half hours to three hours, to von Stroheim's deep dissatisfaction.
A similar problem developed with von Stroheim's next film, Merry-Go-Round (1923). Although he had promised Thalberg to remain within budget this time, he continued production until it went to twice the agreed length and was not yet near completion. Flamini speculates why this happened:
Thalberg again called von Stroheim to his office, handed him a long letter written and signed by himself, describing the problems, and summarily fired von Stroheim as of that moment. Thalberg's letter stated among the reasons,
totally inexcusable and repeated acts of insubordination ... extravagant ideas which you have been unwilling to sacrifice ... unnecessary delays ... and your apparent idea that you are greater and more powerful than the organization that employs you.
His dismissal of von Stroheim was considered an "earthquake in movie circles", notes Flamini. Producer David O. Selznick said that "it was the first time a director had been fired. It took great guts and courage ... Von Stroheim was utterly indifferent over money and could have gone on and spent millions, with nobody to stop him.". The opinion was shared by director Rouben Mamoulian, who said that the "little fellow at Universal", in one bold stroke, had "asserted the primacy of the studio over the director" and forever altered the balance of power in the movie industry.
Effects of his young age
According to Flamini, his youth was a subject of conversation within the movie community. Executives from other studios, actors, and film crew, often mistook him to be a junior employee. Movie columnist Louella Parsons, upon first being introduced to him, asked, "What's the joke? Where's the new general manager?" After five minutes of talking to Thalberg, however, she later wrote about "Universal's Boy Wonder": "He might be a boy in looks and age, but it was no child's mind that was being asked to cope with the intricate politics of Universal City." Novelist Edna Ferber responded the same way, writing that "I had fancied motion-picture producers as large gentlemen smoking oversized cigars. But this young man whose word seemed so final at Universal City ... impressed me deeply."
The male actors in the studio had a similar reaction. Lionel Barrymore, who was nearly twice his age, recalled their meetings:
Thalberg likewise gained the respect of leading playwrights, some of whom also looked down on him due to his youth. George S. Kaufman, co-author of Dinner at Eight, several Marx Brothers films, and two George Gershwin plays, came from New York to meet with Thalberg. Afterward he confided to his friend, Groucho Marx: "That man has never written a word, yet he can tell me exactly what to do with a story. I didn't know you had people like that out here."
Actress Norma Shearer, whom he later married, was surprised after he greeted her at the door, then walked her to his office for her first job interview: "Then you're not the office boy?" she asked. He smiled, as he sat himself behind his desk: "No, Miss Shearer, I'm Irving Thalberg, vice-president of the Mayer Company. I'm the man who sent for you."
His younger-than-normal age for a studio executive was usually mentioned even after he left Universal to help start up MGM. Screenwriter Agnes Christine Johnson, who worked with Thalberg for years, described his contribution during meetings:
The same quality was observed by director and screenwriter Hobart Henley: "If something that read well in conference turns out not so good on the screen, I go to him and, like that—Henley snaps his fingers—he has a remedy. He's brilliant." Another assistant producer to Thalberg explains:
His youth also contributed to his open-mindedness to the ideas of others. Conrad Nagel, who starred in numerous Thalberg films, reported that Thalberg was generally empathetic to those he worked alongside: "Thalberg never raised his voice. He just looked into your eyes, spoke softly, and after a few minutes he cast a spell on you." Studio attorney Edwin Loeb, who also worked to create AMPAS, explained that "the real foundation of Irving's success was his ability to look at life through the eyes of any given person. He had a gift of empathy, and almost complete perspective." Those opinions were also shared by producer Walter Wanger: "You thought that you were talking to an Indian savant. He could cast a spell on anybody."
His talent as a producer was enhanced by his "near-miraculous" powers of concentration, notes film critic J. Hoberman. As a result, he was never bored or tired, and supplemented his spare time with reading for his own amusement, recalls screenwriter Bayard Veiller, with some of his favorite authors being Francis Bacon, Epictetus, and Immanuel Kant.
Film projects at Universal
Biographer Bob Thomas writes that after three years at the studio, Thalberg continually proved his value. Universal's pictures improved noticeably, primarily due to Thalberg's "uncanny sense of story." He took tight control over many key aspects of production, including his requirement that from then on scripts were tightly constructed before filming began, rather than during production. Thomas adds that he also "showed a remarkable capacity for working with actors, casting them aptly and advising them on their careers."
After producing two films that were in production when he began work at Universal, he presented Laemmle with his idea for a film based on one of his favorite classic stories, The Hunchback of Notre Dame. Rather than just a horror picture, Thalberg suggested turning it into a spectacle which would include a replica of the Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris. He had Lon Chaney play the hunchback. The film became Universal's most profitable silent film and established Chaney's career as a top-flight star.
After nearly three years with Universal, Thalberg had supervised over a hundred movies, reorganized the studio to give more control to the managers, and had "stopped the defection" of many of their leading stars by offering them better, higher-paying contracts. He also produced a number of Universal's prestige films, which made the company profitable. However, he decided it was time to find a studio in Los Angeles more suitable to his skills, and spread word that he was available.
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM)
Cecil B. DeMille was the first who wanted to hire him, telling his partner Jesse Lasky, "The boy is a genius. I can see it. I know it." Lasky opposed the hire, stating, "Geniuses we have all we need." Thalberg then received an offer from Hal Roach, but the offer was withdrawn because Thalberg lacked experience with slapstick comedy films. In late 1922, Thalberg was introduced to Louis B. Mayer, president of a small but dynamic and fast-growing studio. At that first meeting, Thalberg "made a deep, immediate impression on Mayer", writes Flamini. After Thalberg had left, Mayer said to studio attorney Edwin Loeb: "Tell him if he comes to work for me, I'll look after him as though he were my son."
Although their personalities were in many ways opposite, Mayer being more outspoken and nearly twice the younger man's age, Thalberg was hired as vice president in charge of production at Louis B. Mayer Productions. Years later, Mayer's daughter Irene Mayer Selznick recalled that "it was hard to believe anyone that boyish could be so important." According to Flamini, Thalberg was hired because, although Mayer was an astute businessman, "what he lacked was Thalberg's almost unerring ability to combine quality with commercial success, to bring artistic aspiration in line with the demands of the box office." Mayer's company subsequently merged with two others to become Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM), with the 24-year-old Thalberg made part-owner and accorded the same position as vice president in charge of production. Three years after the merger, MGM became the most successful studio in Hollywood.
During his twelve years at MGM, Thalberg supervised the production of over four hundred films. Although Thalberg and his colleagues at MGM knew he was "doomed" to not live much past the age of 30 due to heart disease, he loved producing films. He continued developing innovative ideas and overseeing most of MGM's pictures. Under Thalberg's management, MGM released over 40% more films yearly than Warner Brothers, and more than double Paramount's releases. From 1924 until 1936, when Thalberg died at the age of 37, "almost every film bore Thalberg's imprint", wrote Mark Vieira.
Production innovations
Thalberg's production techniques "broke new ground in filmmaking", adds Vieira. Among his contributions at MGM was his innovation of story conferences, sneak previews and scene retakes. He introduced the first horror films and coauthored the Production Code, the set of moral guidelines that all film studios agreed to follow. Thalberg helped synthesize and merge the world of stage drama and literary classics with Hollywood films.
MGM thereby became the only movie studio to consistently show a profit during the Great Depression. Flamini explains that the equation for MGM's success depended on combining stars, a Broadway hit or popular classic, and high standards of production. This combination at the time was considered a "revolutionary approach" in the film industry, which until then assumed a star was all that was needed for success, regardless of the story or production quality. The other studios began following MGM's lead with that same formula.
Production techniques
Thalberg generally followed a system in managing his productions. According to one of his assistants, Lawrence Weingarten, who later became a producer, "Thalberg directed the film on paper, and then the director directed the film on film."
Thalberg was generally opposed to location shooting overseas where he could not oversee production and control costs, as happened with Ben Hur. Thus, he kept hundreds of back-lot carpenters at work creating realistic sets, as he did for fifteenth-century Romeo and Juliet (1936), or with China Seas (1935), to replicate the harbors of Hong Kong.
Vieira points out that Thalberg's "fascination with Broadway plays" often had him create and present stories visually. For China Seas, for instance, he described for the screenwriters, director and others, exactly how he wanted the film to appear on screen:
To be certain of achieving the desired effects, Thalberg made sure his cinematographers were careful in their use of light and shadow. Vieira observes that "more than any other producer or any other studio, Thalberg and MGM manipulated lenses, filters, and lighting instruments to affect the viewer." As a result, he notes, "most of Thalberg's films contain moments such as these, in which cinematic technique transcends mere exposition and gives the viewer something to treasure."
Thalberg was supported by most of the studio in these kinds of creative decisions. "It was a big family," notes Weingarten. "If we had a success, everybody—and I mean every cutter, every painter, every plasterer—was excited about it, was abuzz, was in a tizzy about the whole idea of picture making."
Taking risks with new subjects and stars
In 1929, MGM released fifty films, and all but five showed a profit. Of those that failed, Hallelujah was also a gamble by Thalberg. When King Vidor, the film's producer and director, proposed the idea to Thalberg of a major film cast, for the first time, exclusively with African Americans, he told Thalberg directly, "I doubt that it will make a dollar at the box office." Thalberg replied, "Don't worry about that. I've told you that MGM can afford an occasional experiment."
By the early 1930s, a number of stars began failing at the box office, partly due to the Great Depression that was now undermining the economy, along with the public's ability to spend on entertainment. Thalberg began using two stars in a film, rather than one, as had been the tradition at all the studios, such as pairing Greta Garbo with John Gilbert, Clark Gable with Jean Harlow, and William Powell with Myrna Loy. After experimenting with a few such films, including Mata Hari (1931), which were profitable, he decided on a multi-star production of another Broadway play, Grand Hotel (1932). It had five major stars, including Garbo, Joan Crawford, John Barrymore, Lionel Barrymore, and Wallace Beery. "Before Thalberg," writes Vieira, "there was no Grand Hotel in the American consciousness." The film won the Oscar for Best Picture in 1932.
Thalberg went against consensus and took another risk with The Great Ziegfeld (1936), costarring Luise Rainer. Although Louis B. Mayer did not want her in the role, which he felt was too minor for a new star, Thalberg felt that "only she could play the part", wrote biographer Charles Higham. Shortly after shooting began in late 1935, doubts of Rainer's acting ability emerged in the press. However, despite her limited appearances in the film, Rainer "so impressed audiences with one highly emotional scene" that she won the Academy Award for Best Actress.
After her winning role in The Great Ziegfeld, Thalberg wanted her to play a role that was the opposite of her previous character, for The Good Earth (1937). For the part as a Chinese peasant, she was required to act totally subservient to her husband, being perpetually huddled in submission, and barely spoke a word of dialogue during the entire film. Rainer recalls that Mayer did not approve of the film being produced or her part in it: "He was horrified at Irving Thalberg's insistence for me to play O-lan, the poor uncomely little Chinese peasant." However, she again won the Oscar for Best Actress, becoming the first actress to win two consecutive Oscars, a feat not matched until Katharine Hepburn's two Oscar wins thirty years later.
Grooming new stars
Besides bringing a distinctive high quality "look" to MGM films and often recreating well-known stories or plays, Thalberg's actors themselves took on a characteristic quality. Thalberg wanted his female actors to appear "cool, classy and beautiful," notes Flamini. And he strove to make the male actors appear "worldly and in control." In general, Thalberg movies and actors came to be "luxurious," "glossy," and "technically flawless." By doing so, he made stars or boosted the careers of actors such as Lon Chaney, Ramon Novarro, John Gilbert, Greta Garbo, Joan Crawford, Clark Gable, Helen Hayes, Jean Harlow, Marie Dressler, Wallace Beery, John Barrymore, Lionel Barrymore and Luise Rainer.
Greta Garbo
In 1925, a young Greta Garbo, then twenty, and unable to speak any English, was brought over from Sweden at Mayer's request, as he saw how she looked in still photos. A Swedish friend thought he would help her by contacting Thalberg, who then agreed to give her a screen test. According to author Frederick Sands, "the result of the test was electrifying." Thalberg was impressed and began grooming the new starlet the following day: "the studio arranged to fix her teeth, made sure she lost weight, and gave her an English tutor."
Joan Crawford
Joan Crawford's first role was a Thalberg production at MGM and she became one of their leading stars for the next thirty years. Crawford was somewhat jealous of Norma Shearer as she thought she was given the better material by her husband Thalberg out of nepotism. Nevertheless, she felt that his contribution to MGM was vital to the film industry. Not long after his early death, she recalls her concerns: "Thalberg was dead and the concept of the quality 'big' picture pretty much went out the window."
Marie Dressler
Thalberg also realized that old stars few had heard of could be made into new ones. Marie Dressler, a fifty-nine-year-old early vaudeville and movie star, who had played the top-billed lead, above Charles Chaplin and Mabel Normand), in the first feature-length comedy, Tillie's Punctured Romance (1914), was unable to get any roles in films after leaving show business for some years, finally working as a maid. MGM screenwriter Frances Marion suggested to Thalberg that she might fit well in a starring role for a new film, and was surprised that he knew of her prior successes. Thalberg approved of using her without a screen test and offered his rationale:
By 1932, shortly before she died, Dressler was the country's number one box office star.
Wallace Beery
Marie Dressler was paired twice, in Min and Bill (1930) and Tugboat Annie (1933), with Wallace Beery, another major silent star who had been struggling to get work in sound pictures until Thalberg cast him. Beery had enjoyed a hugely successful silent film career dating back to 1913, but had been fired by Paramount shortly after sound pictures appeared. Thalberg cast him in the role of "Machine Gun Butch," which had been meant for recently deceased Lon Chaney, in The Big House (1930), an energetic prison picture that became a huge hit. Beery was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actor for his performance, and his burgeoning career at MGM had transformed him into the studio's highest paid actor within two more years, during which time he won the Oscar for The Champ and had become a phenomenal box office draw as a result of Thalberg's foresight.
Getting audience feedback and reshooting
According to Vieira, MGM had few failures during this period, and numerous blockbusters. Among the reasons was Thalberg's unique system of developing a script during story conferences with writers before filming began, and later giving "sneak previews" followed by audience feedback through written questionnaires. Often, where he felt improvement was needed, he arranged for scenes to be reshot. As Thalberg once stated, "The difference between something good and something superior is often very small."
Bad decisions and missed opportunities
Thalberg felt he had his "finger on the pulse of America. I know what people will do and what they won't do," he said. His judgment was not always accurate, however. Thalberg's bringing Broadway productions to the screen to develop higher picture standards sometimes resulted in "studied" acting or "stagey" sets, notes Flamini. In 1927, after the successful release of the first full-length talking picture, The Jazz Singer (1927), he nevertheless felt that talking pictures were a fad. Thalberg likewise did not think that color would replace black-and-white in movies.
When an assistant protested against a script that envisioned a love scene in Paris with an ocean background, Thalberg refused to make changes, saying "We can't cater to a handful of people who know Paris." A more serious distraction to Thalberg's efforts was his obsession with making his wife Norma Shearer a prominent star, efforts which sometimes led to "overblown and overglamous" productions. Thalberg himself admitted to his obsession years later when he told a fellow producer: "You're behaving like I did with Norma. I knew positively that she could play anything. It's a kind of romantic astigmatism that attacks producers when they fall for an actress."
Important films at MGM
Ben Hur (1925)
One of the first pictures he took charge of, Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ, was inherited and already in production by another studio when MGM was formed. The film was turning into a disastrous expense with cost overruns already in the millions due to its lavish sets and location shooting in Rome. Most studio executives chose to terminate the film to cut their losses. Thalberg, however, felt differently, and thought the film would affect movie audiences, due to its classic literary source, and would highlight MGM as a major new studio.
He, therefore, discarded much of the original footage shot in Italy and recreated the set on MGM's back lots in Culver City, which added more millions to the production, yet gave him more control over production. The new set also included a replica of Circus Maximus for the dramatic chariot race scenes. Flamini notes that Thalberg's "gamble paid off," drawing international attention to MGM, and to Thalberg within the movie industry for his bold action.
Mutiny on the Bounty (1935)
Mutiny on the Bounty was the studio's next most expensive film after Ben Hur, with some now calling it "Thalberg's masterpiece." He initially had difficulty convincing Mayer that he could make the film without making heroes of the mutineers. He achieved that by instead making a hero of the British Royal Navy, whereby the officers and shipmates would from then on display their mutual respect. Thalberg also had to convince Clark Gable to accept the role against his will. He pleaded with Gable, eventually promising him that "If it isn't one of your greatest successes, I'll never ask you again to play a part you don't want." The film's other main stars were Charles Laughton and Franchot Tone. The film was nominated for six Academy Awards, including Best Actor, and winning it for Best Picture. Thalberg accepted the award as producer from Frank Capra.
Thalberg and Mayer partnership
At first, Thalberg and studio chief Louis B. Mayer got along splendidly; however, they had different production philosophies. Thalberg preferred literary works, while Mayer preferred glitzy crowd-pleasing films. A clash was inevitable, and their relationship grew decidedly frosty. When Thalberg fell ill in the final weeks of 1932, Mayer took advantage of the situation and replaced him with David O. Selznick and Walter Wanger. Thalberg's reputation by that time for working long hours was widely known, and rumors about the related strain on his fragile health had become front-page news in entertainment trade publications. The Hollywood Reporter in January 1933 updated its readership about his condition and addressed growing concerns that he might be forced, despite his young age, to quit the business:
Once Thalberg recovered sufficiently from his bout with the "flu" and was able to return to work later in 1933, it was as one of MGM's unit producers, albeit one who had first choice on projects as well as preferential access to all the studio's resources, including over casting its stars. Thalberg's good relationship with Nicholas Schenck, then president of Loew's Incorporated, proved to be an ongoing advantage for him. Loew's was the corporate parent of MGM, so Schenck was the true power and ultimate arbiter at the studio; and he usually supported Thalberg's decisions and continued to do so whenever disagreements about projects or production needs arose. As a result, Thalberg also continued to produce or coproduce some of MGM's most prestigious and critically acclaimed ventures in this period, such as The Barretts of Wimpole Street (1934) starring his wife Norma Shearer, China Seas (1935), A Night at the Opera (1935), San Francisco (1936), and Romeo and Juliet (1936).
Personal life
During his few years with Universal while living in New York, Thalberg had become romantically involved with Carl Laemmle's daughter, Rosabelle. Still in his early twenties and later spending most of his time in Los Angeles, his feelings toward her were no longer as strong. Flamini suspects that this may have affected his position at Universal and partly caused his decision to leave the company. "The Laemmles prayed that Irving would marry Rosabelle", notes Flamini. "They wanted their sons to be educated and their daughters to marry nice Jewish boys."
Less than a year after he and Mayer took charge of the newly created MGM studios, and still only twenty-five years old, Thalberg suffered a serious heart attack due to overwork. Mayer also became aware of Thalberg's congenital heart problems and now worried about the prospect of running MGM without him. Mayer also became concerned that one of his daughters might become romantically involved, and told them so:
Thalberg, aware of Mayer's feelings, made it a point of never giving too much attention to his daughters at social events.
One of Thalberg's traits was his ability to work long hours into the night with little sign of fatigue. According to Vieira, Thalberg believed that as long as his mind was active in his work and he was not bored, he would not feel tired. Thalberg, who often got by with only five hours of sleep, felt that most people could get by with less than they realized. To keep his mental faculties at peak, he would read philosophical books by Bacon, Epictetus, or Kant. "They stimulate me. I'd drop out of sight in no time if I didn't read and keep up with current thought—and the philosophers are brain sharpeners."
During the early 1930s, Thalberg was ambivalent about political events in Europe. While he feared Nazism and the rise of Hitler, he also feared Communism. At the time, notes Vieira, "given a choice between communism and fascism, many Americans—including Thalberg—would prefer the latter." Thalberg stated his opinion:
When others suggested that many Jews could die in Germany as a result of Nazi anti-Semitism, he replied that in his opinion "Hitler and Hitlerism will pass." On one occasion, Catholic Prince Löwenstein of Germany, who himself had almost been captured before fleeing Germany, told him: "Mr. Thalberg, your own people are being systematically hunted down and rooted out of Germany." Thalberg suggested that world Jewry should nevertheless not interfere, that the Jewish race would survive Hitler. Within a few years, American film distribution was "choked off" in Germany. Led by Warner Brothers, all American studios eventually closed their German offices.
Thalberg began dating actress Norma Shearer a few years after he joined MGM. Following her conversion to Judaism, they married on Thursday, September 29, 1927, in a private ceremony in the garden of his rented house in Beverly Hills. Rabbi Edgar F. Magnin officiated at the event, with Shearer's brother Douglas Shearer giving the bride away, and Louis B. Mayer serving as best man. The couple drove to Monterey for their honeymoon and then moved into their newly constructed home in Beverly Hills.
After their second child was born, Shearer considered retiring from films, but Thalberg convinced her to continue acting, saying he could find her good roles. She went on to be one of MGM's biggest stars of the 1930s. Their two children were Irving Jr. (1930–1987) and Katharine (1935–2006).
Death
Thalberg and Shearer took a much-needed Labor Day weekend vacation in Monterey, California, in 1936, staying at the same beachfront hotel where they spent their honeymoon. A few weeks earlier, Thalberg's leading screenwriter, Al Lewin, had proposed doing a film based on a soon-to-be published book, Gone with the Wind. Although Thalberg said it would be a "sensational" role for Gable, and a "terrific picture," he decided not to do it:
Besides, Thalberg told Mayer, "[n]o Civil War picture ever made a nickel". Shortly after returning from Monterey, Thalberg was diagnosed with pneumonia. His condition worsened steadily and he eventually required an oxygen tent at home. He died on September 14, at the age of 37.
Sam Wood, while directing A Day at the Races, was given the news by phone. He returned to the set with tears in his eyes and told the others. As the news spread "the studio was paralyzed with shock", notes Thomas. "Work stopped and hundreds of people wept", with stars, writers, directors, and studio employees "all sharing a sense of loss at the death of a man who had been a part of their working lives", states Flamini.
His funeral took place two days later, and when the services began the other studios throughout Hollywood observed five minutes of silence. Producer Sam Goldwyn "wept uncontrollably for two days" and was unable to regain his composure enough to attend. The MGM studio closed for that day.
Services were held at the Wilshire Boulevard Temple that Thalberg had occasionally attended. The funeral attracted thousands of spectators who came to view the arrival of countless stars from MGM and other studios, including Greta Garbo, Jean Harlow, the Marx Brothers, Charlie Chaplin, Walt Disney, Howard Hughes, Al Jolson, Gary Cooper, Carole Lombard, Mary Pickford, and Douglas Fairbanks, among the screen luminaries. The ushers who led them to their seats included Clark Gable, Fredric March, and playwright Moss Hart. Erich von Stroheim, who had been fired by Thalberg, came to pay his respects. Producers Louis B. Mayer, the Warner brothers, Adolph Zukor, and Nicholas Schenck sat together solemnly as Rabbi Magnin gave the eulogy.
Thalberg is buried in a private marble tomb in the Great Mausoleum at Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Glendale, California, lying at rest beside his wife Norma Shearer Arrouge (Thalberg's crypt was engraved "My Sweetheart Forever" by Shearer).
Over the following days, tributes were published by the national press. Louis B. Mayer, his co-founding partner at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, said he had lost "the finest friend a man could ever have", while MGM president Nicholas Schenck stated that "Thalberg was the most important man in the production end of the motion-picture industry. Leading producers from the other studios also expressed their feelings in published tributes to Thalberg:
David O. Selznick described him as "beyond any question the greatest individual force for fine pictures." Samuel Goldwyn called him "the foremost figure in the motion-picture industry ... and an inspiration." M. H. Aylesworth, Chairman of RKO, wrote that "his integrity, vision and ability made him the spearhead of all motion-picture production throughout the world." Harry Warner, president of Warner Bros., described him as "gifted with one of the finest minds ever placed at the service of motion-picture production." Sidney R. Kent, president of Twentieth Century Fox, said that "he made the whole world richer by giving it the highest type of entertainment. He was a true genius." Columbia president Harry Cohn said the "motion picture industry has suffered a loss from which it will not soon recover...". Darryl F. Zanuck noted, "More than any other man he raised the industry to its present world prestige." Adolph Zukor, chairman of Paramount, stated, "Irving Thalberg was the most brilliant young man in the motion picture business." Jesse Lasky said, "It will be utterly impossible to replace him."
Among the condolences that came from world political leaders, President Franklin D. Roosevelt wrote, "The world of art is poorer with the passing of Irving Thalberg. His high ideals, insight and imagination went into the production of his masterpieces."
Among the pictures that were unfinished or not yet released at the time of his death were A Day at the Races, The Good Earth, Camille, Maytime, and Romeo and Juliet. Groucho Marx, star of A Day at the Races, wrote, "After Thalberg's death, my interest in the movies waned. I continued to appear in them, but ... The fun had gone out of picture making." Thalberg's widow, Norma Shearer, recalled, "Grief does very strange things to you. I didn't seem to feel the shock for two weeks afterwards. ... then, at the end of those two weeks, I collapsed."
Legacy in the movie industry
Thalberg's legacy to the movie industry is "incalculable", states biographer Bob Thomas. He notes that with his numerous production innovations and grand stories, often turning classic literature and Broadway stage productions into big-screen pictures, he managed to keep "American movies supreme throughout the world for a generation". Darryl F. Zanuck, founder of 20th Century-Fox said that during Thalberg's brief career, he had become the "most creative producer in the history of films". Thomas describes some of his contributions:
Most of MGM's major films in the 1930s were, according to Flamini, "in a very real sense", made by Thalberg. He closely supervised the making of "more pictures than any other producer in Hollywood's history", and was considered the "archetype of the creative producer", adds Flamini. Upon his early death, aged 37, an editorial in The New York Times called him "the most important force" in the motion picture industry. The paper added that for the film industry, he "set the pace and others followed ... because his way combined style, glamour, and profit." He is described by Flamini as having been "a revolutionary in a gray flannel suit".
Thalberg refused to take credit as producer, and as a result, his name never appeared on the screen while he was alive. Thalberg claimed that "credit you give yourself is not worth having". He also said "If a picture is good, they'll know who produced it. If it's bad, nobody cares." His final film, released after he died, was The Good Earth (1937), which won numerous Academy Awards. Its opening screen credit was dedicated to Thalberg:
In 1938, the new multimillion-dollar MGM administration building in Culver City was named for Thalberg. The Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award, presented by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, also named for him, awards producers for consistently high production achievements.
Cultural legacy
The Last Tycoon
In October 1939, American novelist F. Scott Fitzgerald began writing The Last Tycoon, a fictionalized biography of Thalberg, naming the protagonist Monroe Stahr to represent Thalberg. "Thalberg has always fascinated me", he wrote to an editor. "His peculiar charm, his extraordinary good looks, his bountiful success, the tragic end of his great adventure. The events I have built around him are fiction, but all of them are things which might very well have happened. ... I've long chosen him for a hero (this has been in my mind for three years) because he is one of the half-dozen men I have known who were built on a grand scale."
Thomas notes that among the reasons Fitzgerald chose to write a book about a Thalberg-like character, was that "throughout his literary career, Fitzgerald borrowed his heroes from friends he admired, and inevitably a bit of Fitzgerald entered the characterizations." Fitzgerald himself writes that "When I like men, I want to be like them ..." Fitzgerald and Thalberg had real-life similarities: both were prodigies, both had heart ailments, and they both died at early ages.
According to biographer Matthew J. Bruccoli, Fitzgerald believed that Thalberg, with his "taste and courage, represented the best of Hollywood. ... [and] saw Thalberg as a model for what could be done in the movies." Fitzgerald died before the novel was completed, however. Bruccoli writes of Fitzgerald's book:
Although parallels between Monroe Stahr in the novel and Thalberg were evident, many who knew Thalberg intimately stated that they did not see similarities in their personalities. Norma Shearer said that the Stahr character was not at all like her former husband.
In the 1976 film version, directed by Elia Kazan, Monroe Stahr was played by Robert De Niro. Kazan, in his pre-production notes, described the Stahr character as he saw him:
In the 2016 television series based on the novel, Monroe Stahr is played by Matt Bomer.
Others
Fitzgerald also based his short story "Crazy Sunday", originally published in the October 1932 issue of American Mercury, on an incident at a party thrown by Thalberg and Shearer. The story is included in Fitzgerald's collection Taps at Reveille (1935).
Thalberg was portrayed in the movie Man of a Thousand Faces (1957) by Robert Evans, who went on to become a studio head himself.
Thalberg was portrayed by Bill Cusack in Young Indiana Jones and the Hollywood Follies (1994), a TV film based on The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles, in which Indiana Jones is depicted as taking part in Thalberg's conflict with Erich von Stroheim over Foolish Wives.
In 2020, Thalberg was played by Ferdinand Kingsley in the David Fincher film Mank
Thalberg, played by Tobey Maguire, is rumored to appear in the upcoming movie Babylon.
Filmography
Producer
Reputation (1921)
The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1923)
Merry-Go-Round (1923)
His Hour (1924)
He Who Gets Slapped (1924)
The Unholy Three (1925)
The Merry Widow (1925)
The Tower of Lies (1925)
The Big Parade (1925)
Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ (1925)
Torrent (1926)
La Bohème (1926)
Brown of Harvard (1926)
The Road to Mandalay (1926)
The Temptress (1926)
Valencia (1926)
Flesh and the Devil (1926)
Twelve Miles Out (1927)
The Student Prince in Old Heidelberg (1927)
London After Midnight (1927)
The Crowd (1928)
Laugh, Clown, Laugh (1928)
White Shadows in the South Seas (1928)
Show People (1928)
West of Zanzibar (1928)
The Broadway Melody (1929)
The Trial of Mary Dugan (1929)
Voice of the City (1929)
Where East Is East (1929)
The Last of Mrs. Cheyney (1929)
The Hollywood Revue of 1929 (1929)
Hallelujah (1929)
His Glorious Night (1929)
The Kiss (1929)
Anna Christie (1930)
Redemption (1930)
The Divorcee (1930)
The Rogue Song (1930)
The Big House (1930)
The Unholy Three (1930)
Let Us Be Gay (1930)
Billy the Kid (1930)
Way for a Sailor (1930)
A Lady's Morals (1930)
Inspiration (1931)
Trader Horn (1931)
The Secret Six (1931)
A Free Soul (1931)
Just a Gigolo (1931)
Menschen hinter Gittern (1931), German-language version of The Big House (1930)
The Sin of Madelon Claudet (1931)
The Guardsman (1931)
The Champ (1931)
Possessed (1931)
Private Lives (1931)
Mata Hari (1931)
Freaks (1932)
Tarzan the Ape Man (1932)
Grand Hotel (1932)
Letty Lynton (1932)
As You Desire Me (1932)
Red-Headed Woman (1932)
Smilin' Through (1932)
Red Dust (1932)
Rasputin and the Empress (1932)
Strange Interlude (1932)
Tugboat Annie (1933)
Bombshell (1933)
Eskimo (1933)
La Veuve Joyeuse (1934) French-language version of The Merry Widow
Riptide (1934)
The Barretts of Wimpole Street (1934)
The Merry Widow (1934)
What Every Woman Knows (1934)
Biography of a Bachelor Girl (1935)
No More Ladies (1935)
China Seas (1935)
Mutiny on the Bounty (1935)
A Night at the Opera (1935)
Riffraff (1936)
Romeo and Juliet (1936)
Camille (1936)
Maytime (1937)
A Day at the Races (1937)
Broadway Melody of 1938 (1937)
The Good Earth (1937)
Marie Antoinette (1938)
Writer
The Trap (1922)
The Dangerous Little Demon (1922)
Awards
Academy Awards
Notes
Further reading
Books
Flamini, Roland. Thalberg: The Last Tycoon and the World of M-G-M (1994)
Marx, Samuel. Mayer and Thalberg: The Make-believe Saints (1975)
Thomas, Bob. Thalberg: Life and Legend (1969)
Vieira, Mark A. Irving Thalberg's M-G-M. New York: Harry N. Abrams, 2008.
Vieira, Mark A. Irving Thalberg: Boy Wonder to Producer Prince. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2009.
Articles
Starman, Ray. "Irving Thalberg", Films In Review, June/July 1987, p. 347–353
External links
Irving Thalberg at TCM
Cinemagraphe Review of the Roland Flamini biography of Thalberg: The Last Tycoon and the World of MGM
Irving Thalberg at Virtual History
Irving Thalberg profiled in Collier's Magazine (1924)
Videos
1899 births
1936 deaths
American film producers
Film producers from California
Producers who won the Best Picture Academy Award
American film studio executives
American male screenwriters
Cinema pioneers
Silent film directors
Silent film producers
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer executives
Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences founders
Businesspeople from Los Angeles
Hollywood history and culture
California Republicans
New York (state) Republicans
USC School of Cinematic Arts faculty
20th-century American businesspeople
Screenwriters from California
Screenwriters from New York (state)
People from Brooklyn
American anti-communists
American people of German-Jewish descent
Deaths from pneumonia in California
Burials at Forest Lawn Memorial Park (Glendale)
20th-century American male writers
20th-century American writers
Jewish American writers
20th-century American screenwriters | true | [
"Chrisann Brennan (born September 29, 1954) is an American painter and memoirist. She is the author of The Bite in the Apple, an autobiography about her relationship with Apple co-founder Steve Jobs. They had one child, Lisa Brennan-Jobs.\n\nEarly life\nBrennan was born in Dayton, Ohio, in 1954, one of four daughters of James Richard Brennan and Virginia Lavern Rickey. Chrisann was named after the flower chrysanthemum. Brennan notes in her memoir that she is \"dyslexic, which has had the effect of making me differently wired, creative, and a voracious problem solver— bright, but more than slightly clueless to convention.\"\n\nHer father worked for Sylvania and the family lived in a number of places including Colorado Springs and Nebraska. They eventually settled in Sunnyvale, California. Her parents divorced after their move to Buffalo, New York. Brennan attended Homestead High School in Cupertino, California, where she met Steve Jobs during the early months of 1972.\n\nRelationship with Steve Jobs\nBrennan and Jobs's relationship began in 1972 while they were students in high school together. Brennan remained involved with Jobs while he was at Reed College. Brennan (who was now a senior at Homestead High School) did not have plans to attend college, and was supportive of Jobs when he told her he planned to drop out of Reed. He continued to attend by auditing classes, but Brennan stopped visiting him. Jobs later asked her to come and live with him in a house he rented near the Reed campus, but she refused. He had started seeing other women, and she was interested in someone she met in her art class. Brennan speculates that the house was Jobs' attempt to make their relationship monogamous again.\n\nIn mid-1973, Jobs moved back to the San Francisco Bay Area. Brennan states by this point that their \"relationship was complicated. I couldn't break the connection and I couldn't commit. Steve couldn't either.\" Jobs hitchhiked and worked around the West Coast and Brennan would occasionally join him. At the same time, Brennan notes, \"little by little, Steve and I separated. But we were never able to fully let go. We never talked about breaking up or going our separate ways and we didn't have that conversation where one person says it's over.\" They continued to grow apart, but Jobs would still seek her out and visit her. They remained involved with each other while continuing to see other people.\n\nBy early 1974, Jobs was living what Brennan describes as a \"simple life\" in a Los Gatos cabin, working at Atari, and saving money for his impending trip to India. Brennan visited him twice at the cabin. Brennan's memories of this cabin consist of Jobs reading Be Here Now (and giving her a copy), listening to South Indian music, and using a Japanese meditation pillow. Brennan felt that he was more distant and negative towards her. Brennan states in her memoir that she met with Jobs right before he left for India and that he tried to give her $100 that he had earned at Atari. She initially refused to accept it but eventually accepted the money.\n\nAfter Brennan graduated from high school Jobs invited her to come and see him at the All One Farm, a commune in Oregon. While she did not spend much time with Jobs (who was recovering from an illness), Brennan was deeply influenced by the experience of meeting and working with the people that she met there.\n\nIn early 1975, Brennan became involved with a Zen Buddhist community in Los Altos, where she accidentally bumped into Jobs (whom she had not seen since the All One Farm). It was through this community that they would both meet and work with the Zen master Kobun. Jobs and Brennan began to spend more time together, although she noted that his behavior with her was more aloof than in the past. Brennan notes their lives were on different paths as she was deeply involved in her art program at Foothill College where she studied under Gordon Holler while Jobs was working with \"Kobun and Woz.\" She also fell in love with Greg Calhoun (Jobs' former Reed classmate) who had come to visit from the All One Farm. Brennan moved to the All One Farm and lived for a while with Calhoun in a renovated chicken coop. They eventually moved back to the Bay Area to earn money for a trek to India. Jobs helped them find a home to rent, though he was opposed to their traveling together to India. After Brennan and Calhoun had earned enough money to go, Jobs drove them to the airport and gave them advice about how to survive in India. Brennan traveled for a year through India with Calhoun, though their relationship ended by the time she returned to the United States.\n\nApple (1977)\nAfter her return from India, Brennan visited Jobs, whom she now considered just a friend, at his parents' home, where he was still living. It was during this period that Jobs and Brennan fell in love again, as Brennan noted changes in him that she attributes to Kōbun Chino Otogawa, whom she was also still following. It was also at this time that Jobs displayed a prototype Apple computer for Brennan and his parents in their living room. Brennan notes a shift in this time period, where the two main influences on Jobs were Apple and Kobun. By the early 1977, she and Jobs would spend time together at her home at Duveneck Ranch in Los Altos, which served as a hostel and environmental education center. Brennan also worked there as a teacher for inner city children who came to learn about the farm.\n\nAs Jobs and Apple became more successful, his relationship with Brennan grew more complex. In 1977 Brennan, Daniel Kottke, and Jobs moved into a house near the Apple office in Cupertino. Brennan notes that Jobs wanted the three of them to live together because, \"Steve told me that he didn't want to get a house with just the two of us because it felt insufficient to him. Steve wanted his buddy Daniel to live with him because he believed it would break up the intensity of what wasn't working between us. Our relationship was running hot and cold. We were completely crazy about each other and utterly bored in turns. I had suggested to Steve that we separate, but he told me that he just couldn't bring himself to say good-bye.\" In addition, Jobs initially suggested that all three of them each have separate rooms. They were still involved with each other, but even then Brennan states that in her memory of the time, \"I recalled how awful he was becoming and how I was starting to flounder.\" When she moved into the house, she had initially planned to commit to becoming an artist. However, she also needed to find work and eventually took a position at Apple in the Shipping Department (where she was part of a team that tested, assembled, and shipped Apple IIs with Mark Johnson and Bob Martinengo whom she enjoyed working with). She also took art classes at nearby De Anza College.\n\nBrennan's relationship with Jobs was deteriorating as his position with Apple grew and she began to consider ending the relationship. In October 1977, Brennan was approached by Apple employee #5, Rod Holt, who asked her to take \"a paid apprenticeship designing blueprints for the Apples.\" Both Holt and Jobs felt that it would be a good position for her, given her artistic abilities. Brennan's decision, however, was overshadowed by the fact that she realized she was pregnant and that Jobs was the father. It took her a few days to tell Jobs, whose face, according to Brennan \"turned ugly\" at the news. According to Brennan, at the beginning of her third trimester, Jobs said to her: \"I never wanted to ask that you get an abortion. I just didn't want to do that.\" He also refused to discuss the pregnancy with her. Brennan, herself, felt confused about what to do. She was estranged from her mother and afraid to discuss the matter with her father. She also did not feel comfortable with the idea of having an abortion. She chose instead to discuss the matter with Kobun, who encouraged her to have and keep the baby as he would lend his support. Meanwhile, Holt was waiting for her decision on the internship. Brennan states that Jobs continued to encourage her to take the internship, stating that she could \"be pregnant and work at Apple, you can take the job. I don't get what the problem is.\" Brennan however notes that she \"felt so ashamed: the thought of my growing belly in the professional environment at Apple, with the child being his, while he was unpredictable, in turn being punishing and sentimentally ridiculous. I could not have endured it.\" Brennan thus turned down the internship and decided to leave Apple. She states that Jobs told her \"If you give up this baby for adoption, you will be sorry\" and \"I am never going to help you.\"\n\nLisa Brennan-Jobs\nNow alone, Brennan was on welfare and cleaning houses to earn money. She would sometimes ask Jobs for money but he always refused. Brennan hid her pregnancy for as long as she could, living in a variety of homes, and continuing her work with Zen meditation. At the same time, according to Brennan, Jobs \"started to seed people with the notion that I slept around and he was infertile, which meant that this could not be his child.\" A few weeks before she was due, Brennan was invited to have her baby at the All One Farm in Oregon and Brennan accepted the offer.\n\nAt the age of 23, Brennan gave birth to her daughter, Lisa Brennan, on May 17, 1978. Jobs did not attend the birth. He eventually visited after he was contacted by Robert Friedland, their mutual friend and owner of the All One Farm. While distant, Jobs worked with Brennan on a name for the baby. She suggested the name \"Lisa\" and says that Jobs was very attached to the name \"Lisa\" while he \"was also publicly denying paternity.\" She would discover later that Jobs was preparing to unveil a new kind of computer that he wanted to give a female name. She states that she never gave him permission to use the baby's name for a computer and he hid the plans from her. Jobs also worked with his team to come up with the phrase, \"Local Integrated System Architecture\" as an alternative explanation for the Apple Lisa (decades later, however, Jobs admitted to his biographer Walter Isaacson that \"obviously, it was named for my daughter\").\n\nBrennan explored adoption both before and after Lisa's birth but ultimately decided to become a single parent. Once, while staying with friends in the Bay Area, Jobs stopped by to see her. Brennan states that they went for a walk when Jobs said to her, \"I am really sorry. I'll be back, this thing with Apple will be over when I'm about thirty. I am really, really sorry.\" Around the same time, she met with Kobun who distanced himself from her and did not fulfill his promise to help her once the baby was born.\n\nBrennan would come under intense criticism from Jobs, who claimed that \"she doesn't want money, she just wants me.\" According to Brennan, Apple's Mike Scott wanted Jobs to give her money, while other Apple executives \"advised him to ignore me or fight if I tried to go after a paternity settlement.\" Brennan also notes that later, after Jobs was forced out of Apple, \"he apologized many times over for this behavior. He said that he never took responsibility when he should have and that he was sorry.\" By this time, Jobs had developed a strong relationship with Lisa, who wanted her name changed and Jobs agreed. So he had her name on her birth certificate changed from Lisa Brennan to Lisa Brennan-Jobs.\n\nWhen Lisa was a baby and Jobs continued to deny paternity, a DNA paternity test was given that established him as Lisa's father. He was required to give Brennan $385 a month and return the money she had received from welfare. Jobs gave her $500 a month at the time when Apple went public, and Jobs became a millionaire. Brennan worked as a waitress in Palo Alto. Later, Brennan agreed to give an interview with Michael Moritz for Time magazine. It would be for its 1982 Person of the Year special (released on January 3, 1983). She decided to be honest about her relationship with Jobs. The Time magazine issue had a lifelong impact on Brennan. Rather than give Jobs the \"Person of the Year\" award, Time offered the award of \"Machine of the Year: The Computer Moves In\". In the issue, Jobs questioned the reliability of the paternity test (which stated that the \"probability of paternity for Jobs, Steven ... is 94.1%\"). Jobs responded by arguing that \"28% of the male population of the United States could be the father.\" Time also noted that \"the baby girl and the machine on which Apple has placed so much hope for the future share the same name: Lisa.\" After this issue, Brennan \"didn't pay much attention to Steve's career again.\"\n\nOver the years, however, Brennan and Jobs developed a working relationship to co-parent Lisa, particularly after he was forced out of Apple. Brennan credits the change in him to the influence of his newly found biological sister, Mona Simpson, who worked to repair the relationship between Lisa and Jobs.\n\nAccording to Fortune, Brennan wrote a letter to Jobs in 2005, and another in 2009, in which she said she would abandon writing her memoirs if Jobs would supply her with financial compensation of US$28 million for the suffering she went through as a single mother.\n\nPainter\nDuring the late 1980s, Brennan decided to finish her formal education and began to study at the California College of Arts and Crafts (where she was able to transfer her units from Foothill College). She asked Jobs to pay her tuition. He agreed to this request and according to Brennan was quite happy to do so, as part of his developing relationship with Lisa. In 1989, she transferred to the San Francisco Art Institute.\n\nBrennan has lived in Monterey, California, while working as a professional painter. She describes her art as \"light encoded paintings\" and works mostly on commission for either private or corporate parties. She has also created murals for the Ronald McDonald House, Los Angeles County Hospital, Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, and Packard Children's Hospital. Brennan stated that painting is \"a language for me. Letters are form, and paintings are documents for information. When I mix those two, I'm happy. It gets me out of the normal way, which is what I want to do.\"\n\nWorks\n Brennan, Chrisann. The Bite in the Apple. New York: St. Martin's Press, 2013.\n The Brennan piece is a sidebar (Scroll down the page) of the main article: \"The Steve Jobs Nobody Knew\"\n\nPortrayals\nBrennan was portrayed by Gema Zamprogna in Pirates of Silicon Valley, by Ahna O'Reilly in Jobs and by Katherine Waterston in Steve Jobs.\n\nReferences\n\n1954 births\n20th-century American women artists\n21st-century American women artists\nAmerican essayists\nAmerican women essayists\nAmerican women painters\nAmerican Zen Buddhists\nApple Inc. employees\nArtists from the San Francisco Bay Area\nCalifornia College of the Arts alumni\nCulture of the Pacific Northwest\nDyslexic writers\nFamily of Steve Jobs\nFoothill College alumni\nLiving people\nPeople from Sunnyvale, California\nSan Francisco Art Institute alumni",
"Steve Jobs is the authorized self-titled biography of American business magnate and Apple co-founder Steve Jobs. The book was written at the request of Jobs by Walter Isaacson, a former executive at CNN and TIME who has written best-selling biographies of Benjamin Franklin and Albert Einstein.\n\nBased on more than forty interviews with Jobs conducted over two years—in addition to interviews with more than one hundred family members, friends, adversaries, competitors, and colleagues—Isaacson was given \"unprecedented\" access to Jobs's life. Jobs is said to have encouraged the people interviewed to speak honestly. Although Jobs cooperated with the book, he asked for no control over its content other than the book's cover, and waived the right to read it before it was published.\nDescribing his writing, Issacson commented that he had striven to take a balanced view of his subject that did not sugarcoat Jobs's flaws.\n\nThe book was released on October 24, 2011, by Simon & Schuster in the United States, 19 days after Jobs's death.\n\nA film adaptation written by Aaron Sorkin and directed by Danny Boyle, with Michael Fassbender starring in the title role, was released on October 9, 2015.\n\nAppearance\n\nFront cover\nThe front cover uses a photo of Steve Jobs commissioned by Fortune magazine in 2006 for a portfolio of powerful people. The photograph was taken by Albert Watson.\n\nWhen the photograph was taken, he said he insisted on having a three-hour period to set up his equipment, adding that he wanted to make \"[every shoot] as greased lightning fast as possible for the [subject].\" When Jobs arrived he didn't immediately look at Watson, but instead at the equipment, focusing on Watson's 4×5 camera before saying, \"wow, you're shooting film.\"\n\nJobs gave Watson an hour—longer than he had given most photographers for a portrait session. Watson reportedly instructed Jobs to make \"95 percent, almost 100 percent of eye contact with the camera,\" and to \"think about the next project you have on the table,\" in addition to thinking about instances when people have challenged him.\n\nThe title font is Helvetica.\n\nBack cover\nThe back cover uses another photographic portrait of Jobs taken in his living room in Woodside, California in February 1984 by Norman Seeff. In a Behind the Cover article published by TIME magazine, Seeff recalls him and Jobs \"just sitting\" on his living room floor, talking about \"creativity and everyday stuff,\" when Jobs left the room and returned with a Macintosh 128K (the original Macintosh computer). Jobs \"[plopped] down\" in the lotus position holding the computer in his lap when Seeff took the photograph.\n\nTitle\nThe book's working title, iSteve: The Book of Jobs, was chosen by publisher Simon & Schuster's publicity department. Although author Walter Isaacson was \"never quite sure about it\", his wife and daughter reportedly were. However, they thought it was \"too cutesy\" and as a result Isaacson persuaded the publisher to change the title to something \"simpler and more elegant.\"\n\nThe title Steve Jobs was allegedly chosen to reflect Jobs's \"minimalist\" style and to emphasize the biography's authenticity, further differentiating it from unauthorized publications, such as iCon Steve Jobs: The Greatest Second Act in the History of Business by Jeffrey Young.\n\nChapters\nMany of the chapters within the book have sub-headings, which are matched in various audiobook versions resulting in listings showing 150+ chapters when there are only 42 chapters. The audiobook contains a mistake on one chapter title, listing Chapter 41 as \"Round Three, A Never-ending Struggle\" instead of \"Round Three, Twilight Struggle\" as published.\n\nReception\nJanet Maslin's review of the book for The New York Times mixed mild criticisms with praise. Maslin wrote that Isaacson's biography presented \"an encyclopedic survey of all that Mr. Jobs accomplished, replete with the passion and excitement that it deserves.\"\n\nA number of Steve Jobs's family and close colleagues expressed disapproval, including Laurene Powell Jobs, Tim Cook and Jony Ive. Cook remarked that the biography did Jobs “a tremendous disservice\", and that \"it didn’t capture the person. The person I read about there is somebody I would never have wanted to work with over all this time.” Ive said of the book that “my contempt couldn’t be lower.”\n\nCommercially, the biography was a notable success, selling more than three million copies in the United States alone by 2015.\n\nFilm adaptation\n\nSteve Jobs is a drama film based on the life of Apple co-founder Steve Jobs, starring Michael Fassbender in the title role. The film is directed by Danny Boyle, produced by Scott Rudin, and written by Aaron Sorkin (with a screenplay adapted both from Isaacson's Steve Jobs as well as from interviews conducted by Sorkin).\n\nOther media\nExtracts from the biography have been the feature of various magazines, in addition to interviews with the author, Walter Isaacson.\n\nTo memorialize Jobs's life after his death on October 5, 2011, TIME published a commemorative issue on October 8, 2011. The issue's cover featured a portrait of Jobs, taken by Norman Seeff, in which he is sitting in the lotus position holding the original Macintosh computer. The portrait was published in Rolling Stone in January 1984 and is featured on the back cover of Steve Jobs. The issue marked the eighth time Jobs has been featured on the cover of Time.\nThe issue included a photographic essay by Diana Walker, a retrospective on Apple by Harry McCracken and Lev Grossman, and a six-page essay by Walter Isaacson. Isaacson's essay served as a preview of Steve Jobs and described Jobs pitching the book to him.\n\nBloomberg Businessweek also released a commemorative issue of its magazine remembering the life of Jobs. The cover of the magazine features Apple-like simplicity, with a black-and-white, up-close photo of Jobs and his years of birth and death. In tribute to Jobs's minimalist style, the issue was published without advertisements. It featured extensive essays by Steve Jurvetson, John Sculley, Sean Wisely, William Gibson, and Walter Isaacson. Similarly to Time's commemorative issue, Isaacson's essay served as a preview of Steve Jobs.\n\nFortune featured an exclusive extract of the biography on October 24, 2011, focusing on the \"friend-enemy\" relationship Jobs had with Bill Gates.\n\nAwards and honors\nEven after a late release that year, the book became Amazon's #1 seller for 2011.\n\n 2012 Financial Times and Goldman Sachs Business Book of the Year Award, shortlist\n 2011 The New York Times bestseller\n 2011 Christian Science Monitor Best Book, nonfiction\n 2011 Time Magazine's Best Books of the Year\n\nSee also\n\n2011 in literature\nApple Inc. development history\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\nPresentation by Isaacson on Steve Jobs, December 13, 2011, C-SPAN\nPresentation by Isaacson on Steve Jobs, September 22, 2012, C-SPAN\n\n2011 non-fiction books\nAmerican history books\nBooks about Steve Jobs\nBiographies adapted into films\nEnglish-language books\nSimon & Schuster books\nAmerican biographies"
]
|
[
"Irving Thalberg",
"Universal Studios",
"Did he work for universal?",
"He found work as an office secretary at Universal Pictures' New York office,",
"Did he have other jobs with universal?",
"later became personal secretary to the studio's founder and president, Carl Laemmle."
]
| C_7b8dcb999ce54951992e991787a236a9_0 | What did he do at universal? | 3 | What did Irving Thalberg do at universal? | Irving Thalberg | He found work as an office secretary at Universal Pictures' New York office, and later became personal secretary to the studio's founder and president, Carl Laemmle. Among Thalberg's duties were transcribing and editing notes that Laemmle had written during screenings of his films. He earned $25 weekly, becoming adept at making insightful observations, which impressed Laemmle. Laemmle took Thalberg to see his Los Angeles production facility, where he spent a month watching how movie production worked. Before returning to New York, Laemmle told Thalberg to remain and "keep an eye on things for me." Two months later, Laemmle returned to California, partly to see how well Thalberg was able to handle the responsibilities he was given. Thalberg gave him suggestions, which impressed Laemmle by his ability to understand and explain problems. Thalberg suggested, "The first thing you should do is establish a new job of studio manager and give him the responsibility of watching day-to-day operations." Laemmle immediately agreed, "All right. You're it." In shock, Thalberg replied, "I'm what?" Laemmle told him to take charge of the Los Angeles studio, which he did in early 1919. At age 20, Thalberg became responsible for immediately overseeing the nine ongoing film productions and nearly thirty scenarios then under development. In describing the rationale for this early appointment as studio manager, film historian David Thomson writes that his new job "owed nothing to nepotism, private wealth, or experience in the film industry." He reasons that despite "Thalberg's youth, modest education, and frail appearance . . . it is clear that he had the charm, insight, and ability, or the appearance of it, to captivate the film world." Thalberg was one among the majority of Hollywood film industry workers who migrated from the East Coast, primarily from New York. Some film actors, such as Conrad Nagel, did not like the 5-day train trip or the sudden warmth of the California climate. Neither did Marion Davies, who was not used to such "big wide spaces." Samuel Marx, a close friend of Thalberg's from New York, recalled how easily Thalberg adapted to Southern California, often standing outside his doorway during moments of contemplation to enjoy the scenery. "We were all young," said comedian Buster Keaton. "The air in California was like wine. Our business was also young--and growing like nothing ever seen before." CANNOTANSWER | Thalberg's duties were transcribing and editing notes that Laemmle had written during screenings of his films. | Irving Grant Thalberg (May 30, 1899 – September 14, 1936) was an American film producer during the early years of motion pictures. He was called "The Boy Wonder" for his youth and ability to select scripts, choose actors, gather production staff, and make profitable films, including Grand Hotel, China Seas, A Night at the Opera, Mutiny on the Bounty, Camille and The Good Earth. His films carved out an international market, "projecting a seductive image of American life brimming with vitality and rooted in democracy and personal freedom", states biographer Roland Flamini.
He was born in Brooklyn, New York, and as a child was afflicted with a congenital heart disease that doctors said would kill him before he reached the age of thirty. After graduating from high school he worked as a store clerk during the day and to gain some job skills took a night class in typing. He then found work as a secretary with Universal Studios' New York office, and was later made studio manager for their Los Angeles facility. There, he oversaw production of a hundred films during his three years with the company. Among the films he produced was The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1923).
In Los Angeles, he partnered with Louis B. Mayer's new studio and, after it merged with two other studios, helped create Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM). He was made head of production of MGM in 1925, at the age of twenty-six, helping MGM become the most successful studio in Hollywood. During his twelve years with MGM, until his premature death at the age of 37, he produced four hundred films, most of which bore his imprint and innovations, including story conferences with writers, sneak previews to gain early feedback, and extensive re-shooting of scenes to improve the film. In addition, he introduced horror films to audiences and coauthored the "Production Code", guidelines for morality followed by all studios. During the 1920s and 1930s, he synthesized and merged the world of stage drama and literary classics with Hollywood films.
Thalberg created numerous new stars and groomed their screen images. Among them were Lon Chaney, Ramon Novarro, Greta Garbo, John Gilbert, Lionel Barrymore, Joan Crawford, Clark Gable, Jean Harlow, Wallace Beery, Spencer Tracy, Luise Rainer, and Norma Shearer, who became his wife. He had the ability to combine quality with commercial success, and was credited with bringing his artistic aspirations in line with the demands of audiences. After his death, Hollywood's producers said he had been the world's "foremost figure in motion-picture history". President Franklin D. Roosevelt wrote, "The world of art is poorer with the passing of Irving Thalberg. His high ideals, insight and imagination went into the production of his masterpieces." The Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award, given out periodically by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences since 1937, has been awarded to producers whose body of work reflected consistently high quality films.
Early years
Thalberg was born in Brooklyn, to German Jewish immigrant parents, William and Henrietta (Haymann). Shortly after birth, he was diagnosed with "blue baby syndrome", caused by a congenital disease that limited the oxygen supply to his heart. The prognosis from the family's doctor and specialists was that he might live to the age of twenty, or at most, to thirty.
During his high school years in Brooklyn, he began having attacks of chest pains, dizziness and fatigue. This affected his ability to study, though until that time he was a good student. When he was 17 he contracted rheumatic fever, and was confined to bed for a year. His mother, in order to prevent him falling too far behind other students, brought him homework from school, books, and tutors to teach him at home. She also hoped that the schoolwork and reading would distract him from the "tantalizing sounds" of children playing outside his window.
With little to entertain him, he read books as a main activity. He devoured popular novels, classics, plays, and biographies. His books, of necessity, replaced the streets of New York, and led to his interest in classical philosophy and philosophers, such as William James.
When Thalberg returned to school, he finished high school but lacked the stamina for college, which he felt would have required constant late-night studying and cramming for exams. Instead, he took part-time jobs as a store clerk, and in the evenings, to gain some job skills, taught himself typing, shorthand and Spanish at a night vocational school. When he turned 18, he placed an advertisement in the local newspaper hoping to find better work:
Career as producer
Universal Studios
He found work as an office secretary at Universal Pictures' New York office, and later became personal secretary to the studio's founder and president, Carl Laemmle. Among Thalberg's duties were transcribing and editing notes that Laemmle had written during screenings of his films. He earned $25 weekly, becoming adept at making insightful observations, which impressed Laemmle.
Laemmle took Thalberg to see his Los Angeles production facility, where he spent a month watching how movie production worked. Before returning to New York, Laemmle told Thalberg to remain and "keep an eye on things for me." Two months later, Laemmle returned to California, partly to see how well Thalberg was able to handle the responsibilities he was given. Thalberg gave him suggestions, and thus impressed Laemmle by his ability to understand and explain problems.
Thalberg suggested, "The first thing you should do is establish a new job of studio manager and give him the responsibility of watching day-to-day operations." Laemmle immediately agreed: "All right. You're it." In shock, Thalberg replied, "I'm what?" Laemmle told him to take charge of the Los Angeles studio, which he did in early 1919. When aged 20, Thalberg became responsible for immediately overseeing the nine ongoing film productions and nearly thirty scenarios then under development.
In describing the rationale for this early appointment as studio manager, film historian David Thomson writes that his new job "owed nothing to nepotism, private wealth, or experience in the film industry." He reasons that despite "Thalberg's youth, modest education, and frail appearance ... it is clear that he had the charm, insight, and ability, or the appearance of it, to captivate the film world."
Thalberg was one among the majority of Hollywood film industry workers who migrated from the East Coast, primarily from New York. Some film actors, such as Conrad Nagel, did not like the five-day train trip or the sudden warmth of the California climate. Neither did Marion Davies, who was not used to such "big wide spaces". Samuel Marx, a close friend of Thalberg's from New York, recalled how easily Thalberg adapted to Southern California, often standing outside his doorway during moments of contemplation to enjoy the scenery. "We were all young", said comedian Buster Keaton. "The air in California was like wine. Our business was also young—and growing like nothing ever seen before."
Confrontation with Erich von Stroheim
He quickly established his tenacity as he battled with well-known director Erich von Stroheim over the length of Foolish Wives (1922). Biographer Roland Flamini notes that the film was Universal's most expensive "jewel" ever in production, and its director and star, von Stroheim, was taking the film way over budget. Thalberg, now Universal's general manager, was forced to have the director quickly finalize production before the studio's working capital was used up. Flamini describes the situation:
Thalberg had von Stroheim come to his office, which he did still wearing his film costume as a Russian Imperial Guard and escorted by members of his production team. Thalberg calmly told him, "I have seen all the film and you have all you need for the picture. I want you to stop shooting", to which von Stroheim replied, "But I have not finished as yet." "Yes, you have", said Thalberg. "You have spent all the money this company can afford. I cannot allow you to spend any more."
Thalberg quietly explained that the director worked under the producer, and it was his responsibility to control costs. Von Stroheim, surrounded by his assistants, then confronted Thalberg: "If you were not my superior, I would smash you in the face." Thalberg, unflinching, said "Don't let that stop you." The result was that Thalberg soon afterward removed the cameras from von Stroheim's studio and took over editing. The uncut footage was pared down from five-and-a-half hours to three hours, to von Stroheim's deep dissatisfaction.
A similar problem developed with von Stroheim's next film, Merry-Go-Round (1923). Although he had promised Thalberg to remain within budget this time, he continued production until it went to twice the agreed length and was not yet near completion. Flamini speculates why this happened:
Thalberg again called von Stroheim to his office, handed him a long letter written and signed by himself, describing the problems, and summarily fired von Stroheim as of that moment. Thalberg's letter stated among the reasons,
totally inexcusable and repeated acts of insubordination ... extravagant ideas which you have been unwilling to sacrifice ... unnecessary delays ... and your apparent idea that you are greater and more powerful than the organization that employs you.
His dismissal of von Stroheim was considered an "earthquake in movie circles", notes Flamini. Producer David O. Selznick said that "it was the first time a director had been fired. It took great guts and courage ... Von Stroheim was utterly indifferent over money and could have gone on and spent millions, with nobody to stop him.". The opinion was shared by director Rouben Mamoulian, who said that the "little fellow at Universal", in one bold stroke, had "asserted the primacy of the studio over the director" and forever altered the balance of power in the movie industry.
Effects of his young age
According to Flamini, his youth was a subject of conversation within the movie community. Executives from other studios, actors, and film crew, often mistook him to be a junior employee. Movie columnist Louella Parsons, upon first being introduced to him, asked, "What's the joke? Where's the new general manager?" After five minutes of talking to Thalberg, however, she later wrote about "Universal's Boy Wonder": "He might be a boy in looks and age, but it was no child's mind that was being asked to cope with the intricate politics of Universal City." Novelist Edna Ferber responded the same way, writing that "I had fancied motion-picture producers as large gentlemen smoking oversized cigars. But this young man whose word seemed so final at Universal City ... impressed me deeply."
The male actors in the studio had a similar reaction. Lionel Barrymore, who was nearly twice his age, recalled their meetings:
Thalberg likewise gained the respect of leading playwrights, some of whom also looked down on him due to his youth. George S. Kaufman, co-author of Dinner at Eight, several Marx Brothers films, and two George Gershwin plays, came from New York to meet with Thalberg. Afterward he confided to his friend, Groucho Marx: "That man has never written a word, yet he can tell me exactly what to do with a story. I didn't know you had people like that out here."
Actress Norma Shearer, whom he later married, was surprised after he greeted her at the door, then walked her to his office for her first job interview: "Then you're not the office boy?" she asked. He smiled, as he sat himself behind his desk: "No, Miss Shearer, I'm Irving Thalberg, vice-president of the Mayer Company. I'm the man who sent for you."
His younger-than-normal age for a studio executive was usually mentioned even after he left Universal to help start up MGM. Screenwriter Agnes Christine Johnson, who worked with Thalberg for years, described his contribution during meetings:
The same quality was observed by director and screenwriter Hobart Henley: "If something that read well in conference turns out not so good on the screen, I go to him and, like that—Henley snaps his fingers—he has a remedy. He's brilliant." Another assistant producer to Thalberg explains:
His youth also contributed to his open-mindedness to the ideas of others. Conrad Nagel, who starred in numerous Thalberg films, reported that Thalberg was generally empathetic to those he worked alongside: "Thalberg never raised his voice. He just looked into your eyes, spoke softly, and after a few minutes he cast a spell on you." Studio attorney Edwin Loeb, who also worked to create AMPAS, explained that "the real foundation of Irving's success was his ability to look at life through the eyes of any given person. He had a gift of empathy, and almost complete perspective." Those opinions were also shared by producer Walter Wanger: "You thought that you were talking to an Indian savant. He could cast a spell on anybody."
His talent as a producer was enhanced by his "near-miraculous" powers of concentration, notes film critic J. Hoberman. As a result, he was never bored or tired, and supplemented his spare time with reading for his own amusement, recalls screenwriter Bayard Veiller, with some of his favorite authors being Francis Bacon, Epictetus, and Immanuel Kant.
Film projects at Universal
Biographer Bob Thomas writes that after three years at the studio, Thalberg continually proved his value. Universal's pictures improved noticeably, primarily due to Thalberg's "uncanny sense of story." He took tight control over many key aspects of production, including his requirement that from then on scripts were tightly constructed before filming began, rather than during production. Thomas adds that he also "showed a remarkable capacity for working with actors, casting them aptly and advising them on their careers."
After producing two films that were in production when he began work at Universal, he presented Laemmle with his idea for a film based on one of his favorite classic stories, The Hunchback of Notre Dame. Rather than just a horror picture, Thalberg suggested turning it into a spectacle which would include a replica of the Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris. He had Lon Chaney play the hunchback. The film became Universal's most profitable silent film and established Chaney's career as a top-flight star.
After nearly three years with Universal, Thalberg had supervised over a hundred movies, reorganized the studio to give more control to the managers, and had "stopped the defection" of many of their leading stars by offering them better, higher-paying contracts. He also produced a number of Universal's prestige films, which made the company profitable. However, he decided it was time to find a studio in Los Angeles more suitable to his skills, and spread word that he was available.
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM)
Cecil B. DeMille was the first who wanted to hire him, telling his partner Jesse Lasky, "The boy is a genius. I can see it. I know it." Lasky opposed the hire, stating, "Geniuses we have all we need." Thalberg then received an offer from Hal Roach, but the offer was withdrawn because Thalberg lacked experience with slapstick comedy films. In late 1922, Thalberg was introduced to Louis B. Mayer, president of a small but dynamic and fast-growing studio. At that first meeting, Thalberg "made a deep, immediate impression on Mayer", writes Flamini. After Thalberg had left, Mayer said to studio attorney Edwin Loeb: "Tell him if he comes to work for me, I'll look after him as though he were my son."
Although their personalities were in many ways opposite, Mayer being more outspoken and nearly twice the younger man's age, Thalberg was hired as vice president in charge of production at Louis B. Mayer Productions. Years later, Mayer's daughter Irene Mayer Selznick recalled that "it was hard to believe anyone that boyish could be so important." According to Flamini, Thalberg was hired because, although Mayer was an astute businessman, "what he lacked was Thalberg's almost unerring ability to combine quality with commercial success, to bring artistic aspiration in line with the demands of the box office." Mayer's company subsequently merged with two others to become Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM), with the 24-year-old Thalberg made part-owner and accorded the same position as vice president in charge of production. Three years after the merger, MGM became the most successful studio in Hollywood.
During his twelve years at MGM, Thalberg supervised the production of over four hundred films. Although Thalberg and his colleagues at MGM knew he was "doomed" to not live much past the age of 30 due to heart disease, he loved producing films. He continued developing innovative ideas and overseeing most of MGM's pictures. Under Thalberg's management, MGM released over 40% more films yearly than Warner Brothers, and more than double Paramount's releases. From 1924 until 1936, when Thalberg died at the age of 37, "almost every film bore Thalberg's imprint", wrote Mark Vieira.
Production innovations
Thalberg's production techniques "broke new ground in filmmaking", adds Vieira. Among his contributions at MGM was his innovation of story conferences, sneak previews and scene retakes. He introduced the first horror films and coauthored the Production Code, the set of moral guidelines that all film studios agreed to follow. Thalberg helped synthesize and merge the world of stage drama and literary classics with Hollywood films.
MGM thereby became the only movie studio to consistently show a profit during the Great Depression. Flamini explains that the equation for MGM's success depended on combining stars, a Broadway hit or popular classic, and high standards of production. This combination at the time was considered a "revolutionary approach" in the film industry, which until then assumed a star was all that was needed for success, regardless of the story or production quality. The other studios began following MGM's lead with that same formula.
Production techniques
Thalberg generally followed a system in managing his productions. According to one of his assistants, Lawrence Weingarten, who later became a producer, "Thalberg directed the film on paper, and then the director directed the film on film."
Thalberg was generally opposed to location shooting overseas where he could not oversee production and control costs, as happened with Ben Hur. Thus, he kept hundreds of back-lot carpenters at work creating realistic sets, as he did for fifteenth-century Romeo and Juliet (1936), or with China Seas (1935), to replicate the harbors of Hong Kong.
Vieira points out that Thalberg's "fascination with Broadway plays" often had him create and present stories visually. For China Seas, for instance, he described for the screenwriters, director and others, exactly how he wanted the film to appear on screen:
To be certain of achieving the desired effects, Thalberg made sure his cinematographers were careful in their use of light and shadow. Vieira observes that "more than any other producer or any other studio, Thalberg and MGM manipulated lenses, filters, and lighting instruments to affect the viewer." As a result, he notes, "most of Thalberg's films contain moments such as these, in which cinematic technique transcends mere exposition and gives the viewer something to treasure."
Thalberg was supported by most of the studio in these kinds of creative decisions. "It was a big family," notes Weingarten. "If we had a success, everybody—and I mean every cutter, every painter, every plasterer—was excited about it, was abuzz, was in a tizzy about the whole idea of picture making."
Taking risks with new subjects and stars
In 1929, MGM released fifty films, and all but five showed a profit. Of those that failed, Hallelujah was also a gamble by Thalberg. When King Vidor, the film's producer and director, proposed the idea to Thalberg of a major film cast, for the first time, exclusively with African Americans, he told Thalberg directly, "I doubt that it will make a dollar at the box office." Thalberg replied, "Don't worry about that. I've told you that MGM can afford an occasional experiment."
By the early 1930s, a number of stars began failing at the box office, partly due to the Great Depression that was now undermining the economy, along with the public's ability to spend on entertainment. Thalberg began using two stars in a film, rather than one, as had been the tradition at all the studios, such as pairing Greta Garbo with John Gilbert, Clark Gable with Jean Harlow, and William Powell with Myrna Loy. After experimenting with a few such films, including Mata Hari (1931), which were profitable, he decided on a multi-star production of another Broadway play, Grand Hotel (1932). It had five major stars, including Garbo, Joan Crawford, John Barrymore, Lionel Barrymore, and Wallace Beery. "Before Thalberg," writes Vieira, "there was no Grand Hotel in the American consciousness." The film won the Oscar for Best Picture in 1932.
Thalberg went against consensus and took another risk with The Great Ziegfeld (1936), costarring Luise Rainer. Although Louis B. Mayer did not want her in the role, which he felt was too minor for a new star, Thalberg felt that "only she could play the part", wrote biographer Charles Higham. Shortly after shooting began in late 1935, doubts of Rainer's acting ability emerged in the press. However, despite her limited appearances in the film, Rainer "so impressed audiences with one highly emotional scene" that she won the Academy Award for Best Actress.
After her winning role in The Great Ziegfeld, Thalberg wanted her to play a role that was the opposite of her previous character, for The Good Earth (1937). For the part as a Chinese peasant, she was required to act totally subservient to her husband, being perpetually huddled in submission, and barely spoke a word of dialogue during the entire film. Rainer recalls that Mayer did not approve of the film being produced or her part in it: "He was horrified at Irving Thalberg's insistence for me to play O-lan, the poor uncomely little Chinese peasant." However, she again won the Oscar for Best Actress, becoming the first actress to win two consecutive Oscars, a feat not matched until Katharine Hepburn's two Oscar wins thirty years later.
Grooming new stars
Besides bringing a distinctive high quality "look" to MGM films and often recreating well-known stories or plays, Thalberg's actors themselves took on a characteristic quality. Thalberg wanted his female actors to appear "cool, classy and beautiful," notes Flamini. And he strove to make the male actors appear "worldly and in control." In general, Thalberg movies and actors came to be "luxurious," "glossy," and "technically flawless." By doing so, he made stars or boosted the careers of actors such as Lon Chaney, Ramon Novarro, John Gilbert, Greta Garbo, Joan Crawford, Clark Gable, Helen Hayes, Jean Harlow, Marie Dressler, Wallace Beery, John Barrymore, Lionel Barrymore and Luise Rainer.
Greta Garbo
In 1925, a young Greta Garbo, then twenty, and unable to speak any English, was brought over from Sweden at Mayer's request, as he saw how she looked in still photos. A Swedish friend thought he would help her by contacting Thalberg, who then agreed to give her a screen test. According to author Frederick Sands, "the result of the test was electrifying." Thalberg was impressed and began grooming the new starlet the following day: "the studio arranged to fix her teeth, made sure she lost weight, and gave her an English tutor."
Joan Crawford
Joan Crawford's first role was a Thalberg production at MGM and she became one of their leading stars for the next thirty years. Crawford was somewhat jealous of Norma Shearer as she thought she was given the better material by her husband Thalberg out of nepotism. Nevertheless, she felt that his contribution to MGM was vital to the film industry. Not long after his early death, she recalls her concerns: "Thalberg was dead and the concept of the quality 'big' picture pretty much went out the window."
Marie Dressler
Thalberg also realized that old stars few had heard of could be made into new ones. Marie Dressler, a fifty-nine-year-old early vaudeville and movie star, who had played the top-billed lead, above Charles Chaplin and Mabel Normand), in the first feature-length comedy, Tillie's Punctured Romance (1914), was unable to get any roles in films after leaving show business for some years, finally working as a maid. MGM screenwriter Frances Marion suggested to Thalberg that she might fit well in a starring role for a new film, and was surprised that he knew of her prior successes. Thalberg approved of using her without a screen test and offered his rationale:
By 1932, shortly before she died, Dressler was the country's number one box office star.
Wallace Beery
Marie Dressler was paired twice, in Min and Bill (1930) and Tugboat Annie (1933), with Wallace Beery, another major silent star who had been struggling to get work in sound pictures until Thalberg cast him. Beery had enjoyed a hugely successful silent film career dating back to 1913, but had been fired by Paramount shortly after sound pictures appeared. Thalberg cast him in the role of "Machine Gun Butch," which had been meant for recently deceased Lon Chaney, in The Big House (1930), an energetic prison picture that became a huge hit. Beery was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actor for his performance, and his burgeoning career at MGM had transformed him into the studio's highest paid actor within two more years, during which time he won the Oscar for The Champ and had become a phenomenal box office draw as a result of Thalberg's foresight.
Getting audience feedback and reshooting
According to Vieira, MGM had few failures during this period, and numerous blockbusters. Among the reasons was Thalberg's unique system of developing a script during story conferences with writers before filming began, and later giving "sneak previews" followed by audience feedback through written questionnaires. Often, where he felt improvement was needed, he arranged for scenes to be reshot. As Thalberg once stated, "The difference between something good and something superior is often very small."
Bad decisions and missed opportunities
Thalberg felt he had his "finger on the pulse of America. I know what people will do and what they won't do," he said. His judgment was not always accurate, however. Thalberg's bringing Broadway productions to the screen to develop higher picture standards sometimes resulted in "studied" acting or "stagey" sets, notes Flamini. In 1927, after the successful release of the first full-length talking picture, The Jazz Singer (1927), he nevertheless felt that talking pictures were a fad. Thalberg likewise did not think that color would replace black-and-white in movies.
When an assistant protested against a script that envisioned a love scene in Paris with an ocean background, Thalberg refused to make changes, saying "We can't cater to a handful of people who know Paris." A more serious distraction to Thalberg's efforts was his obsession with making his wife Norma Shearer a prominent star, efforts which sometimes led to "overblown and overglamous" productions. Thalberg himself admitted to his obsession years later when he told a fellow producer: "You're behaving like I did with Norma. I knew positively that she could play anything. It's a kind of romantic astigmatism that attacks producers when they fall for an actress."
Important films at MGM
Ben Hur (1925)
One of the first pictures he took charge of, Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ, was inherited and already in production by another studio when MGM was formed. The film was turning into a disastrous expense with cost overruns already in the millions due to its lavish sets and location shooting in Rome. Most studio executives chose to terminate the film to cut their losses. Thalberg, however, felt differently, and thought the film would affect movie audiences, due to its classic literary source, and would highlight MGM as a major new studio.
He, therefore, discarded much of the original footage shot in Italy and recreated the set on MGM's back lots in Culver City, which added more millions to the production, yet gave him more control over production. The new set also included a replica of Circus Maximus for the dramatic chariot race scenes. Flamini notes that Thalberg's "gamble paid off," drawing international attention to MGM, and to Thalberg within the movie industry for his bold action.
Mutiny on the Bounty (1935)
Mutiny on the Bounty was the studio's next most expensive film after Ben Hur, with some now calling it "Thalberg's masterpiece." He initially had difficulty convincing Mayer that he could make the film without making heroes of the mutineers. He achieved that by instead making a hero of the British Royal Navy, whereby the officers and shipmates would from then on display their mutual respect. Thalberg also had to convince Clark Gable to accept the role against his will. He pleaded with Gable, eventually promising him that "If it isn't one of your greatest successes, I'll never ask you again to play a part you don't want." The film's other main stars were Charles Laughton and Franchot Tone. The film was nominated for six Academy Awards, including Best Actor, and winning it for Best Picture. Thalberg accepted the award as producer from Frank Capra.
Thalberg and Mayer partnership
At first, Thalberg and studio chief Louis B. Mayer got along splendidly; however, they had different production philosophies. Thalberg preferred literary works, while Mayer preferred glitzy crowd-pleasing films. A clash was inevitable, and their relationship grew decidedly frosty. When Thalberg fell ill in the final weeks of 1932, Mayer took advantage of the situation and replaced him with David O. Selznick and Walter Wanger. Thalberg's reputation by that time for working long hours was widely known, and rumors about the related strain on his fragile health had become front-page news in entertainment trade publications. The Hollywood Reporter in January 1933 updated its readership about his condition and addressed growing concerns that he might be forced, despite his young age, to quit the business:
Once Thalberg recovered sufficiently from his bout with the "flu" and was able to return to work later in 1933, it was as one of MGM's unit producers, albeit one who had first choice on projects as well as preferential access to all the studio's resources, including over casting its stars. Thalberg's good relationship with Nicholas Schenck, then president of Loew's Incorporated, proved to be an ongoing advantage for him. Loew's was the corporate parent of MGM, so Schenck was the true power and ultimate arbiter at the studio; and he usually supported Thalberg's decisions and continued to do so whenever disagreements about projects or production needs arose. As a result, Thalberg also continued to produce or coproduce some of MGM's most prestigious and critically acclaimed ventures in this period, such as The Barretts of Wimpole Street (1934) starring his wife Norma Shearer, China Seas (1935), A Night at the Opera (1935), San Francisco (1936), and Romeo and Juliet (1936).
Personal life
During his few years with Universal while living in New York, Thalberg had become romantically involved with Carl Laemmle's daughter, Rosabelle. Still in his early twenties and later spending most of his time in Los Angeles, his feelings toward her were no longer as strong. Flamini suspects that this may have affected his position at Universal and partly caused his decision to leave the company. "The Laemmles prayed that Irving would marry Rosabelle", notes Flamini. "They wanted their sons to be educated and their daughters to marry nice Jewish boys."
Less than a year after he and Mayer took charge of the newly created MGM studios, and still only twenty-five years old, Thalberg suffered a serious heart attack due to overwork. Mayer also became aware of Thalberg's congenital heart problems and now worried about the prospect of running MGM without him. Mayer also became concerned that one of his daughters might become romantically involved, and told them so:
Thalberg, aware of Mayer's feelings, made it a point of never giving too much attention to his daughters at social events.
One of Thalberg's traits was his ability to work long hours into the night with little sign of fatigue. According to Vieira, Thalberg believed that as long as his mind was active in his work and he was not bored, he would not feel tired. Thalberg, who often got by with only five hours of sleep, felt that most people could get by with less than they realized. To keep his mental faculties at peak, he would read philosophical books by Bacon, Epictetus, or Kant. "They stimulate me. I'd drop out of sight in no time if I didn't read and keep up with current thought—and the philosophers are brain sharpeners."
During the early 1930s, Thalberg was ambivalent about political events in Europe. While he feared Nazism and the rise of Hitler, he also feared Communism. At the time, notes Vieira, "given a choice between communism and fascism, many Americans—including Thalberg—would prefer the latter." Thalberg stated his opinion:
When others suggested that many Jews could die in Germany as a result of Nazi anti-Semitism, he replied that in his opinion "Hitler and Hitlerism will pass." On one occasion, Catholic Prince Löwenstein of Germany, who himself had almost been captured before fleeing Germany, told him: "Mr. Thalberg, your own people are being systematically hunted down and rooted out of Germany." Thalberg suggested that world Jewry should nevertheless not interfere, that the Jewish race would survive Hitler. Within a few years, American film distribution was "choked off" in Germany. Led by Warner Brothers, all American studios eventually closed their German offices.
Thalberg began dating actress Norma Shearer a few years after he joined MGM. Following her conversion to Judaism, they married on Thursday, September 29, 1927, in a private ceremony in the garden of his rented house in Beverly Hills. Rabbi Edgar F. Magnin officiated at the event, with Shearer's brother Douglas Shearer giving the bride away, and Louis B. Mayer serving as best man. The couple drove to Monterey for their honeymoon and then moved into their newly constructed home in Beverly Hills.
After their second child was born, Shearer considered retiring from films, but Thalberg convinced her to continue acting, saying he could find her good roles. She went on to be one of MGM's biggest stars of the 1930s. Their two children were Irving Jr. (1930–1987) and Katharine (1935–2006).
Death
Thalberg and Shearer took a much-needed Labor Day weekend vacation in Monterey, California, in 1936, staying at the same beachfront hotel where they spent their honeymoon. A few weeks earlier, Thalberg's leading screenwriter, Al Lewin, had proposed doing a film based on a soon-to-be published book, Gone with the Wind. Although Thalberg said it would be a "sensational" role for Gable, and a "terrific picture," he decided not to do it:
Besides, Thalberg told Mayer, "[n]o Civil War picture ever made a nickel". Shortly after returning from Monterey, Thalberg was diagnosed with pneumonia. His condition worsened steadily and he eventually required an oxygen tent at home. He died on September 14, at the age of 37.
Sam Wood, while directing A Day at the Races, was given the news by phone. He returned to the set with tears in his eyes and told the others. As the news spread "the studio was paralyzed with shock", notes Thomas. "Work stopped and hundreds of people wept", with stars, writers, directors, and studio employees "all sharing a sense of loss at the death of a man who had been a part of their working lives", states Flamini.
His funeral took place two days later, and when the services began the other studios throughout Hollywood observed five minutes of silence. Producer Sam Goldwyn "wept uncontrollably for two days" and was unable to regain his composure enough to attend. The MGM studio closed for that day.
Services were held at the Wilshire Boulevard Temple that Thalberg had occasionally attended. The funeral attracted thousands of spectators who came to view the arrival of countless stars from MGM and other studios, including Greta Garbo, Jean Harlow, the Marx Brothers, Charlie Chaplin, Walt Disney, Howard Hughes, Al Jolson, Gary Cooper, Carole Lombard, Mary Pickford, and Douglas Fairbanks, among the screen luminaries. The ushers who led them to their seats included Clark Gable, Fredric March, and playwright Moss Hart. Erich von Stroheim, who had been fired by Thalberg, came to pay his respects. Producers Louis B. Mayer, the Warner brothers, Adolph Zukor, and Nicholas Schenck sat together solemnly as Rabbi Magnin gave the eulogy.
Thalberg is buried in a private marble tomb in the Great Mausoleum at Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Glendale, California, lying at rest beside his wife Norma Shearer Arrouge (Thalberg's crypt was engraved "My Sweetheart Forever" by Shearer).
Over the following days, tributes were published by the national press. Louis B. Mayer, his co-founding partner at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, said he had lost "the finest friend a man could ever have", while MGM president Nicholas Schenck stated that "Thalberg was the most important man in the production end of the motion-picture industry. Leading producers from the other studios also expressed their feelings in published tributes to Thalberg:
David O. Selznick described him as "beyond any question the greatest individual force for fine pictures." Samuel Goldwyn called him "the foremost figure in the motion-picture industry ... and an inspiration." M. H. Aylesworth, Chairman of RKO, wrote that "his integrity, vision and ability made him the spearhead of all motion-picture production throughout the world." Harry Warner, president of Warner Bros., described him as "gifted with one of the finest minds ever placed at the service of motion-picture production." Sidney R. Kent, president of Twentieth Century Fox, said that "he made the whole world richer by giving it the highest type of entertainment. He was a true genius." Columbia president Harry Cohn said the "motion picture industry has suffered a loss from which it will not soon recover...". Darryl F. Zanuck noted, "More than any other man he raised the industry to its present world prestige." Adolph Zukor, chairman of Paramount, stated, "Irving Thalberg was the most brilliant young man in the motion picture business." Jesse Lasky said, "It will be utterly impossible to replace him."
Among the condolences that came from world political leaders, President Franklin D. Roosevelt wrote, "The world of art is poorer with the passing of Irving Thalberg. His high ideals, insight and imagination went into the production of his masterpieces."
Among the pictures that were unfinished or not yet released at the time of his death were A Day at the Races, The Good Earth, Camille, Maytime, and Romeo and Juliet. Groucho Marx, star of A Day at the Races, wrote, "After Thalberg's death, my interest in the movies waned. I continued to appear in them, but ... The fun had gone out of picture making." Thalberg's widow, Norma Shearer, recalled, "Grief does very strange things to you. I didn't seem to feel the shock for two weeks afterwards. ... then, at the end of those two weeks, I collapsed."
Legacy in the movie industry
Thalberg's legacy to the movie industry is "incalculable", states biographer Bob Thomas. He notes that with his numerous production innovations and grand stories, often turning classic literature and Broadway stage productions into big-screen pictures, he managed to keep "American movies supreme throughout the world for a generation". Darryl F. Zanuck, founder of 20th Century-Fox said that during Thalberg's brief career, he had become the "most creative producer in the history of films". Thomas describes some of his contributions:
Most of MGM's major films in the 1930s were, according to Flamini, "in a very real sense", made by Thalberg. He closely supervised the making of "more pictures than any other producer in Hollywood's history", and was considered the "archetype of the creative producer", adds Flamini. Upon his early death, aged 37, an editorial in The New York Times called him "the most important force" in the motion picture industry. The paper added that for the film industry, he "set the pace and others followed ... because his way combined style, glamour, and profit." He is described by Flamini as having been "a revolutionary in a gray flannel suit".
Thalberg refused to take credit as producer, and as a result, his name never appeared on the screen while he was alive. Thalberg claimed that "credit you give yourself is not worth having". He also said "If a picture is good, they'll know who produced it. If it's bad, nobody cares." His final film, released after he died, was The Good Earth (1937), which won numerous Academy Awards. Its opening screen credit was dedicated to Thalberg:
In 1938, the new multimillion-dollar MGM administration building in Culver City was named for Thalberg. The Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award, presented by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, also named for him, awards producers for consistently high production achievements.
Cultural legacy
The Last Tycoon
In October 1939, American novelist F. Scott Fitzgerald began writing The Last Tycoon, a fictionalized biography of Thalberg, naming the protagonist Monroe Stahr to represent Thalberg. "Thalberg has always fascinated me", he wrote to an editor. "His peculiar charm, his extraordinary good looks, his bountiful success, the tragic end of his great adventure. The events I have built around him are fiction, but all of them are things which might very well have happened. ... I've long chosen him for a hero (this has been in my mind for three years) because he is one of the half-dozen men I have known who were built on a grand scale."
Thomas notes that among the reasons Fitzgerald chose to write a book about a Thalberg-like character, was that "throughout his literary career, Fitzgerald borrowed his heroes from friends he admired, and inevitably a bit of Fitzgerald entered the characterizations." Fitzgerald himself writes that "When I like men, I want to be like them ..." Fitzgerald and Thalberg had real-life similarities: both were prodigies, both had heart ailments, and they both died at early ages.
According to biographer Matthew J. Bruccoli, Fitzgerald believed that Thalberg, with his "taste and courage, represented the best of Hollywood. ... [and] saw Thalberg as a model for what could be done in the movies." Fitzgerald died before the novel was completed, however. Bruccoli writes of Fitzgerald's book:
Although parallels between Monroe Stahr in the novel and Thalberg were evident, many who knew Thalberg intimately stated that they did not see similarities in their personalities. Norma Shearer said that the Stahr character was not at all like her former husband.
In the 1976 film version, directed by Elia Kazan, Monroe Stahr was played by Robert De Niro. Kazan, in his pre-production notes, described the Stahr character as he saw him:
In the 2016 television series based on the novel, Monroe Stahr is played by Matt Bomer.
Others
Fitzgerald also based his short story "Crazy Sunday", originally published in the October 1932 issue of American Mercury, on an incident at a party thrown by Thalberg and Shearer. The story is included in Fitzgerald's collection Taps at Reveille (1935).
Thalberg was portrayed in the movie Man of a Thousand Faces (1957) by Robert Evans, who went on to become a studio head himself.
Thalberg was portrayed by Bill Cusack in Young Indiana Jones and the Hollywood Follies (1994), a TV film based on The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles, in which Indiana Jones is depicted as taking part in Thalberg's conflict with Erich von Stroheim over Foolish Wives.
In 2020, Thalberg was played by Ferdinand Kingsley in the David Fincher film Mank
Thalberg, played by Tobey Maguire, is rumored to appear in the upcoming movie Babylon.
Filmography
Producer
Reputation (1921)
The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1923)
Merry-Go-Round (1923)
His Hour (1924)
He Who Gets Slapped (1924)
The Unholy Three (1925)
The Merry Widow (1925)
The Tower of Lies (1925)
The Big Parade (1925)
Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ (1925)
Torrent (1926)
La Bohème (1926)
Brown of Harvard (1926)
The Road to Mandalay (1926)
The Temptress (1926)
Valencia (1926)
Flesh and the Devil (1926)
Twelve Miles Out (1927)
The Student Prince in Old Heidelberg (1927)
London After Midnight (1927)
The Crowd (1928)
Laugh, Clown, Laugh (1928)
White Shadows in the South Seas (1928)
Show People (1928)
West of Zanzibar (1928)
The Broadway Melody (1929)
The Trial of Mary Dugan (1929)
Voice of the City (1929)
Where East Is East (1929)
The Last of Mrs. Cheyney (1929)
The Hollywood Revue of 1929 (1929)
Hallelujah (1929)
His Glorious Night (1929)
The Kiss (1929)
Anna Christie (1930)
Redemption (1930)
The Divorcee (1930)
The Rogue Song (1930)
The Big House (1930)
The Unholy Three (1930)
Let Us Be Gay (1930)
Billy the Kid (1930)
Way for a Sailor (1930)
A Lady's Morals (1930)
Inspiration (1931)
Trader Horn (1931)
The Secret Six (1931)
A Free Soul (1931)
Just a Gigolo (1931)
Menschen hinter Gittern (1931), German-language version of The Big House (1930)
The Sin of Madelon Claudet (1931)
The Guardsman (1931)
The Champ (1931)
Possessed (1931)
Private Lives (1931)
Mata Hari (1931)
Freaks (1932)
Tarzan the Ape Man (1932)
Grand Hotel (1932)
Letty Lynton (1932)
As You Desire Me (1932)
Red-Headed Woman (1932)
Smilin' Through (1932)
Red Dust (1932)
Rasputin and the Empress (1932)
Strange Interlude (1932)
Tugboat Annie (1933)
Bombshell (1933)
Eskimo (1933)
La Veuve Joyeuse (1934) French-language version of The Merry Widow
Riptide (1934)
The Barretts of Wimpole Street (1934)
The Merry Widow (1934)
What Every Woman Knows (1934)
Biography of a Bachelor Girl (1935)
No More Ladies (1935)
China Seas (1935)
Mutiny on the Bounty (1935)
A Night at the Opera (1935)
Riffraff (1936)
Romeo and Juliet (1936)
Camille (1936)
Maytime (1937)
A Day at the Races (1937)
Broadway Melody of 1938 (1937)
The Good Earth (1937)
Marie Antoinette (1938)
Writer
The Trap (1922)
The Dangerous Little Demon (1922)
Awards
Academy Awards
Notes
Further reading
Books
Flamini, Roland. Thalberg: The Last Tycoon and the World of M-G-M (1994)
Marx, Samuel. Mayer and Thalberg: The Make-believe Saints (1975)
Thomas, Bob. Thalberg: Life and Legend (1969)
Vieira, Mark A. Irving Thalberg's M-G-M. New York: Harry N. Abrams, 2008.
Vieira, Mark A. Irving Thalberg: Boy Wonder to Producer Prince. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2009.
Articles
Starman, Ray. "Irving Thalberg", Films In Review, June/July 1987, p. 347–353
External links
Irving Thalberg at TCM
Cinemagraphe Review of the Roland Flamini biography of Thalberg: The Last Tycoon and the World of MGM
Irving Thalberg at Virtual History
Irving Thalberg profiled in Collier's Magazine (1924)
Videos
1899 births
1936 deaths
American film producers
Film producers from California
Producers who won the Best Picture Academy Award
American film studio executives
American male screenwriters
Cinema pioneers
Silent film directors
Silent film producers
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer executives
Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences founders
Businesspeople from Los Angeles
Hollywood history and culture
California Republicans
New York (state) Republicans
USC School of Cinematic Arts faculty
20th-century American businesspeople
Screenwriters from California
Screenwriters from New York (state)
People from Brooklyn
American anti-communists
American people of German-Jewish descent
Deaths from pneumonia in California
Burials at Forest Lawn Memorial Park (Glendale)
20th-century American male writers
20th-century American writers
Jewish American writers
20th-century American screenwriters | true | [
"Universal Soldier is the second compilation album from Scottish singer-songwriter Donovan. It was released in the UK (Marble Arch LP-MAL 718) in September 1967.\n\nHistory\nIn the mid-1960s Pye Records launched budget record label Marble Arch Records to release older material on inexpensive albums in the United Kingdom. Several of Donovan's 1965 recordings for Pye were selected for release in 1967 as Universal Soldier. Donovan's version of \"Universal Soldier\" was a hit EP in 1965, and that name recognition was intended to boost sales.\n\nUniversal Soldier was a unique release because it collected the entire Universal Soldier EP, the b-side to \"Catch the Wind\", and the entire \"Turquoise\" single; all of which had appeared on LP format in the United Kingdom. The strategy of compiling non-album tracks paid off, and Universal Soldier reached No. 5 in the United Kingdom and remained on the charts for 18 weeks.\n\nMarble Arch would go on to release several more Donovan compilations to significantly less interest, including an edited What's Bin Did and What's Bin Hid in 1968 and an edited Fairytale in 1969.\n\nIn 1995, Spectrum Music released a CD compilation, also named after the title track.\n\nAlbum origins of tracks\nThe following is a list explaining the original releases of each song.\n\n \"Universal Soldier\" (from Universal Soldier EP, released 15 August 1965)\n \"To Sing for You\" (from What's Bin Did and What's Bin Hid, released 14 May 1965)\n \"Why Do You Treat Me Like You Do?\" (b-side of \"Catch the Wind\", released 12 March 1965)\n \"Turquoise\" (UK single, released 30 October 1965)\n \"Colours\" (UK single, released 28 May 1965, different from Fairytale LP version)\n \"Catch the Wind\" (UK single, released 12 March 1965, different from What's Bin Did and What's Bin Hid LP version)\n \"Hey Gyp (Dig the Slowness)\"* (b-side of \"Turquoise\", released 30 October 1965)\n \"The Ballad of a Crystal Man\"* (from The Universal Soldier EP, released 15 August 1965, different from Fairytale LP version)\n \"Do You Hear Me Now?\" (from The Universal Soldier EP, released 15 August 1965)\n \"The War Drags on\" (from The Universal Soldier EP, released 15 August 1965)\n\nTrack listing\nAll tracks by Donovan Leitch, except where noted.\n\nSide one\n\n\"Universal Soldier\" (Buffy Sainte-Marie) – 2:15\n\"To Sing for You\" – 2:45\n\"Why Do You Treat Me Like You Do?\" – 2:56\n\"Turquoise\" – 3:31\n\"Colours\" – 2:11\n\nSide two\n\n\"Catch the Wind\" – 2:56\n\"Hey Gyp (Dig the Slowness)\" – 3:08\n\"The Ballad of a Crystal Man\" – 3:19\n\"Do You Hear Me Now?\" (Bert Jansch) – 1:50\n\"The War Drags On\" (Mick Softley) – 3:44\n\nExternal links\n Universal Soldier – Donovan Unofficial Site\n\n1967 compilation albums\nDonovan compilation albums\nPye Records compilation albums\nAlbums produced by Geoff Stephens",
"\"What Ya Gonna Do\" is a single from Hinder's third album All American Nightmare. It was released on May 17, 2011, on Universal Republic Records. The song was written entirely by the band's then current lead singer Austin Winkler. \"What Ya Gonna Do\" debuted on the Active Rock Charts at number 19, and eventually peaked at number 18 on the chart.\n\nMusic video\n\nThe music video starts out with showing the band's heavy drinking while out on the road, throughout the rest of the video is shows the band trying to cope with life on the road after it gets very tiresome. The video ends with the band returning home and returning to normal life and returning to happiness.\n\n2011 songs\nHinder songs\nUniversal Republic Records singles\nSongs written by Cody Hanson\nSongs written by The Warren Brothers\nSongs written by Austin John"
]
|
[
"Irving Thalberg",
"Universal Studios",
"Did he work for universal?",
"He found work as an office secretary at Universal Pictures' New York office,",
"Did he have other jobs with universal?",
"later became personal secretary to the studio's founder and president, Carl Laemmle.",
"What did he do at universal?",
"Thalberg's duties were transcribing and editing notes that Laemmle had written during screenings of his films."
]
| C_7b8dcb999ce54951992e991787a236a9_0 | What happened to him while at universal? | 4 | What happened to Irving Thalberg while at universal? | Irving Thalberg | He found work as an office secretary at Universal Pictures' New York office, and later became personal secretary to the studio's founder and president, Carl Laemmle. Among Thalberg's duties were transcribing and editing notes that Laemmle had written during screenings of his films. He earned $25 weekly, becoming adept at making insightful observations, which impressed Laemmle. Laemmle took Thalberg to see his Los Angeles production facility, where he spent a month watching how movie production worked. Before returning to New York, Laemmle told Thalberg to remain and "keep an eye on things for me." Two months later, Laemmle returned to California, partly to see how well Thalberg was able to handle the responsibilities he was given. Thalberg gave him suggestions, which impressed Laemmle by his ability to understand and explain problems. Thalberg suggested, "The first thing you should do is establish a new job of studio manager and give him the responsibility of watching day-to-day operations." Laemmle immediately agreed, "All right. You're it." In shock, Thalberg replied, "I'm what?" Laemmle told him to take charge of the Los Angeles studio, which he did in early 1919. At age 20, Thalberg became responsible for immediately overseeing the nine ongoing film productions and nearly thirty scenarios then under development. In describing the rationale for this early appointment as studio manager, film historian David Thomson writes that his new job "owed nothing to nepotism, private wealth, or experience in the film industry." He reasons that despite "Thalberg's youth, modest education, and frail appearance . . . it is clear that he had the charm, insight, and ability, or the appearance of it, to captivate the film world." Thalberg was one among the majority of Hollywood film industry workers who migrated from the East Coast, primarily from New York. Some film actors, such as Conrad Nagel, did not like the 5-day train trip or the sudden warmth of the California climate. Neither did Marion Davies, who was not used to such "big wide spaces." Samuel Marx, a close friend of Thalberg's from New York, recalled how easily Thalberg adapted to Southern California, often standing outside his doorway during moments of contemplation to enjoy the scenery. "We were all young," said comedian Buster Keaton. "The air in California was like wine. Our business was also young--and growing like nothing ever seen before." CANNOTANSWER | Laemmle told Thalberg to remain and "keep an eye on things for me." Two months later, Laemmle returned to California, | Irving Grant Thalberg (May 30, 1899 – September 14, 1936) was an American film producer during the early years of motion pictures. He was called "The Boy Wonder" for his youth and ability to select scripts, choose actors, gather production staff, and make profitable films, including Grand Hotel, China Seas, A Night at the Opera, Mutiny on the Bounty, Camille and The Good Earth. His films carved out an international market, "projecting a seductive image of American life brimming with vitality and rooted in democracy and personal freedom", states biographer Roland Flamini.
He was born in Brooklyn, New York, and as a child was afflicted with a congenital heart disease that doctors said would kill him before he reached the age of thirty. After graduating from high school he worked as a store clerk during the day and to gain some job skills took a night class in typing. He then found work as a secretary with Universal Studios' New York office, and was later made studio manager for their Los Angeles facility. There, he oversaw production of a hundred films during his three years with the company. Among the films he produced was The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1923).
In Los Angeles, he partnered with Louis B. Mayer's new studio and, after it merged with two other studios, helped create Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM). He was made head of production of MGM in 1925, at the age of twenty-six, helping MGM become the most successful studio in Hollywood. During his twelve years with MGM, until his premature death at the age of 37, he produced four hundred films, most of which bore his imprint and innovations, including story conferences with writers, sneak previews to gain early feedback, and extensive re-shooting of scenes to improve the film. In addition, he introduced horror films to audiences and coauthored the "Production Code", guidelines for morality followed by all studios. During the 1920s and 1930s, he synthesized and merged the world of stage drama and literary classics with Hollywood films.
Thalberg created numerous new stars and groomed their screen images. Among them were Lon Chaney, Ramon Novarro, Greta Garbo, John Gilbert, Lionel Barrymore, Joan Crawford, Clark Gable, Jean Harlow, Wallace Beery, Spencer Tracy, Luise Rainer, and Norma Shearer, who became his wife. He had the ability to combine quality with commercial success, and was credited with bringing his artistic aspirations in line with the demands of audiences. After his death, Hollywood's producers said he had been the world's "foremost figure in motion-picture history". President Franklin D. Roosevelt wrote, "The world of art is poorer with the passing of Irving Thalberg. His high ideals, insight and imagination went into the production of his masterpieces." The Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award, given out periodically by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences since 1937, has been awarded to producers whose body of work reflected consistently high quality films.
Early years
Thalberg was born in Brooklyn, to German Jewish immigrant parents, William and Henrietta (Haymann). Shortly after birth, he was diagnosed with "blue baby syndrome", caused by a congenital disease that limited the oxygen supply to his heart. The prognosis from the family's doctor and specialists was that he might live to the age of twenty, or at most, to thirty.
During his high school years in Brooklyn, he began having attacks of chest pains, dizziness and fatigue. This affected his ability to study, though until that time he was a good student. When he was 17 he contracted rheumatic fever, and was confined to bed for a year. His mother, in order to prevent him falling too far behind other students, brought him homework from school, books, and tutors to teach him at home. She also hoped that the schoolwork and reading would distract him from the "tantalizing sounds" of children playing outside his window.
With little to entertain him, he read books as a main activity. He devoured popular novels, classics, plays, and biographies. His books, of necessity, replaced the streets of New York, and led to his interest in classical philosophy and philosophers, such as William James.
When Thalberg returned to school, he finished high school but lacked the stamina for college, which he felt would have required constant late-night studying and cramming for exams. Instead, he took part-time jobs as a store clerk, and in the evenings, to gain some job skills, taught himself typing, shorthand and Spanish at a night vocational school. When he turned 18, he placed an advertisement in the local newspaper hoping to find better work:
Career as producer
Universal Studios
He found work as an office secretary at Universal Pictures' New York office, and later became personal secretary to the studio's founder and president, Carl Laemmle. Among Thalberg's duties were transcribing and editing notes that Laemmle had written during screenings of his films. He earned $25 weekly, becoming adept at making insightful observations, which impressed Laemmle.
Laemmle took Thalberg to see his Los Angeles production facility, where he spent a month watching how movie production worked. Before returning to New York, Laemmle told Thalberg to remain and "keep an eye on things for me." Two months later, Laemmle returned to California, partly to see how well Thalberg was able to handle the responsibilities he was given. Thalberg gave him suggestions, and thus impressed Laemmle by his ability to understand and explain problems.
Thalberg suggested, "The first thing you should do is establish a new job of studio manager and give him the responsibility of watching day-to-day operations." Laemmle immediately agreed: "All right. You're it." In shock, Thalberg replied, "I'm what?" Laemmle told him to take charge of the Los Angeles studio, which he did in early 1919. When aged 20, Thalberg became responsible for immediately overseeing the nine ongoing film productions and nearly thirty scenarios then under development.
In describing the rationale for this early appointment as studio manager, film historian David Thomson writes that his new job "owed nothing to nepotism, private wealth, or experience in the film industry." He reasons that despite "Thalberg's youth, modest education, and frail appearance ... it is clear that he had the charm, insight, and ability, or the appearance of it, to captivate the film world."
Thalberg was one among the majority of Hollywood film industry workers who migrated from the East Coast, primarily from New York. Some film actors, such as Conrad Nagel, did not like the five-day train trip or the sudden warmth of the California climate. Neither did Marion Davies, who was not used to such "big wide spaces". Samuel Marx, a close friend of Thalberg's from New York, recalled how easily Thalberg adapted to Southern California, often standing outside his doorway during moments of contemplation to enjoy the scenery. "We were all young", said comedian Buster Keaton. "The air in California was like wine. Our business was also young—and growing like nothing ever seen before."
Confrontation with Erich von Stroheim
He quickly established his tenacity as he battled with well-known director Erich von Stroheim over the length of Foolish Wives (1922). Biographer Roland Flamini notes that the film was Universal's most expensive "jewel" ever in production, and its director and star, von Stroheim, was taking the film way over budget. Thalberg, now Universal's general manager, was forced to have the director quickly finalize production before the studio's working capital was used up. Flamini describes the situation:
Thalberg had von Stroheim come to his office, which he did still wearing his film costume as a Russian Imperial Guard and escorted by members of his production team. Thalberg calmly told him, "I have seen all the film and you have all you need for the picture. I want you to stop shooting", to which von Stroheim replied, "But I have not finished as yet." "Yes, you have", said Thalberg. "You have spent all the money this company can afford. I cannot allow you to spend any more."
Thalberg quietly explained that the director worked under the producer, and it was his responsibility to control costs. Von Stroheim, surrounded by his assistants, then confronted Thalberg: "If you were not my superior, I would smash you in the face." Thalberg, unflinching, said "Don't let that stop you." The result was that Thalberg soon afterward removed the cameras from von Stroheim's studio and took over editing. The uncut footage was pared down from five-and-a-half hours to three hours, to von Stroheim's deep dissatisfaction.
A similar problem developed with von Stroheim's next film, Merry-Go-Round (1923). Although he had promised Thalberg to remain within budget this time, he continued production until it went to twice the agreed length and was not yet near completion. Flamini speculates why this happened:
Thalberg again called von Stroheim to his office, handed him a long letter written and signed by himself, describing the problems, and summarily fired von Stroheim as of that moment. Thalberg's letter stated among the reasons,
totally inexcusable and repeated acts of insubordination ... extravagant ideas which you have been unwilling to sacrifice ... unnecessary delays ... and your apparent idea that you are greater and more powerful than the organization that employs you.
His dismissal of von Stroheim was considered an "earthquake in movie circles", notes Flamini. Producer David O. Selznick said that "it was the first time a director had been fired. It took great guts and courage ... Von Stroheim was utterly indifferent over money and could have gone on and spent millions, with nobody to stop him.". The opinion was shared by director Rouben Mamoulian, who said that the "little fellow at Universal", in one bold stroke, had "asserted the primacy of the studio over the director" and forever altered the balance of power in the movie industry.
Effects of his young age
According to Flamini, his youth was a subject of conversation within the movie community. Executives from other studios, actors, and film crew, often mistook him to be a junior employee. Movie columnist Louella Parsons, upon first being introduced to him, asked, "What's the joke? Where's the new general manager?" After five minutes of talking to Thalberg, however, she later wrote about "Universal's Boy Wonder": "He might be a boy in looks and age, but it was no child's mind that was being asked to cope with the intricate politics of Universal City." Novelist Edna Ferber responded the same way, writing that "I had fancied motion-picture producers as large gentlemen smoking oversized cigars. But this young man whose word seemed so final at Universal City ... impressed me deeply."
The male actors in the studio had a similar reaction. Lionel Barrymore, who was nearly twice his age, recalled their meetings:
Thalberg likewise gained the respect of leading playwrights, some of whom also looked down on him due to his youth. George S. Kaufman, co-author of Dinner at Eight, several Marx Brothers films, and two George Gershwin plays, came from New York to meet with Thalberg. Afterward he confided to his friend, Groucho Marx: "That man has never written a word, yet he can tell me exactly what to do with a story. I didn't know you had people like that out here."
Actress Norma Shearer, whom he later married, was surprised after he greeted her at the door, then walked her to his office for her first job interview: "Then you're not the office boy?" she asked. He smiled, as he sat himself behind his desk: "No, Miss Shearer, I'm Irving Thalberg, vice-president of the Mayer Company. I'm the man who sent for you."
His younger-than-normal age for a studio executive was usually mentioned even after he left Universal to help start up MGM. Screenwriter Agnes Christine Johnson, who worked with Thalberg for years, described his contribution during meetings:
The same quality was observed by director and screenwriter Hobart Henley: "If something that read well in conference turns out not so good on the screen, I go to him and, like that—Henley snaps his fingers—he has a remedy. He's brilliant." Another assistant producer to Thalberg explains:
His youth also contributed to his open-mindedness to the ideas of others. Conrad Nagel, who starred in numerous Thalberg films, reported that Thalberg was generally empathetic to those he worked alongside: "Thalberg never raised his voice. He just looked into your eyes, spoke softly, and after a few minutes he cast a spell on you." Studio attorney Edwin Loeb, who also worked to create AMPAS, explained that "the real foundation of Irving's success was his ability to look at life through the eyes of any given person. He had a gift of empathy, and almost complete perspective." Those opinions were also shared by producer Walter Wanger: "You thought that you were talking to an Indian savant. He could cast a spell on anybody."
His talent as a producer was enhanced by his "near-miraculous" powers of concentration, notes film critic J. Hoberman. As a result, he was never bored or tired, and supplemented his spare time with reading for his own amusement, recalls screenwriter Bayard Veiller, with some of his favorite authors being Francis Bacon, Epictetus, and Immanuel Kant.
Film projects at Universal
Biographer Bob Thomas writes that after three years at the studio, Thalberg continually proved his value. Universal's pictures improved noticeably, primarily due to Thalberg's "uncanny sense of story." He took tight control over many key aspects of production, including his requirement that from then on scripts were tightly constructed before filming began, rather than during production. Thomas adds that he also "showed a remarkable capacity for working with actors, casting them aptly and advising them on their careers."
After producing two films that were in production when he began work at Universal, he presented Laemmle with his idea for a film based on one of his favorite classic stories, The Hunchback of Notre Dame. Rather than just a horror picture, Thalberg suggested turning it into a spectacle which would include a replica of the Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris. He had Lon Chaney play the hunchback. The film became Universal's most profitable silent film and established Chaney's career as a top-flight star.
After nearly three years with Universal, Thalberg had supervised over a hundred movies, reorganized the studio to give more control to the managers, and had "stopped the defection" of many of their leading stars by offering them better, higher-paying contracts. He also produced a number of Universal's prestige films, which made the company profitable. However, he decided it was time to find a studio in Los Angeles more suitable to his skills, and spread word that he was available.
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM)
Cecil B. DeMille was the first who wanted to hire him, telling his partner Jesse Lasky, "The boy is a genius. I can see it. I know it." Lasky opposed the hire, stating, "Geniuses we have all we need." Thalberg then received an offer from Hal Roach, but the offer was withdrawn because Thalberg lacked experience with slapstick comedy films. In late 1922, Thalberg was introduced to Louis B. Mayer, president of a small but dynamic and fast-growing studio. At that first meeting, Thalberg "made a deep, immediate impression on Mayer", writes Flamini. After Thalberg had left, Mayer said to studio attorney Edwin Loeb: "Tell him if he comes to work for me, I'll look after him as though he were my son."
Although their personalities were in many ways opposite, Mayer being more outspoken and nearly twice the younger man's age, Thalberg was hired as vice president in charge of production at Louis B. Mayer Productions. Years later, Mayer's daughter Irene Mayer Selznick recalled that "it was hard to believe anyone that boyish could be so important." According to Flamini, Thalberg was hired because, although Mayer was an astute businessman, "what he lacked was Thalberg's almost unerring ability to combine quality with commercial success, to bring artistic aspiration in line with the demands of the box office." Mayer's company subsequently merged with two others to become Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM), with the 24-year-old Thalberg made part-owner and accorded the same position as vice president in charge of production. Three years after the merger, MGM became the most successful studio in Hollywood.
During his twelve years at MGM, Thalberg supervised the production of over four hundred films. Although Thalberg and his colleagues at MGM knew he was "doomed" to not live much past the age of 30 due to heart disease, he loved producing films. He continued developing innovative ideas and overseeing most of MGM's pictures. Under Thalberg's management, MGM released over 40% more films yearly than Warner Brothers, and more than double Paramount's releases. From 1924 until 1936, when Thalberg died at the age of 37, "almost every film bore Thalberg's imprint", wrote Mark Vieira.
Production innovations
Thalberg's production techniques "broke new ground in filmmaking", adds Vieira. Among his contributions at MGM was his innovation of story conferences, sneak previews and scene retakes. He introduced the first horror films and coauthored the Production Code, the set of moral guidelines that all film studios agreed to follow. Thalberg helped synthesize and merge the world of stage drama and literary classics with Hollywood films.
MGM thereby became the only movie studio to consistently show a profit during the Great Depression. Flamini explains that the equation for MGM's success depended on combining stars, a Broadway hit or popular classic, and high standards of production. This combination at the time was considered a "revolutionary approach" in the film industry, which until then assumed a star was all that was needed for success, regardless of the story or production quality. The other studios began following MGM's lead with that same formula.
Production techniques
Thalberg generally followed a system in managing his productions. According to one of his assistants, Lawrence Weingarten, who later became a producer, "Thalberg directed the film on paper, and then the director directed the film on film."
Thalberg was generally opposed to location shooting overseas where he could not oversee production and control costs, as happened with Ben Hur. Thus, he kept hundreds of back-lot carpenters at work creating realistic sets, as he did for fifteenth-century Romeo and Juliet (1936), or with China Seas (1935), to replicate the harbors of Hong Kong.
Vieira points out that Thalberg's "fascination with Broadway plays" often had him create and present stories visually. For China Seas, for instance, he described for the screenwriters, director and others, exactly how he wanted the film to appear on screen:
To be certain of achieving the desired effects, Thalberg made sure his cinematographers were careful in their use of light and shadow. Vieira observes that "more than any other producer or any other studio, Thalberg and MGM manipulated lenses, filters, and lighting instruments to affect the viewer." As a result, he notes, "most of Thalberg's films contain moments such as these, in which cinematic technique transcends mere exposition and gives the viewer something to treasure."
Thalberg was supported by most of the studio in these kinds of creative decisions. "It was a big family," notes Weingarten. "If we had a success, everybody—and I mean every cutter, every painter, every plasterer—was excited about it, was abuzz, was in a tizzy about the whole idea of picture making."
Taking risks with new subjects and stars
In 1929, MGM released fifty films, and all but five showed a profit. Of those that failed, Hallelujah was also a gamble by Thalberg. When King Vidor, the film's producer and director, proposed the idea to Thalberg of a major film cast, for the first time, exclusively with African Americans, he told Thalberg directly, "I doubt that it will make a dollar at the box office." Thalberg replied, "Don't worry about that. I've told you that MGM can afford an occasional experiment."
By the early 1930s, a number of stars began failing at the box office, partly due to the Great Depression that was now undermining the economy, along with the public's ability to spend on entertainment. Thalberg began using two stars in a film, rather than one, as had been the tradition at all the studios, such as pairing Greta Garbo with John Gilbert, Clark Gable with Jean Harlow, and William Powell with Myrna Loy. After experimenting with a few such films, including Mata Hari (1931), which were profitable, he decided on a multi-star production of another Broadway play, Grand Hotel (1932). It had five major stars, including Garbo, Joan Crawford, John Barrymore, Lionel Barrymore, and Wallace Beery. "Before Thalberg," writes Vieira, "there was no Grand Hotel in the American consciousness." The film won the Oscar for Best Picture in 1932.
Thalberg went against consensus and took another risk with The Great Ziegfeld (1936), costarring Luise Rainer. Although Louis B. Mayer did not want her in the role, which he felt was too minor for a new star, Thalberg felt that "only she could play the part", wrote biographer Charles Higham. Shortly after shooting began in late 1935, doubts of Rainer's acting ability emerged in the press. However, despite her limited appearances in the film, Rainer "so impressed audiences with one highly emotional scene" that she won the Academy Award for Best Actress.
After her winning role in The Great Ziegfeld, Thalberg wanted her to play a role that was the opposite of her previous character, for The Good Earth (1937). For the part as a Chinese peasant, she was required to act totally subservient to her husband, being perpetually huddled in submission, and barely spoke a word of dialogue during the entire film. Rainer recalls that Mayer did not approve of the film being produced or her part in it: "He was horrified at Irving Thalberg's insistence for me to play O-lan, the poor uncomely little Chinese peasant." However, she again won the Oscar for Best Actress, becoming the first actress to win two consecutive Oscars, a feat not matched until Katharine Hepburn's two Oscar wins thirty years later.
Grooming new stars
Besides bringing a distinctive high quality "look" to MGM films and often recreating well-known stories or plays, Thalberg's actors themselves took on a characteristic quality. Thalberg wanted his female actors to appear "cool, classy and beautiful," notes Flamini. And he strove to make the male actors appear "worldly and in control." In general, Thalberg movies and actors came to be "luxurious," "glossy," and "technically flawless." By doing so, he made stars or boosted the careers of actors such as Lon Chaney, Ramon Novarro, John Gilbert, Greta Garbo, Joan Crawford, Clark Gable, Helen Hayes, Jean Harlow, Marie Dressler, Wallace Beery, John Barrymore, Lionel Barrymore and Luise Rainer.
Greta Garbo
In 1925, a young Greta Garbo, then twenty, and unable to speak any English, was brought over from Sweden at Mayer's request, as he saw how she looked in still photos. A Swedish friend thought he would help her by contacting Thalberg, who then agreed to give her a screen test. According to author Frederick Sands, "the result of the test was electrifying." Thalberg was impressed and began grooming the new starlet the following day: "the studio arranged to fix her teeth, made sure she lost weight, and gave her an English tutor."
Joan Crawford
Joan Crawford's first role was a Thalberg production at MGM and she became one of their leading stars for the next thirty years. Crawford was somewhat jealous of Norma Shearer as she thought she was given the better material by her husband Thalberg out of nepotism. Nevertheless, she felt that his contribution to MGM was vital to the film industry. Not long after his early death, she recalls her concerns: "Thalberg was dead and the concept of the quality 'big' picture pretty much went out the window."
Marie Dressler
Thalberg also realized that old stars few had heard of could be made into new ones. Marie Dressler, a fifty-nine-year-old early vaudeville and movie star, who had played the top-billed lead, above Charles Chaplin and Mabel Normand), in the first feature-length comedy, Tillie's Punctured Romance (1914), was unable to get any roles in films after leaving show business for some years, finally working as a maid. MGM screenwriter Frances Marion suggested to Thalberg that she might fit well in a starring role for a new film, and was surprised that he knew of her prior successes. Thalberg approved of using her without a screen test and offered his rationale:
By 1932, shortly before she died, Dressler was the country's number one box office star.
Wallace Beery
Marie Dressler was paired twice, in Min and Bill (1930) and Tugboat Annie (1933), with Wallace Beery, another major silent star who had been struggling to get work in sound pictures until Thalberg cast him. Beery had enjoyed a hugely successful silent film career dating back to 1913, but had been fired by Paramount shortly after sound pictures appeared. Thalberg cast him in the role of "Machine Gun Butch," which had been meant for recently deceased Lon Chaney, in The Big House (1930), an energetic prison picture that became a huge hit. Beery was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actor for his performance, and his burgeoning career at MGM had transformed him into the studio's highest paid actor within two more years, during which time he won the Oscar for The Champ and had become a phenomenal box office draw as a result of Thalberg's foresight.
Getting audience feedback and reshooting
According to Vieira, MGM had few failures during this period, and numerous blockbusters. Among the reasons was Thalberg's unique system of developing a script during story conferences with writers before filming began, and later giving "sneak previews" followed by audience feedback through written questionnaires. Often, where he felt improvement was needed, he arranged for scenes to be reshot. As Thalberg once stated, "The difference between something good and something superior is often very small."
Bad decisions and missed opportunities
Thalberg felt he had his "finger on the pulse of America. I know what people will do and what they won't do," he said. His judgment was not always accurate, however. Thalberg's bringing Broadway productions to the screen to develop higher picture standards sometimes resulted in "studied" acting or "stagey" sets, notes Flamini. In 1927, after the successful release of the first full-length talking picture, The Jazz Singer (1927), he nevertheless felt that talking pictures were a fad. Thalberg likewise did not think that color would replace black-and-white in movies.
When an assistant protested against a script that envisioned a love scene in Paris with an ocean background, Thalberg refused to make changes, saying "We can't cater to a handful of people who know Paris." A more serious distraction to Thalberg's efforts was his obsession with making his wife Norma Shearer a prominent star, efforts which sometimes led to "overblown and overglamous" productions. Thalberg himself admitted to his obsession years later when he told a fellow producer: "You're behaving like I did with Norma. I knew positively that she could play anything. It's a kind of romantic astigmatism that attacks producers when they fall for an actress."
Important films at MGM
Ben Hur (1925)
One of the first pictures he took charge of, Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ, was inherited and already in production by another studio when MGM was formed. The film was turning into a disastrous expense with cost overruns already in the millions due to its lavish sets and location shooting in Rome. Most studio executives chose to terminate the film to cut their losses. Thalberg, however, felt differently, and thought the film would affect movie audiences, due to its classic literary source, and would highlight MGM as a major new studio.
He, therefore, discarded much of the original footage shot in Italy and recreated the set on MGM's back lots in Culver City, which added more millions to the production, yet gave him more control over production. The new set also included a replica of Circus Maximus for the dramatic chariot race scenes. Flamini notes that Thalberg's "gamble paid off," drawing international attention to MGM, and to Thalberg within the movie industry for his bold action.
Mutiny on the Bounty (1935)
Mutiny on the Bounty was the studio's next most expensive film after Ben Hur, with some now calling it "Thalberg's masterpiece." He initially had difficulty convincing Mayer that he could make the film without making heroes of the mutineers. He achieved that by instead making a hero of the British Royal Navy, whereby the officers and shipmates would from then on display their mutual respect. Thalberg also had to convince Clark Gable to accept the role against his will. He pleaded with Gable, eventually promising him that "If it isn't one of your greatest successes, I'll never ask you again to play a part you don't want." The film's other main stars were Charles Laughton and Franchot Tone. The film was nominated for six Academy Awards, including Best Actor, and winning it for Best Picture. Thalberg accepted the award as producer from Frank Capra.
Thalberg and Mayer partnership
At first, Thalberg and studio chief Louis B. Mayer got along splendidly; however, they had different production philosophies. Thalberg preferred literary works, while Mayer preferred glitzy crowd-pleasing films. A clash was inevitable, and their relationship grew decidedly frosty. When Thalberg fell ill in the final weeks of 1932, Mayer took advantage of the situation and replaced him with David O. Selznick and Walter Wanger. Thalberg's reputation by that time for working long hours was widely known, and rumors about the related strain on his fragile health had become front-page news in entertainment trade publications. The Hollywood Reporter in January 1933 updated its readership about his condition and addressed growing concerns that he might be forced, despite his young age, to quit the business:
Once Thalberg recovered sufficiently from his bout with the "flu" and was able to return to work later in 1933, it was as one of MGM's unit producers, albeit one who had first choice on projects as well as preferential access to all the studio's resources, including over casting its stars. Thalberg's good relationship with Nicholas Schenck, then president of Loew's Incorporated, proved to be an ongoing advantage for him. Loew's was the corporate parent of MGM, so Schenck was the true power and ultimate arbiter at the studio; and he usually supported Thalberg's decisions and continued to do so whenever disagreements about projects or production needs arose. As a result, Thalberg also continued to produce or coproduce some of MGM's most prestigious and critically acclaimed ventures in this period, such as The Barretts of Wimpole Street (1934) starring his wife Norma Shearer, China Seas (1935), A Night at the Opera (1935), San Francisco (1936), and Romeo and Juliet (1936).
Personal life
During his few years with Universal while living in New York, Thalberg had become romantically involved with Carl Laemmle's daughter, Rosabelle. Still in his early twenties and later spending most of his time in Los Angeles, his feelings toward her were no longer as strong. Flamini suspects that this may have affected his position at Universal and partly caused his decision to leave the company. "The Laemmles prayed that Irving would marry Rosabelle", notes Flamini. "They wanted their sons to be educated and their daughters to marry nice Jewish boys."
Less than a year after he and Mayer took charge of the newly created MGM studios, and still only twenty-five years old, Thalberg suffered a serious heart attack due to overwork. Mayer also became aware of Thalberg's congenital heart problems and now worried about the prospect of running MGM without him. Mayer also became concerned that one of his daughters might become romantically involved, and told them so:
Thalberg, aware of Mayer's feelings, made it a point of never giving too much attention to his daughters at social events.
One of Thalberg's traits was his ability to work long hours into the night with little sign of fatigue. According to Vieira, Thalberg believed that as long as his mind was active in his work and he was not bored, he would not feel tired. Thalberg, who often got by with only five hours of sleep, felt that most people could get by with less than they realized. To keep his mental faculties at peak, he would read philosophical books by Bacon, Epictetus, or Kant. "They stimulate me. I'd drop out of sight in no time if I didn't read and keep up with current thought—and the philosophers are brain sharpeners."
During the early 1930s, Thalberg was ambivalent about political events in Europe. While he feared Nazism and the rise of Hitler, he also feared Communism. At the time, notes Vieira, "given a choice between communism and fascism, many Americans—including Thalberg—would prefer the latter." Thalberg stated his opinion:
When others suggested that many Jews could die in Germany as a result of Nazi anti-Semitism, he replied that in his opinion "Hitler and Hitlerism will pass." On one occasion, Catholic Prince Löwenstein of Germany, who himself had almost been captured before fleeing Germany, told him: "Mr. Thalberg, your own people are being systematically hunted down and rooted out of Germany." Thalberg suggested that world Jewry should nevertheless not interfere, that the Jewish race would survive Hitler. Within a few years, American film distribution was "choked off" in Germany. Led by Warner Brothers, all American studios eventually closed their German offices.
Thalberg began dating actress Norma Shearer a few years after he joined MGM. Following her conversion to Judaism, they married on Thursday, September 29, 1927, in a private ceremony in the garden of his rented house in Beverly Hills. Rabbi Edgar F. Magnin officiated at the event, with Shearer's brother Douglas Shearer giving the bride away, and Louis B. Mayer serving as best man. The couple drove to Monterey for their honeymoon and then moved into their newly constructed home in Beverly Hills.
After their second child was born, Shearer considered retiring from films, but Thalberg convinced her to continue acting, saying he could find her good roles. She went on to be one of MGM's biggest stars of the 1930s. Their two children were Irving Jr. (1930–1987) and Katharine (1935–2006).
Death
Thalberg and Shearer took a much-needed Labor Day weekend vacation in Monterey, California, in 1936, staying at the same beachfront hotel where they spent their honeymoon. A few weeks earlier, Thalberg's leading screenwriter, Al Lewin, had proposed doing a film based on a soon-to-be published book, Gone with the Wind. Although Thalberg said it would be a "sensational" role for Gable, and a "terrific picture," he decided not to do it:
Besides, Thalberg told Mayer, "[n]o Civil War picture ever made a nickel". Shortly after returning from Monterey, Thalberg was diagnosed with pneumonia. His condition worsened steadily and he eventually required an oxygen tent at home. He died on September 14, at the age of 37.
Sam Wood, while directing A Day at the Races, was given the news by phone. He returned to the set with tears in his eyes and told the others. As the news spread "the studio was paralyzed with shock", notes Thomas. "Work stopped and hundreds of people wept", with stars, writers, directors, and studio employees "all sharing a sense of loss at the death of a man who had been a part of their working lives", states Flamini.
His funeral took place two days later, and when the services began the other studios throughout Hollywood observed five minutes of silence. Producer Sam Goldwyn "wept uncontrollably for two days" and was unable to regain his composure enough to attend. The MGM studio closed for that day.
Services were held at the Wilshire Boulevard Temple that Thalberg had occasionally attended. The funeral attracted thousands of spectators who came to view the arrival of countless stars from MGM and other studios, including Greta Garbo, Jean Harlow, the Marx Brothers, Charlie Chaplin, Walt Disney, Howard Hughes, Al Jolson, Gary Cooper, Carole Lombard, Mary Pickford, and Douglas Fairbanks, among the screen luminaries. The ushers who led them to their seats included Clark Gable, Fredric March, and playwright Moss Hart. Erich von Stroheim, who had been fired by Thalberg, came to pay his respects. Producers Louis B. Mayer, the Warner brothers, Adolph Zukor, and Nicholas Schenck sat together solemnly as Rabbi Magnin gave the eulogy.
Thalberg is buried in a private marble tomb in the Great Mausoleum at Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Glendale, California, lying at rest beside his wife Norma Shearer Arrouge (Thalberg's crypt was engraved "My Sweetheart Forever" by Shearer).
Over the following days, tributes were published by the national press. Louis B. Mayer, his co-founding partner at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, said he had lost "the finest friend a man could ever have", while MGM president Nicholas Schenck stated that "Thalberg was the most important man in the production end of the motion-picture industry. Leading producers from the other studios also expressed their feelings in published tributes to Thalberg:
David O. Selznick described him as "beyond any question the greatest individual force for fine pictures." Samuel Goldwyn called him "the foremost figure in the motion-picture industry ... and an inspiration." M. H. Aylesworth, Chairman of RKO, wrote that "his integrity, vision and ability made him the spearhead of all motion-picture production throughout the world." Harry Warner, president of Warner Bros., described him as "gifted with one of the finest minds ever placed at the service of motion-picture production." Sidney R. Kent, president of Twentieth Century Fox, said that "he made the whole world richer by giving it the highest type of entertainment. He was a true genius." Columbia president Harry Cohn said the "motion picture industry has suffered a loss from which it will not soon recover...". Darryl F. Zanuck noted, "More than any other man he raised the industry to its present world prestige." Adolph Zukor, chairman of Paramount, stated, "Irving Thalberg was the most brilliant young man in the motion picture business." Jesse Lasky said, "It will be utterly impossible to replace him."
Among the condolences that came from world political leaders, President Franklin D. Roosevelt wrote, "The world of art is poorer with the passing of Irving Thalberg. His high ideals, insight and imagination went into the production of his masterpieces."
Among the pictures that were unfinished or not yet released at the time of his death were A Day at the Races, The Good Earth, Camille, Maytime, and Romeo and Juliet. Groucho Marx, star of A Day at the Races, wrote, "After Thalberg's death, my interest in the movies waned. I continued to appear in them, but ... The fun had gone out of picture making." Thalberg's widow, Norma Shearer, recalled, "Grief does very strange things to you. I didn't seem to feel the shock for two weeks afterwards. ... then, at the end of those two weeks, I collapsed."
Legacy in the movie industry
Thalberg's legacy to the movie industry is "incalculable", states biographer Bob Thomas. He notes that with his numerous production innovations and grand stories, often turning classic literature and Broadway stage productions into big-screen pictures, he managed to keep "American movies supreme throughout the world for a generation". Darryl F. Zanuck, founder of 20th Century-Fox said that during Thalberg's brief career, he had become the "most creative producer in the history of films". Thomas describes some of his contributions:
Most of MGM's major films in the 1930s were, according to Flamini, "in a very real sense", made by Thalberg. He closely supervised the making of "more pictures than any other producer in Hollywood's history", and was considered the "archetype of the creative producer", adds Flamini. Upon his early death, aged 37, an editorial in The New York Times called him "the most important force" in the motion picture industry. The paper added that for the film industry, he "set the pace and others followed ... because his way combined style, glamour, and profit." He is described by Flamini as having been "a revolutionary in a gray flannel suit".
Thalberg refused to take credit as producer, and as a result, his name never appeared on the screen while he was alive. Thalberg claimed that "credit you give yourself is not worth having". He also said "If a picture is good, they'll know who produced it. If it's bad, nobody cares." His final film, released after he died, was The Good Earth (1937), which won numerous Academy Awards. Its opening screen credit was dedicated to Thalberg:
In 1938, the new multimillion-dollar MGM administration building in Culver City was named for Thalberg. The Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award, presented by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, also named for him, awards producers for consistently high production achievements.
Cultural legacy
The Last Tycoon
In October 1939, American novelist F. Scott Fitzgerald began writing The Last Tycoon, a fictionalized biography of Thalberg, naming the protagonist Monroe Stahr to represent Thalberg. "Thalberg has always fascinated me", he wrote to an editor. "His peculiar charm, his extraordinary good looks, his bountiful success, the tragic end of his great adventure. The events I have built around him are fiction, but all of them are things which might very well have happened. ... I've long chosen him for a hero (this has been in my mind for three years) because he is one of the half-dozen men I have known who were built on a grand scale."
Thomas notes that among the reasons Fitzgerald chose to write a book about a Thalberg-like character, was that "throughout his literary career, Fitzgerald borrowed his heroes from friends he admired, and inevitably a bit of Fitzgerald entered the characterizations." Fitzgerald himself writes that "When I like men, I want to be like them ..." Fitzgerald and Thalberg had real-life similarities: both were prodigies, both had heart ailments, and they both died at early ages.
According to biographer Matthew J. Bruccoli, Fitzgerald believed that Thalberg, with his "taste and courage, represented the best of Hollywood. ... [and] saw Thalberg as a model for what could be done in the movies." Fitzgerald died before the novel was completed, however. Bruccoli writes of Fitzgerald's book:
Although parallels between Monroe Stahr in the novel and Thalberg were evident, many who knew Thalberg intimately stated that they did not see similarities in their personalities. Norma Shearer said that the Stahr character was not at all like her former husband.
In the 1976 film version, directed by Elia Kazan, Monroe Stahr was played by Robert De Niro. Kazan, in his pre-production notes, described the Stahr character as he saw him:
In the 2016 television series based on the novel, Monroe Stahr is played by Matt Bomer.
Others
Fitzgerald also based his short story "Crazy Sunday", originally published in the October 1932 issue of American Mercury, on an incident at a party thrown by Thalberg and Shearer. The story is included in Fitzgerald's collection Taps at Reveille (1935).
Thalberg was portrayed in the movie Man of a Thousand Faces (1957) by Robert Evans, who went on to become a studio head himself.
Thalberg was portrayed by Bill Cusack in Young Indiana Jones and the Hollywood Follies (1994), a TV film based on The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles, in which Indiana Jones is depicted as taking part in Thalberg's conflict with Erich von Stroheim over Foolish Wives.
In 2020, Thalberg was played by Ferdinand Kingsley in the David Fincher film Mank
Thalberg, played by Tobey Maguire, is rumored to appear in the upcoming movie Babylon.
Filmography
Producer
Reputation (1921)
The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1923)
Merry-Go-Round (1923)
His Hour (1924)
He Who Gets Slapped (1924)
The Unholy Three (1925)
The Merry Widow (1925)
The Tower of Lies (1925)
The Big Parade (1925)
Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ (1925)
Torrent (1926)
La Bohème (1926)
Brown of Harvard (1926)
The Road to Mandalay (1926)
The Temptress (1926)
Valencia (1926)
Flesh and the Devil (1926)
Twelve Miles Out (1927)
The Student Prince in Old Heidelberg (1927)
London After Midnight (1927)
The Crowd (1928)
Laugh, Clown, Laugh (1928)
White Shadows in the South Seas (1928)
Show People (1928)
West of Zanzibar (1928)
The Broadway Melody (1929)
The Trial of Mary Dugan (1929)
Voice of the City (1929)
Where East Is East (1929)
The Last of Mrs. Cheyney (1929)
The Hollywood Revue of 1929 (1929)
Hallelujah (1929)
His Glorious Night (1929)
The Kiss (1929)
Anna Christie (1930)
Redemption (1930)
The Divorcee (1930)
The Rogue Song (1930)
The Big House (1930)
The Unholy Three (1930)
Let Us Be Gay (1930)
Billy the Kid (1930)
Way for a Sailor (1930)
A Lady's Morals (1930)
Inspiration (1931)
Trader Horn (1931)
The Secret Six (1931)
A Free Soul (1931)
Just a Gigolo (1931)
Menschen hinter Gittern (1931), German-language version of The Big House (1930)
The Sin of Madelon Claudet (1931)
The Guardsman (1931)
The Champ (1931)
Possessed (1931)
Private Lives (1931)
Mata Hari (1931)
Freaks (1932)
Tarzan the Ape Man (1932)
Grand Hotel (1932)
Letty Lynton (1932)
As You Desire Me (1932)
Red-Headed Woman (1932)
Smilin' Through (1932)
Red Dust (1932)
Rasputin and the Empress (1932)
Strange Interlude (1932)
Tugboat Annie (1933)
Bombshell (1933)
Eskimo (1933)
La Veuve Joyeuse (1934) French-language version of The Merry Widow
Riptide (1934)
The Barretts of Wimpole Street (1934)
The Merry Widow (1934)
What Every Woman Knows (1934)
Biography of a Bachelor Girl (1935)
No More Ladies (1935)
China Seas (1935)
Mutiny on the Bounty (1935)
A Night at the Opera (1935)
Riffraff (1936)
Romeo and Juliet (1936)
Camille (1936)
Maytime (1937)
A Day at the Races (1937)
Broadway Melody of 1938 (1937)
The Good Earth (1937)
Marie Antoinette (1938)
Writer
The Trap (1922)
The Dangerous Little Demon (1922)
Awards
Academy Awards
Notes
Further reading
Books
Flamini, Roland. Thalberg: The Last Tycoon and the World of M-G-M (1994)
Marx, Samuel. Mayer and Thalberg: The Make-believe Saints (1975)
Thomas, Bob. Thalberg: Life and Legend (1969)
Vieira, Mark A. Irving Thalberg's M-G-M. New York: Harry N. Abrams, 2008.
Vieira, Mark A. Irving Thalberg: Boy Wonder to Producer Prince. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2009.
Articles
Starman, Ray. "Irving Thalberg", Films In Review, June/July 1987, p. 347–353
External links
Irving Thalberg at TCM
Cinemagraphe Review of the Roland Flamini biography of Thalberg: The Last Tycoon and the World of MGM
Irving Thalberg at Virtual History
Irving Thalberg profiled in Collier's Magazine (1924)
Videos
1899 births
1936 deaths
American film producers
Film producers from California
Producers who won the Best Picture Academy Award
American film studio executives
American male screenwriters
Cinema pioneers
Silent film directors
Silent film producers
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer executives
Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences founders
Businesspeople from Los Angeles
Hollywood history and culture
California Republicans
New York (state) Republicans
USC School of Cinematic Arts faculty
20th-century American businesspeople
Screenwriters from California
Screenwriters from New York (state)
People from Brooklyn
American anti-communists
American people of German-Jewish descent
Deaths from pneumonia in California
Burials at Forest Lawn Memorial Park (Glendale)
20th-century American male writers
20th-century American writers
Jewish American writers
20th-century American screenwriters | true | [
"Nina Romano (born Isabel Craven Dilworth) was an American actress in films and on stage.\n\nEarly years\nRomano was the daughter of glass manufacturer J. Dale Dilworth of Salem, New Jersey, and his wife. Her interest in acting developed while she was in high school at Ward–Belmont College in Nashville, and she went on to attend a dramatic school in New York.\n\nCareer\nRomano's initial professional acting experience came in a stage production of Don Juan. She initially focused on dramatic roles, but in 1924 she had her first comedic role in the farce The Whole Town's Talking. Her Broadway credits included The Love Call (1927) and The Warrior's Husband (1932).\n\nAfter being a leading woman on stage for years, Romano made her screen debut in the film Titans for Universal Pictures. That work led to her signing a long-term contract with Universal in 1925. Her other films included The Palace of Pleasure (1926), What Happened to Jones (1926), and Lost at the Front (1927).\n\nPersonal life\nOn December 17, 1923, Romano married Lou Tellegen in Rutherford, New Jersey. Tellegen was an actor with whom Romano had performed in Blind Youth. The couple kept the marriage secret until February 1925, when their son was born. On August 30, 1928, Tellegen and Romano filed for bankruptcy, and in November 1928 the couple was divorced in Los Angeles.\n\nOn October 24, 1931, Romano married Count S. Danneskiold-Samsøe of Denmark. The two later divorced, with Romano suing the count in 1955 to recover $171,000 that she said she had advanced to him.\n\nFilmography\n The Storm Breaker (1925)\n The Palace of Pleasure (1926)\n What Happened to Jones (1926)\n The Midnight Sun (1926)\n Money to Burn (1926)\n Lost at the Front (1927)\n Her Husband's Women (1929)\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n\n20th-century American actresses\nAmerican film actresses\nAmerican stage actresses\nActresses from New Jersey",
"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"
]
|
[
"Irving Thalberg",
"Universal Studios",
"Did he work for universal?",
"He found work as an office secretary at Universal Pictures' New York office,",
"Did he have other jobs with universal?",
"later became personal secretary to the studio's founder and president, Carl Laemmle.",
"What did he do at universal?",
"Thalberg's duties were transcribing and editing notes that Laemmle had written during screenings of his films.",
"What happened to him while at universal?",
"Laemmle told Thalberg to remain and \"keep an eye on things for me.\" Two months later, Laemmle returned to California,"
]
| C_7b8dcb999ce54951992e991787a236a9_0 | Why did Laemmle go to California? | 5 | Why did Laemmle go to California? | Irving Thalberg | He found work as an office secretary at Universal Pictures' New York office, and later became personal secretary to the studio's founder and president, Carl Laemmle. Among Thalberg's duties were transcribing and editing notes that Laemmle had written during screenings of his films. He earned $25 weekly, becoming adept at making insightful observations, which impressed Laemmle. Laemmle took Thalberg to see his Los Angeles production facility, where he spent a month watching how movie production worked. Before returning to New York, Laemmle told Thalberg to remain and "keep an eye on things for me." Two months later, Laemmle returned to California, partly to see how well Thalberg was able to handle the responsibilities he was given. Thalberg gave him suggestions, which impressed Laemmle by his ability to understand and explain problems. Thalberg suggested, "The first thing you should do is establish a new job of studio manager and give him the responsibility of watching day-to-day operations." Laemmle immediately agreed, "All right. You're it." In shock, Thalberg replied, "I'm what?" Laemmle told him to take charge of the Los Angeles studio, which he did in early 1919. At age 20, Thalberg became responsible for immediately overseeing the nine ongoing film productions and nearly thirty scenarios then under development. In describing the rationale for this early appointment as studio manager, film historian David Thomson writes that his new job "owed nothing to nepotism, private wealth, or experience in the film industry." He reasons that despite "Thalberg's youth, modest education, and frail appearance . . . it is clear that he had the charm, insight, and ability, or the appearance of it, to captivate the film world." Thalberg was one among the majority of Hollywood film industry workers who migrated from the East Coast, primarily from New York. Some film actors, such as Conrad Nagel, did not like the 5-day train trip or the sudden warmth of the California climate. Neither did Marion Davies, who was not used to such "big wide spaces." Samuel Marx, a close friend of Thalberg's from New York, recalled how easily Thalberg adapted to Southern California, often standing outside his doorway during moments of contemplation to enjoy the scenery. "We were all young," said comedian Buster Keaton. "The air in California was like wine. Our business was also young--and growing like nothing ever seen before." CANNOTANSWER | partly to see how well Thalberg was able to handle the responsibilities he was given. Thalberg gave him suggestions, | Irving Grant Thalberg (May 30, 1899 – September 14, 1936) was an American film producer during the early years of motion pictures. He was called "The Boy Wonder" for his youth and ability to select scripts, choose actors, gather production staff, and make profitable films, including Grand Hotel, China Seas, A Night at the Opera, Mutiny on the Bounty, Camille and The Good Earth. His films carved out an international market, "projecting a seductive image of American life brimming with vitality and rooted in democracy and personal freedom", states biographer Roland Flamini.
He was born in Brooklyn, New York, and as a child was afflicted with a congenital heart disease that doctors said would kill him before he reached the age of thirty. After graduating from high school he worked as a store clerk during the day and to gain some job skills took a night class in typing. He then found work as a secretary with Universal Studios' New York office, and was later made studio manager for their Los Angeles facility. There, he oversaw production of a hundred films during his three years with the company. Among the films he produced was The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1923).
In Los Angeles, he partnered with Louis B. Mayer's new studio and, after it merged with two other studios, helped create Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM). He was made head of production of MGM in 1925, at the age of twenty-six, helping MGM become the most successful studio in Hollywood. During his twelve years with MGM, until his premature death at the age of 37, he produced four hundred films, most of which bore his imprint and innovations, including story conferences with writers, sneak previews to gain early feedback, and extensive re-shooting of scenes to improve the film. In addition, he introduced horror films to audiences and coauthored the "Production Code", guidelines for morality followed by all studios. During the 1920s and 1930s, he synthesized and merged the world of stage drama and literary classics with Hollywood films.
Thalberg created numerous new stars and groomed their screen images. Among them were Lon Chaney, Ramon Novarro, Greta Garbo, John Gilbert, Lionel Barrymore, Joan Crawford, Clark Gable, Jean Harlow, Wallace Beery, Spencer Tracy, Luise Rainer, and Norma Shearer, who became his wife. He had the ability to combine quality with commercial success, and was credited with bringing his artistic aspirations in line with the demands of audiences. After his death, Hollywood's producers said he had been the world's "foremost figure in motion-picture history". President Franklin D. Roosevelt wrote, "The world of art is poorer with the passing of Irving Thalberg. His high ideals, insight and imagination went into the production of his masterpieces." The Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award, given out periodically by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences since 1937, has been awarded to producers whose body of work reflected consistently high quality films.
Early years
Thalberg was born in Brooklyn, to German Jewish immigrant parents, William and Henrietta (Haymann). Shortly after birth, he was diagnosed with "blue baby syndrome", caused by a congenital disease that limited the oxygen supply to his heart. The prognosis from the family's doctor and specialists was that he might live to the age of twenty, or at most, to thirty.
During his high school years in Brooklyn, he began having attacks of chest pains, dizziness and fatigue. This affected his ability to study, though until that time he was a good student. When he was 17 he contracted rheumatic fever, and was confined to bed for a year. His mother, in order to prevent him falling too far behind other students, brought him homework from school, books, and tutors to teach him at home. She also hoped that the schoolwork and reading would distract him from the "tantalizing sounds" of children playing outside his window.
With little to entertain him, he read books as a main activity. He devoured popular novels, classics, plays, and biographies. His books, of necessity, replaced the streets of New York, and led to his interest in classical philosophy and philosophers, such as William James.
When Thalberg returned to school, he finished high school but lacked the stamina for college, which he felt would have required constant late-night studying and cramming for exams. Instead, he took part-time jobs as a store clerk, and in the evenings, to gain some job skills, taught himself typing, shorthand and Spanish at a night vocational school. When he turned 18, he placed an advertisement in the local newspaper hoping to find better work:
Career as producer
Universal Studios
He found work as an office secretary at Universal Pictures' New York office, and later became personal secretary to the studio's founder and president, Carl Laemmle. Among Thalberg's duties were transcribing and editing notes that Laemmle had written during screenings of his films. He earned $25 weekly, becoming adept at making insightful observations, which impressed Laemmle.
Laemmle took Thalberg to see his Los Angeles production facility, where he spent a month watching how movie production worked. Before returning to New York, Laemmle told Thalberg to remain and "keep an eye on things for me." Two months later, Laemmle returned to California, partly to see how well Thalberg was able to handle the responsibilities he was given. Thalberg gave him suggestions, and thus impressed Laemmle by his ability to understand and explain problems.
Thalberg suggested, "The first thing you should do is establish a new job of studio manager and give him the responsibility of watching day-to-day operations." Laemmle immediately agreed: "All right. You're it." In shock, Thalberg replied, "I'm what?" Laemmle told him to take charge of the Los Angeles studio, which he did in early 1919. When aged 20, Thalberg became responsible for immediately overseeing the nine ongoing film productions and nearly thirty scenarios then under development.
In describing the rationale for this early appointment as studio manager, film historian David Thomson writes that his new job "owed nothing to nepotism, private wealth, or experience in the film industry." He reasons that despite "Thalberg's youth, modest education, and frail appearance ... it is clear that he had the charm, insight, and ability, or the appearance of it, to captivate the film world."
Thalberg was one among the majority of Hollywood film industry workers who migrated from the East Coast, primarily from New York. Some film actors, such as Conrad Nagel, did not like the five-day train trip or the sudden warmth of the California climate. Neither did Marion Davies, who was not used to such "big wide spaces". Samuel Marx, a close friend of Thalberg's from New York, recalled how easily Thalberg adapted to Southern California, often standing outside his doorway during moments of contemplation to enjoy the scenery. "We were all young", said comedian Buster Keaton. "The air in California was like wine. Our business was also young—and growing like nothing ever seen before."
Confrontation with Erich von Stroheim
He quickly established his tenacity as he battled with well-known director Erich von Stroheim over the length of Foolish Wives (1922). Biographer Roland Flamini notes that the film was Universal's most expensive "jewel" ever in production, and its director and star, von Stroheim, was taking the film way over budget. Thalberg, now Universal's general manager, was forced to have the director quickly finalize production before the studio's working capital was used up. Flamini describes the situation:
Thalberg had von Stroheim come to his office, which he did still wearing his film costume as a Russian Imperial Guard and escorted by members of his production team. Thalberg calmly told him, "I have seen all the film and you have all you need for the picture. I want you to stop shooting", to which von Stroheim replied, "But I have not finished as yet." "Yes, you have", said Thalberg. "You have spent all the money this company can afford. I cannot allow you to spend any more."
Thalberg quietly explained that the director worked under the producer, and it was his responsibility to control costs. Von Stroheim, surrounded by his assistants, then confronted Thalberg: "If you were not my superior, I would smash you in the face." Thalberg, unflinching, said "Don't let that stop you." The result was that Thalberg soon afterward removed the cameras from von Stroheim's studio and took over editing. The uncut footage was pared down from five-and-a-half hours to three hours, to von Stroheim's deep dissatisfaction.
A similar problem developed with von Stroheim's next film, Merry-Go-Round (1923). Although he had promised Thalberg to remain within budget this time, he continued production until it went to twice the agreed length and was not yet near completion. Flamini speculates why this happened:
Thalberg again called von Stroheim to his office, handed him a long letter written and signed by himself, describing the problems, and summarily fired von Stroheim as of that moment. Thalberg's letter stated among the reasons,
totally inexcusable and repeated acts of insubordination ... extravagant ideas which you have been unwilling to sacrifice ... unnecessary delays ... and your apparent idea that you are greater and more powerful than the organization that employs you.
His dismissal of von Stroheim was considered an "earthquake in movie circles", notes Flamini. Producer David O. Selznick said that "it was the first time a director had been fired. It took great guts and courage ... Von Stroheim was utterly indifferent over money and could have gone on and spent millions, with nobody to stop him.". The opinion was shared by director Rouben Mamoulian, who said that the "little fellow at Universal", in one bold stroke, had "asserted the primacy of the studio over the director" and forever altered the balance of power in the movie industry.
Effects of his young age
According to Flamini, his youth was a subject of conversation within the movie community. Executives from other studios, actors, and film crew, often mistook him to be a junior employee. Movie columnist Louella Parsons, upon first being introduced to him, asked, "What's the joke? Where's the new general manager?" After five minutes of talking to Thalberg, however, she later wrote about "Universal's Boy Wonder": "He might be a boy in looks and age, but it was no child's mind that was being asked to cope with the intricate politics of Universal City." Novelist Edna Ferber responded the same way, writing that "I had fancied motion-picture producers as large gentlemen smoking oversized cigars. But this young man whose word seemed so final at Universal City ... impressed me deeply."
The male actors in the studio had a similar reaction. Lionel Barrymore, who was nearly twice his age, recalled their meetings:
Thalberg likewise gained the respect of leading playwrights, some of whom also looked down on him due to his youth. George S. Kaufman, co-author of Dinner at Eight, several Marx Brothers films, and two George Gershwin plays, came from New York to meet with Thalberg. Afterward he confided to his friend, Groucho Marx: "That man has never written a word, yet he can tell me exactly what to do with a story. I didn't know you had people like that out here."
Actress Norma Shearer, whom he later married, was surprised after he greeted her at the door, then walked her to his office for her first job interview: "Then you're not the office boy?" she asked. He smiled, as he sat himself behind his desk: "No, Miss Shearer, I'm Irving Thalberg, vice-president of the Mayer Company. I'm the man who sent for you."
His younger-than-normal age for a studio executive was usually mentioned even after he left Universal to help start up MGM. Screenwriter Agnes Christine Johnson, who worked with Thalberg for years, described his contribution during meetings:
The same quality was observed by director and screenwriter Hobart Henley: "If something that read well in conference turns out not so good on the screen, I go to him and, like that—Henley snaps his fingers—he has a remedy. He's brilliant." Another assistant producer to Thalberg explains:
His youth also contributed to his open-mindedness to the ideas of others. Conrad Nagel, who starred in numerous Thalberg films, reported that Thalberg was generally empathetic to those he worked alongside: "Thalberg never raised his voice. He just looked into your eyes, spoke softly, and after a few minutes he cast a spell on you." Studio attorney Edwin Loeb, who also worked to create AMPAS, explained that "the real foundation of Irving's success was his ability to look at life through the eyes of any given person. He had a gift of empathy, and almost complete perspective." Those opinions were also shared by producer Walter Wanger: "You thought that you were talking to an Indian savant. He could cast a spell on anybody."
His talent as a producer was enhanced by his "near-miraculous" powers of concentration, notes film critic J. Hoberman. As a result, he was never bored or tired, and supplemented his spare time with reading for his own amusement, recalls screenwriter Bayard Veiller, with some of his favorite authors being Francis Bacon, Epictetus, and Immanuel Kant.
Film projects at Universal
Biographer Bob Thomas writes that after three years at the studio, Thalberg continually proved his value. Universal's pictures improved noticeably, primarily due to Thalberg's "uncanny sense of story." He took tight control over many key aspects of production, including his requirement that from then on scripts were tightly constructed before filming began, rather than during production. Thomas adds that he also "showed a remarkable capacity for working with actors, casting them aptly and advising them on their careers."
After producing two films that were in production when he began work at Universal, he presented Laemmle with his idea for a film based on one of his favorite classic stories, The Hunchback of Notre Dame. Rather than just a horror picture, Thalberg suggested turning it into a spectacle which would include a replica of the Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris. He had Lon Chaney play the hunchback. The film became Universal's most profitable silent film and established Chaney's career as a top-flight star.
After nearly three years with Universal, Thalberg had supervised over a hundred movies, reorganized the studio to give more control to the managers, and had "stopped the defection" of many of their leading stars by offering them better, higher-paying contracts. He also produced a number of Universal's prestige films, which made the company profitable. However, he decided it was time to find a studio in Los Angeles more suitable to his skills, and spread word that he was available.
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM)
Cecil B. DeMille was the first who wanted to hire him, telling his partner Jesse Lasky, "The boy is a genius. I can see it. I know it." Lasky opposed the hire, stating, "Geniuses we have all we need." Thalberg then received an offer from Hal Roach, but the offer was withdrawn because Thalberg lacked experience with slapstick comedy films. In late 1922, Thalberg was introduced to Louis B. Mayer, president of a small but dynamic and fast-growing studio. At that first meeting, Thalberg "made a deep, immediate impression on Mayer", writes Flamini. After Thalberg had left, Mayer said to studio attorney Edwin Loeb: "Tell him if he comes to work for me, I'll look after him as though he were my son."
Although their personalities were in many ways opposite, Mayer being more outspoken and nearly twice the younger man's age, Thalberg was hired as vice president in charge of production at Louis B. Mayer Productions. Years later, Mayer's daughter Irene Mayer Selznick recalled that "it was hard to believe anyone that boyish could be so important." According to Flamini, Thalberg was hired because, although Mayer was an astute businessman, "what he lacked was Thalberg's almost unerring ability to combine quality with commercial success, to bring artistic aspiration in line with the demands of the box office." Mayer's company subsequently merged with two others to become Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM), with the 24-year-old Thalberg made part-owner and accorded the same position as vice president in charge of production. Three years after the merger, MGM became the most successful studio in Hollywood.
During his twelve years at MGM, Thalberg supervised the production of over four hundred films. Although Thalberg and his colleagues at MGM knew he was "doomed" to not live much past the age of 30 due to heart disease, he loved producing films. He continued developing innovative ideas and overseeing most of MGM's pictures. Under Thalberg's management, MGM released over 40% more films yearly than Warner Brothers, and more than double Paramount's releases. From 1924 until 1936, when Thalberg died at the age of 37, "almost every film bore Thalberg's imprint", wrote Mark Vieira.
Production innovations
Thalberg's production techniques "broke new ground in filmmaking", adds Vieira. Among his contributions at MGM was his innovation of story conferences, sneak previews and scene retakes. He introduced the first horror films and coauthored the Production Code, the set of moral guidelines that all film studios agreed to follow. Thalberg helped synthesize and merge the world of stage drama and literary classics with Hollywood films.
MGM thereby became the only movie studio to consistently show a profit during the Great Depression. Flamini explains that the equation for MGM's success depended on combining stars, a Broadway hit or popular classic, and high standards of production. This combination at the time was considered a "revolutionary approach" in the film industry, which until then assumed a star was all that was needed for success, regardless of the story or production quality. The other studios began following MGM's lead with that same formula.
Production techniques
Thalberg generally followed a system in managing his productions. According to one of his assistants, Lawrence Weingarten, who later became a producer, "Thalberg directed the film on paper, and then the director directed the film on film."
Thalberg was generally opposed to location shooting overseas where he could not oversee production and control costs, as happened with Ben Hur. Thus, he kept hundreds of back-lot carpenters at work creating realistic sets, as he did for fifteenth-century Romeo and Juliet (1936), or with China Seas (1935), to replicate the harbors of Hong Kong.
Vieira points out that Thalberg's "fascination with Broadway plays" often had him create and present stories visually. For China Seas, for instance, he described for the screenwriters, director and others, exactly how he wanted the film to appear on screen:
To be certain of achieving the desired effects, Thalberg made sure his cinematographers were careful in their use of light and shadow. Vieira observes that "more than any other producer or any other studio, Thalberg and MGM manipulated lenses, filters, and lighting instruments to affect the viewer." As a result, he notes, "most of Thalberg's films contain moments such as these, in which cinematic technique transcends mere exposition and gives the viewer something to treasure."
Thalberg was supported by most of the studio in these kinds of creative decisions. "It was a big family," notes Weingarten. "If we had a success, everybody—and I mean every cutter, every painter, every plasterer—was excited about it, was abuzz, was in a tizzy about the whole idea of picture making."
Taking risks with new subjects and stars
In 1929, MGM released fifty films, and all but five showed a profit. Of those that failed, Hallelujah was also a gamble by Thalberg. When King Vidor, the film's producer and director, proposed the idea to Thalberg of a major film cast, for the first time, exclusively with African Americans, he told Thalberg directly, "I doubt that it will make a dollar at the box office." Thalberg replied, "Don't worry about that. I've told you that MGM can afford an occasional experiment."
By the early 1930s, a number of stars began failing at the box office, partly due to the Great Depression that was now undermining the economy, along with the public's ability to spend on entertainment. Thalberg began using two stars in a film, rather than one, as had been the tradition at all the studios, such as pairing Greta Garbo with John Gilbert, Clark Gable with Jean Harlow, and William Powell with Myrna Loy. After experimenting with a few such films, including Mata Hari (1931), which were profitable, he decided on a multi-star production of another Broadway play, Grand Hotel (1932). It had five major stars, including Garbo, Joan Crawford, John Barrymore, Lionel Barrymore, and Wallace Beery. "Before Thalberg," writes Vieira, "there was no Grand Hotel in the American consciousness." The film won the Oscar for Best Picture in 1932.
Thalberg went against consensus and took another risk with The Great Ziegfeld (1936), costarring Luise Rainer. Although Louis B. Mayer did not want her in the role, which he felt was too minor for a new star, Thalberg felt that "only she could play the part", wrote biographer Charles Higham. Shortly after shooting began in late 1935, doubts of Rainer's acting ability emerged in the press. However, despite her limited appearances in the film, Rainer "so impressed audiences with one highly emotional scene" that she won the Academy Award for Best Actress.
After her winning role in The Great Ziegfeld, Thalberg wanted her to play a role that was the opposite of her previous character, for The Good Earth (1937). For the part as a Chinese peasant, she was required to act totally subservient to her husband, being perpetually huddled in submission, and barely spoke a word of dialogue during the entire film. Rainer recalls that Mayer did not approve of the film being produced or her part in it: "He was horrified at Irving Thalberg's insistence for me to play O-lan, the poor uncomely little Chinese peasant." However, she again won the Oscar for Best Actress, becoming the first actress to win two consecutive Oscars, a feat not matched until Katharine Hepburn's two Oscar wins thirty years later.
Grooming new stars
Besides bringing a distinctive high quality "look" to MGM films and often recreating well-known stories or plays, Thalberg's actors themselves took on a characteristic quality. Thalberg wanted his female actors to appear "cool, classy and beautiful," notes Flamini. And he strove to make the male actors appear "worldly and in control." In general, Thalberg movies and actors came to be "luxurious," "glossy," and "technically flawless." By doing so, he made stars or boosted the careers of actors such as Lon Chaney, Ramon Novarro, John Gilbert, Greta Garbo, Joan Crawford, Clark Gable, Helen Hayes, Jean Harlow, Marie Dressler, Wallace Beery, John Barrymore, Lionel Barrymore and Luise Rainer.
Greta Garbo
In 1925, a young Greta Garbo, then twenty, and unable to speak any English, was brought over from Sweden at Mayer's request, as he saw how she looked in still photos. A Swedish friend thought he would help her by contacting Thalberg, who then agreed to give her a screen test. According to author Frederick Sands, "the result of the test was electrifying." Thalberg was impressed and began grooming the new starlet the following day: "the studio arranged to fix her teeth, made sure she lost weight, and gave her an English tutor."
Joan Crawford
Joan Crawford's first role was a Thalberg production at MGM and she became one of their leading stars for the next thirty years. Crawford was somewhat jealous of Norma Shearer as she thought she was given the better material by her husband Thalberg out of nepotism. Nevertheless, she felt that his contribution to MGM was vital to the film industry. Not long after his early death, she recalls her concerns: "Thalberg was dead and the concept of the quality 'big' picture pretty much went out the window."
Marie Dressler
Thalberg also realized that old stars few had heard of could be made into new ones. Marie Dressler, a fifty-nine-year-old early vaudeville and movie star, who had played the top-billed lead, above Charles Chaplin and Mabel Normand), in the first feature-length comedy, Tillie's Punctured Romance (1914), was unable to get any roles in films after leaving show business for some years, finally working as a maid. MGM screenwriter Frances Marion suggested to Thalberg that she might fit well in a starring role for a new film, and was surprised that he knew of her prior successes. Thalberg approved of using her without a screen test and offered his rationale:
By 1932, shortly before she died, Dressler was the country's number one box office star.
Wallace Beery
Marie Dressler was paired twice, in Min and Bill (1930) and Tugboat Annie (1933), with Wallace Beery, another major silent star who had been struggling to get work in sound pictures until Thalberg cast him. Beery had enjoyed a hugely successful silent film career dating back to 1913, but had been fired by Paramount shortly after sound pictures appeared. Thalberg cast him in the role of "Machine Gun Butch," which had been meant for recently deceased Lon Chaney, in The Big House (1930), an energetic prison picture that became a huge hit. Beery was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actor for his performance, and his burgeoning career at MGM had transformed him into the studio's highest paid actor within two more years, during which time he won the Oscar for The Champ and had become a phenomenal box office draw as a result of Thalberg's foresight.
Getting audience feedback and reshooting
According to Vieira, MGM had few failures during this period, and numerous blockbusters. Among the reasons was Thalberg's unique system of developing a script during story conferences with writers before filming began, and later giving "sneak previews" followed by audience feedback through written questionnaires. Often, where he felt improvement was needed, he arranged for scenes to be reshot. As Thalberg once stated, "The difference between something good and something superior is often very small."
Bad decisions and missed opportunities
Thalberg felt he had his "finger on the pulse of America. I know what people will do and what they won't do," he said. His judgment was not always accurate, however. Thalberg's bringing Broadway productions to the screen to develop higher picture standards sometimes resulted in "studied" acting or "stagey" sets, notes Flamini. In 1927, after the successful release of the first full-length talking picture, The Jazz Singer (1927), he nevertheless felt that talking pictures were a fad. Thalberg likewise did not think that color would replace black-and-white in movies.
When an assistant protested against a script that envisioned a love scene in Paris with an ocean background, Thalberg refused to make changes, saying "We can't cater to a handful of people who know Paris." A more serious distraction to Thalberg's efforts was his obsession with making his wife Norma Shearer a prominent star, efforts which sometimes led to "overblown and overglamous" productions. Thalberg himself admitted to his obsession years later when he told a fellow producer: "You're behaving like I did with Norma. I knew positively that she could play anything. It's a kind of romantic astigmatism that attacks producers when they fall for an actress."
Important films at MGM
Ben Hur (1925)
One of the first pictures he took charge of, Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ, was inherited and already in production by another studio when MGM was formed. The film was turning into a disastrous expense with cost overruns already in the millions due to its lavish sets and location shooting in Rome. Most studio executives chose to terminate the film to cut their losses. Thalberg, however, felt differently, and thought the film would affect movie audiences, due to its classic literary source, and would highlight MGM as a major new studio.
He, therefore, discarded much of the original footage shot in Italy and recreated the set on MGM's back lots in Culver City, which added more millions to the production, yet gave him more control over production. The new set also included a replica of Circus Maximus for the dramatic chariot race scenes. Flamini notes that Thalberg's "gamble paid off," drawing international attention to MGM, and to Thalberg within the movie industry for his bold action.
Mutiny on the Bounty (1935)
Mutiny on the Bounty was the studio's next most expensive film after Ben Hur, with some now calling it "Thalberg's masterpiece." He initially had difficulty convincing Mayer that he could make the film without making heroes of the mutineers. He achieved that by instead making a hero of the British Royal Navy, whereby the officers and shipmates would from then on display their mutual respect. Thalberg also had to convince Clark Gable to accept the role against his will. He pleaded with Gable, eventually promising him that "If it isn't one of your greatest successes, I'll never ask you again to play a part you don't want." The film's other main stars were Charles Laughton and Franchot Tone. The film was nominated for six Academy Awards, including Best Actor, and winning it for Best Picture. Thalberg accepted the award as producer from Frank Capra.
Thalberg and Mayer partnership
At first, Thalberg and studio chief Louis B. Mayer got along splendidly; however, they had different production philosophies. Thalberg preferred literary works, while Mayer preferred glitzy crowd-pleasing films. A clash was inevitable, and their relationship grew decidedly frosty. When Thalberg fell ill in the final weeks of 1932, Mayer took advantage of the situation and replaced him with David O. Selznick and Walter Wanger. Thalberg's reputation by that time for working long hours was widely known, and rumors about the related strain on his fragile health had become front-page news in entertainment trade publications. The Hollywood Reporter in January 1933 updated its readership about his condition and addressed growing concerns that he might be forced, despite his young age, to quit the business:
Once Thalberg recovered sufficiently from his bout with the "flu" and was able to return to work later in 1933, it was as one of MGM's unit producers, albeit one who had first choice on projects as well as preferential access to all the studio's resources, including over casting its stars. Thalberg's good relationship with Nicholas Schenck, then president of Loew's Incorporated, proved to be an ongoing advantage for him. Loew's was the corporate parent of MGM, so Schenck was the true power and ultimate arbiter at the studio; and he usually supported Thalberg's decisions and continued to do so whenever disagreements about projects or production needs arose. As a result, Thalberg also continued to produce or coproduce some of MGM's most prestigious and critically acclaimed ventures in this period, such as The Barretts of Wimpole Street (1934) starring his wife Norma Shearer, China Seas (1935), A Night at the Opera (1935), San Francisco (1936), and Romeo and Juliet (1936).
Personal life
During his few years with Universal while living in New York, Thalberg had become romantically involved with Carl Laemmle's daughter, Rosabelle. Still in his early twenties and later spending most of his time in Los Angeles, his feelings toward her were no longer as strong. Flamini suspects that this may have affected his position at Universal and partly caused his decision to leave the company. "The Laemmles prayed that Irving would marry Rosabelle", notes Flamini. "They wanted their sons to be educated and their daughters to marry nice Jewish boys."
Less than a year after he and Mayer took charge of the newly created MGM studios, and still only twenty-five years old, Thalberg suffered a serious heart attack due to overwork. Mayer also became aware of Thalberg's congenital heart problems and now worried about the prospect of running MGM without him. Mayer also became concerned that one of his daughters might become romantically involved, and told them so:
Thalberg, aware of Mayer's feelings, made it a point of never giving too much attention to his daughters at social events.
One of Thalberg's traits was his ability to work long hours into the night with little sign of fatigue. According to Vieira, Thalberg believed that as long as his mind was active in his work and he was not bored, he would not feel tired. Thalberg, who often got by with only five hours of sleep, felt that most people could get by with less than they realized. To keep his mental faculties at peak, he would read philosophical books by Bacon, Epictetus, or Kant. "They stimulate me. I'd drop out of sight in no time if I didn't read and keep up with current thought—and the philosophers are brain sharpeners."
During the early 1930s, Thalberg was ambivalent about political events in Europe. While he feared Nazism and the rise of Hitler, he also feared Communism. At the time, notes Vieira, "given a choice between communism and fascism, many Americans—including Thalberg—would prefer the latter." Thalberg stated his opinion:
When others suggested that many Jews could die in Germany as a result of Nazi anti-Semitism, he replied that in his opinion "Hitler and Hitlerism will pass." On one occasion, Catholic Prince Löwenstein of Germany, who himself had almost been captured before fleeing Germany, told him: "Mr. Thalberg, your own people are being systematically hunted down and rooted out of Germany." Thalberg suggested that world Jewry should nevertheless not interfere, that the Jewish race would survive Hitler. Within a few years, American film distribution was "choked off" in Germany. Led by Warner Brothers, all American studios eventually closed their German offices.
Thalberg began dating actress Norma Shearer a few years after he joined MGM. Following her conversion to Judaism, they married on Thursday, September 29, 1927, in a private ceremony in the garden of his rented house in Beverly Hills. Rabbi Edgar F. Magnin officiated at the event, with Shearer's brother Douglas Shearer giving the bride away, and Louis B. Mayer serving as best man. The couple drove to Monterey for their honeymoon and then moved into their newly constructed home in Beverly Hills.
After their second child was born, Shearer considered retiring from films, but Thalberg convinced her to continue acting, saying he could find her good roles. She went on to be one of MGM's biggest stars of the 1930s. Their two children were Irving Jr. (1930–1987) and Katharine (1935–2006).
Death
Thalberg and Shearer took a much-needed Labor Day weekend vacation in Monterey, California, in 1936, staying at the same beachfront hotel where they spent their honeymoon. A few weeks earlier, Thalberg's leading screenwriter, Al Lewin, had proposed doing a film based on a soon-to-be published book, Gone with the Wind. Although Thalberg said it would be a "sensational" role for Gable, and a "terrific picture," he decided not to do it:
Besides, Thalberg told Mayer, "[n]o Civil War picture ever made a nickel". Shortly after returning from Monterey, Thalberg was diagnosed with pneumonia. His condition worsened steadily and he eventually required an oxygen tent at home. He died on September 14, at the age of 37.
Sam Wood, while directing A Day at the Races, was given the news by phone. He returned to the set with tears in his eyes and told the others. As the news spread "the studio was paralyzed with shock", notes Thomas. "Work stopped and hundreds of people wept", with stars, writers, directors, and studio employees "all sharing a sense of loss at the death of a man who had been a part of their working lives", states Flamini.
His funeral took place two days later, and when the services began the other studios throughout Hollywood observed five minutes of silence. Producer Sam Goldwyn "wept uncontrollably for two days" and was unable to regain his composure enough to attend. The MGM studio closed for that day.
Services were held at the Wilshire Boulevard Temple that Thalberg had occasionally attended. The funeral attracted thousands of spectators who came to view the arrival of countless stars from MGM and other studios, including Greta Garbo, Jean Harlow, the Marx Brothers, Charlie Chaplin, Walt Disney, Howard Hughes, Al Jolson, Gary Cooper, Carole Lombard, Mary Pickford, and Douglas Fairbanks, among the screen luminaries. The ushers who led them to their seats included Clark Gable, Fredric March, and playwright Moss Hart. Erich von Stroheim, who had been fired by Thalberg, came to pay his respects. Producers Louis B. Mayer, the Warner brothers, Adolph Zukor, and Nicholas Schenck sat together solemnly as Rabbi Magnin gave the eulogy.
Thalberg is buried in a private marble tomb in the Great Mausoleum at Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Glendale, California, lying at rest beside his wife Norma Shearer Arrouge (Thalberg's crypt was engraved "My Sweetheart Forever" by Shearer).
Over the following days, tributes were published by the national press. Louis B. Mayer, his co-founding partner at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, said he had lost "the finest friend a man could ever have", while MGM president Nicholas Schenck stated that "Thalberg was the most important man in the production end of the motion-picture industry. Leading producers from the other studios also expressed their feelings in published tributes to Thalberg:
David O. Selznick described him as "beyond any question the greatest individual force for fine pictures." Samuel Goldwyn called him "the foremost figure in the motion-picture industry ... and an inspiration." M. H. Aylesworth, Chairman of RKO, wrote that "his integrity, vision and ability made him the spearhead of all motion-picture production throughout the world." Harry Warner, president of Warner Bros., described him as "gifted with one of the finest minds ever placed at the service of motion-picture production." Sidney R. Kent, president of Twentieth Century Fox, said that "he made the whole world richer by giving it the highest type of entertainment. He was a true genius." Columbia president Harry Cohn said the "motion picture industry has suffered a loss from which it will not soon recover...". Darryl F. Zanuck noted, "More than any other man he raised the industry to its present world prestige." Adolph Zukor, chairman of Paramount, stated, "Irving Thalberg was the most brilliant young man in the motion picture business." Jesse Lasky said, "It will be utterly impossible to replace him."
Among the condolences that came from world political leaders, President Franklin D. Roosevelt wrote, "The world of art is poorer with the passing of Irving Thalberg. His high ideals, insight and imagination went into the production of his masterpieces."
Among the pictures that were unfinished or not yet released at the time of his death were A Day at the Races, The Good Earth, Camille, Maytime, and Romeo and Juliet. Groucho Marx, star of A Day at the Races, wrote, "After Thalberg's death, my interest in the movies waned. I continued to appear in them, but ... The fun had gone out of picture making." Thalberg's widow, Norma Shearer, recalled, "Grief does very strange things to you. I didn't seem to feel the shock for two weeks afterwards. ... then, at the end of those two weeks, I collapsed."
Legacy in the movie industry
Thalberg's legacy to the movie industry is "incalculable", states biographer Bob Thomas. He notes that with his numerous production innovations and grand stories, often turning classic literature and Broadway stage productions into big-screen pictures, he managed to keep "American movies supreme throughout the world for a generation". Darryl F. Zanuck, founder of 20th Century-Fox said that during Thalberg's brief career, he had become the "most creative producer in the history of films". Thomas describes some of his contributions:
Most of MGM's major films in the 1930s were, according to Flamini, "in a very real sense", made by Thalberg. He closely supervised the making of "more pictures than any other producer in Hollywood's history", and was considered the "archetype of the creative producer", adds Flamini. Upon his early death, aged 37, an editorial in The New York Times called him "the most important force" in the motion picture industry. The paper added that for the film industry, he "set the pace and others followed ... because his way combined style, glamour, and profit." He is described by Flamini as having been "a revolutionary in a gray flannel suit".
Thalberg refused to take credit as producer, and as a result, his name never appeared on the screen while he was alive. Thalberg claimed that "credit you give yourself is not worth having". He also said "If a picture is good, they'll know who produced it. If it's bad, nobody cares." His final film, released after he died, was The Good Earth (1937), which won numerous Academy Awards. Its opening screen credit was dedicated to Thalberg:
In 1938, the new multimillion-dollar MGM administration building in Culver City was named for Thalberg. The Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award, presented by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, also named for him, awards producers for consistently high production achievements.
Cultural legacy
The Last Tycoon
In October 1939, American novelist F. Scott Fitzgerald began writing The Last Tycoon, a fictionalized biography of Thalberg, naming the protagonist Monroe Stahr to represent Thalberg. "Thalberg has always fascinated me", he wrote to an editor. "His peculiar charm, his extraordinary good looks, his bountiful success, the tragic end of his great adventure. The events I have built around him are fiction, but all of them are things which might very well have happened. ... I've long chosen him for a hero (this has been in my mind for three years) because he is one of the half-dozen men I have known who were built on a grand scale."
Thomas notes that among the reasons Fitzgerald chose to write a book about a Thalberg-like character, was that "throughout his literary career, Fitzgerald borrowed his heroes from friends he admired, and inevitably a bit of Fitzgerald entered the characterizations." Fitzgerald himself writes that "When I like men, I want to be like them ..." Fitzgerald and Thalberg had real-life similarities: both were prodigies, both had heart ailments, and they both died at early ages.
According to biographer Matthew J. Bruccoli, Fitzgerald believed that Thalberg, with his "taste and courage, represented the best of Hollywood. ... [and] saw Thalberg as a model for what could be done in the movies." Fitzgerald died before the novel was completed, however. Bruccoli writes of Fitzgerald's book:
Although parallels between Monroe Stahr in the novel and Thalberg were evident, many who knew Thalberg intimately stated that they did not see similarities in their personalities. Norma Shearer said that the Stahr character was not at all like her former husband.
In the 1976 film version, directed by Elia Kazan, Monroe Stahr was played by Robert De Niro. Kazan, in his pre-production notes, described the Stahr character as he saw him:
In the 2016 television series based on the novel, Monroe Stahr is played by Matt Bomer.
Others
Fitzgerald also based his short story "Crazy Sunday", originally published in the October 1932 issue of American Mercury, on an incident at a party thrown by Thalberg and Shearer. The story is included in Fitzgerald's collection Taps at Reveille (1935).
Thalberg was portrayed in the movie Man of a Thousand Faces (1957) by Robert Evans, who went on to become a studio head himself.
Thalberg was portrayed by Bill Cusack in Young Indiana Jones and the Hollywood Follies (1994), a TV film based on The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles, in which Indiana Jones is depicted as taking part in Thalberg's conflict with Erich von Stroheim over Foolish Wives.
In 2020, Thalberg was played by Ferdinand Kingsley in the David Fincher film Mank
Thalberg, played by Tobey Maguire, is rumored to appear in the upcoming movie Babylon.
Filmography
Producer
Reputation (1921)
The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1923)
Merry-Go-Round (1923)
His Hour (1924)
He Who Gets Slapped (1924)
The Unholy Three (1925)
The Merry Widow (1925)
The Tower of Lies (1925)
The Big Parade (1925)
Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ (1925)
Torrent (1926)
La Bohème (1926)
Brown of Harvard (1926)
The Road to Mandalay (1926)
The Temptress (1926)
Valencia (1926)
Flesh and the Devil (1926)
Twelve Miles Out (1927)
The Student Prince in Old Heidelberg (1927)
London After Midnight (1927)
The Crowd (1928)
Laugh, Clown, Laugh (1928)
White Shadows in the South Seas (1928)
Show People (1928)
West of Zanzibar (1928)
The Broadway Melody (1929)
The Trial of Mary Dugan (1929)
Voice of the City (1929)
Where East Is East (1929)
The Last of Mrs. Cheyney (1929)
The Hollywood Revue of 1929 (1929)
Hallelujah (1929)
His Glorious Night (1929)
The Kiss (1929)
Anna Christie (1930)
Redemption (1930)
The Divorcee (1930)
The Rogue Song (1930)
The Big House (1930)
The Unholy Three (1930)
Let Us Be Gay (1930)
Billy the Kid (1930)
Way for a Sailor (1930)
A Lady's Morals (1930)
Inspiration (1931)
Trader Horn (1931)
The Secret Six (1931)
A Free Soul (1931)
Just a Gigolo (1931)
Menschen hinter Gittern (1931), German-language version of The Big House (1930)
The Sin of Madelon Claudet (1931)
The Guardsman (1931)
The Champ (1931)
Possessed (1931)
Private Lives (1931)
Mata Hari (1931)
Freaks (1932)
Tarzan the Ape Man (1932)
Grand Hotel (1932)
Letty Lynton (1932)
As You Desire Me (1932)
Red-Headed Woman (1932)
Smilin' Through (1932)
Red Dust (1932)
Rasputin and the Empress (1932)
Strange Interlude (1932)
Tugboat Annie (1933)
Bombshell (1933)
Eskimo (1933)
La Veuve Joyeuse (1934) French-language version of The Merry Widow
Riptide (1934)
The Barretts of Wimpole Street (1934)
The Merry Widow (1934)
What Every Woman Knows (1934)
Biography of a Bachelor Girl (1935)
No More Ladies (1935)
China Seas (1935)
Mutiny on the Bounty (1935)
A Night at the Opera (1935)
Riffraff (1936)
Romeo and Juliet (1936)
Camille (1936)
Maytime (1937)
A Day at the Races (1937)
Broadway Melody of 1938 (1937)
The Good Earth (1937)
Marie Antoinette (1938)
Writer
The Trap (1922)
The Dangerous Little Demon (1922)
Awards
Academy Awards
Notes
Further reading
Books
Flamini, Roland. Thalberg: The Last Tycoon and the World of M-G-M (1994)
Marx, Samuel. Mayer and Thalberg: The Make-believe Saints (1975)
Thomas, Bob. Thalberg: Life and Legend (1969)
Vieira, Mark A. Irving Thalberg's M-G-M. New York: Harry N. Abrams, 2008.
Vieira, Mark A. Irving Thalberg: Boy Wonder to Producer Prince. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2009.
Articles
Starman, Ray. "Irving Thalberg", Films In Review, June/July 1987, p. 347–353
External links
Irving Thalberg at TCM
Cinemagraphe Review of the Roland Flamini biography of Thalberg: The Last Tycoon and the World of MGM
Irving Thalberg at Virtual History
Irving Thalberg profiled in Collier's Magazine (1924)
Videos
1899 births
1936 deaths
American film producers
Film producers from California
Producers who won the Best Picture Academy Award
American film studio executives
American male screenwriters
Cinema pioneers
Silent film directors
Silent film producers
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer executives
Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences founders
Businesspeople from Los Angeles
Hollywood history and culture
California Republicans
New York (state) Republicans
USC School of Cinematic Arts faculty
20th-century American businesspeople
Screenwriters from California
Screenwriters from New York (state)
People from Brooklyn
American anti-communists
American people of German-Jewish descent
Deaths from pneumonia in California
Burials at Forest Lawn Memorial Park (Glendale)
20th-century American male writers
20th-century American writers
Jewish American writers
20th-century American screenwriters | true | [
"Carl Laemmle Jr. (born Julius Laemmle; April 28, 1908 – September 24, 1979) was an American film producer - studio executive and heir of Carl Laemmle, who had founded Universal Studios. He was head of production at the studio from 1928 to 1936.\n\nEarly life\n\nLaemmle was born on April 28, 1908, in Chicago, the son of Carl Laemmle, the founder of Universal Pictures, and Recha Stern Laemmle, who died in 1919 when he was eleven years old. Carl Jr. had a sister Rosabelle, and a cousin Carla, an actress and dancer. His mother was buried in Salem Fields Cemetery, Glendale, New York. His family was Jewish.\n\nThe Laemmle family shared a large New York City apartment located at 465 West End Avenue before moving to Los Angeles, California. On July 19, 1941, the family arranged to move Recha's remains to the family mausoleum within the Home of Peace Cemetery in Los Angeles.\n\nCareer\n\nDuring his tenure as head of production, beginning in 1928 in the early years of \"talkie\" movies, the studio had great success with films such as All Quiet on the Western Front (1930), Dracula (1931), Waterloo Bridge (1931), Frankenstein (1931), East of Borneo (1931), A House Divided (1931), The Mummy (1932), The Old Dark House (1932), The Invisible Man (1933), Imitation of Life (1934), and Bride of Frankenstein (1935).\n\nLaemmle (often referred to as \"Junior\") developed a reputation in this period for spending too much money on films that did not earn back their cost. By the end of 1935, Universal Studio had spent so much money, and had so many flops, that J. Cheever Cowdin offered to buy the Laemmles out. The notable success, both financially and critically, of the 1936 film Show Boat, was not enough to stem the downslide, and father and son were both forced out of the company. Neither worked on another film again, although Laemmle Jr. lived for 43 more years. Charles R. Rogers became the new head of production at the studio.\n\nPersonal life\nLaemmle resided at 1641 Tower Grove Drive in Beverly Hills, California.\n\nDeath\nLaemmle died from a stroke at the age of 71 on September 24, 1979, 40 years to the day of his father's death. He was buried in the Chapel Mausoleum at Home of Peace Cemetery.\n\nFilmography\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n\nOfficial Laemmle Family YouTube Channel\nOfficial Laemmle family website\n\nCarl Laemmle Jr., Virtual History\n\n1908 births\n1979 deaths\nPeople from Beverly Hills, California\nAmerican people of German-Jewish descent\n20th-century American businesspeople\nBurials at Home of Peace Cemetery\nDeaths from cerebrovascular disease",
"Laemmle Theatres ( ) is a group of family-run arthouse movie theaters in the Los Angeles area. It was established in 1938 and is owned and operated by Robert Laemmle and his son Greg Laemmle.\n\nRobert Laemmle's father Max and uncle Kurt, cousins of Universal Pictures founder Carl Laemmle, bought their first movie theater in the Highland Park neighborhood of Los Angeles in 1938.\n\nThere are eight locations:\nClaremont 5 in Claremont,\nGlendale 5 in Glendale,\nMonica 4-plex in Santa Monica,\nPlayhouse 7 in Pasadena,\nRoyal Theatre in West Los Angeles,\nTown Center 5 in Encino,\nNoHo 7 in North Hollywood,\nand Laemmle Theatres 7 in Santa Clarita.\nThe Laemmle Grande 4-Plex on South Figueroa Street closed October 25, 2009 as L.A. Live's Regal Cinema complex was set to open. Construction of the Santa Clarita theater was completed in 2020, but its opening was delayed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. It opened on April 9, 2021.\n\nIn December 2011, the Glendale City Council and Redevelopment Agency approved a $12.8 million plan to develop a loft with 42 residential units, a 5-screen Laemmle Theaters, and a Panda Inn restaurant. Construction of the residential building complex began in mid-2015, and it opened in August of 2018. With the Glendale location's reopening on May 21, 2021, Laemmle Theatres will be operating all of the locations that had been open in 2019 prior to the closures caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.\n\nOscar qualifying\nDuring the 21st century, the Laemmle venues have come to be known as the \"Secret Path to Oscar Qualifying\" since they have been repeatedly used by independent films, short films, and documentaries for that purpose. Laemmle provides services designed to enable a film to qualify for Academy Awards, charging a flat rate for exhibition while giving the film's producers 100 percent of the box office receipts; they have someone meet every year with the Academy committees in all the categories to ensure their \"qualifying run\" bookings actually qualify. They even help film-makers book their films outside of their own theaters if a committee requires that.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n \nGrowing up Laemmle\n\nCinemas and movie theaters in Los Angeles\nMovie theatre chains in the United States\nTheatres in Los Angeles County, California\nCinema of Southern California\nCompanies based in Los Angeles\nEntertainment companies established in 1938\nMass media companies established in 1938\n1938 establishments in California"
]
|
[
"Irving Thalberg",
"Universal Studios",
"Did he work for universal?",
"He found work as an office secretary at Universal Pictures' New York office,",
"Did he have other jobs with universal?",
"later became personal secretary to the studio's founder and president, Carl Laemmle.",
"What did he do at universal?",
"Thalberg's duties were transcribing and editing notes that Laemmle had written during screenings of his films.",
"What happened to him while at universal?",
"Laemmle told Thalberg to remain and \"keep an eye on things for me.\" Two months later, Laemmle returned to California,",
"Why did Laemmle go to California?",
"partly to see how well Thalberg was able to handle the responsibilities he was given. Thalberg gave him suggestions,"
]
| C_7b8dcb999ce54951992e991787a236a9_0 | What did Thalberg suggest? | 6 | What did Irving Thalberg suggest to Laemmle? | Irving Thalberg | He found work as an office secretary at Universal Pictures' New York office, and later became personal secretary to the studio's founder and president, Carl Laemmle. Among Thalberg's duties were transcribing and editing notes that Laemmle had written during screenings of his films. He earned $25 weekly, becoming adept at making insightful observations, which impressed Laemmle. Laemmle took Thalberg to see his Los Angeles production facility, where he spent a month watching how movie production worked. Before returning to New York, Laemmle told Thalberg to remain and "keep an eye on things for me." Two months later, Laemmle returned to California, partly to see how well Thalberg was able to handle the responsibilities he was given. Thalberg gave him suggestions, which impressed Laemmle by his ability to understand and explain problems. Thalberg suggested, "The first thing you should do is establish a new job of studio manager and give him the responsibility of watching day-to-day operations." Laemmle immediately agreed, "All right. You're it." In shock, Thalberg replied, "I'm what?" Laemmle told him to take charge of the Los Angeles studio, which he did in early 1919. At age 20, Thalberg became responsible for immediately overseeing the nine ongoing film productions and nearly thirty scenarios then under development. In describing the rationale for this early appointment as studio manager, film historian David Thomson writes that his new job "owed nothing to nepotism, private wealth, or experience in the film industry." He reasons that despite "Thalberg's youth, modest education, and frail appearance . . . it is clear that he had the charm, insight, and ability, or the appearance of it, to captivate the film world." Thalberg was one among the majority of Hollywood film industry workers who migrated from the East Coast, primarily from New York. Some film actors, such as Conrad Nagel, did not like the 5-day train trip or the sudden warmth of the California climate. Neither did Marion Davies, who was not used to such "big wide spaces." Samuel Marx, a close friend of Thalberg's from New York, recalled how easily Thalberg adapted to Southern California, often standing outside his doorway during moments of contemplation to enjoy the scenery. "We were all young," said comedian Buster Keaton. "The air in California was like wine. Our business was also young--and growing like nothing ever seen before." CANNOTANSWER | "The first thing you should do is establish a new job of studio manager and give him the responsibility of watching day-to-day operations." | Irving Grant Thalberg (May 30, 1899 – September 14, 1936) was an American film producer during the early years of motion pictures. He was called "The Boy Wonder" for his youth and ability to select scripts, choose actors, gather production staff, and make profitable films, including Grand Hotel, China Seas, A Night at the Opera, Mutiny on the Bounty, Camille and The Good Earth. His films carved out an international market, "projecting a seductive image of American life brimming with vitality and rooted in democracy and personal freedom", states biographer Roland Flamini.
He was born in Brooklyn, New York, and as a child was afflicted with a congenital heart disease that doctors said would kill him before he reached the age of thirty. After graduating from high school he worked as a store clerk during the day and to gain some job skills took a night class in typing. He then found work as a secretary with Universal Studios' New York office, and was later made studio manager for their Los Angeles facility. There, he oversaw production of a hundred films during his three years with the company. Among the films he produced was The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1923).
In Los Angeles, he partnered with Louis B. Mayer's new studio and, after it merged with two other studios, helped create Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM). He was made head of production of MGM in 1925, at the age of twenty-six, helping MGM become the most successful studio in Hollywood. During his twelve years with MGM, until his premature death at the age of 37, he produced four hundred films, most of which bore his imprint and innovations, including story conferences with writers, sneak previews to gain early feedback, and extensive re-shooting of scenes to improve the film. In addition, he introduced horror films to audiences and coauthored the "Production Code", guidelines for morality followed by all studios. During the 1920s and 1930s, he synthesized and merged the world of stage drama and literary classics with Hollywood films.
Thalberg created numerous new stars and groomed their screen images. Among them were Lon Chaney, Ramon Novarro, Greta Garbo, John Gilbert, Lionel Barrymore, Joan Crawford, Clark Gable, Jean Harlow, Wallace Beery, Spencer Tracy, Luise Rainer, and Norma Shearer, who became his wife. He had the ability to combine quality with commercial success, and was credited with bringing his artistic aspirations in line with the demands of audiences. After his death, Hollywood's producers said he had been the world's "foremost figure in motion-picture history". President Franklin D. Roosevelt wrote, "The world of art is poorer with the passing of Irving Thalberg. His high ideals, insight and imagination went into the production of his masterpieces." The Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award, given out periodically by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences since 1937, has been awarded to producers whose body of work reflected consistently high quality films.
Early years
Thalberg was born in Brooklyn, to German Jewish immigrant parents, William and Henrietta (Haymann). Shortly after birth, he was diagnosed with "blue baby syndrome", caused by a congenital disease that limited the oxygen supply to his heart. The prognosis from the family's doctor and specialists was that he might live to the age of twenty, or at most, to thirty.
During his high school years in Brooklyn, he began having attacks of chest pains, dizziness and fatigue. This affected his ability to study, though until that time he was a good student. When he was 17 he contracted rheumatic fever, and was confined to bed for a year. His mother, in order to prevent him falling too far behind other students, brought him homework from school, books, and tutors to teach him at home. She also hoped that the schoolwork and reading would distract him from the "tantalizing sounds" of children playing outside his window.
With little to entertain him, he read books as a main activity. He devoured popular novels, classics, plays, and biographies. His books, of necessity, replaced the streets of New York, and led to his interest in classical philosophy and philosophers, such as William James.
When Thalberg returned to school, he finished high school but lacked the stamina for college, which he felt would have required constant late-night studying and cramming for exams. Instead, he took part-time jobs as a store clerk, and in the evenings, to gain some job skills, taught himself typing, shorthand and Spanish at a night vocational school. When he turned 18, he placed an advertisement in the local newspaper hoping to find better work:
Career as producer
Universal Studios
He found work as an office secretary at Universal Pictures' New York office, and later became personal secretary to the studio's founder and president, Carl Laemmle. Among Thalberg's duties were transcribing and editing notes that Laemmle had written during screenings of his films. He earned $25 weekly, becoming adept at making insightful observations, which impressed Laemmle.
Laemmle took Thalberg to see his Los Angeles production facility, where he spent a month watching how movie production worked. Before returning to New York, Laemmle told Thalberg to remain and "keep an eye on things for me." Two months later, Laemmle returned to California, partly to see how well Thalberg was able to handle the responsibilities he was given. Thalberg gave him suggestions, and thus impressed Laemmle by his ability to understand and explain problems.
Thalberg suggested, "The first thing you should do is establish a new job of studio manager and give him the responsibility of watching day-to-day operations." Laemmle immediately agreed: "All right. You're it." In shock, Thalberg replied, "I'm what?" Laemmle told him to take charge of the Los Angeles studio, which he did in early 1919. When aged 20, Thalberg became responsible for immediately overseeing the nine ongoing film productions and nearly thirty scenarios then under development.
In describing the rationale for this early appointment as studio manager, film historian David Thomson writes that his new job "owed nothing to nepotism, private wealth, or experience in the film industry." He reasons that despite "Thalberg's youth, modest education, and frail appearance ... it is clear that he had the charm, insight, and ability, or the appearance of it, to captivate the film world."
Thalberg was one among the majority of Hollywood film industry workers who migrated from the East Coast, primarily from New York. Some film actors, such as Conrad Nagel, did not like the five-day train trip or the sudden warmth of the California climate. Neither did Marion Davies, who was not used to such "big wide spaces". Samuel Marx, a close friend of Thalberg's from New York, recalled how easily Thalberg adapted to Southern California, often standing outside his doorway during moments of contemplation to enjoy the scenery. "We were all young", said comedian Buster Keaton. "The air in California was like wine. Our business was also young—and growing like nothing ever seen before."
Confrontation with Erich von Stroheim
He quickly established his tenacity as he battled with well-known director Erich von Stroheim over the length of Foolish Wives (1922). Biographer Roland Flamini notes that the film was Universal's most expensive "jewel" ever in production, and its director and star, von Stroheim, was taking the film way over budget. Thalberg, now Universal's general manager, was forced to have the director quickly finalize production before the studio's working capital was used up. Flamini describes the situation:
Thalberg had von Stroheim come to his office, which he did still wearing his film costume as a Russian Imperial Guard and escorted by members of his production team. Thalberg calmly told him, "I have seen all the film and you have all you need for the picture. I want you to stop shooting", to which von Stroheim replied, "But I have not finished as yet." "Yes, you have", said Thalberg. "You have spent all the money this company can afford. I cannot allow you to spend any more."
Thalberg quietly explained that the director worked under the producer, and it was his responsibility to control costs. Von Stroheim, surrounded by his assistants, then confronted Thalberg: "If you were not my superior, I would smash you in the face." Thalberg, unflinching, said "Don't let that stop you." The result was that Thalberg soon afterward removed the cameras from von Stroheim's studio and took over editing. The uncut footage was pared down from five-and-a-half hours to three hours, to von Stroheim's deep dissatisfaction.
A similar problem developed with von Stroheim's next film, Merry-Go-Round (1923). Although he had promised Thalberg to remain within budget this time, he continued production until it went to twice the agreed length and was not yet near completion. Flamini speculates why this happened:
Thalberg again called von Stroheim to his office, handed him a long letter written and signed by himself, describing the problems, and summarily fired von Stroheim as of that moment. Thalberg's letter stated among the reasons,
totally inexcusable and repeated acts of insubordination ... extravagant ideas which you have been unwilling to sacrifice ... unnecessary delays ... and your apparent idea that you are greater and more powerful than the organization that employs you.
His dismissal of von Stroheim was considered an "earthquake in movie circles", notes Flamini. Producer David O. Selznick said that "it was the first time a director had been fired. It took great guts and courage ... Von Stroheim was utterly indifferent over money and could have gone on and spent millions, with nobody to stop him.". The opinion was shared by director Rouben Mamoulian, who said that the "little fellow at Universal", in one bold stroke, had "asserted the primacy of the studio over the director" and forever altered the balance of power in the movie industry.
Effects of his young age
According to Flamini, his youth was a subject of conversation within the movie community. Executives from other studios, actors, and film crew, often mistook him to be a junior employee. Movie columnist Louella Parsons, upon first being introduced to him, asked, "What's the joke? Where's the new general manager?" After five minutes of talking to Thalberg, however, she later wrote about "Universal's Boy Wonder": "He might be a boy in looks and age, but it was no child's mind that was being asked to cope with the intricate politics of Universal City." Novelist Edna Ferber responded the same way, writing that "I had fancied motion-picture producers as large gentlemen smoking oversized cigars. But this young man whose word seemed so final at Universal City ... impressed me deeply."
The male actors in the studio had a similar reaction. Lionel Barrymore, who was nearly twice his age, recalled their meetings:
Thalberg likewise gained the respect of leading playwrights, some of whom also looked down on him due to his youth. George S. Kaufman, co-author of Dinner at Eight, several Marx Brothers films, and two George Gershwin plays, came from New York to meet with Thalberg. Afterward he confided to his friend, Groucho Marx: "That man has never written a word, yet he can tell me exactly what to do with a story. I didn't know you had people like that out here."
Actress Norma Shearer, whom he later married, was surprised after he greeted her at the door, then walked her to his office for her first job interview: "Then you're not the office boy?" she asked. He smiled, as he sat himself behind his desk: "No, Miss Shearer, I'm Irving Thalberg, vice-president of the Mayer Company. I'm the man who sent for you."
His younger-than-normal age for a studio executive was usually mentioned even after he left Universal to help start up MGM. Screenwriter Agnes Christine Johnson, who worked with Thalberg for years, described his contribution during meetings:
The same quality was observed by director and screenwriter Hobart Henley: "If something that read well in conference turns out not so good on the screen, I go to him and, like that—Henley snaps his fingers—he has a remedy. He's brilliant." Another assistant producer to Thalberg explains:
His youth also contributed to his open-mindedness to the ideas of others. Conrad Nagel, who starred in numerous Thalberg films, reported that Thalberg was generally empathetic to those he worked alongside: "Thalberg never raised his voice. He just looked into your eyes, spoke softly, and after a few minutes he cast a spell on you." Studio attorney Edwin Loeb, who also worked to create AMPAS, explained that "the real foundation of Irving's success was his ability to look at life through the eyes of any given person. He had a gift of empathy, and almost complete perspective." Those opinions were also shared by producer Walter Wanger: "You thought that you were talking to an Indian savant. He could cast a spell on anybody."
His talent as a producer was enhanced by his "near-miraculous" powers of concentration, notes film critic J. Hoberman. As a result, he was never bored or tired, and supplemented his spare time with reading for his own amusement, recalls screenwriter Bayard Veiller, with some of his favorite authors being Francis Bacon, Epictetus, and Immanuel Kant.
Film projects at Universal
Biographer Bob Thomas writes that after three years at the studio, Thalberg continually proved his value. Universal's pictures improved noticeably, primarily due to Thalberg's "uncanny sense of story." He took tight control over many key aspects of production, including his requirement that from then on scripts were tightly constructed before filming began, rather than during production. Thomas adds that he also "showed a remarkable capacity for working with actors, casting them aptly and advising them on their careers."
After producing two films that were in production when he began work at Universal, he presented Laemmle with his idea for a film based on one of his favorite classic stories, The Hunchback of Notre Dame. Rather than just a horror picture, Thalberg suggested turning it into a spectacle which would include a replica of the Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris. He had Lon Chaney play the hunchback. The film became Universal's most profitable silent film and established Chaney's career as a top-flight star.
After nearly three years with Universal, Thalberg had supervised over a hundred movies, reorganized the studio to give more control to the managers, and had "stopped the defection" of many of their leading stars by offering them better, higher-paying contracts. He also produced a number of Universal's prestige films, which made the company profitable. However, he decided it was time to find a studio in Los Angeles more suitable to his skills, and spread word that he was available.
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM)
Cecil B. DeMille was the first who wanted to hire him, telling his partner Jesse Lasky, "The boy is a genius. I can see it. I know it." Lasky opposed the hire, stating, "Geniuses we have all we need." Thalberg then received an offer from Hal Roach, but the offer was withdrawn because Thalberg lacked experience with slapstick comedy films. In late 1922, Thalberg was introduced to Louis B. Mayer, president of a small but dynamic and fast-growing studio. At that first meeting, Thalberg "made a deep, immediate impression on Mayer", writes Flamini. After Thalberg had left, Mayer said to studio attorney Edwin Loeb: "Tell him if he comes to work for me, I'll look after him as though he were my son."
Although their personalities were in many ways opposite, Mayer being more outspoken and nearly twice the younger man's age, Thalberg was hired as vice president in charge of production at Louis B. Mayer Productions. Years later, Mayer's daughter Irene Mayer Selznick recalled that "it was hard to believe anyone that boyish could be so important." According to Flamini, Thalberg was hired because, although Mayer was an astute businessman, "what he lacked was Thalberg's almost unerring ability to combine quality with commercial success, to bring artistic aspiration in line with the demands of the box office." Mayer's company subsequently merged with two others to become Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM), with the 24-year-old Thalberg made part-owner and accorded the same position as vice president in charge of production. Three years after the merger, MGM became the most successful studio in Hollywood.
During his twelve years at MGM, Thalberg supervised the production of over four hundred films. Although Thalberg and his colleagues at MGM knew he was "doomed" to not live much past the age of 30 due to heart disease, he loved producing films. He continued developing innovative ideas and overseeing most of MGM's pictures. Under Thalberg's management, MGM released over 40% more films yearly than Warner Brothers, and more than double Paramount's releases. From 1924 until 1936, when Thalberg died at the age of 37, "almost every film bore Thalberg's imprint", wrote Mark Vieira.
Production innovations
Thalberg's production techniques "broke new ground in filmmaking", adds Vieira. Among his contributions at MGM was his innovation of story conferences, sneak previews and scene retakes. He introduced the first horror films and coauthored the Production Code, the set of moral guidelines that all film studios agreed to follow. Thalberg helped synthesize and merge the world of stage drama and literary classics with Hollywood films.
MGM thereby became the only movie studio to consistently show a profit during the Great Depression. Flamini explains that the equation for MGM's success depended on combining stars, a Broadway hit or popular classic, and high standards of production. This combination at the time was considered a "revolutionary approach" in the film industry, which until then assumed a star was all that was needed for success, regardless of the story or production quality. The other studios began following MGM's lead with that same formula.
Production techniques
Thalberg generally followed a system in managing his productions. According to one of his assistants, Lawrence Weingarten, who later became a producer, "Thalberg directed the film on paper, and then the director directed the film on film."
Thalberg was generally opposed to location shooting overseas where he could not oversee production and control costs, as happened with Ben Hur. Thus, he kept hundreds of back-lot carpenters at work creating realistic sets, as he did for fifteenth-century Romeo and Juliet (1936), or with China Seas (1935), to replicate the harbors of Hong Kong.
Vieira points out that Thalberg's "fascination with Broadway plays" often had him create and present stories visually. For China Seas, for instance, he described for the screenwriters, director and others, exactly how he wanted the film to appear on screen:
To be certain of achieving the desired effects, Thalberg made sure his cinematographers were careful in their use of light and shadow. Vieira observes that "more than any other producer or any other studio, Thalberg and MGM manipulated lenses, filters, and lighting instruments to affect the viewer." As a result, he notes, "most of Thalberg's films contain moments such as these, in which cinematic technique transcends mere exposition and gives the viewer something to treasure."
Thalberg was supported by most of the studio in these kinds of creative decisions. "It was a big family," notes Weingarten. "If we had a success, everybody—and I mean every cutter, every painter, every plasterer—was excited about it, was abuzz, was in a tizzy about the whole idea of picture making."
Taking risks with new subjects and stars
In 1929, MGM released fifty films, and all but five showed a profit. Of those that failed, Hallelujah was also a gamble by Thalberg. When King Vidor, the film's producer and director, proposed the idea to Thalberg of a major film cast, for the first time, exclusively with African Americans, he told Thalberg directly, "I doubt that it will make a dollar at the box office." Thalberg replied, "Don't worry about that. I've told you that MGM can afford an occasional experiment."
By the early 1930s, a number of stars began failing at the box office, partly due to the Great Depression that was now undermining the economy, along with the public's ability to spend on entertainment. Thalberg began using two stars in a film, rather than one, as had been the tradition at all the studios, such as pairing Greta Garbo with John Gilbert, Clark Gable with Jean Harlow, and William Powell with Myrna Loy. After experimenting with a few such films, including Mata Hari (1931), which were profitable, he decided on a multi-star production of another Broadway play, Grand Hotel (1932). It had five major stars, including Garbo, Joan Crawford, John Barrymore, Lionel Barrymore, and Wallace Beery. "Before Thalberg," writes Vieira, "there was no Grand Hotel in the American consciousness." The film won the Oscar for Best Picture in 1932.
Thalberg went against consensus and took another risk with The Great Ziegfeld (1936), costarring Luise Rainer. Although Louis B. Mayer did not want her in the role, which he felt was too minor for a new star, Thalberg felt that "only she could play the part", wrote biographer Charles Higham. Shortly after shooting began in late 1935, doubts of Rainer's acting ability emerged in the press. However, despite her limited appearances in the film, Rainer "so impressed audiences with one highly emotional scene" that she won the Academy Award for Best Actress.
After her winning role in The Great Ziegfeld, Thalberg wanted her to play a role that was the opposite of her previous character, for The Good Earth (1937). For the part as a Chinese peasant, she was required to act totally subservient to her husband, being perpetually huddled in submission, and barely spoke a word of dialogue during the entire film. Rainer recalls that Mayer did not approve of the film being produced or her part in it: "He was horrified at Irving Thalberg's insistence for me to play O-lan, the poor uncomely little Chinese peasant." However, she again won the Oscar for Best Actress, becoming the first actress to win two consecutive Oscars, a feat not matched until Katharine Hepburn's two Oscar wins thirty years later.
Grooming new stars
Besides bringing a distinctive high quality "look" to MGM films and often recreating well-known stories or plays, Thalberg's actors themselves took on a characteristic quality. Thalberg wanted his female actors to appear "cool, classy and beautiful," notes Flamini. And he strove to make the male actors appear "worldly and in control." In general, Thalberg movies and actors came to be "luxurious," "glossy," and "technically flawless." By doing so, he made stars or boosted the careers of actors such as Lon Chaney, Ramon Novarro, John Gilbert, Greta Garbo, Joan Crawford, Clark Gable, Helen Hayes, Jean Harlow, Marie Dressler, Wallace Beery, John Barrymore, Lionel Barrymore and Luise Rainer.
Greta Garbo
In 1925, a young Greta Garbo, then twenty, and unable to speak any English, was brought over from Sweden at Mayer's request, as he saw how she looked in still photos. A Swedish friend thought he would help her by contacting Thalberg, who then agreed to give her a screen test. According to author Frederick Sands, "the result of the test was electrifying." Thalberg was impressed and began grooming the new starlet the following day: "the studio arranged to fix her teeth, made sure she lost weight, and gave her an English tutor."
Joan Crawford
Joan Crawford's first role was a Thalberg production at MGM and she became one of their leading stars for the next thirty years. Crawford was somewhat jealous of Norma Shearer as she thought she was given the better material by her husband Thalberg out of nepotism. Nevertheless, she felt that his contribution to MGM was vital to the film industry. Not long after his early death, she recalls her concerns: "Thalberg was dead and the concept of the quality 'big' picture pretty much went out the window."
Marie Dressler
Thalberg also realized that old stars few had heard of could be made into new ones. Marie Dressler, a fifty-nine-year-old early vaudeville and movie star, who had played the top-billed lead, above Charles Chaplin and Mabel Normand), in the first feature-length comedy, Tillie's Punctured Romance (1914), was unable to get any roles in films after leaving show business for some years, finally working as a maid. MGM screenwriter Frances Marion suggested to Thalberg that she might fit well in a starring role for a new film, and was surprised that he knew of her prior successes. Thalberg approved of using her without a screen test and offered his rationale:
By 1932, shortly before she died, Dressler was the country's number one box office star.
Wallace Beery
Marie Dressler was paired twice, in Min and Bill (1930) and Tugboat Annie (1933), with Wallace Beery, another major silent star who had been struggling to get work in sound pictures until Thalberg cast him. Beery had enjoyed a hugely successful silent film career dating back to 1913, but had been fired by Paramount shortly after sound pictures appeared. Thalberg cast him in the role of "Machine Gun Butch," which had been meant for recently deceased Lon Chaney, in The Big House (1930), an energetic prison picture that became a huge hit. Beery was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actor for his performance, and his burgeoning career at MGM had transformed him into the studio's highest paid actor within two more years, during which time he won the Oscar for The Champ and had become a phenomenal box office draw as a result of Thalberg's foresight.
Getting audience feedback and reshooting
According to Vieira, MGM had few failures during this period, and numerous blockbusters. Among the reasons was Thalberg's unique system of developing a script during story conferences with writers before filming began, and later giving "sneak previews" followed by audience feedback through written questionnaires. Often, where he felt improvement was needed, he arranged for scenes to be reshot. As Thalberg once stated, "The difference between something good and something superior is often very small."
Bad decisions and missed opportunities
Thalberg felt he had his "finger on the pulse of America. I know what people will do and what they won't do," he said. His judgment was not always accurate, however. Thalberg's bringing Broadway productions to the screen to develop higher picture standards sometimes resulted in "studied" acting or "stagey" sets, notes Flamini. In 1927, after the successful release of the first full-length talking picture, The Jazz Singer (1927), he nevertheless felt that talking pictures were a fad. Thalberg likewise did not think that color would replace black-and-white in movies.
When an assistant protested against a script that envisioned a love scene in Paris with an ocean background, Thalberg refused to make changes, saying "We can't cater to a handful of people who know Paris." A more serious distraction to Thalberg's efforts was his obsession with making his wife Norma Shearer a prominent star, efforts which sometimes led to "overblown and overglamous" productions. Thalberg himself admitted to his obsession years later when he told a fellow producer: "You're behaving like I did with Norma. I knew positively that she could play anything. It's a kind of romantic astigmatism that attacks producers when they fall for an actress."
Important films at MGM
Ben Hur (1925)
One of the first pictures he took charge of, Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ, was inherited and already in production by another studio when MGM was formed. The film was turning into a disastrous expense with cost overruns already in the millions due to its lavish sets and location shooting in Rome. Most studio executives chose to terminate the film to cut their losses. Thalberg, however, felt differently, and thought the film would affect movie audiences, due to its classic literary source, and would highlight MGM as a major new studio.
He, therefore, discarded much of the original footage shot in Italy and recreated the set on MGM's back lots in Culver City, which added more millions to the production, yet gave him more control over production. The new set also included a replica of Circus Maximus for the dramatic chariot race scenes. Flamini notes that Thalberg's "gamble paid off," drawing international attention to MGM, and to Thalberg within the movie industry for his bold action.
Mutiny on the Bounty (1935)
Mutiny on the Bounty was the studio's next most expensive film after Ben Hur, with some now calling it "Thalberg's masterpiece." He initially had difficulty convincing Mayer that he could make the film without making heroes of the mutineers. He achieved that by instead making a hero of the British Royal Navy, whereby the officers and shipmates would from then on display their mutual respect. Thalberg also had to convince Clark Gable to accept the role against his will. He pleaded with Gable, eventually promising him that "If it isn't one of your greatest successes, I'll never ask you again to play a part you don't want." The film's other main stars were Charles Laughton and Franchot Tone. The film was nominated for six Academy Awards, including Best Actor, and winning it for Best Picture. Thalberg accepted the award as producer from Frank Capra.
Thalberg and Mayer partnership
At first, Thalberg and studio chief Louis B. Mayer got along splendidly; however, they had different production philosophies. Thalberg preferred literary works, while Mayer preferred glitzy crowd-pleasing films. A clash was inevitable, and their relationship grew decidedly frosty. When Thalberg fell ill in the final weeks of 1932, Mayer took advantage of the situation and replaced him with David O. Selznick and Walter Wanger. Thalberg's reputation by that time for working long hours was widely known, and rumors about the related strain on his fragile health had become front-page news in entertainment trade publications. The Hollywood Reporter in January 1933 updated its readership about his condition and addressed growing concerns that he might be forced, despite his young age, to quit the business:
Once Thalberg recovered sufficiently from his bout with the "flu" and was able to return to work later in 1933, it was as one of MGM's unit producers, albeit one who had first choice on projects as well as preferential access to all the studio's resources, including over casting its stars. Thalberg's good relationship with Nicholas Schenck, then president of Loew's Incorporated, proved to be an ongoing advantage for him. Loew's was the corporate parent of MGM, so Schenck was the true power and ultimate arbiter at the studio; and he usually supported Thalberg's decisions and continued to do so whenever disagreements about projects or production needs arose. As a result, Thalberg also continued to produce or coproduce some of MGM's most prestigious and critically acclaimed ventures in this period, such as The Barretts of Wimpole Street (1934) starring his wife Norma Shearer, China Seas (1935), A Night at the Opera (1935), San Francisco (1936), and Romeo and Juliet (1936).
Personal life
During his few years with Universal while living in New York, Thalberg had become romantically involved with Carl Laemmle's daughter, Rosabelle. Still in his early twenties and later spending most of his time in Los Angeles, his feelings toward her were no longer as strong. Flamini suspects that this may have affected his position at Universal and partly caused his decision to leave the company. "The Laemmles prayed that Irving would marry Rosabelle", notes Flamini. "They wanted their sons to be educated and their daughters to marry nice Jewish boys."
Less than a year after he and Mayer took charge of the newly created MGM studios, and still only twenty-five years old, Thalberg suffered a serious heart attack due to overwork. Mayer also became aware of Thalberg's congenital heart problems and now worried about the prospect of running MGM without him. Mayer also became concerned that one of his daughters might become romantically involved, and told them so:
Thalberg, aware of Mayer's feelings, made it a point of never giving too much attention to his daughters at social events.
One of Thalberg's traits was his ability to work long hours into the night with little sign of fatigue. According to Vieira, Thalberg believed that as long as his mind was active in his work and he was not bored, he would not feel tired. Thalberg, who often got by with only five hours of sleep, felt that most people could get by with less than they realized. To keep his mental faculties at peak, he would read philosophical books by Bacon, Epictetus, or Kant. "They stimulate me. I'd drop out of sight in no time if I didn't read and keep up with current thought—and the philosophers are brain sharpeners."
During the early 1930s, Thalberg was ambivalent about political events in Europe. While he feared Nazism and the rise of Hitler, he also feared Communism. At the time, notes Vieira, "given a choice between communism and fascism, many Americans—including Thalberg—would prefer the latter." Thalberg stated his opinion:
When others suggested that many Jews could die in Germany as a result of Nazi anti-Semitism, he replied that in his opinion "Hitler and Hitlerism will pass." On one occasion, Catholic Prince Löwenstein of Germany, who himself had almost been captured before fleeing Germany, told him: "Mr. Thalberg, your own people are being systematically hunted down and rooted out of Germany." Thalberg suggested that world Jewry should nevertheless not interfere, that the Jewish race would survive Hitler. Within a few years, American film distribution was "choked off" in Germany. Led by Warner Brothers, all American studios eventually closed their German offices.
Thalberg began dating actress Norma Shearer a few years after he joined MGM. Following her conversion to Judaism, they married on Thursday, September 29, 1927, in a private ceremony in the garden of his rented house in Beverly Hills. Rabbi Edgar F. Magnin officiated at the event, with Shearer's brother Douglas Shearer giving the bride away, and Louis B. Mayer serving as best man. The couple drove to Monterey for their honeymoon and then moved into their newly constructed home in Beverly Hills.
After their second child was born, Shearer considered retiring from films, but Thalberg convinced her to continue acting, saying he could find her good roles. She went on to be one of MGM's biggest stars of the 1930s. Their two children were Irving Jr. (1930–1987) and Katharine (1935–2006).
Death
Thalberg and Shearer took a much-needed Labor Day weekend vacation in Monterey, California, in 1936, staying at the same beachfront hotel where they spent their honeymoon. A few weeks earlier, Thalberg's leading screenwriter, Al Lewin, had proposed doing a film based on a soon-to-be published book, Gone with the Wind. Although Thalberg said it would be a "sensational" role for Gable, and a "terrific picture," he decided not to do it:
Besides, Thalberg told Mayer, "[n]o Civil War picture ever made a nickel". Shortly after returning from Monterey, Thalberg was diagnosed with pneumonia. His condition worsened steadily and he eventually required an oxygen tent at home. He died on September 14, at the age of 37.
Sam Wood, while directing A Day at the Races, was given the news by phone. He returned to the set with tears in his eyes and told the others. As the news spread "the studio was paralyzed with shock", notes Thomas. "Work stopped and hundreds of people wept", with stars, writers, directors, and studio employees "all sharing a sense of loss at the death of a man who had been a part of their working lives", states Flamini.
His funeral took place two days later, and when the services began the other studios throughout Hollywood observed five minutes of silence. Producer Sam Goldwyn "wept uncontrollably for two days" and was unable to regain his composure enough to attend. The MGM studio closed for that day.
Services were held at the Wilshire Boulevard Temple that Thalberg had occasionally attended. The funeral attracted thousands of spectators who came to view the arrival of countless stars from MGM and other studios, including Greta Garbo, Jean Harlow, the Marx Brothers, Charlie Chaplin, Walt Disney, Howard Hughes, Al Jolson, Gary Cooper, Carole Lombard, Mary Pickford, and Douglas Fairbanks, among the screen luminaries. The ushers who led them to their seats included Clark Gable, Fredric March, and playwright Moss Hart. Erich von Stroheim, who had been fired by Thalberg, came to pay his respects. Producers Louis B. Mayer, the Warner brothers, Adolph Zukor, and Nicholas Schenck sat together solemnly as Rabbi Magnin gave the eulogy.
Thalberg is buried in a private marble tomb in the Great Mausoleum at Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Glendale, California, lying at rest beside his wife Norma Shearer Arrouge (Thalberg's crypt was engraved "My Sweetheart Forever" by Shearer).
Over the following days, tributes were published by the national press. Louis B. Mayer, his co-founding partner at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, said he had lost "the finest friend a man could ever have", while MGM president Nicholas Schenck stated that "Thalberg was the most important man in the production end of the motion-picture industry. Leading producers from the other studios also expressed their feelings in published tributes to Thalberg:
David O. Selznick described him as "beyond any question the greatest individual force for fine pictures." Samuel Goldwyn called him "the foremost figure in the motion-picture industry ... and an inspiration." M. H. Aylesworth, Chairman of RKO, wrote that "his integrity, vision and ability made him the spearhead of all motion-picture production throughout the world." Harry Warner, president of Warner Bros., described him as "gifted with one of the finest minds ever placed at the service of motion-picture production." Sidney R. Kent, president of Twentieth Century Fox, said that "he made the whole world richer by giving it the highest type of entertainment. He was a true genius." Columbia president Harry Cohn said the "motion picture industry has suffered a loss from which it will not soon recover...". Darryl F. Zanuck noted, "More than any other man he raised the industry to its present world prestige." Adolph Zukor, chairman of Paramount, stated, "Irving Thalberg was the most brilliant young man in the motion picture business." Jesse Lasky said, "It will be utterly impossible to replace him."
Among the condolences that came from world political leaders, President Franklin D. Roosevelt wrote, "The world of art is poorer with the passing of Irving Thalberg. His high ideals, insight and imagination went into the production of his masterpieces."
Among the pictures that were unfinished or not yet released at the time of his death were A Day at the Races, The Good Earth, Camille, Maytime, and Romeo and Juliet. Groucho Marx, star of A Day at the Races, wrote, "After Thalberg's death, my interest in the movies waned. I continued to appear in them, but ... The fun had gone out of picture making." Thalberg's widow, Norma Shearer, recalled, "Grief does very strange things to you. I didn't seem to feel the shock for two weeks afterwards. ... then, at the end of those two weeks, I collapsed."
Legacy in the movie industry
Thalberg's legacy to the movie industry is "incalculable", states biographer Bob Thomas. He notes that with his numerous production innovations and grand stories, often turning classic literature and Broadway stage productions into big-screen pictures, he managed to keep "American movies supreme throughout the world for a generation". Darryl F. Zanuck, founder of 20th Century-Fox said that during Thalberg's brief career, he had become the "most creative producer in the history of films". Thomas describes some of his contributions:
Most of MGM's major films in the 1930s were, according to Flamini, "in a very real sense", made by Thalberg. He closely supervised the making of "more pictures than any other producer in Hollywood's history", and was considered the "archetype of the creative producer", adds Flamini. Upon his early death, aged 37, an editorial in The New York Times called him "the most important force" in the motion picture industry. The paper added that for the film industry, he "set the pace and others followed ... because his way combined style, glamour, and profit." He is described by Flamini as having been "a revolutionary in a gray flannel suit".
Thalberg refused to take credit as producer, and as a result, his name never appeared on the screen while he was alive. Thalberg claimed that "credit you give yourself is not worth having". He also said "If a picture is good, they'll know who produced it. If it's bad, nobody cares." His final film, released after he died, was The Good Earth (1937), which won numerous Academy Awards. Its opening screen credit was dedicated to Thalberg:
In 1938, the new multimillion-dollar MGM administration building in Culver City was named for Thalberg. The Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award, presented by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, also named for him, awards producers for consistently high production achievements.
Cultural legacy
The Last Tycoon
In October 1939, American novelist F. Scott Fitzgerald began writing The Last Tycoon, a fictionalized biography of Thalberg, naming the protagonist Monroe Stahr to represent Thalberg. "Thalberg has always fascinated me", he wrote to an editor. "His peculiar charm, his extraordinary good looks, his bountiful success, the tragic end of his great adventure. The events I have built around him are fiction, but all of them are things which might very well have happened. ... I've long chosen him for a hero (this has been in my mind for three years) because he is one of the half-dozen men I have known who were built on a grand scale."
Thomas notes that among the reasons Fitzgerald chose to write a book about a Thalberg-like character, was that "throughout his literary career, Fitzgerald borrowed his heroes from friends he admired, and inevitably a bit of Fitzgerald entered the characterizations." Fitzgerald himself writes that "When I like men, I want to be like them ..." Fitzgerald and Thalberg had real-life similarities: both were prodigies, both had heart ailments, and they both died at early ages.
According to biographer Matthew J. Bruccoli, Fitzgerald believed that Thalberg, with his "taste and courage, represented the best of Hollywood. ... [and] saw Thalberg as a model for what could be done in the movies." Fitzgerald died before the novel was completed, however. Bruccoli writes of Fitzgerald's book:
Although parallels between Monroe Stahr in the novel and Thalberg were evident, many who knew Thalberg intimately stated that they did not see similarities in their personalities. Norma Shearer said that the Stahr character was not at all like her former husband.
In the 1976 film version, directed by Elia Kazan, Monroe Stahr was played by Robert De Niro. Kazan, in his pre-production notes, described the Stahr character as he saw him:
In the 2016 television series based on the novel, Monroe Stahr is played by Matt Bomer.
Others
Fitzgerald also based his short story "Crazy Sunday", originally published in the October 1932 issue of American Mercury, on an incident at a party thrown by Thalberg and Shearer. The story is included in Fitzgerald's collection Taps at Reveille (1935).
Thalberg was portrayed in the movie Man of a Thousand Faces (1957) by Robert Evans, who went on to become a studio head himself.
Thalberg was portrayed by Bill Cusack in Young Indiana Jones and the Hollywood Follies (1994), a TV film based on The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles, in which Indiana Jones is depicted as taking part in Thalberg's conflict with Erich von Stroheim over Foolish Wives.
In 2020, Thalberg was played by Ferdinand Kingsley in the David Fincher film Mank
Thalberg, played by Tobey Maguire, is rumored to appear in the upcoming movie Babylon.
Filmography
Producer
Reputation (1921)
The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1923)
Merry-Go-Round (1923)
His Hour (1924)
He Who Gets Slapped (1924)
The Unholy Three (1925)
The Merry Widow (1925)
The Tower of Lies (1925)
The Big Parade (1925)
Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ (1925)
Torrent (1926)
La Bohème (1926)
Brown of Harvard (1926)
The Road to Mandalay (1926)
The Temptress (1926)
Valencia (1926)
Flesh and the Devil (1926)
Twelve Miles Out (1927)
The Student Prince in Old Heidelberg (1927)
London After Midnight (1927)
The Crowd (1928)
Laugh, Clown, Laugh (1928)
White Shadows in the South Seas (1928)
Show People (1928)
West of Zanzibar (1928)
The Broadway Melody (1929)
The Trial of Mary Dugan (1929)
Voice of the City (1929)
Where East Is East (1929)
The Last of Mrs. Cheyney (1929)
The Hollywood Revue of 1929 (1929)
Hallelujah (1929)
His Glorious Night (1929)
The Kiss (1929)
Anna Christie (1930)
Redemption (1930)
The Divorcee (1930)
The Rogue Song (1930)
The Big House (1930)
The Unholy Three (1930)
Let Us Be Gay (1930)
Billy the Kid (1930)
Way for a Sailor (1930)
A Lady's Morals (1930)
Inspiration (1931)
Trader Horn (1931)
The Secret Six (1931)
A Free Soul (1931)
Just a Gigolo (1931)
Menschen hinter Gittern (1931), German-language version of The Big House (1930)
The Sin of Madelon Claudet (1931)
The Guardsman (1931)
The Champ (1931)
Possessed (1931)
Private Lives (1931)
Mata Hari (1931)
Freaks (1932)
Tarzan the Ape Man (1932)
Grand Hotel (1932)
Letty Lynton (1932)
As You Desire Me (1932)
Red-Headed Woman (1932)
Smilin' Through (1932)
Red Dust (1932)
Rasputin and the Empress (1932)
Strange Interlude (1932)
Tugboat Annie (1933)
Bombshell (1933)
Eskimo (1933)
La Veuve Joyeuse (1934) French-language version of The Merry Widow
Riptide (1934)
The Barretts of Wimpole Street (1934)
The Merry Widow (1934)
What Every Woman Knows (1934)
Biography of a Bachelor Girl (1935)
No More Ladies (1935)
China Seas (1935)
Mutiny on the Bounty (1935)
A Night at the Opera (1935)
Riffraff (1936)
Romeo and Juliet (1936)
Camille (1936)
Maytime (1937)
A Day at the Races (1937)
Broadway Melody of 1938 (1937)
The Good Earth (1937)
Marie Antoinette (1938)
Writer
The Trap (1922)
The Dangerous Little Demon (1922)
Awards
Academy Awards
Notes
Further reading
Books
Flamini, Roland. Thalberg: The Last Tycoon and the World of M-G-M (1994)
Marx, Samuel. Mayer and Thalberg: The Make-believe Saints (1975)
Thomas, Bob. Thalberg: Life and Legend (1969)
Vieira, Mark A. Irving Thalberg's M-G-M. New York: Harry N. Abrams, 2008.
Vieira, Mark A. Irving Thalberg: Boy Wonder to Producer Prince. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2009.
Articles
Starman, Ray. "Irving Thalberg", Films In Review, June/July 1987, p. 347–353
External links
Irving Thalberg at TCM
Cinemagraphe Review of the Roland Flamini biography of Thalberg: The Last Tycoon and the World of MGM
Irving Thalberg at Virtual History
Irving Thalberg profiled in Collier's Magazine (1924)
Videos
1899 births
1936 deaths
American film producers
Film producers from California
Producers who won the Best Picture Academy Award
American film studio executives
American male screenwriters
Cinema pioneers
Silent film directors
Silent film producers
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer executives
Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences founders
Businesspeople from Los Angeles
Hollywood history and culture
California Republicans
New York (state) Republicans
USC School of Cinematic Arts faculty
20th-century American businesspeople
Screenwriters from California
Screenwriters from New York (state)
People from Brooklyn
American anti-communists
American people of German-Jewish descent
Deaths from pneumonia in California
Burials at Forest Lawn Memorial Park (Glendale)
20th-century American male writers
20th-century American writers
Jewish American writers
20th-century American screenwriters | true | [
"Thalberg or Talberg is a surname of German origin, which means \"valley hill\". It may refer to:\n\nIrving Thalberg (1899–1936), American film producer\nIrving Thalberg Jr. (1930–1988), American philosopher\nNorma Thalberg (1902–1983), Canadian actress\nOle Talberg (born 1982), Norwegian football player\nRuben Talberg (born 1964), German artist\nSigismond Thalberg (1812–1871), Austrian composer\nZare Thalberg (1858–1915), English opera soprano and actress\n\nOther uses\nBurg Thalberg, a castle in Styria, Austria\nIrving G. Thalberg Memorial Award\nSchlag bei Thalberg, a municipality in Styria, Austria\n\nSee also\nTallberg\n\nGerman-language surnames\nJewish surnames",
"Zaré Thalberg, born Ethel Western, (16 April 1858 – 17 March 1915) was a British operatic singer and actress who was thought at one time to have been born in Greece.\n\nLife\nThalberg was born in Derbyshire in 1858. Her name was Ethel Western and she took the name of Thalberg after taking singing lessons from the pianist Sigismond Thalberg. She debuted at the Royal Opera House in London as Zerlina in Mozart's Don Giovanni after training in Paris and Milan.\n\nIn 1879 her voice gave way and she was obliged to give up her career at Covent Garden. However, she joined Edwin Booth as an actress in the United States and did not return to England until the 1890s. She acted under the name of Ethel Western.\n\nHer photo was found in the pocket of Henry Irving after she died. For many years the picture was misidentified as Nelly Moore, who had died in 1869. Much later the picture was identified as Thalberg. The Irving Society offer no rationale as to why he should have been carrying her photo as there is no evidence that they did (or did not) know each other.\n\nThere are photos of her in the National Portrait Gallery, London, appearing in Lucretia Borgia in the 1890s.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n\n1858 births\n1915 deaths\nPeople from Derbyshire\nEnglish operatic sopranos\nEnglish actresses"
]
|
[
"Irving Thalberg",
"Universal Studios",
"Did he work for universal?",
"He found work as an office secretary at Universal Pictures' New York office,",
"Did he have other jobs with universal?",
"later became personal secretary to the studio's founder and president, Carl Laemmle.",
"What did he do at universal?",
"Thalberg's duties were transcribing and editing notes that Laemmle had written during screenings of his films.",
"What happened to him while at universal?",
"Laemmle told Thalberg to remain and \"keep an eye on things for me.\" Two months later, Laemmle returned to California,",
"Why did Laemmle go to California?",
"partly to see how well Thalberg was able to handle the responsibilities he was given. Thalberg gave him suggestions,",
"What did Thalberg suggest?",
"\"The first thing you should do is establish a new job of studio manager and give him the responsibility of watching day-to-day operations.\""
]
| C_7b8dcb999ce54951992e991787a236a9_0 | What other responsibilities did he have? | 7 | What other responsibilities did Irving Thalberg have other than editing? | Irving Thalberg | He found work as an office secretary at Universal Pictures' New York office, and later became personal secretary to the studio's founder and president, Carl Laemmle. Among Thalberg's duties were transcribing and editing notes that Laemmle had written during screenings of his films. He earned $25 weekly, becoming adept at making insightful observations, which impressed Laemmle. Laemmle took Thalberg to see his Los Angeles production facility, where he spent a month watching how movie production worked. Before returning to New York, Laemmle told Thalberg to remain and "keep an eye on things for me." Two months later, Laemmle returned to California, partly to see how well Thalberg was able to handle the responsibilities he was given. Thalberg gave him suggestions, which impressed Laemmle by his ability to understand and explain problems. Thalberg suggested, "The first thing you should do is establish a new job of studio manager and give him the responsibility of watching day-to-day operations." Laemmle immediately agreed, "All right. You're it." In shock, Thalberg replied, "I'm what?" Laemmle told him to take charge of the Los Angeles studio, which he did in early 1919. At age 20, Thalberg became responsible for immediately overseeing the nine ongoing film productions and nearly thirty scenarios then under development. In describing the rationale for this early appointment as studio manager, film historian David Thomson writes that his new job "owed nothing to nepotism, private wealth, or experience in the film industry." He reasons that despite "Thalberg's youth, modest education, and frail appearance . . . it is clear that he had the charm, insight, and ability, or the appearance of it, to captivate the film world." Thalberg was one among the majority of Hollywood film industry workers who migrated from the East Coast, primarily from New York. Some film actors, such as Conrad Nagel, did not like the 5-day train trip or the sudden warmth of the California climate. Neither did Marion Davies, who was not used to such "big wide spaces." Samuel Marx, a close friend of Thalberg's from New York, recalled how easily Thalberg adapted to Southern California, often standing outside his doorway during moments of contemplation to enjoy the scenery. "We were all young," said comedian Buster Keaton. "The air in California was like wine. Our business was also young--and growing like nothing ever seen before." CANNOTANSWER | Laemmle told him to take charge of the Los Angeles studio, which he did in early 1919. | Irving Grant Thalberg (May 30, 1899 – September 14, 1936) was an American film producer during the early years of motion pictures. He was called "The Boy Wonder" for his youth and ability to select scripts, choose actors, gather production staff, and make profitable films, including Grand Hotel, China Seas, A Night at the Opera, Mutiny on the Bounty, Camille and The Good Earth. His films carved out an international market, "projecting a seductive image of American life brimming with vitality and rooted in democracy and personal freedom", states biographer Roland Flamini.
He was born in Brooklyn, New York, and as a child was afflicted with a congenital heart disease that doctors said would kill him before he reached the age of thirty. After graduating from high school he worked as a store clerk during the day and to gain some job skills took a night class in typing. He then found work as a secretary with Universal Studios' New York office, and was later made studio manager for their Los Angeles facility. There, he oversaw production of a hundred films during his three years with the company. Among the films he produced was The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1923).
In Los Angeles, he partnered with Louis B. Mayer's new studio and, after it merged with two other studios, helped create Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM). He was made head of production of MGM in 1925, at the age of twenty-six, helping MGM become the most successful studio in Hollywood. During his twelve years with MGM, until his premature death at the age of 37, he produced four hundred films, most of which bore his imprint and innovations, including story conferences with writers, sneak previews to gain early feedback, and extensive re-shooting of scenes to improve the film. In addition, he introduced horror films to audiences and coauthored the "Production Code", guidelines for morality followed by all studios. During the 1920s and 1930s, he synthesized and merged the world of stage drama and literary classics with Hollywood films.
Thalberg created numerous new stars and groomed their screen images. Among them were Lon Chaney, Ramon Novarro, Greta Garbo, John Gilbert, Lionel Barrymore, Joan Crawford, Clark Gable, Jean Harlow, Wallace Beery, Spencer Tracy, Luise Rainer, and Norma Shearer, who became his wife. He had the ability to combine quality with commercial success, and was credited with bringing his artistic aspirations in line with the demands of audiences. After his death, Hollywood's producers said he had been the world's "foremost figure in motion-picture history". President Franklin D. Roosevelt wrote, "The world of art is poorer with the passing of Irving Thalberg. His high ideals, insight and imagination went into the production of his masterpieces." The Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award, given out periodically by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences since 1937, has been awarded to producers whose body of work reflected consistently high quality films.
Early years
Thalberg was born in Brooklyn, to German Jewish immigrant parents, William and Henrietta (Haymann). Shortly after birth, he was diagnosed with "blue baby syndrome", caused by a congenital disease that limited the oxygen supply to his heart. The prognosis from the family's doctor and specialists was that he might live to the age of twenty, or at most, to thirty.
During his high school years in Brooklyn, he began having attacks of chest pains, dizziness and fatigue. This affected his ability to study, though until that time he was a good student. When he was 17 he contracted rheumatic fever, and was confined to bed for a year. His mother, in order to prevent him falling too far behind other students, brought him homework from school, books, and tutors to teach him at home. She also hoped that the schoolwork and reading would distract him from the "tantalizing sounds" of children playing outside his window.
With little to entertain him, he read books as a main activity. He devoured popular novels, classics, plays, and biographies. His books, of necessity, replaced the streets of New York, and led to his interest in classical philosophy and philosophers, such as William James.
When Thalberg returned to school, he finished high school but lacked the stamina for college, which he felt would have required constant late-night studying and cramming for exams. Instead, he took part-time jobs as a store clerk, and in the evenings, to gain some job skills, taught himself typing, shorthand and Spanish at a night vocational school. When he turned 18, he placed an advertisement in the local newspaper hoping to find better work:
Career as producer
Universal Studios
He found work as an office secretary at Universal Pictures' New York office, and later became personal secretary to the studio's founder and president, Carl Laemmle. Among Thalberg's duties were transcribing and editing notes that Laemmle had written during screenings of his films. He earned $25 weekly, becoming adept at making insightful observations, which impressed Laemmle.
Laemmle took Thalberg to see his Los Angeles production facility, where he spent a month watching how movie production worked. Before returning to New York, Laemmle told Thalberg to remain and "keep an eye on things for me." Two months later, Laemmle returned to California, partly to see how well Thalberg was able to handle the responsibilities he was given. Thalberg gave him suggestions, and thus impressed Laemmle by his ability to understand and explain problems.
Thalberg suggested, "The first thing you should do is establish a new job of studio manager and give him the responsibility of watching day-to-day operations." Laemmle immediately agreed: "All right. You're it." In shock, Thalberg replied, "I'm what?" Laemmle told him to take charge of the Los Angeles studio, which he did in early 1919. When aged 20, Thalberg became responsible for immediately overseeing the nine ongoing film productions and nearly thirty scenarios then under development.
In describing the rationale for this early appointment as studio manager, film historian David Thomson writes that his new job "owed nothing to nepotism, private wealth, or experience in the film industry." He reasons that despite "Thalberg's youth, modest education, and frail appearance ... it is clear that he had the charm, insight, and ability, or the appearance of it, to captivate the film world."
Thalberg was one among the majority of Hollywood film industry workers who migrated from the East Coast, primarily from New York. Some film actors, such as Conrad Nagel, did not like the five-day train trip or the sudden warmth of the California climate. Neither did Marion Davies, who was not used to such "big wide spaces". Samuel Marx, a close friend of Thalberg's from New York, recalled how easily Thalberg adapted to Southern California, often standing outside his doorway during moments of contemplation to enjoy the scenery. "We were all young", said comedian Buster Keaton. "The air in California was like wine. Our business was also young—and growing like nothing ever seen before."
Confrontation with Erich von Stroheim
He quickly established his tenacity as he battled with well-known director Erich von Stroheim over the length of Foolish Wives (1922). Biographer Roland Flamini notes that the film was Universal's most expensive "jewel" ever in production, and its director and star, von Stroheim, was taking the film way over budget. Thalberg, now Universal's general manager, was forced to have the director quickly finalize production before the studio's working capital was used up. Flamini describes the situation:
Thalberg had von Stroheim come to his office, which he did still wearing his film costume as a Russian Imperial Guard and escorted by members of his production team. Thalberg calmly told him, "I have seen all the film and you have all you need for the picture. I want you to stop shooting", to which von Stroheim replied, "But I have not finished as yet." "Yes, you have", said Thalberg. "You have spent all the money this company can afford. I cannot allow you to spend any more."
Thalberg quietly explained that the director worked under the producer, and it was his responsibility to control costs. Von Stroheim, surrounded by his assistants, then confronted Thalberg: "If you were not my superior, I would smash you in the face." Thalberg, unflinching, said "Don't let that stop you." The result was that Thalberg soon afterward removed the cameras from von Stroheim's studio and took over editing. The uncut footage was pared down from five-and-a-half hours to three hours, to von Stroheim's deep dissatisfaction.
A similar problem developed with von Stroheim's next film, Merry-Go-Round (1923). Although he had promised Thalberg to remain within budget this time, he continued production until it went to twice the agreed length and was not yet near completion. Flamini speculates why this happened:
Thalberg again called von Stroheim to his office, handed him a long letter written and signed by himself, describing the problems, and summarily fired von Stroheim as of that moment. Thalberg's letter stated among the reasons,
totally inexcusable and repeated acts of insubordination ... extravagant ideas which you have been unwilling to sacrifice ... unnecessary delays ... and your apparent idea that you are greater and more powerful than the organization that employs you.
His dismissal of von Stroheim was considered an "earthquake in movie circles", notes Flamini. Producer David O. Selznick said that "it was the first time a director had been fired. It took great guts and courage ... Von Stroheim was utterly indifferent over money and could have gone on and spent millions, with nobody to stop him.". The opinion was shared by director Rouben Mamoulian, who said that the "little fellow at Universal", in one bold stroke, had "asserted the primacy of the studio over the director" and forever altered the balance of power in the movie industry.
Effects of his young age
According to Flamini, his youth was a subject of conversation within the movie community. Executives from other studios, actors, and film crew, often mistook him to be a junior employee. Movie columnist Louella Parsons, upon first being introduced to him, asked, "What's the joke? Where's the new general manager?" After five minutes of talking to Thalberg, however, she later wrote about "Universal's Boy Wonder": "He might be a boy in looks and age, but it was no child's mind that was being asked to cope with the intricate politics of Universal City." Novelist Edna Ferber responded the same way, writing that "I had fancied motion-picture producers as large gentlemen smoking oversized cigars. But this young man whose word seemed so final at Universal City ... impressed me deeply."
The male actors in the studio had a similar reaction. Lionel Barrymore, who was nearly twice his age, recalled their meetings:
Thalberg likewise gained the respect of leading playwrights, some of whom also looked down on him due to his youth. George S. Kaufman, co-author of Dinner at Eight, several Marx Brothers films, and two George Gershwin plays, came from New York to meet with Thalberg. Afterward he confided to his friend, Groucho Marx: "That man has never written a word, yet he can tell me exactly what to do with a story. I didn't know you had people like that out here."
Actress Norma Shearer, whom he later married, was surprised after he greeted her at the door, then walked her to his office for her first job interview: "Then you're not the office boy?" she asked. He smiled, as he sat himself behind his desk: "No, Miss Shearer, I'm Irving Thalberg, vice-president of the Mayer Company. I'm the man who sent for you."
His younger-than-normal age for a studio executive was usually mentioned even after he left Universal to help start up MGM. Screenwriter Agnes Christine Johnson, who worked with Thalberg for years, described his contribution during meetings:
The same quality was observed by director and screenwriter Hobart Henley: "If something that read well in conference turns out not so good on the screen, I go to him and, like that—Henley snaps his fingers—he has a remedy. He's brilliant." Another assistant producer to Thalberg explains:
His youth also contributed to his open-mindedness to the ideas of others. Conrad Nagel, who starred in numerous Thalberg films, reported that Thalberg was generally empathetic to those he worked alongside: "Thalberg never raised his voice. He just looked into your eyes, spoke softly, and after a few minutes he cast a spell on you." Studio attorney Edwin Loeb, who also worked to create AMPAS, explained that "the real foundation of Irving's success was his ability to look at life through the eyes of any given person. He had a gift of empathy, and almost complete perspective." Those opinions were also shared by producer Walter Wanger: "You thought that you were talking to an Indian savant. He could cast a spell on anybody."
His talent as a producer was enhanced by his "near-miraculous" powers of concentration, notes film critic J. Hoberman. As a result, he was never bored or tired, and supplemented his spare time with reading for his own amusement, recalls screenwriter Bayard Veiller, with some of his favorite authors being Francis Bacon, Epictetus, and Immanuel Kant.
Film projects at Universal
Biographer Bob Thomas writes that after three years at the studio, Thalberg continually proved his value. Universal's pictures improved noticeably, primarily due to Thalberg's "uncanny sense of story." He took tight control over many key aspects of production, including his requirement that from then on scripts were tightly constructed before filming began, rather than during production. Thomas adds that he also "showed a remarkable capacity for working with actors, casting them aptly and advising them on their careers."
After producing two films that were in production when he began work at Universal, he presented Laemmle with his idea for a film based on one of his favorite classic stories, The Hunchback of Notre Dame. Rather than just a horror picture, Thalberg suggested turning it into a spectacle which would include a replica of the Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris. He had Lon Chaney play the hunchback. The film became Universal's most profitable silent film and established Chaney's career as a top-flight star.
After nearly three years with Universal, Thalberg had supervised over a hundred movies, reorganized the studio to give more control to the managers, and had "stopped the defection" of many of their leading stars by offering them better, higher-paying contracts. He also produced a number of Universal's prestige films, which made the company profitable. However, he decided it was time to find a studio in Los Angeles more suitable to his skills, and spread word that he was available.
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM)
Cecil B. DeMille was the first who wanted to hire him, telling his partner Jesse Lasky, "The boy is a genius. I can see it. I know it." Lasky opposed the hire, stating, "Geniuses we have all we need." Thalberg then received an offer from Hal Roach, but the offer was withdrawn because Thalberg lacked experience with slapstick comedy films. In late 1922, Thalberg was introduced to Louis B. Mayer, president of a small but dynamic and fast-growing studio. At that first meeting, Thalberg "made a deep, immediate impression on Mayer", writes Flamini. After Thalberg had left, Mayer said to studio attorney Edwin Loeb: "Tell him if he comes to work for me, I'll look after him as though he were my son."
Although their personalities were in many ways opposite, Mayer being more outspoken and nearly twice the younger man's age, Thalberg was hired as vice president in charge of production at Louis B. Mayer Productions. Years later, Mayer's daughter Irene Mayer Selznick recalled that "it was hard to believe anyone that boyish could be so important." According to Flamini, Thalberg was hired because, although Mayer was an astute businessman, "what he lacked was Thalberg's almost unerring ability to combine quality with commercial success, to bring artistic aspiration in line with the demands of the box office." Mayer's company subsequently merged with two others to become Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM), with the 24-year-old Thalberg made part-owner and accorded the same position as vice president in charge of production. Three years after the merger, MGM became the most successful studio in Hollywood.
During his twelve years at MGM, Thalberg supervised the production of over four hundred films. Although Thalberg and his colleagues at MGM knew he was "doomed" to not live much past the age of 30 due to heart disease, he loved producing films. He continued developing innovative ideas and overseeing most of MGM's pictures. Under Thalberg's management, MGM released over 40% more films yearly than Warner Brothers, and more than double Paramount's releases. From 1924 until 1936, when Thalberg died at the age of 37, "almost every film bore Thalberg's imprint", wrote Mark Vieira.
Production innovations
Thalberg's production techniques "broke new ground in filmmaking", adds Vieira. Among his contributions at MGM was his innovation of story conferences, sneak previews and scene retakes. He introduced the first horror films and coauthored the Production Code, the set of moral guidelines that all film studios agreed to follow. Thalberg helped synthesize and merge the world of stage drama and literary classics with Hollywood films.
MGM thereby became the only movie studio to consistently show a profit during the Great Depression. Flamini explains that the equation for MGM's success depended on combining stars, a Broadway hit or popular classic, and high standards of production. This combination at the time was considered a "revolutionary approach" in the film industry, which until then assumed a star was all that was needed for success, regardless of the story or production quality. The other studios began following MGM's lead with that same formula.
Production techniques
Thalberg generally followed a system in managing his productions. According to one of his assistants, Lawrence Weingarten, who later became a producer, "Thalberg directed the film on paper, and then the director directed the film on film."
Thalberg was generally opposed to location shooting overseas where he could not oversee production and control costs, as happened with Ben Hur. Thus, he kept hundreds of back-lot carpenters at work creating realistic sets, as he did for fifteenth-century Romeo and Juliet (1936), or with China Seas (1935), to replicate the harbors of Hong Kong.
Vieira points out that Thalberg's "fascination with Broadway plays" often had him create and present stories visually. For China Seas, for instance, he described for the screenwriters, director and others, exactly how he wanted the film to appear on screen:
To be certain of achieving the desired effects, Thalberg made sure his cinematographers were careful in their use of light and shadow. Vieira observes that "more than any other producer or any other studio, Thalberg and MGM manipulated lenses, filters, and lighting instruments to affect the viewer." As a result, he notes, "most of Thalberg's films contain moments such as these, in which cinematic technique transcends mere exposition and gives the viewer something to treasure."
Thalberg was supported by most of the studio in these kinds of creative decisions. "It was a big family," notes Weingarten. "If we had a success, everybody—and I mean every cutter, every painter, every plasterer—was excited about it, was abuzz, was in a tizzy about the whole idea of picture making."
Taking risks with new subjects and stars
In 1929, MGM released fifty films, and all but five showed a profit. Of those that failed, Hallelujah was also a gamble by Thalberg. When King Vidor, the film's producer and director, proposed the idea to Thalberg of a major film cast, for the first time, exclusively with African Americans, he told Thalberg directly, "I doubt that it will make a dollar at the box office." Thalberg replied, "Don't worry about that. I've told you that MGM can afford an occasional experiment."
By the early 1930s, a number of stars began failing at the box office, partly due to the Great Depression that was now undermining the economy, along with the public's ability to spend on entertainment. Thalberg began using two stars in a film, rather than one, as had been the tradition at all the studios, such as pairing Greta Garbo with John Gilbert, Clark Gable with Jean Harlow, and William Powell with Myrna Loy. After experimenting with a few such films, including Mata Hari (1931), which were profitable, he decided on a multi-star production of another Broadway play, Grand Hotel (1932). It had five major stars, including Garbo, Joan Crawford, John Barrymore, Lionel Barrymore, and Wallace Beery. "Before Thalberg," writes Vieira, "there was no Grand Hotel in the American consciousness." The film won the Oscar for Best Picture in 1932.
Thalberg went against consensus and took another risk with The Great Ziegfeld (1936), costarring Luise Rainer. Although Louis B. Mayer did not want her in the role, which he felt was too minor for a new star, Thalberg felt that "only she could play the part", wrote biographer Charles Higham. Shortly after shooting began in late 1935, doubts of Rainer's acting ability emerged in the press. However, despite her limited appearances in the film, Rainer "so impressed audiences with one highly emotional scene" that she won the Academy Award for Best Actress.
After her winning role in The Great Ziegfeld, Thalberg wanted her to play a role that was the opposite of her previous character, for The Good Earth (1937). For the part as a Chinese peasant, she was required to act totally subservient to her husband, being perpetually huddled in submission, and barely spoke a word of dialogue during the entire film. Rainer recalls that Mayer did not approve of the film being produced or her part in it: "He was horrified at Irving Thalberg's insistence for me to play O-lan, the poor uncomely little Chinese peasant." However, she again won the Oscar for Best Actress, becoming the first actress to win two consecutive Oscars, a feat not matched until Katharine Hepburn's two Oscar wins thirty years later.
Grooming new stars
Besides bringing a distinctive high quality "look" to MGM films and often recreating well-known stories or plays, Thalberg's actors themselves took on a characteristic quality. Thalberg wanted his female actors to appear "cool, classy and beautiful," notes Flamini. And he strove to make the male actors appear "worldly and in control." In general, Thalberg movies and actors came to be "luxurious," "glossy," and "technically flawless." By doing so, he made stars or boosted the careers of actors such as Lon Chaney, Ramon Novarro, John Gilbert, Greta Garbo, Joan Crawford, Clark Gable, Helen Hayes, Jean Harlow, Marie Dressler, Wallace Beery, John Barrymore, Lionel Barrymore and Luise Rainer.
Greta Garbo
In 1925, a young Greta Garbo, then twenty, and unable to speak any English, was brought over from Sweden at Mayer's request, as he saw how she looked in still photos. A Swedish friend thought he would help her by contacting Thalberg, who then agreed to give her a screen test. According to author Frederick Sands, "the result of the test was electrifying." Thalberg was impressed and began grooming the new starlet the following day: "the studio arranged to fix her teeth, made sure she lost weight, and gave her an English tutor."
Joan Crawford
Joan Crawford's first role was a Thalberg production at MGM and she became one of their leading stars for the next thirty years. Crawford was somewhat jealous of Norma Shearer as she thought she was given the better material by her husband Thalberg out of nepotism. Nevertheless, she felt that his contribution to MGM was vital to the film industry. Not long after his early death, she recalls her concerns: "Thalberg was dead and the concept of the quality 'big' picture pretty much went out the window."
Marie Dressler
Thalberg also realized that old stars few had heard of could be made into new ones. Marie Dressler, a fifty-nine-year-old early vaudeville and movie star, who had played the top-billed lead, above Charles Chaplin and Mabel Normand), in the first feature-length comedy, Tillie's Punctured Romance (1914), was unable to get any roles in films after leaving show business for some years, finally working as a maid. MGM screenwriter Frances Marion suggested to Thalberg that she might fit well in a starring role for a new film, and was surprised that he knew of her prior successes. Thalberg approved of using her without a screen test and offered his rationale:
By 1932, shortly before she died, Dressler was the country's number one box office star.
Wallace Beery
Marie Dressler was paired twice, in Min and Bill (1930) and Tugboat Annie (1933), with Wallace Beery, another major silent star who had been struggling to get work in sound pictures until Thalberg cast him. Beery had enjoyed a hugely successful silent film career dating back to 1913, but had been fired by Paramount shortly after sound pictures appeared. Thalberg cast him in the role of "Machine Gun Butch," which had been meant for recently deceased Lon Chaney, in The Big House (1930), an energetic prison picture that became a huge hit. Beery was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actor for his performance, and his burgeoning career at MGM had transformed him into the studio's highest paid actor within two more years, during which time he won the Oscar for The Champ and had become a phenomenal box office draw as a result of Thalberg's foresight.
Getting audience feedback and reshooting
According to Vieira, MGM had few failures during this period, and numerous blockbusters. Among the reasons was Thalberg's unique system of developing a script during story conferences with writers before filming began, and later giving "sneak previews" followed by audience feedback through written questionnaires. Often, where he felt improvement was needed, he arranged for scenes to be reshot. As Thalberg once stated, "The difference between something good and something superior is often very small."
Bad decisions and missed opportunities
Thalberg felt he had his "finger on the pulse of America. I know what people will do and what they won't do," he said. His judgment was not always accurate, however. Thalberg's bringing Broadway productions to the screen to develop higher picture standards sometimes resulted in "studied" acting or "stagey" sets, notes Flamini. In 1927, after the successful release of the first full-length talking picture, The Jazz Singer (1927), he nevertheless felt that talking pictures were a fad. Thalberg likewise did not think that color would replace black-and-white in movies.
When an assistant protested against a script that envisioned a love scene in Paris with an ocean background, Thalberg refused to make changes, saying "We can't cater to a handful of people who know Paris." A more serious distraction to Thalberg's efforts was his obsession with making his wife Norma Shearer a prominent star, efforts which sometimes led to "overblown and overglamous" productions. Thalberg himself admitted to his obsession years later when he told a fellow producer: "You're behaving like I did with Norma. I knew positively that she could play anything. It's a kind of romantic astigmatism that attacks producers when they fall for an actress."
Important films at MGM
Ben Hur (1925)
One of the first pictures he took charge of, Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ, was inherited and already in production by another studio when MGM was formed. The film was turning into a disastrous expense with cost overruns already in the millions due to its lavish sets and location shooting in Rome. Most studio executives chose to terminate the film to cut their losses. Thalberg, however, felt differently, and thought the film would affect movie audiences, due to its classic literary source, and would highlight MGM as a major new studio.
He, therefore, discarded much of the original footage shot in Italy and recreated the set on MGM's back lots in Culver City, which added more millions to the production, yet gave him more control over production. The new set also included a replica of Circus Maximus for the dramatic chariot race scenes. Flamini notes that Thalberg's "gamble paid off," drawing international attention to MGM, and to Thalberg within the movie industry for his bold action.
Mutiny on the Bounty (1935)
Mutiny on the Bounty was the studio's next most expensive film after Ben Hur, with some now calling it "Thalberg's masterpiece." He initially had difficulty convincing Mayer that he could make the film without making heroes of the mutineers. He achieved that by instead making a hero of the British Royal Navy, whereby the officers and shipmates would from then on display their mutual respect. Thalberg also had to convince Clark Gable to accept the role against his will. He pleaded with Gable, eventually promising him that "If it isn't one of your greatest successes, I'll never ask you again to play a part you don't want." The film's other main stars were Charles Laughton and Franchot Tone. The film was nominated for six Academy Awards, including Best Actor, and winning it for Best Picture. Thalberg accepted the award as producer from Frank Capra.
Thalberg and Mayer partnership
At first, Thalberg and studio chief Louis B. Mayer got along splendidly; however, they had different production philosophies. Thalberg preferred literary works, while Mayer preferred glitzy crowd-pleasing films. A clash was inevitable, and their relationship grew decidedly frosty. When Thalberg fell ill in the final weeks of 1932, Mayer took advantage of the situation and replaced him with David O. Selznick and Walter Wanger. Thalberg's reputation by that time for working long hours was widely known, and rumors about the related strain on his fragile health had become front-page news in entertainment trade publications. The Hollywood Reporter in January 1933 updated its readership about his condition and addressed growing concerns that he might be forced, despite his young age, to quit the business:
Once Thalberg recovered sufficiently from his bout with the "flu" and was able to return to work later in 1933, it was as one of MGM's unit producers, albeit one who had first choice on projects as well as preferential access to all the studio's resources, including over casting its stars. Thalberg's good relationship with Nicholas Schenck, then president of Loew's Incorporated, proved to be an ongoing advantage for him. Loew's was the corporate parent of MGM, so Schenck was the true power and ultimate arbiter at the studio; and he usually supported Thalberg's decisions and continued to do so whenever disagreements about projects or production needs arose. As a result, Thalberg also continued to produce or coproduce some of MGM's most prestigious and critically acclaimed ventures in this period, such as The Barretts of Wimpole Street (1934) starring his wife Norma Shearer, China Seas (1935), A Night at the Opera (1935), San Francisco (1936), and Romeo and Juliet (1936).
Personal life
During his few years with Universal while living in New York, Thalberg had become romantically involved with Carl Laemmle's daughter, Rosabelle. Still in his early twenties and later spending most of his time in Los Angeles, his feelings toward her were no longer as strong. Flamini suspects that this may have affected his position at Universal and partly caused his decision to leave the company. "The Laemmles prayed that Irving would marry Rosabelle", notes Flamini. "They wanted their sons to be educated and their daughters to marry nice Jewish boys."
Less than a year after he and Mayer took charge of the newly created MGM studios, and still only twenty-five years old, Thalberg suffered a serious heart attack due to overwork. Mayer also became aware of Thalberg's congenital heart problems and now worried about the prospect of running MGM without him. Mayer also became concerned that one of his daughters might become romantically involved, and told them so:
Thalberg, aware of Mayer's feelings, made it a point of never giving too much attention to his daughters at social events.
One of Thalberg's traits was his ability to work long hours into the night with little sign of fatigue. According to Vieira, Thalberg believed that as long as his mind was active in his work and he was not bored, he would not feel tired. Thalberg, who often got by with only five hours of sleep, felt that most people could get by with less than they realized. To keep his mental faculties at peak, he would read philosophical books by Bacon, Epictetus, or Kant. "They stimulate me. I'd drop out of sight in no time if I didn't read and keep up with current thought—and the philosophers are brain sharpeners."
During the early 1930s, Thalberg was ambivalent about political events in Europe. While he feared Nazism and the rise of Hitler, he also feared Communism. At the time, notes Vieira, "given a choice between communism and fascism, many Americans—including Thalberg—would prefer the latter." Thalberg stated his opinion:
When others suggested that many Jews could die in Germany as a result of Nazi anti-Semitism, he replied that in his opinion "Hitler and Hitlerism will pass." On one occasion, Catholic Prince Löwenstein of Germany, who himself had almost been captured before fleeing Germany, told him: "Mr. Thalberg, your own people are being systematically hunted down and rooted out of Germany." Thalberg suggested that world Jewry should nevertheless not interfere, that the Jewish race would survive Hitler. Within a few years, American film distribution was "choked off" in Germany. Led by Warner Brothers, all American studios eventually closed their German offices.
Thalberg began dating actress Norma Shearer a few years after he joined MGM. Following her conversion to Judaism, they married on Thursday, September 29, 1927, in a private ceremony in the garden of his rented house in Beverly Hills. Rabbi Edgar F. Magnin officiated at the event, with Shearer's brother Douglas Shearer giving the bride away, and Louis B. Mayer serving as best man. The couple drove to Monterey for their honeymoon and then moved into their newly constructed home in Beverly Hills.
After their second child was born, Shearer considered retiring from films, but Thalberg convinced her to continue acting, saying he could find her good roles. She went on to be one of MGM's biggest stars of the 1930s. Their two children were Irving Jr. (1930–1987) and Katharine (1935–2006).
Death
Thalberg and Shearer took a much-needed Labor Day weekend vacation in Monterey, California, in 1936, staying at the same beachfront hotel where they spent their honeymoon. A few weeks earlier, Thalberg's leading screenwriter, Al Lewin, had proposed doing a film based on a soon-to-be published book, Gone with the Wind. Although Thalberg said it would be a "sensational" role for Gable, and a "terrific picture," he decided not to do it:
Besides, Thalberg told Mayer, "[n]o Civil War picture ever made a nickel". Shortly after returning from Monterey, Thalberg was diagnosed with pneumonia. His condition worsened steadily and he eventually required an oxygen tent at home. He died on September 14, at the age of 37.
Sam Wood, while directing A Day at the Races, was given the news by phone. He returned to the set with tears in his eyes and told the others. As the news spread "the studio was paralyzed with shock", notes Thomas. "Work stopped and hundreds of people wept", with stars, writers, directors, and studio employees "all sharing a sense of loss at the death of a man who had been a part of their working lives", states Flamini.
His funeral took place two days later, and when the services began the other studios throughout Hollywood observed five minutes of silence. Producer Sam Goldwyn "wept uncontrollably for two days" and was unable to regain his composure enough to attend. The MGM studio closed for that day.
Services were held at the Wilshire Boulevard Temple that Thalberg had occasionally attended. The funeral attracted thousands of spectators who came to view the arrival of countless stars from MGM and other studios, including Greta Garbo, Jean Harlow, the Marx Brothers, Charlie Chaplin, Walt Disney, Howard Hughes, Al Jolson, Gary Cooper, Carole Lombard, Mary Pickford, and Douglas Fairbanks, among the screen luminaries. The ushers who led them to their seats included Clark Gable, Fredric March, and playwright Moss Hart. Erich von Stroheim, who had been fired by Thalberg, came to pay his respects. Producers Louis B. Mayer, the Warner brothers, Adolph Zukor, and Nicholas Schenck sat together solemnly as Rabbi Magnin gave the eulogy.
Thalberg is buried in a private marble tomb in the Great Mausoleum at Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Glendale, California, lying at rest beside his wife Norma Shearer Arrouge (Thalberg's crypt was engraved "My Sweetheart Forever" by Shearer).
Over the following days, tributes were published by the national press. Louis B. Mayer, his co-founding partner at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, said he had lost "the finest friend a man could ever have", while MGM president Nicholas Schenck stated that "Thalberg was the most important man in the production end of the motion-picture industry. Leading producers from the other studios also expressed their feelings in published tributes to Thalberg:
David O. Selznick described him as "beyond any question the greatest individual force for fine pictures." Samuel Goldwyn called him "the foremost figure in the motion-picture industry ... and an inspiration." M. H. Aylesworth, Chairman of RKO, wrote that "his integrity, vision and ability made him the spearhead of all motion-picture production throughout the world." Harry Warner, president of Warner Bros., described him as "gifted with one of the finest minds ever placed at the service of motion-picture production." Sidney R. Kent, president of Twentieth Century Fox, said that "he made the whole world richer by giving it the highest type of entertainment. He was a true genius." Columbia president Harry Cohn said the "motion picture industry has suffered a loss from which it will not soon recover...". Darryl F. Zanuck noted, "More than any other man he raised the industry to its present world prestige." Adolph Zukor, chairman of Paramount, stated, "Irving Thalberg was the most brilliant young man in the motion picture business." Jesse Lasky said, "It will be utterly impossible to replace him."
Among the condolences that came from world political leaders, President Franklin D. Roosevelt wrote, "The world of art is poorer with the passing of Irving Thalberg. His high ideals, insight and imagination went into the production of his masterpieces."
Among the pictures that were unfinished or not yet released at the time of his death were A Day at the Races, The Good Earth, Camille, Maytime, and Romeo and Juliet. Groucho Marx, star of A Day at the Races, wrote, "After Thalberg's death, my interest in the movies waned. I continued to appear in them, but ... The fun had gone out of picture making." Thalberg's widow, Norma Shearer, recalled, "Grief does very strange things to you. I didn't seem to feel the shock for two weeks afterwards. ... then, at the end of those two weeks, I collapsed."
Legacy in the movie industry
Thalberg's legacy to the movie industry is "incalculable", states biographer Bob Thomas. He notes that with his numerous production innovations and grand stories, often turning classic literature and Broadway stage productions into big-screen pictures, he managed to keep "American movies supreme throughout the world for a generation". Darryl F. Zanuck, founder of 20th Century-Fox said that during Thalberg's brief career, he had become the "most creative producer in the history of films". Thomas describes some of his contributions:
Most of MGM's major films in the 1930s were, according to Flamini, "in a very real sense", made by Thalberg. He closely supervised the making of "more pictures than any other producer in Hollywood's history", and was considered the "archetype of the creative producer", adds Flamini. Upon his early death, aged 37, an editorial in The New York Times called him "the most important force" in the motion picture industry. The paper added that for the film industry, he "set the pace and others followed ... because his way combined style, glamour, and profit." He is described by Flamini as having been "a revolutionary in a gray flannel suit".
Thalberg refused to take credit as producer, and as a result, his name never appeared on the screen while he was alive. Thalberg claimed that "credit you give yourself is not worth having". He also said "If a picture is good, they'll know who produced it. If it's bad, nobody cares." His final film, released after he died, was The Good Earth (1937), which won numerous Academy Awards. Its opening screen credit was dedicated to Thalberg:
In 1938, the new multimillion-dollar MGM administration building in Culver City was named for Thalberg. The Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award, presented by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, also named for him, awards producers for consistently high production achievements.
Cultural legacy
The Last Tycoon
In October 1939, American novelist F. Scott Fitzgerald began writing The Last Tycoon, a fictionalized biography of Thalberg, naming the protagonist Monroe Stahr to represent Thalberg. "Thalberg has always fascinated me", he wrote to an editor. "His peculiar charm, his extraordinary good looks, his bountiful success, the tragic end of his great adventure. The events I have built around him are fiction, but all of them are things which might very well have happened. ... I've long chosen him for a hero (this has been in my mind for three years) because he is one of the half-dozen men I have known who were built on a grand scale."
Thomas notes that among the reasons Fitzgerald chose to write a book about a Thalberg-like character, was that "throughout his literary career, Fitzgerald borrowed his heroes from friends he admired, and inevitably a bit of Fitzgerald entered the characterizations." Fitzgerald himself writes that "When I like men, I want to be like them ..." Fitzgerald and Thalberg had real-life similarities: both were prodigies, both had heart ailments, and they both died at early ages.
According to biographer Matthew J. Bruccoli, Fitzgerald believed that Thalberg, with his "taste and courage, represented the best of Hollywood. ... [and] saw Thalberg as a model for what could be done in the movies." Fitzgerald died before the novel was completed, however. Bruccoli writes of Fitzgerald's book:
Although parallels between Monroe Stahr in the novel and Thalberg were evident, many who knew Thalberg intimately stated that they did not see similarities in their personalities. Norma Shearer said that the Stahr character was not at all like her former husband.
In the 1976 film version, directed by Elia Kazan, Monroe Stahr was played by Robert De Niro. Kazan, in his pre-production notes, described the Stahr character as he saw him:
In the 2016 television series based on the novel, Monroe Stahr is played by Matt Bomer.
Others
Fitzgerald also based his short story "Crazy Sunday", originally published in the October 1932 issue of American Mercury, on an incident at a party thrown by Thalberg and Shearer. The story is included in Fitzgerald's collection Taps at Reveille (1935).
Thalberg was portrayed in the movie Man of a Thousand Faces (1957) by Robert Evans, who went on to become a studio head himself.
Thalberg was portrayed by Bill Cusack in Young Indiana Jones and the Hollywood Follies (1994), a TV film based on The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles, in which Indiana Jones is depicted as taking part in Thalberg's conflict with Erich von Stroheim over Foolish Wives.
In 2020, Thalberg was played by Ferdinand Kingsley in the David Fincher film Mank
Thalberg, played by Tobey Maguire, is rumored to appear in the upcoming movie Babylon.
Filmography
Producer
Reputation (1921)
The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1923)
Merry-Go-Round (1923)
His Hour (1924)
He Who Gets Slapped (1924)
The Unholy Three (1925)
The Merry Widow (1925)
The Tower of Lies (1925)
The Big Parade (1925)
Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ (1925)
Torrent (1926)
La Bohème (1926)
Brown of Harvard (1926)
The Road to Mandalay (1926)
The Temptress (1926)
Valencia (1926)
Flesh and the Devil (1926)
Twelve Miles Out (1927)
The Student Prince in Old Heidelberg (1927)
London After Midnight (1927)
The Crowd (1928)
Laugh, Clown, Laugh (1928)
White Shadows in the South Seas (1928)
Show People (1928)
West of Zanzibar (1928)
The Broadway Melody (1929)
The Trial of Mary Dugan (1929)
Voice of the City (1929)
Where East Is East (1929)
The Last of Mrs. Cheyney (1929)
The Hollywood Revue of 1929 (1929)
Hallelujah (1929)
His Glorious Night (1929)
The Kiss (1929)
Anna Christie (1930)
Redemption (1930)
The Divorcee (1930)
The Rogue Song (1930)
The Big House (1930)
The Unholy Three (1930)
Let Us Be Gay (1930)
Billy the Kid (1930)
Way for a Sailor (1930)
A Lady's Morals (1930)
Inspiration (1931)
Trader Horn (1931)
The Secret Six (1931)
A Free Soul (1931)
Just a Gigolo (1931)
Menschen hinter Gittern (1931), German-language version of The Big House (1930)
The Sin of Madelon Claudet (1931)
The Guardsman (1931)
The Champ (1931)
Possessed (1931)
Private Lives (1931)
Mata Hari (1931)
Freaks (1932)
Tarzan the Ape Man (1932)
Grand Hotel (1932)
Letty Lynton (1932)
As You Desire Me (1932)
Red-Headed Woman (1932)
Smilin' Through (1932)
Red Dust (1932)
Rasputin and the Empress (1932)
Strange Interlude (1932)
Tugboat Annie (1933)
Bombshell (1933)
Eskimo (1933)
La Veuve Joyeuse (1934) French-language version of The Merry Widow
Riptide (1934)
The Barretts of Wimpole Street (1934)
The Merry Widow (1934)
What Every Woman Knows (1934)
Biography of a Bachelor Girl (1935)
No More Ladies (1935)
China Seas (1935)
Mutiny on the Bounty (1935)
A Night at the Opera (1935)
Riffraff (1936)
Romeo and Juliet (1936)
Camille (1936)
Maytime (1937)
A Day at the Races (1937)
Broadway Melody of 1938 (1937)
The Good Earth (1937)
Marie Antoinette (1938)
Writer
The Trap (1922)
The Dangerous Little Demon (1922)
Awards
Academy Awards
Notes
Further reading
Books
Flamini, Roland. Thalberg: The Last Tycoon and the World of M-G-M (1994)
Marx, Samuel. Mayer and Thalberg: The Make-believe Saints (1975)
Thomas, Bob. Thalberg: Life and Legend (1969)
Vieira, Mark A. Irving Thalberg's M-G-M. New York: Harry N. Abrams, 2008.
Vieira, Mark A. Irving Thalberg: Boy Wonder to Producer Prince. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2009.
Articles
Starman, Ray. "Irving Thalberg", Films In Review, June/July 1987, p. 347–353
External links
Irving Thalberg at TCM
Cinemagraphe Review of the Roland Flamini biography of Thalberg: The Last Tycoon and the World of MGM
Irving Thalberg at Virtual History
Irving Thalberg profiled in Collier's Magazine (1924)
Videos
1899 births
1936 deaths
American film producers
Film producers from California
Producers who won the Best Picture Academy Award
American film studio executives
American male screenwriters
Cinema pioneers
Silent film directors
Silent film producers
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer executives
Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences founders
Businesspeople from Los Angeles
Hollywood history and culture
California Republicans
New York (state) Republicans
USC School of Cinematic Arts faculty
20th-century American businesspeople
Screenwriters from California
Screenwriters from New York (state)
People from Brooklyn
American anti-communists
American people of German-Jewish descent
Deaths from pneumonia in California
Burials at Forest Lawn Memorial Park (Glendale)
20th-century American male writers
20th-century American writers
Jewish American writers
20th-century American screenwriters | 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",
"¿Qué hubiera pasado si...? (in English, What would have happened if...?) is a counterfactual history Argentine book written by Rosendo Fraga. The book speculates on how would the History of Argentina have developed if certain key events did not take place or had happened in a different way.\n\nDescription\nAmong other things, the book speculates what would have happened if the viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata wasn't created, if the British invasions of the Río de la Plata did not fail, if José de San Martín had obeyed the Supreme Directors and returned with the Army of the Andes to fight Artigas instead of taking the independentist war to Peru, if the Conquest of the Desert did not take place, if the different coup d'états that took place in Argentina did not happen or were defeated, and if Argentina had obtained the sovereignty of the Malvinas. Each chapter starts with a basic premise but speculates as well on related possibilities that could have influenced changes: for example, the one on San Martin questions as well what would have happened if the government of Chile fell, if a Spanish task force arrived to take Buenos Aires, and what stance could have the caudillos taken in those hypothetic scenarios.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n Interview with Rosendo Fraga about the book \n\nArgentine books\nAlternate history anthologies"
]
|
[
"Irving Thalberg",
"Universal Studios",
"Did he work for universal?",
"He found work as an office secretary at Universal Pictures' New York office,",
"Did he have other jobs with universal?",
"later became personal secretary to the studio's founder and president, Carl Laemmle.",
"What did he do at universal?",
"Thalberg's duties were transcribing and editing notes that Laemmle had written during screenings of his films.",
"What happened to him while at universal?",
"Laemmle told Thalberg to remain and \"keep an eye on things for me.\" Two months later, Laemmle returned to California,",
"Why did Laemmle go to California?",
"partly to see how well Thalberg was able to handle the responsibilities he was given. Thalberg gave him suggestions,",
"What did Thalberg suggest?",
"\"The first thing you should do is establish a new job of studio manager and give him the responsibility of watching day-to-day operations.\"",
"What other responsibilities did he have?",
"Laemmle told him to take charge of the Los Angeles studio, which he did in early 1919."
]
| C_7b8dcb999ce54951992e991787a236a9_0 | What did he do after taking charge? | 8 | What did Irving Thalberg do after taking charge at Universal Studios? | Irving Thalberg | He found work as an office secretary at Universal Pictures' New York office, and later became personal secretary to the studio's founder and president, Carl Laemmle. Among Thalberg's duties were transcribing and editing notes that Laemmle had written during screenings of his films. He earned $25 weekly, becoming adept at making insightful observations, which impressed Laemmle. Laemmle took Thalberg to see his Los Angeles production facility, where he spent a month watching how movie production worked. Before returning to New York, Laemmle told Thalberg to remain and "keep an eye on things for me." Two months later, Laemmle returned to California, partly to see how well Thalberg was able to handle the responsibilities he was given. Thalberg gave him suggestions, which impressed Laemmle by his ability to understand and explain problems. Thalberg suggested, "The first thing you should do is establish a new job of studio manager and give him the responsibility of watching day-to-day operations." Laemmle immediately agreed, "All right. You're it." In shock, Thalberg replied, "I'm what?" Laemmle told him to take charge of the Los Angeles studio, which he did in early 1919. At age 20, Thalberg became responsible for immediately overseeing the nine ongoing film productions and nearly thirty scenarios then under development. In describing the rationale for this early appointment as studio manager, film historian David Thomson writes that his new job "owed nothing to nepotism, private wealth, or experience in the film industry." He reasons that despite "Thalberg's youth, modest education, and frail appearance . . . it is clear that he had the charm, insight, and ability, or the appearance of it, to captivate the film world." Thalberg was one among the majority of Hollywood film industry workers who migrated from the East Coast, primarily from New York. Some film actors, such as Conrad Nagel, did not like the 5-day train trip or the sudden warmth of the California climate. Neither did Marion Davies, who was not used to such "big wide spaces." Samuel Marx, a close friend of Thalberg's from New York, recalled how easily Thalberg adapted to Southern California, often standing outside his doorway during moments of contemplation to enjoy the scenery. "We were all young," said comedian Buster Keaton. "The air in California was like wine. Our business was also young--and growing like nothing ever seen before." CANNOTANSWER | Thalberg became responsible for immediately overseeing the nine ongoing film productions and nearly thirty scenarios | Irving Grant Thalberg (May 30, 1899 – September 14, 1936) was an American film producer during the early years of motion pictures. He was called "The Boy Wonder" for his youth and ability to select scripts, choose actors, gather production staff, and make profitable films, including Grand Hotel, China Seas, A Night at the Opera, Mutiny on the Bounty, Camille and The Good Earth. His films carved out an international market, "projecting a seductive image of American life brimming with vitality and rooted in democracy and personal freedom", states biographer Roland Flamini.
He was born in Brooklyn, New York, and as a child was afflicted with a congenital heart disease that doctors said would kill him before he reached the age of thirty. After graduating from high school he worked as a store clerk during the day and to gain some job skills took a night class in typing. He then found work as a secretary with Universal Studios' New York office, and was later made studio manager for their Los Angeles facility. There, he oversaw production of a hundred films during his three years with the company. Among the films he produced was The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1923).
In Los Angeles, he partnered with Louis B. Mayer's new studio and, after it merged with two other studios, helped create Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM). He was made head of production of MGM in 1925, at the age of twenty-six, helping MGM become the most successful studio in Hollywood. During his twelve years with MGM, until his premature death at the age of 37, he produced four hundred films, most of which bore his imprint and innovations, including story conferences with writers, sneak previews to gain early feedback, and extensive re-shooting of scenes to improve the film. In addition, he introduced horror films to audiences and coauthored the "Production Code", guidelines for morality followed by all studios. During the 1920s and 1930s, he synthesized and merged the world of stage drama and literary classics with Hollywood films.
Thalberg created numerous new stars and groomed their screen images. Among them were Lon Chaney, Ramon Novarro, Greta Garbo, John Gilbert, Lionel Barrymore, Joan Crawford, Clark Gable, Jean Harlow, Wallace Beery, Spencer Tracy, Luise Rainer, and Norma Shearer, who became his wife. He had the ability to combine quality with commercial success, and was credited with bringing his artistic aspirations in line with the demands of audiences. After his death, Hollywood's producers said he had been the world's "foremost figure in motion-picture history". President Franklin D. Roosevelt wrote, "The world of art is poorer with the passing of Irving Thalberg. His high ideals, insight and imagination went into the production of his masterpieces." The Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award, given out periodically by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences since 1937, has been awarded to producers whose body of work reflected consistently high quality films.
Early years
Thalberg was born in Brooklyn, to German Jewish immigrant parents, William and Henrietta (Haymann). Shortly after birth, he was diagnosed with "blue baby syndrome", caused by a congenital disease that limited the oxygen supply to his heart. The prognosis from the family's doctor and specialists was that he might live to the age of twenty, or at most, to thirty.
During his high school years in Brooklyn, he began having attacks of chest pains, dizziness and fatigue. This affected his ability to study, though until that time he was a good student. When he was 17 he contracted rheumatic fever, and was confined to bed for a year. His mother, in order to prevent him falling too far behind other students, brought him homework from school, books, and tutors to teach him at home. She also hoped that the schoolwork and reading would distract him from the "tantalizing sounds" of children playing outside his window.
With little to entertain him, he read books as a main activity. He devoured popular novels, classics, plays, and biographies. His books, of necessity, replaced the streets of New York, and led to his interest in classical philosophy and philosophers, such as William James.
When Thalberg returned to school, he finished high school but lacked the stamina for college, which he felt would have required constant late-night studying and cramming for exams. Instead, he took part-time jobs as a store clerk, and in the evenings, to gain some job skills, taught himself typing, shorthand and Spanish at a night vocational school. When he turned 18, he placed an advertisement in the local newspaper hoping to find better work:
Career as producer
Universal Studios
He found work as an office secretary at Universal Pictures' New York office, and later became personal secretary to the studio's founder and president, Carl Laemmle. Among Thalberg's duties were transcribing and editing notes that Laemmle had written during screenings of his films. He earned $25 weekly, becoming adept at making insightful observations, which impressed Laemmle.
Laemmle took Thalberg to see his Los Angeles production facility, where he spent a month watching how movie production worked. Before returning to New York, Laemmle told Thalberg to remain and "keep an eye on things for me." Two months later, Laemmle returned to California, partly to see how well Thalberg was able to handle the responsibilities he was given. Thalberg gave him suggestions, and thus impressed Laemmle by his ability to understand and explain problems.
Thalberg suggested, "The first thing you should do is establish a new job of studio manager and give him the responsibility of watching day-to-day operations." Laemmle immediately agreed: "All right. You're it." In shock, Thalberg replied, "I'm what?" Laemmle told him to take charge of the Los Angeles studio, which he did in early 1919. When aged 20, Thalberg became responsible for immediately overseeing the nine ongoing film productions and nearly thirty scenarios then under development.
In describing the rationale for this early appointment as studio manager, film historian David Thomson writes that his new job "owed nothing to nepotism, private wealth, or experience in the film industry." He reasons that despite "Thalberg's youth, modest education, and frail appearance ... it is clear that he had the charm, insight, and ability, or the appearance of it, to captivate the film world."
Thalberg was one among the majority of Hollywood film industry workers who migrated from the East Coast, primarily from New York. Some film actors, such as Conrad Nagel, did not like the five-day train trip or the sudden warmth of the California climate. Neither did Marion Davies, who was not used to such "big wide spaces". Samuel Marx, a close friend of Thalberg's from New York, recalled how easily Thalberg adapted to Southern California, often standing outside his doorway during moments of contemplation to enjoy the scenery. "We were all young", said comedian Buster Keaton. "The air in California was like wine. Our business was also young—and growing like nothing ever seen before."
Confrontation with Erich von Stroheim
He quickly established his tenacity as he battled with well-known director Erich von Stroheim over the length of Foolish Wives (1922). Biographer Roland Flamini notes that the film was Universal's most expensive "jewel" ever in production, and its director and star, von Stroheim, was taking the film way over budget. Thalberg, now Universal's general manager, was forced to have the director quickly finalize production before the studio's working capital was used up. Flamini describes the situation:
Thalberg had von Stroheim come to his office, which he did still wearing his film costume as a Russian Imperial Guard and escorted by members of his production team. Thalberg calmly told him, "I have seen all the film and you have all you need for the picture. I want you to stop shooting", to which von Stroheim replied, "But I have not finished as yet." "Yes, you have", said Thalberg. "You have spent all the money this company can afford. I cannot allow you to spend any more."
Thalberg quietly explained that the director worked under the producer, and it was his responsibility to control costs. Von Stroheim, surrounded by his assistants, then confronted Thalberg: "If you were not my superior, I would smash you in the face." Thalberg, unflinching, said "Don't let that stop you." The result was that Thalberg soon afterward removed the cameras from von Stroheim's studio and took over editing. The uncut footage was pared down from five-and-a-half hours to three hours, to von Stroheim's deep dissatisfaction.
A similar problem developed with von Stroheim's next film, Merry-Go-Round (1923). Although he had promised Thalberg to remain within budget this time, he continued production until it went to twice the agreed length and was not yet near completion. Flamini speculates why this happened:
Thalberg again called von Stroheim to his office, handed him a long letter written and signed by himself, describing the problems, and summarily fired von Stroheim as of that moment. Thalberg's letter stated among the reasons,
totally inexcusable and repeated acts of insubordination ... extravagant ideas which you have been unwilling to sacrifice ... unnecessary delays ... and your apparent idea that you are greater and more powerful than the organization that employs you.
His dismissal of von Stroheim was considered an "earthquake in movie circles", notes Flamini. Producer David O. Selznick said that "it was the first time a director had been fired. It took great guts and courage ... Von Stroheim was utterly indifferent over money and could have gone on and spent millions, with nobody to stop him.". The opinion was shared by director Rouben Mamoulian, who said that the "little fellow at Universal", in one bold stroke, had "asserted the primacy of the studio over the director" and forever altered the balance of power in the movie industry.
Effects of his young age
According to Flamini, his youth was a subject of conversation within the movie community. Executives from other studios, actors, and film crew, often mistook him to be a junior employee. Movie columnist Louella Parsons, upon first being introduced to him, asked, "What's the joke? Where's the new general manager?" After five minutes of talking to Thalberg, however, she later wrote about "Universal's Boy Wonder": "He might be a boy in looks and age, but it was no child's mind that was being asked to cope with the intricate politics of Universal City." Novelist Edna Ferber responded the same way, writing that "I had fancied motion-picture producers as large gentlemen smoking oversized cigars. But this young man whose word seemed so final at Universal City ... impressed me deeply."
The male actors in the studio had a similar reaction. Lionel Barrymore, who was nearly twice his age, recalled their meetings:
Thalberg likewise gained the respect of leading playwrights, some of whom also looked down on him due to his youth. George S. Kaufman, co-author of Dinner at Eight, several Marx Brothers films, and two George Gershwin plays, came from New York to meet with Thalberg. Afterward he confided to his friend, Groucho Marx: "That man has never written a word, yet he can tell me exactly what to do with a story. I didn't know you had people like that out here."
Actress Norma Shearer, whom he later married, was surprised after he greeted her at the door, then walked her to his office for her first job interview: "Then you're not the office boy?" she asked. He smiled, as he sat himself behind his desk: "No, Miss Shearer, I'm Irving Thalberg, vice-president of the Mayer Company. I'm the man who sent for you."
His younger-than-normal age for a studio executive was usually mentioned even after he left Universal to help start up MGM. Screenwriter Agnes Christine Johnson, who worked with Thalberg for years, described his contribution during meetings:
The same quality was observed by director and screenwriter Hobart Henley: "If something that read well in conference turns out not so good on the screen, I go to him and, like that—Henley snaps his fingers—he has a remedy. He's brilliant." Another assistant producer to Thalberg explains:
His youth also contributed to his open-mindedness to the ideas of others. Conrad Nagel, who starred in numerous Thalberg films, reported that Thalberg was generally empathetic to those he worked alongside: "Thalberg never raised his voice. He just looked into your eyes, spoke softly, and after a few minutes he cast a spell on you." Studio attorney Edwin Loeb, who also worked to create AMPAS, explained that "the real foundation of Irving's success was his ability to look at life through the eyes of any given person. He had a gift of empathy, and almost complete perspective." Those opinions were also shared by producer Walter Wanger: "You thought that you were talking to an Indian savant. He could cast a spell on anybody."
His talent as a producer was enhanced by his "near-miraculous" powers of concentration, notes film critic J. Hoberman. As a result, he was never bored or tired, and supplemented his spare time with reading for his own amusement, recalls screenwriter Bayard Veiller, with some of his favorite authors being Francis Bacon, Epictetus, and Immanuel Kant.
Film projects at Universal
Biographer Bob Thomas writes that after three years at the studio, Thalberg continually proved his value. Universal's pictures improved noticeably, primarily due to Thalberg's "uncanny sense of story." He took tight control over many key aspects of production, including his requirement that from then on scripts were tightly constructed before filming began, rather than during production. Thomas adds that he also "showed a remarkable capacity for working with actors, casting them aptly and advising them on their careers."
After producing two films that were in production when he began work at Universal, he presented Laemmle with his idea for a film based on one of his favorite classic stories, The Hunchback of Notre Dame. Rather than just a horror picture, Thalberg suggested turning it into a spectacle which would include a replica of the Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris. He had Lon Chaney play the hunchback. The film became Universal's most profitable silent film and established Chaney's career as a top-flight star.
After nearly three years with Universal, Thalberg had supervised over a hundred movies, reorganized the studio to give more control to the managers, and had "stopped the defection" of many of their leading stars by offering them better, higher-paying contracts. He also produced a number of Universal's prestige films, which made the company profitable. However, he decided it was time to find a studio in Los Angeles more suitable to his skills, and spread word that he was available.
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM)
Cecil B. DeMille was the first who wanted to hire him, telling his partner Jesse Lasky, "The boy is a genius. I can see it. I know it." Lasky opposed the hire, stating, "Geniuses we have all we need." Thalberg then received an offer from Hal Roach, but the offer was withdrawn because Thalberg lacked experience with slapstick comedy films. In late 1922, Thalberg was introduced to Louis B. Mayer, president of a small but dynamic and fast-growing studio. At that first meeting, Thalberg "made a deep, immediate impression on Mayer", writes Flamini. After Thalberg had left, Mayer said to studio attorney Edwin Loeb: "Tell him if he comes to work for me, I'll look after him as though he were my son."
Although their personalities were in many ways opposite, Mayer being more outspoken and nearly twice the younger man's age, Thalberg was hired as vice president in charge of production at Louis B. Mayer Productions. Years later, Mayer's daughter Irene Mayer Selznick recalled that "it was hard to believe anyone that boyish could be so important." According to Flamini, Thalberg was hired because, although Mayer was an astute businessman, "what he lacked was Thalberg's almost unerring ability to combine quality with commercial success, to bring artistic aspiration in line with the demands of the box office." Mayer's company subsequently merged with two others to become Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM), with the 24-year-old Thalberg made part-owner and accorded the same position as vice president in charge of production. Three years after the merger, MGM became the most successful studio in Hollywood.
During his twelve years at MGM, Thalberg supervised the production of over four hundred films. Although Thalberg and his colleagues at MGM knew he was "doomed" to not live much past the age of 30 due to heart disease, he loved producing films. He continued developing innovative ideas and overseeing most of MGM's pictures. Under Thalberg's management, MGM released over 40% more films yearly than Warner Brothers, and more than double Paramount's releases. From 1924 until 1936, when Thalberg died at the age of 37, "almost every film bore Thalberg's imprint", wrote Mark Vieira.
Production innovations
Thalberg's production techniques "broke new ground in filmmaking", adds Vieira. Among his contributions at MGM was his innovation of story conferences, sneak previews and scene retakes. He introduced the first horror films and coauthored the Production Code, the set of moral guidelines that all film studios agreed to follow. Thalberg helped synthesize and merge the world of stage drama and literary classics with Hollywood films.
MGM thereby became the only movie studio to consistently show a profit during the Great Depression. Flamini explains that the equation for MGM's success depended on combining stars, a Broadway hit or popular classic, and high standards of production. This combination at the time was considered a "revolutionary approach" in the film industry, which until then assumed a star was all that was needed for success, regardless of the story or production quality. The other studios began following MGM's lead with that same formula.
Production techniques
Thalberg generally followed a system in managing his productions. According to one of his assistants, Lawrence Weingarten, who later became a producer, "Thalberg directed the film on paper, and then the director directed the film on film."
Thalberg was generally opposed to location shooting overseas where he could not oversee production and control costs, as happened with Ben Hur. Thus, he kept hundreds of back-lot carpenters at work creating realistic sets, as he did for fifteenth-century Romeo and Juliet (1936), or with China Seas (1935), to replicate the harbors of Hong Kong.
Vieira points out that Thalberg's "fascination with Broadway plays" often had him create and present stories visually. For China Seas, for instance, he described for the screenwriters, director and others, exactly how he wanted the film to appear on screen:
To be certain of achieving the desired effects, Thalberg made sure his cinematographers were careful in their use of light and shadow. Vieira observes that "more than any other producer or any other studio, Thalberg and MGM manipulated lenses, filters, and lighting instruments to affect the viewer." As a result, he notes, "most of Thalberg's films contain moments such as these, in which cinematic technique transcends mere exposition and gives the viewer something to treasure."
Thalberg was supported by most of the studio in these kinds of creative decisions. "It was a big family," notes Weingarten. "If we had a success, everybody—and I mean every cutter, every painter, every plasterer—was excited about it, was abuzz, was in a tizzy about the whole idea of picture making."
Taking risks with new subjects and stars
In 1929, MGM released fifty films, and all but five showed a profit. Of those that failed, Hallelujah was also a gamble by Thalberg. When King Vidor, the film's producer and director, proposed the idea to Thalberg of a major film cast, for the first time, exclusively with African Americans, he told Thalberg directly, "I doubt that it will make a dollar at the box office." Thalberg replied, "Don't worry about that. I've told you that MGM can afford an occasional experiment."
By the early 1930s, a number of stars began failing at the box office, partly due to the Great Depression that was now undermining the economy, along with the public's ability to spend on entertainment. Thalberg began using two stars in a film, rather than one, as had been the tradition at all the studios, such as pairing Greta Garbo with John Gilbert, Clark Gable with Jean Harlow, and William Powell with Myrna Loy. After experimenting with a few such films, including Mata Hari (1931), which were profitable, he decided on a multi-star production of another Broadway play, Grand Hotel (1932). It had five major stars, including Garbo, Joan Crawford, John Barrymore, Lionel Barrymore, and Wallace Beery. "Before Thalberg," writes Vieira, "there was no Grand Hotel in the American consciousness." The film won the Oscar for Best Picture in 1932.
Thalberg went against consensus and took another risk with The Great Ziegfeld (1936), costarring Luise Rainer. Although Louis B. Mayer did not want her in the role, which he felt was too minor for a new star, Thalberg felt that "only she could play the part", wrote biographer Charles Higham. Shortly after shooting began in late 1935, doubts of Rainer's acting ability emerged in the press. However, despite her limited appearances in the film, Rainer "so impressed audiences with one highly emotional scene" that she won the Academy Award for Best Actress.
After her winning role in The Great Ziegfeld, Thalberg wanted her to play a role that was the opposite of her previous character, for The Good Earth (1937). For the part as a Chinese peasant, she was required to act totally subservient to her husband, being perpetually huddled in submission, and barely spoke a word of dialogue during the entire film. Rainer recalls that Mayer did not approve of the film being produced or her part in it: "He was horrified at Irving Thalberg's insistence for me to play O-lan, the poor uncomely little Chinese peasant." However, she again won the Oscar for Best Actress, becoming the first actress to win two consecutive Oscars, a feat not matched until Katharine Hepburn's two Oscar wins thirty years later.
Grooming new stars
Besides bringing a distinctive high quality "look" to MGM films and often recreating well-known stories or plays, Thalberg's actors themselves took on a characteristic quality. Thalberg wanted his female actors to appear "cool, classy and beautiful," notes Flamini. And he strove to make the male actors appear "worldly and in control." In general, Thalberg movies and actors came to be "luxurious," "glossy," and "technically flawless." By doing so, he made stars or boosted the careers of actors such as Lon Chaney, Ramon Novarro, John Gilbert, Greta Garbo, Joan Crawford, Clark Gable, Helen Hayes, Jean Harlow, Marie Dressler, Wallace Beery, John Barrymore, Lionel Barrymore and Luise Rainer.
Greta Garbo
In 1925, a young Greta Garbo, then twenty, and unable to speak any English, was brought over from Sweden at Mayer's request, as he saw how she looked in still photos. A Swedish friend thought he would help her by contacting Thalberg, who then agreed to give her a screen test. According to author Frederick Sands, "the result of the test was electrifying." Thalberg was impressed and began grooming the new starlet the following day: "the studio arranged to fix her teeth, made sure she lost weight, and gave her an English tutor."
Joan Crawford
Joan Crawford's first role was a Thalberg production at MGM and she became one of their leading stars for the next thirty years. Crawford was somewhat jealous of Norma Shearer as she thought she was given the better material by her husband Thalberg out of nepotism. Nevertheless, she felt that his contribution to MGM was vital to the film industry. Not long after his early death, she recalls her concerns: "Thalberg was dead and the concept of the quality 'big' picture pretty much went out the window."
Marie Dressler
Thalberg also realized that old stars few had heard of could be made into new ones. Marie Dressler, a fifty-nine-year-old early vaudeville and movie star, who had played the top-billed lead, above Charles Chaplin and Mabel Normand), in the first feature-length comedy, Tillie's Punctured Romance (1914), was unable to get any roles in films after leaving show business for some years, finally working as a maid. MGM screenwriter Frances Marion suggested to Thalberg that she might fit well in a starring role for a new film, and was surprised that he knew of her prior successes. Thalberg approved of using her without a screen test and offered his rationale:
By 1932, shortly before she died, Dressler was the country's number one box office star.
Wallace Beery
Marie Dressler was paired twice, in Min and Bill (1930) and Tugboat Annie (1933), with Wallace Beery, another major silent star who had been struggling to get work in sound pictures until Thalberg cast him. Beery had enjoyed a hugely successful silent film career dating back to 1913, but had been fired by Paramount shortly after sound pictures appeared. Thalberg cast him in the role of "Machine Gun Butch," which had been meant for recently deceased Lon Chaney, in The Big House (1930), an energetic prison picture that became a huge hit. Beery was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actor for his performance, and his burgeoning career at MGM had transformed him into the studio's highest paid actor within two more years, during which time he won the Oscar for The Champ and had become a phenomenal box office draw as a result of Thalberg's foresight.
Getting audience feedback and reshooting
According to Vieira, MGM had few failures during this period, and numerous blockbusters. Among the reasons was Thalberg's unique system of developing a script during story conferences with writers before filming began, and later giving "sneak previews" followed by audience feedback through written questionnaires. Often, where he felt improvement was needed, he arranged for scenes to be reshot. As Thalberg once stated, "The difference between something good and something superior is often very small."
Bad decisions and missed opportunities
Thalberg felt he had his "finger on the pulse of America. I know what people will do and what they won't do," he said. His judgment was not always accurate, however. Thalberg's bringing Broadway productions to the screen to develop higher picture standards sometimes resulted in "studied" acting or "stagey" sets, notes Flamini. In 1927, after the successful release of the first full-length talking picture, The Jazz Singer (1927), he nevertheless felt that talking pictures were a fad. Thalberg likewise did not think that color would replace black-and-white in movies.
When an assistant protested against a script that envisioned a love scene in Paris with an ocean background, Thalberg refused to make changes, saying "We can't cater to a handful of people who know Paris." A more serious distraction to Thalberg's efforts was his obsession with making his wife Norma Shearer a prominent star, efforts which sometimes led to "overblown and overglamous" productions. Thalberg himself admitted to his obsession years later when he told a fellow producer: "You're behaving like I did with Norma. I knew positively that she could play anything. It's a kind of romantic astigmatism that attacks producers when they fall for an actress."
Important films at MGM
Ben Hur (1925)
One of the first pictures he took charge of, Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ, was inherited and already in production by another studio when MGM was formed. The film was turning into a disastrous expense with cost overruns already in the millions due to its lavish sets and location shooting in Rome. Most studio executives chose to terminate the film to cut their losses. Thalberg, however, felt differently, and thought the film would affect movie audiences, due to its classic literary source, and would highlight MGM as a major new studio.
He, therefore, discarded much of the original footage shot in Italy and recreated the set on MGM's back lots in Culver City, which added more millions to the production, yet gave him more control over production. The new set also included a replica of Circus Maximus for the dramatic chariot race scenes. Flamini notes that Thalberg's "gamble paid off," drawing international attention to MGM, and to Thalberg within the movie industry for his bold action.
Mutiny on the Bounty (1935)
Mutiny on the Bounty was the studio's next most expensive film after Ben Hur, with some now calling it "Thalberg's masterpiece." He initially had difficulty convincing Mayer that he could make the film without making heroes of the mutineers. He achieved that by instead making a hero of the British Royal Navy, whereby the officers and shipmates would from then on display their mutual respect. Thalberg also had to convince Clark Gable to accept the role against his will. He pleaded with Gable, eventually promising him that "If it isn't one of your greatest successes, I'll never ask you again to play a part you don't want." The film's other main stars were Charles Laughton and Franchot Tone. The film was nominated for six Academy Awards, including Best Actor, and winning it for Best Picture. Thalberg accepted the award as producer from Frank Capra.
Thalberg and Mayer partnership
At first, Thalberg and studio chief Louis B. Mayer got along splendidly; however, they had different production philosophies. Thalberg preferred literary works, while Mayer preferred glitzy crowd-pleasing films. A clash was inevitable, and their relationship grew decidedly frosty. When Thalberg fell ill in the final weeks of 1932, Mayer took advantage of the situation and replaced him with David O. Selznick and Walter Wanger. Thalberg's reputation by that time for working long hours was widely known, and rumors about the related strain on his fragile health had become front-page news in entertainment trade publications. The Hollywood Reporter in January 1933 updated its readership about his condition and addressed growing concerns that he might be forced, despite his young age, to quit the business:
Once Thalberg recovered sufficiently from his bout with the "flu" and was able to return to work later in 1933, it was as one of MGM's unit producers, albeit one who had first choice on projects as well as preferential access to all the studio's resources, including over casting its stars. Thalberg's good relationship with Nicholas Schenck, then president of Loew's Incorporated, proved to be an ongoing advantage for him. Loew's was the corporate parent of MGM, so Schenck was the true power and ultimate arbiter at the studio; and he usually supported Thalberg's decisions and continued to do so whenever disagreements about projects or production needs arose. As a result, Thalberg also continued to produce or coproduce some of MGM's most prestigious and critically acclaimed ventures in this period, such as The Barretts of Wimpole Street (1934) starring his wife Norma Shearer, China Seas (1935), A Night at the Opera (1935), San Francisco (1936), and Romeo and Juliet (1936).
Personal life
During his few years with Universal while living in New York, Thalberg had become romantically involved with Carl Laemmle's daughter, Rosabelle. Still in his early twenties and later spending most of his time in Los Angeles, his feelings toward her were no longer as strong. Flamini suspects that this may have affected his position at Universal and partly caused his decision to leave the company. "The Laemmles prayed that Irving would marry Rosabelle", notes Flamini. "They wanted their sons to be educated and their daughters to marry nice Jewish boys."
Less than a year after he and Mayer took charge of the newly created MGM studios, and still only twenty-five years old, Thalberg suffered a serious heart attack due to overwork. Mayer also became aware of Thalberg's congenital heart problems and now worried about the prospect of running MGM without him. Mayer also became concerned that one of his daughters might become romantically involved, and told them so:
Thalberg, aware of Mayer's feelings, made it a point of never giving too much attention to his daughters at social events.
One of Thalberg's traits was his ability to work long hours into the night with little sign of fatigue. According to Vieira, Thalberg believed that as long as his mind was active in his work and he was not bored, he would not feel tired. Thalberg, who often got by with only five hours of sleep, felt that most people could get by with less than they realized. To keep his mental faculties at peak, he would read philosophical books by Bacon, Epictetus, or Kant. "They stimulate me. I'd drop out of sight in no time if I didn't read and keep up with current thought—and the philosophers are brain sharpeners."
During the early 1930s, Thalberg was ambivalent about political events in Europe. While he feared Nazism and the rise of Hitler, he also feared Communism. At the time, notes Vieira, "given a choice between communism and fascism, many Americans—including Thalberg—would prefer the latter." Thalberg stated his opinion:
When others suggested that many Jews could die in Germany as a result of Nazi anti-Semitism, he replied that in his opinion "Hitler and Hitlerism will pass." On one occasion, Catholic Prince Löwenstein of Germany, who himself had almost been captured before fleeing Germany, told him: "Mr. Thalberg, your own people are being systematically hunted down and rooted out of Germany." Thalberg suggested that world Jewry should nevertheless not interfere, that the Jewish race would survive Hitler. Within a few years, American film distribution was "choked off" in Germany. Led by Warner Brothers, all American studios eventually closed their German offices.
Thalberg began dating actress Norma Shearer a few years after he joined MGM. Following her conversion to Judaism, they married on Thursday, September 29, 1927, in a private ceremony in the garden of his rented house in Beverly Hills. Rabbi Edgar F. Magnin officiated at the event, with Shearer's brother Douglas Shearer giving the bride away, and Louis B. Mayer serving as best man. The couple drove to Monterey for their honeymoon and then moved into their newly constructed home in Beverly Hills.
After their second child was born, Shearer considered retiring from films, but Thalberg convinced her to continue acting, saying he could find her good roles. She went on to be one of MGM's biggest stars of the 1930s. Their two children were Irving Jr. (1930–1987) and Katharine (1935–2006).
Death
Thalberg and Shearer took a much-needed Labor Day weekend vacation in Monterey, California, in 1936, staying at the same beachfront hotel where they spent their honeymoon. A few weeks earlier, Thalberg's leading screenwriter, Al Lewin, had proposed doing a film based on a soon-to-be published book, Gone with the Wind. Although Thalberg said it would be a "sensational" role for Gable, and a "terrific picture," he decided not to do it:
Besides, Thalberg told Mayer, "[n]o Civil War picture ever made a nickel". Shortly after returning from Monterey, Thalberg was diagnosed with pneumonia. His condition worsened steadily and he eventually required an oxygen tent at home. He died on September 14, at the age of 37.
Sam Wood, while directing A Day at the Races, was given the news by phone. He returned to the set with tears in his eyes and told the others. As the news spread "the studio was paralyzed with shock", notes Thomas. "Work stopped and hundreds of people wept", with stars, writers, directors, and studio employees "all sharing a sense of loss at the death of a man who had been a part of their working lives", states Flamini.
His funeral took place two days later, and when the services began the other studios throughout Hollywood observed five minutes of silence. Producer Sam Goldwyn "wept uncontrollably for two days" and was unable to regain his composure enough to attend. The MGM studio closed for that day.
Services were held at the Wilshire Boulevard Temple that Thalberg had occasionally attended. The funeral attracted thousands of spectators who came to view the arrival of countless stars from MGM and other studios, including Greta Garbo, Jean Harlow, the Marx Brothers, Charlie Chaplin, Walt Disney, Howard Hughes, Al Jolson, Gary Cooper, Carole Lombard, Mary Pickford, and Douglas Fairbanks, among the screen luminaries. The ushers who led them to their seats included Clark Gable, Fredric March, and playwright Moss Hart. Erich von Stroheim, who had been fired by Thalberg, came to pay his respects. Producers Louis B. Mayer, the Warner brothers, Adolph Zukor, and Nicholas Schenck sat together solemnly as Rabbi Magnin gave the eulogy.
Thalberg is buried in a private marble tomb in the Great Mausoleum at Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Glendale, California, lying at rest beside his wife Norma Shearer Arrouge (Thalberg's crypt was engraved "My Sweetheart Forever" by Shearer).
Over the following days, tributes were published by the national press. Louis B. Mayer, his co-founding partner at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, said he had lost "the finest friend a man could ever have", while MGM president Nicholas Schenck stated that "Thalberg was the most important man in the production end of the motion-picture industry. Leading producers from the other studios also expressed their feelings in published tributes to Thalberg:
David O. Selznick described him as "beyond any question the greatest individual force for fine pictures." Samuel Goldwyn called him "the foremost figure in the motion-picture industry ... and an inspiration." M. H. Aylesworth, Chairman of RKO, wrote that "his integrity, vision and ability made him the spearhead of all motion-picture production throughout the world." Harry Warner, president of Warner Bros., described him as "gifted with one of the finest minds ever placed at the service of motion-picture production." Sidney R. Kent, president of Twentieth Century Fox, said that "he made the whole world richer by giving it the highest type of entertainment. He was a true genius." Columbia president Harry Cohn said the "motion picture industry has suffered a loss from which it will not soon recover...". Darryl F. Zanuck noted, "More than any other man he raised the industry to its present world prestige." Adolph Zukor, chairman of Paramount, stated, "Irving Thalberg was the most brilliant young man in the motion picture business." Jesse Lasky said, "It will be utterly impossible to replace him."
Among the condolences that came from world political leaders, President Franklin D. Roosevelt wrote, "The world of art is poorer with the passing of Irving Thalberg. His high ideals, insight and imagination went into the production of his masterpieces."
Among the pictures that were unfinished or not yet released at the time of his death were A Day at the Races, The Good Earth, Camille, Maytime, and Romeo and Juliet. Groucho Marx, star of A Day at the Races, wrote, "After Thalberg's death, my interest in the movies waned. I continued to appear in them, but ... The fun had gone out of picture making." Thalberg's widow, Norma Shearer, recalled, "Grief does very strange things to you. I didn't seem to feel the shock for two weeks afterwards. ... then, at the end of those two weeks, I collapsed."
Legacy in the movie industry
Thalberg's legacy to the movie industry is "incalculable", states biographer Bob Thomas. He notes that with his numerous production innovations and grand stories, often turning classic literature and Broadway stage productions into big-screen pictures, he managed to keep "American movies supreme throughout the world for a generation". Darryl F. Zanuck, founder of 20th Century-Fox said that during Thalberg's brief career, he had become the "most creative producer in the history of films". Thomas describes some of his contributions:
Most of MGM's major films in the 1930s were, according to Flamini, "in a very real sense", made by Thalberg. He closely supervised the making of "more pictures than any other producer in Hollywood's history", and was considered the "archetype of the creative producer", adds Flamini. Upon his early death, aged 37, an editorial in The New York Times called him "the most important force" in the motion picture industry. The paper added that for the film industry, he "set the pace and others followed ... because his way combined style, glamour, and profit." He is described by Flamini as having been "a revolutionary in a gray flannel suit".
Thalberg refused to take credit as producer, and as a result, his name never appeared on the screen while he was alive. Thalberg claimed that "credit you give yourself is not worth having". He also said "If a picture is good, they'll know who produced it. If it's bad, nobody cares." His final film, released after he died, was The Good Earth (1937), which won numerous Academy Awards. Its opening screen credit was dedicated to Thalberg:
In 1938, the new multimillion-dollar MGM administration building in Culver City was named for Thalberg. The Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award, presented by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, also named for him, awards producers for consistently high production achievements.
Cultural legacy
The Last Tycoon
In October 1939, American novelist F. Scott Fitzgerald began writing The Last Tycoon, a fictionalized biography of Thalberg, naming the protagonist Monroe Stahr to represent Thalberg. "Thalberg has always fascinated me", he wrote to an editor. "His peculiar charm, his extraordinary good looks, his bountiful success, the tragic end of his great adventure. The events I have built around him are fiction, but all of them are things which might very well have happened. ... I've long chosen him for a hero (this has been in my mind for three years) because he is one of the half-dozen men I have known who were built on a grand scale."
Thomas notes that among the reasons Fitzgerald chose to write a book about a Thalberg-like character, was that "throughout his literary career, Fitzgerald borrowed his heroes from friends he admired, and inevitably a bit of Fitzgerald entered the characterizations." Fitzgerald himself writes that "When I like men, I want to be like them ..." Fitzgerald and Thalberg had real-life similarities: both were prodigies, both had heart ailments, and they both died at early ages.
According to biographer Matthew J. Bruccoli, Fitzgerald believed that Thalberg, with his "taste and courage, represented the best of Hollywood. ... [and] saw Thalberg as a model for what could be done in the movies." Fitzgerald died before the novel was completed, however. Bruccoli writes of Fitzgerald's book:
Although parallels between Monroe Stahr in the novel and Thalberg were evident, many who knew Thalberg intimately stated that they did not see similarities in their personalities. Norma Shearer said that the Stahr character was not at all like her former husband.
In the 1976 film version, directed by Elia Kazan, Monroe Stahr was played by Robert De Niro. Kazan, in his pre-production notes, described the Stahr character as he saw him:
In the 2016 television series based on the novel, Monroe Stahr is played by Matt Bomer.
Others
Fitzgerald also based his short story "Crazy Sunday", originally published in the October 1932 issue of American Mercury, on an incident at a party thrown by Thalberg and Shearer. The story is included in Fitzgerald's collection Taps at Reveille (1935).
Thalberg was portrayed in the movie Man of a Thousand Faces (1957) by Robert Evans, who went on to become a studio head himself.
Thalberg was portrayed by Bill Cusack in Young Indiana Jones and the Hollywood Follies (1994), a TV film based on The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles, in which Indiana Jones is depicted as taking part in Thalberg's conflict with Erich von Stroheim over Foolish Wives.
In 2020, Thalberg was played by Ferdinand Kingsley in the David Fincher film Mank
Thalberg, played by Tobey Maguire, is rumored to appear in the upcoming movie Babylon.
Filmography
Producer
Reputation (1921)
The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1923)
Merry-Go-Round (1923)
His Hour (1924)
He Who Gets Slapped (1924)
The Unholy Three (1925)
The Merry Widow (1925)
The Tower of Lies (1925)
The Big Parade (1925)
Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ (1925)
Torrent (1926)
La Bohème (1926)
Brown of Harvard (1926)
The Road to Mandalay (1926)
The Temptress (1926)
Valencia (1926)
Flesh and the Devil (1926)
Twelve Miles Out (1927)
The Student Prince in Old Heidelberg (1927)
London After Midnight (1927)
The Crowd (1928)
Laugh, Clown, Laugh (1928)
White Shadows in the South Seas (1928)
Show People (1928)
West of Zanzibar (1928)
The Broadway Melody (1929)
The Trial of Mary Dugan (1929)
Voice of the City (1929)
Where East Is East (1929)
The Last of Mrs. Cheyney (1929)
The Hollywood Revue of 1929 (1929)
Hallelujah (1929)
His Glorious Night (1929)
The Kiss (1929)
Anna Christie (1930)
Redemption (1930)
The Divorcee (1930)
The Rogue Song (1930)
The Big House (1930)
The Unholy Three (1930)
Let Us Be Gay (1930)
Billy the Kid (1930)
Way for a Sailor (1930)
A Lady's Morals (1930)
Inspiration (1931)
Trader Horn (1931)
The Secret Six (1931)
A Free Soul (1931)
Just a Gigolo (1931)
Menschen hinter Gittern (1931), German-language version of The Big House (1930)
The Sin of Madelon Claudet (1931)
The Guardsman (1931)
The Champ (1931)
Possessed (1931)
Private Lives (1931)
Mata Hari (1931)
Freaks (1932)
Tarzan the Ape Man (1932)
Grand Hotel (1932)
Letty Lynton (1932)
As You Desire Me (1932)
Red-Headed Woman (1932)
Smilin' Through (1932)
Red Dust (1932)
Rasputin and the Empress (1932)
Strange Interlude (1932)
Tugboat Annie (1933)
Bombshell (1933)
Eskimo (1933)
La Veuve Joyeuse (1934) French-language version of The Merry Widow
Riptide (1934)
The Barretts of Wimpole Street (1934)
The Merry Widow (1934)
What Every Woman Knows (1934)
Biography of a Bachelor Girl (1935)
No More Ladies (1935)
China Seas (1935)
Mutiny on the Bounty (1935)
A Night at the Opera (1935)
Riffraff (1936)
Romeo and Juliet (1936)
Camille (1936)
Maytime (1937)
A Day at the Races (1937)
Broadway Melody of 1938 (1937)
The Good Earth (1937)
Marie Antoinette (1938)
Writer
The Trap (1922)
The Dangerous Little Demon (1922)
Awards
Academy Awards
Notes
Further reading
Books
Flamini, Roland. Thalberg: The Last Tycoon and the World of M-G-M (1994)
Marx, Samuel. Mayer and Thalberg: The Make-believe Saints (1975)
Thomas, Bob. Thalberg: Life and Legend (1969)
Vieira, Mark A. Irving Thalberg's M-G-M. New York: Harry N. Abrams, 2008.
Vieira, Mark A. Irving Thalberg: Boy Wonder to Producer Prince. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2009.
Articles
Starman, Ray. "Irving Thalberg", Films In Review, June/July 1987, p. 347–353
External links
Irving Thalberg at TCM
Cinemagraphe Review of the Roland Flamini biography of Thalberg: The Last Tycoon and the World of MGM
Irving Thalberg at Virtual History
Irving Thalberg profiled in Collier's Magazine (1924)
Videos
1899 births
1936 deaths
American film producers
Film producers from California
Producers who won the Best Picture Academy Award
American film studio executives
American male screenwriters
Cinema pioneers
Silent film directors
Silent film producers
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer executives
Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences founders
Businesspeople from Los Angeles
Hollywood history and culture
California Republicans
New York (state) Republicans
USC School of Cinematic Arts faculty
20th-century American businesspeople
Screenwriters from California
Screenwriters from New York (state)
People from Brooklyn
American anti-communists
American people of German-Jewish descent
Deaths from pneumonia in California
Burials at Forest Lawn Memorial Park (Glendale)
20th-century American male writers
20th-century American writers
Jewish American writers
20th-century American screenwriters | true | [
"Sack is a five-piece Irish band, based in Dublin. To date the band has released three albums: You Are What You Eat, Butterfly Effect and Adventura Majestica. The band formed after the demise of Lord John White.\n\nTheir first single \"What Did The Christians Ever Do For Us?\" was single of the week in both the NME and Melody Maker. They have supported Morrissey on several world tours taking in mainland Europe, North America, and the UK. Sack have also supported the likes of The Fall, Boo Radleys among others. They have gigged sporadically in recent years and are planning to record new material.\n\nThe band appeared on the Morrissey-endorsed NME CD Songs to Save Your Life, while \"Laughter Lines\" appeared on the soundtrack to the movie Carrie 2: The Rage.\n\nCurrent members\nMartin McCann: lead vocals\nJohn Brereton: guitars\nTony Brereton: drums, backing vocals\nKen Haughton: guitars\nDerek Lee: bass\n\nDiscography\nAlbums \n\n You Are What You Eat (1994) Lemon Records\n Butterfly Effect (1997) Dirt Records\n Adventura Majestica (2001) Jetset Junta Records\n\nSingles \n\n Dilettanti (1993)\n Indian Rope Trick. (1993)\n What Did The Christians Ever Do For Us (1994)\n Latitude (1997)\n Laughter Lines (1998)\n What a Way to Live (2021)\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\nOfficial site\n\nIrish rock music groups\nMusical groups from Dublin (city)\nMusical groups established in 1994",
"Let's Do It Now is the third album of dance artist Haddaway, which includes the three singles \"What About Me\", \"Who Do You Love\", and \"You're Taking My Heart\". The record was released on December 28, 1998 by BMG.\n\nTrack listing\n \"Let's Do It Now\" (3:28) \n \"You're Taking My Heart\" (3:23)\n \"Touch\" (4:33)\n \"Who Do You Love\" (3:23)\n \"What About Me\" (4:07)\n \"Satisfaction\" (4:32)\n \"Make Me Believe\" (4:36)\n \"I'll Do It for You\" (4:41)\n \"Bring Back My Memories\" (3:37)\n \"Don't Cut the Line\" (3:50)\n \"I'll Wait for You\" (4:15)\n \"Mr. President\" (5:04)\n\nCredits\nProducers: Dee Dee Halligan, Junior Torello\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\nLet's Do It Now – Lyrics\nLet's Do It Now\n\n1998 albums\nHaddaway albums\nArista Records albums"
]
|
[
"Irving Thalberg",
"Universal Studios",
"Did he work for universal?",
"He found work as an office secretary at Universal Pictures' New York office,",
"Did he have other jobs with universal?",
"later became personal secretary to the studio's founder and president, Carl Laemmle.",
"What did he do at universal?",
"Thalberg's duties were transcribing and editing notes that Laemmle had written during screenings of his films.",
"What happened to him while at universal?",
"Laemmle told Thalberg to remain and \"keep an eye on things for me.\" Two months later, Laemmle returned to California,",
"Why did Laemmle go to California?",
"partly to see how well Thalberg was able to handle the responsibilities he was given. Thalberg gave him suggestions,",
"What did Thalberg suggest?",
"\"The first thing you should do is establish a new job of studio manager and give him the responsibility of watching day-to-day operations.\"",
"What other responsibilities did he have?",
"Laemmle told him to take charge of the Los Angeles studio, which he did in early 1919.",
"What did he do after taking charge?",
"Thalberg became responsible for immediately overseeing the nine ongoing film productions and nearly thirty scenarios"
]
| C_7b8dcb999ce54951992e991787a236a9_0 | Was he successful at the job? | 9 | Was Irving Thalberg successful at the job? | Irving Thalberg | He found work as an office secretary at Universal Pictures' New York office, and later became personal secretary to the studio's founder and president, Carl Laemmle. Among Thalberg's duties were transcribing and editing notes that Laemmle had written during screenings of his films. He earned $25 weekly, becoming adept at making insightful observations, which impressed Laemmle. Laemmle took Thalberg to see his Los Angeles production facility, where he spent a month watching how movie production worked. Before returning to New York, Laemmle told Thalberg to remain and "keep an eye on things for me." Two months later, Laemmle returned to California, partly to see how well Thalberg was able to handle the responsibilities he was given. Thalberg gave him suggestions, which impressed Laemmle by his ability to understand and explain problems. Thalberg suggested, "The first thing you should do is establish a new job of studio manager and give him the responsibility of watching day-to-day operations." Laemmle immediately agreed, "All right. You're it." In shock, Thalberg replied, "I'm what?" Laemmle told him to take charge of the Los Angeles studio, which he did in early 1919. At age 20, Thalberg became responsible for immediately overseeing the nine ongoing film productions and nearly thirty scenarios then under development. In describing the rationale for this early appointment as studio manager, film historian David Thomson writes that his new job "owed nothing to nepotism, private wealth, or experience in the film industry." He reasons that despite "Thalberg's youth, modest education, and frail appearance . . . it is clear that he had the charm, insight, and ability, or the appearance of it, to captivate the film world." Thalberg was one among the majority of Hollywood film industry workers who migrated from the East Coast, primarily from New York. Some film actors, such as Conrad Nagel, did not like the 5-day train trip or the sudden warmth of the California climate. Neither did Marion Davies, who was not used to such "big wide spaces." Samuel Marx, a close friend of Thalberg's from New York, recalled how easily Thalberg adapted to Southern California, often standing outside his doorway during moments of contemplation to enjoy the scenery. "We were all young," said comedian Buster Keaton. "The air in California was like wine. Our business was also young--and growing like nothing ever seen before." CANNOTANSWER | CANNOTANSWER | Irving Grant Thalberg (May 30, 1899 – September 14, 1936) was an American film producer during the early years of motion pictures. He was called "The Boy Wonder" for his youth and ability to select scripts, choose actors, gather production staff, and make profitable films, including Grand Hotel, China Seas, A Night at the Opera, Mutiny on the Bounty, Camille and The Good Earth. His films carved out an international market, "projecting a seductive image of American life brimming with vitality and rooted in democracy and personal freedom", states biographer Roland Flamini.
He was born in Brooklyn, New York, and as a child was afflicted with a congenital heart disease that doctors said would kill him before he reached the age of thirty. After graduating from high school he worked as a store clerk during the day and to gain some job skills took a night class in typing. He then found work as a secretary with Universal Studios' New York office, and was later made studio manager for their Los Angeles facility. There, he oversaw production of a hundred films during his three years with the company. Among the films he produced was The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1923).
In Los Angeles, he partnered with Louis B. Mayer's new studio and, after it merged with two other studios, helped create Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM). He was made head of production of MGM in 1925, at the age of twenty-six, helping MGM become the most successful studio in Hollywood. During his twelve years with MGM, until his premature death at the age of 37, he produced four hundred films, most of which bore his imprint and innovations, including story conferences with writers, sneak previews to gain early feedback, and extensive re-shooting of scenes to improve the film. In addition, he introduced horror films to audiences and coauthored the "Production Code", guidelines for morality followed by all studios. During the 1920s and 1930s, he synthesized and merged the world of stage drama and literary classics with Hollywood films.
Thalberg created numerous new stars and groomed their screen images. Among them were Lon Chaney, Ramon Novarro, Greta Garbo, John Gilbert, Lionel Barrymore, Joan Crawford, Clark Gable, Jean Harlow, Wallace Beery, Spencer Tracy, Luise Rainer, and Norma Shearer, who became his wife. He had the ability to combine quality with commercial success, and was credited with bringing his artistic aspirations in line with the demands of audiences. After his death, Hollywood's producers said he had been the world's "foremost figure in motion-picture history". President Franklin D. Roosevelt wrote, "The world of art is poorer with the passing of Irving Thalberg. His high ideals, insight and imagination went into the production of his masterpieces." The Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award, given out periodically by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences since 1937, has been awarded to producers whose body of work reflected consistently high quality films.
Early years
Thalberg was born in Brooklyn, to German Jewish immigrant parents, William and Henrietta (Haymann). Shortly after birth, he was diagnosed with "blue baby syndrome", caused by a congenital disease that limited the oxygen supply to his heart. The prognosis from the family's doctor and specialists was that he might live to the age of twenty, or at most, to thirty.
During his high school years in Brooklyn, he began having attacks of chest pains, dizziness and fatigue. This affected his ability to study, though until that time he was a good student. When he was 17 he contracted rheumatic fever, and was confined to bed for a year. His mother, in order to prevent him falling too far behind other students, brought him homework from school, books, and tutors to teach him at home. She also hoped that the schoolwork and reading would distract him from the "tantalizing sounds" of children playing outside his window.
With little to entertain him, he read books as a main activity. He devoured popular novels, classics, plays, and biographies. His books, of necessity, replaced the streets of New York, and led to his interest in classical philosophy and philosophers, such as William James.
When Thalberg returned to school, he finished high school but lacked the stamina for college, which he felt would have required constant late-night studying and cramming for exams. Instead, he took part-time jobs as a store clerk, and in the evenings, to gain some job skills, taught himself typing, shorthand and Spanish at a night vocational school. When he turned 18, he placed an advertisement in the local newspaper hoping to find better work:
Career as producer
Universal Studios
He found work as an office secretary at Universal Pictures' New York office, and later became personal secretary to the studio's founder and president, Carl Laemmle. Among Thalberg's duties were transcribing and editing notes that Laemmle had written during screenings of his films. He earned $25 weekly, becoming adept at making insightful observations, which impressed Laemmle.
Laemmle took Thalberg to see his Los Angeles production facility, where he spent a month watching how movie production worked. Before returning to New York, Laemmle told Thalberg to remain and "keep an eye on things for me." Two months later, Laemmle returned to California, partly to see how well Thalberg was able to handle the responsibilities he was given. Thalberg gave him suggestions, and thus impressed Laemmle by his ability to understand and explain problems.
Thalberg suggested, "The first thing you should do is establish a new job of studio manager and give him the responsibility of watching day-to-day operations." Laemmle immediately agreed: "All right. You're it." In shock, Thalberg replied, "I'm what?" Laemmle told him to take charge of the Los Angeles studio, which he did in early 1919. When aged 20, Thalberg became responsible for immediately overseeing the nine ongoing film productions and nearly thirty scenarios then under development.
In describing the rationale for this early appointment as studio manager, film historian David Thomson writes that his new job "owed nothing to nepotism, private wealth, or experience in the film industry." He reasons that despite "Thalberg's youth, modest education, and frail appearance ... it is clear that he had the charm, insight, and ability, or the appearance of it, to captivate the film world."
Thalberg was one among the majority of Hollywood film industry workers who migrated from the East Coast, primarily from New York. Some film actors, such as Conrad Nagel, did not like the five-day train trip or the sudden warmth of the California climate. Neither did Marion Davies, who was not used to such "big wide spaces". Samuel Marx, a close friend of Thalberg's from New York, recalled how easily Thalberg adapted to Southern California, often standing outside his doorway during moments of contemplation to enjoy the scenery. "We were all young", said comedian Buster Keaton. "The air in California was like wine. Our business was also young—and growing like nothing ever seen before."
Confrontation with Erich von Stroheim
He quickly established his tenacity as he battled with well-known director Erich von Stroheim over the length of Foolish Wives (1922). Biographer Roland Flamini notes that the film was Universal's most expensive "jewel" ever in production, and its director and star, von Stroheim, was taking the film way over budget. Thalberg, now Universal's general manager, was forced to have the director quickly finalize production before the studio's working capital was used up. Flamini describes the situation:
Thalberg had von Stroheim come to his office, which he did still wearing his film costume as a Russian Imperial Guard and escorted by members of his production team. Thalberg calmly told him, "I have seen all the film and you have all you need for the picture. I want you to stop shooting", to which von Stroheim replied, "But I have not finished as yet." "Yes, you have", said Thalberg. "You have spent all the money this company can afford. I cannot allow you to spend any more."
Thalberg quietly explained that the director worked under the producer, and it was his responsibility to control costs. Von Stroheim, surrounded by his assistants, then confronted Thalberg: "If you were not my superior, I would smash you in the face." Thalberg, unflinching, said "Don't let that stop you." The result was that Thalberg soon afterward removed the cameras from von Stroheim's studio and took over editing. The uncut footage was pared down from five-and-a-half hours to three hours, to von Stroheim's deep dissatisfaction.
A similar problem developed with von Stroheim's next film, Merry-Go-Round (1923). Although he had promised Thalberg to remain within budget this time, he continued production until it went to twice the agreed length and was not yet near completion. Flamini speculates why this happened:
Thalberg again called von Stroheim to his office, handed him a long letter written and signed by himself, describing the problems, and summarily fired von Stroheim as of that moment. Thalberg's letter stated among the reasons,
totally inexcusable and repeated acts of insubordination ... extravagant ideas which you have been unwilling to sacrifice ... unnecessary delays ... and your apparent idea that you are greater and more powerful than the organization that employs you.
His dismissal of von Stroheim was considered an "earthquake in movie circles", notes Flamini. Producer David O. Selznick said that "it was the first time a director had been fired. It took great guts and courage ... Von Stroheim was utterly indifferent over money and could have gone on and spent millions, with nobody to stop him.". The opinion was shared by director Rouben Mamoulian, who said that the "little fellow at Universal", in one bold stroke, had "asserted the primacy of the studio over the director" and forever altered the balance of power in the movie industry.
Effects of his young age
According to Flamini, his youth was a subject of conversation within the movie community. Executives from other studios, actors, and film crew, often mistook him to be a junior employee. Movie columnist Louella Parsons, upon first being introduced to him, asked, "What's the joke? Where's the new general manager?" After five minutes of talking to Thalberg, however, she later wrote about "Universal's Boy Wonder": "He might be a boy in looks and age, but it was no child's mind that was being asked to cope with the intricate politics of Universal City." Novelist Edna Ferber responded the same way, writing that "I had fancied motion-picture producers as large gentlemen smoking oversized cigars. But this young man whose word seemed so final at Universal City ... impressed me deeply."
The male actors in the studio had a similar reaction. Lionel Barrymore, who was nearly twice his age, recalled their meetings:
Thalberg likewise gained the respect of leading playwrights, some of whom also looked down on him due to his youth. George S. Kaufman, co-author of Dinner at Eight, several Marx Brothers films, and two George Gershwin plays, came from New York to meet with Thalberg. Afterward he confided to his friend, Groucho Marx: "That man has never written a word, yet he can tell me exactly what to do with a story. I didn't know you had people like that out here."
Actress Norma Shearer, whom he later married, was surprised after he greeted her at the door, then walked her to his office for her first job interview: "Then you're not the office boy?" she asked. He smiled, as he sat himself behind his desk: "No, Miss Shearer, I'm Irving Thalberg, vice-president of the Mayer Company. I'm the man who sent for you."
His younger-than-normal age for a studio executive was usually mentioned even after he left Universal to help start up MGM. Screenwriter Agnes Christine Johnson, who worked with Thalberg for years, described his contribution during meetings:
The same quality was observed by director and screenwriter Hobart Henley: "If something that read well in conference turns out not so good on the screen, I go to him and, like that—Henley snaps his fingers—he has a remedy. He's brilliant." Another assistant producer to Thalberg explains:
His youth also contributed to his open-mindedness to the ideas of others. Conrad Nagel, who starred in numerous Thalberg films, reported that Thalberg was generally empathetic to those he worked alongside: "Thalberg never raised his voice. He just looked into your eyes, spoke softly, and after a few minutes he cast a spell on you." Studio attorney Edwin Loeb, who also worked to create AMPAS, explained that "the real foundation of Irving's success was his ability to look at life through the eyes of any given person. He had a gift of empathy, and almost complete perspective." Those opinions were also shared by producer Walter Wanger: "You thought that you were talking to an Indian savant. He could cast a spell on anybody."
His talent as a producer was enhanced by his "near-miraculous" powers of concentration, notes film critic J. Hoberman. As a result, he was never bored or tired, and supplemented his spare time with reading for his own amusement, recalls screenwriter Bayard Veiller, with some of his favorite authors being Francis Bacon, Epictetus, and Immanuel Kant.
Film projects at Universal
Biographer Bob Thomas writes that after three years at the studio, Thalberg continually proved his value. Universal's pictures improved noticeably, primarily due to Thalberg's "uncanny sense of story." He took tight control over many key aspects of production, including his requirement that from then on scripts were tightly constructed before filming began, rather than during production. Thomas adds that he also "showed a remarkable capacity for working with actors, casting them aptly and advising them on their careers."
After producing two films that were in production when he began work at Universal, he presented Laemmle with his idea for a film based on one of his favorite classic stories, The Hunchback of Notre Dame. Rather than just a horror picture, Thalberg suggested turning it into a spectacle which would include a replica of the Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris. He had Lon Chaney play the hunchback. The film became Universal's most profitable silent film and established Chaney's career as a top-flight star.
After nearly three years with Universal, Thalberg had supervised over a hundred movies, reorganized the studio to give more control to the managers, and had "stopped the defection" of many of their leading stars by offering them better, higher-paying contracts. He also produced a number of Universal's prestige films, which made the company profitable. However, he decided it was time to find a studio in Los Angeles more suitable to his skills, and spread word that he was available.
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM)
Cecil B. DeMille was the first who wanted to hire him, telling his partner Jesse Lasky, "The boy is a genius. I can see it. I know it." Lasky opposed the hire, stating, "Geniuses we have all we need." Thalberg then received an offer from Hal Roach, but the offer was withdrawn because Thalberg lacked experience with slapstick comedy films. In late 1922, Thalberg was introduced to Louis B. Mayer, president of a small but dynamic and fast-growing studio. At that first meeting, Thalberg "made a deep, immediate impression on Mayer", writes Flamini. After Thalberg had left, Mayer said to studio attorney Edwin Loeb: "Tell him if he comes to work for me, I'll look after him as though he were my son."
Although their personalities were in many ways opposite, Mayer being more outspoken and nearly twice the younger man's age, Thalberg was hired as vice president in charge of production at Louis B. Mayer Productions. Years later, Mayer's daughter Irene Mayer Selznick recalled that "it was hard to believe anyone that boyish could be so important." According to Flamini, Thalberg was hired because, although Mayer was an astute businessman, "what he lacked was Thalberg's almost unerring ability to combine quality with commercial success, to bring artistic aspiration in line with the demands of the box office." Mayer's company subsequently merged with two others to become Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM), with the 24-year-old Thalberg made part-owner and accorded the same position as vice president in charge of production. Three years after the merger, MGM became the most successful studio in Hollywood.
During his twelve years at MGM, Thalberg supervised the production of over four hundred films. Although Thalberg and his colleagues at MGM knew he was "doomed" to not live much past the age of 30 due to heart disease, he loved producing films. He continued developing innovative ideas and overseeing most of MGM's pictures. Under Thalberg's management, MGM released over 40% more films yearly than Warner Brothers, and more than double Paramount's releases. From 1924 until 1936, when Thalberg died at the age of 37, "almost every film bore Thalberg's imprint", wrote Mark Vieira.
Production innovations
Thalberg's production techniques "broke new ground in filmmaking", adds Vieira. Among his contributions at MGM was his innovation of story conferences, sneak previews and scene retakes. He introduced the first horror films and coauthored the Production Code, the set of moral guidelines that all film studios agreed to follow. Thalberg helped synthesize and merge the world of stage drama and literary classics with Hollywood films.
MGM thereby became the only movie studio to consistently show a profit during the Great Depression. Flamini explains that the equation for MGM's success depended on combining stars, a Broadway hit or popular classic, and high standards of production. This combination at the time was considered a "revolutionary approach" in the film industry, which until then assumed a star was all that was needed for success, regardless of the story or production quality. The other studios began following MGM's lead with that same formula.
Production techniques
Thalberg generally followed a system in managing his productions. According to one of his assistants, Lawrence Weingarten, who later became a producer, "Thalberg directed the film on paper, and then the director directed the film on film."
Thalberg was generally opposed to location shooting overseas where he could not oversee production and control costs, as happened with Ben Hur. Thus, he kept hundreds of back-lot carpenters at work creating realistic sets, as he did for fifteenth-century Romeo and Juliet (1936), or with China Seas (1935), to replicate the harbors of Hong Kong.
Vieira points out that Thalberg's "fascination with Broadway plays" often had him create and present stories visually. For China Seas, for instance, he described for the screenwriters, director and others, exactly how he wanted the film to appear on screen:
To be certain of achieving the desired effects, Thalberg made sure his cinematographers were careful in their use of light and shadow. Vieira observes that "more than any other producer or any other studio, Thalberg and MGM manipulated lenses, filters, and lighting instruments to affect the viewer." As a result, he notes, "most of Thalberg's films contain moments such as these, in which cinematic technique transcends mere exposition and gives the viewer something to treasure."
Thalberg was supported by most of the studio in these kinds of creative decisions. "It was a big family," notes Weingarten. "If we had a success, everybody—and I mean every cutter, every painter, every plasterer—was excited about it, was abuzz, was in a tizzy about the whole idea of picture making."
Taking risks with new subjects and stars
In 1929, MGM released fifty films, and all but five showed a profit. Of those that failed, Hallelujah was also a gamble by Thalberg. When King Vidor, the film's producer and director, proposed the idea to Thalberg of a major film cast, for the first time, exclusively with African Americans, he told Thalberg directly, "I doubt that it will make a dollar at the box office." Thalberg replied, "Don't worry about that. I've told you that MGM can afford an occasional experiment."
By the early 1930s, a number of stars began failing at the box office, partly due to the Great Depression that was now undermining the economy, along with the public's ability to spend on entertainment. Thalberg began using two stars in a film, rather than one, as had been the tradition at all the studios, such as pairing Greta Garbo with John Gilbert, Clark Gable with Jean Harlow, and William Powell with Myrna Loy. After experimenting with a few such films, including Mata Hari (1931), which were profitable, he decided on a multi-star production of another Broadway play, Grand Hotel (1932). It had five major stars, including Garbo, Joan Crawford, John Barrymore, Lionel Barrymore, and Wallace Beery. "Before Thalberg," writes Vieira, "there was no Grand Hotel in the American consciousness." The film won the Oscar for Best Picture in 1932.
Thalberg went against consensus and took another risk with The Great Ziegfeld (1936), costarring Luise Rainer. Although Louis B. Mayer did not want her in the role, which he felt was too minor for a new star, Thalberg felt that "only she could play the part", wrote biographer Charles Higham. Shortly after shooting began in late 1935, doubts of Rainer's acting ability emerged in the press. However, despite her limited appearances in the film, Rainer "so impressed audiences with one highly emotional scene" that she won the Academy Award for Best Actress.
After her winning role in The Great Ziegfeld, Thalberg wanted her to play a role that was the opposite of her previous character, for The Good Earth (1937). For the part as a Chinese peasant, she was required to act totally subservient to her husband, being perpetually huddled in submission, and barely spoke a word of dialogue during the entire film. Rainer recalls that Mayer did not approve of the film being produced or her part in it: "He was horrified at Irving Thalberg's insistence for me to play O-lan, the poor uncomely little Chinese peasant." However, she again won the Oscar for Best Actress, becoming the first actress to win two consecutive Oscars, a feat not matched until Katharine Hepburn's two Oscar wins thirty years later.
Grooming new stars
Besides bringing a distinctive high quality "look" to MGM films and often recreating well-known stories or plays, Thalberg's actors themselves took on a characteristic quality. Thalberg wanted his female actors to appear "cool, classy and beautiful," notes Flamini. And he strove to make the male actors appear "worldly and in control." In general, Thalberg movies and actors came to be "luxurious," "glossy," and "technically flawless." By doing so, he made stars or boosted the careers of actors such as Lon Chaney, Ramon Novarro, John Gilbert, Greta Garbo, Joan Crawford, Clark Gable, Helen Hayes, Jean Harlow, Marie Dressler, Wallace Beery, John Barrymore, Lionel Barrymore and Luise Rainer.
Greta Garbo
In 1925, a young Greta Garbo, then twenty, and unable to speak any English, was brought over from Sweden at Mayer's request, as he saw how she looked in still photos. A Swedish friend thought he would help her by contacting Thalberg, who then agreed to give her a screen test. According to author Frederick Sands, "the result of the test was electrifying." Thalberg was impressed and began grooming the new starlet the following day: "the studio arranged to fix her teeth, made sure she lost weight, and gave her an English tutor."
Joan Crawford
Joan Crawford's first role was a Thalberg production at MGM and she became one of their leading stars for the next thirty years. Crawford was somewhat jealous of Norma Shearer as she thought she was given the better material by her husband Thalberg out of nepotism. Nevertheless, she felt that his contribution to MGM was vital to the film industry. Not long after his early death, she recalls her concerns: "Thalberg was dead and the concept of the quality 'big' picture pretty much went out the window."
Marie Dressler
Thalberg also realized that old stars few had heard of could be made into new ones. Marie Dressler, a fifty-nine-year-old early vaudeville and movie star, who had played the top-billed lead, above Charles Chaplin and Mabel Normand), in the first feature-length comedy, Tillie's Punctured Romance (1914), was unable to get any roles in films after leaving show business for some years, finally working as a maid. MGM screenwriter Frances Marion suggested to Thalberg that she might fit well in a starring role for a new film, and was surprised that he knew of her prior successes. Thalberg approved of using her without a screen test and offered his rationale:
By 1932, shortly before she died, Dressler was the country's number one box office star.
Wallace Beery
Marie Dressler was paired twice, in Min and Bill (1930) and Tugboat Annie (1933), with Wallace Beery, another major silent star who had been struggling to get work in sound pictures until Thalberg cast him. Beery had enjoyed a hugely successful silent film career dating back to 1913, but had been fired by Paramount shortly after sound pictures appeared. Thalberg cast him in the role of "Machine Gun Butch," which had been meant for recently deceased Lon Chaney, in The Big House (1930), an energetic prison picture that became a huge hit. Beery was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actor for his performance, and his burgeoning career at MGM had transformed him into the studio's highest paid actor within two more years, during which time he won the Oscar for The Champ and had become a phenomenal box office draw as a result of Thalberg's foresight.
Getting audience feedback and reshooting
According to Vieira, MGM had few failures during this period, and numerous blockbusters. Among the reasons was Thalberg's unique system of developing a script during story conferences with writers before filming began, and later giving "sneak previews" followed by audience feedback through written questionnaires. Often, where he felt improvement was needed, he arranged for scenes to be reshot. As Thalberg once stated, "The difference between something good and something superior is often very small."
Bad decisions and missed opportunities
Thalberg felt he had his "finger on the pulse of America. I know what people will do and what they won't do," he said. His judgment was not always accurate, however. Thalberg's bringing Broadway productions to the screen to develop higher picture standards sometimes resulted in "studied" acting or "stagey" sets, notes Flamini. In 1927, after the successful release of the first full-length talking picture, The Jazz Singer (1927), he nevertheless felt that talking pictures were a fad. Thalberg likewise did not think that color would replace black-and-white in movies.
When an assistant protested against a script that envisioned a love scene in Paris with an ocean background, Thalberg refused to make changes, saying "We can't cater to a handful of people who know Paris." A more serious distraction to Thalberg's efforts was his obsession with making his wife Norma Shearer a prominent star, efforts which sometimes led to "overblown and overglamous" productions. Thalberg himself admitted to his obsession years later when he told a fellow producer: "You're behaving like I did with Norma. I knew positively that she could play anything. It's a kind of romantic astigmatism that attacks producers when they fall for an actress."
Important films at MGM
Ben Hur (1925)
One of the first pictures he took charge of, Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ, was inherited and already in production by another studio when MGM was formed. The film was turning into a disastrous expense with cost overruns already in the millions due to its lavish sets and location shooting in Rome. Most studio executives chose to terminate the film to cut their losses. Thalberg, however, felt differently, and thought the film would affect movie audiences, due to its classic literary source, and would highlight MGM as a major new studio.
He, therefore, discarded much of the original footage shot in Italy and recreated the set on MGM's back lots in Culver City, which added more millions to the production, yet gave him more control over production. The new set also included a replica of Circus Maximus for the dramatic chariot race scenes. Flamini notes that Thalberg's "gamble paid off," drawing international attention to MGM, and to Thalberg within the movie industry for his bold action.
Mutiny on the Bounty (1935)
Mutiny on the Bounty was the studio's next most expensive film after Ben Hur, with some now calling it "Thalberg's masterpiece." He initially had difficulty convincing Mayer that he could make the film without making heroes of the mutineers. He achieved that by instead making a hero of the British Royal Navy, whereby the officers and shipmates would from then on display their mutual respect. Thalberg also had to convince Clark Gable to accept the role against his will. He pleaded with Gable, eventually promising him that "If it isn't one of your greatest successes, I'll never ask you again to play a part you don't want." The film's other main stars were Charles Laughton and Franchot Tone. The film was nominated for six Academy Awards, including Best Actor, and winning it for Best Picture. Thalberg accepted the award as producer from Frank Capra.
Thalberg and Mayer partnership
At first, Thalberg and studio chief Louis B. Mayer got along splendidly; however, they had different production philosophies. Thalberg preferred literary works, while Mayer preferred glitzy crowd-pleasing films. A clash was inevitable, and their relationship grew decidedly frosty. When Thalberg fell ill in the final weeks of 1932, Mayer took advantage of the situation and replaced him with David O. Selznick and Walter Wanger. Thalberg's reputation by that time for working long hours was widely known, and rumors about the related strain on his fragile health had become front-page news in entertainment trade publications. The Hollywood Reporter in January 1933 updated its readership about his condition and addressed growing concerns that he might be forced, despite his young age, to quit the business:
Once Thalberg recovered sufficiently from his bout with the "flu" and was able to return to work later in 1933, it was as one of MGM's unit producers, albeit one who had first choice on projects as well as preferential access to all the studio's resources, including over casting its stars. Thalberg's good relationship with Nicholas Schenck, then president of Loew's Incorporated, proved to be an ongoing advantage for him. Loew's was the corporate parent of MGM, so Schenck was the true power and ultimate arbiter at the studio; and he usually supported Thalberg's decisions and continued to do so whenever disagreements about projects or production needs arose. As a result, Thalberg also continued to produce or coproduce some of MGM's most prestigious and critically acclaimed ventures in this period, such as The Barretts of Wimpole Street (1934) starring his wife Norma Shearer, China Seas (1935), A Night at the Opera (1935), San Francisco (1936), and Romeo and Juliet (1936).
Personal life
During his few years with Universal while living in New York, Thalberg had become romantically involved with Carl Laemmle's daughter, Rosabelle. Still in his early twenties and later spending most of his time in Los Angeles, his feelings toward her were no longer as strong. Flamini suspects that this may have affected his position at Universal and partly caused his decision to leave the company. "The Laemmles prayed that Irving would marry Rosabelle", notes Flamini. "They wanted their sons to be educated and their daughters to marry nice Jewish boys."
Less than a year after he and Mayer took charge of the newly created MGM studios, and still only twenty-five years old, Thalberg suffered a serious heart attack due to overwork. Mayer also became aware of Thalberg's congenital heart problems and now worried about the prospect of running MGM without him. Mayer also became concerned that one of his daughters might become romantically involved, and told them so:
Thalberg, aware of Mayer's feelings, made it a point of never giving too much attention to his daughters at social events.
One of Thalberg's traits was his ability to work long hours into the night with little sign of fatigue. According to Vieira, Thalberg believed that as long as his mind was active in his work and he was not bored, he would not feel tired. Thalberg, who often got by with only five hours of sleep, felt that most people could get by with less than they realized. To keep his mental faculties at peak, he would read philosophical books by Bacon, Epictetus, or Kant. "They stimulate me. I'd drop out of sight in no time if I didn't read and keep up with current thought—and the philosophers are brain sharpeners."
During the early 1930s, Thalberg was ambivalent about political events in Europe. While he feared Nazism and the rise of Hitler, he also feared Communism. At the time, notes Vieira, "given a choice between communism and fascism, many Americans—including Thalberg—would prefer the latter." Thalberg stated his opinion:
When others suggested that many Jews could die in Germany as a result of Nazi anti-Semitism, he replied that in his opinion "Hitler and Hitlerism will pass." On one occasion, Catholic Prince Löwenstein of Germany, who himself had almost been captured before fleeing Germany, told him: "Mr. Thalberg, your own people are being systematically hunted down and rooted out of Germany." Thalberg suggested that world Jewry should nevertheless not interfere, that the Jewish race would survive Hitler. Within a few years, American film distribution was "choked off" in Germany. Led by Warner Brothers, all American studios eventually closed their German offices.
Thalberg began dating actress Norma Shearer a few years after he joined MGM. Following her conversion to Judaism, they married on Thursday, September 29, 1927, in a private ceremony in the garden of his rented house in Beverly Hills. Rabbi Edgar F. Magnin officiated at the event, with Shearer's brother Douglas Shearer giving the bride away, and Louis B. Mayer serving as best man. The couple drove to Monterey for their honeymoon and then moved into their newly constructed home in Beverly Hills.
After their second child was born, Shearer considered retiring from films, but Thalberg convinced her to continue acting, saying he could find her good roles. She went on to be one of MGM's biggest stars of the 1930s. Their two children were Irving Jr. (1930–1987) and Katharine (1935–2006).
Death
Thalberg and Shearer took a much-needed Labor Day weekend vacation in Monterey, California, in 1936, staying at the same beachfront hotel where they spent their honeymoon. A few weeks earlier, Thalberg's leading screenwriter, Al Lewin, had proposed doing a film based on a soon-to-be published book, Gone with the Wind. Although Thalberg said it would be a "sensational" role for Gable, and a "terrific picture," he decided not to do it:
Besides, Thalberg told Mayer, "[n]o Civil War picture ever made a nickel". Shortly after returning from Monterey, Thalberg was diagnosed with pneumonia. His condition worsened steadily and he eventually required an oxygen tent at home. He died on September 14, at the age of 37.
Sam Wood, while directing A Day at the Races, was given the news by phone. He returned to the set with tears in his eyes and told the others. As the news spread "the studio was paralyzed with shock", notes Thomas. "Work stopped and hundreds of people wept", with stars, writers, directors, and studio employees "all sharing a sense of loss at the death of a man who had been a part of their working lives", states Flamini.
His funeral took place two days later, and when the services began the other studios throughout Hollywood observed five minutes of silence. Producer Sam Goldwyn "wept uncontrollably for two days" and was unable to regain his composure enough to attend. The MGM studio closed for that day.
Services were held at the Wilshire Boulevard Temple that Thalberg had occasionally attended. The funeral attracted thousands of spectators who came to view the arrival of countless stars from MGM and other studios, including Greta Garbo, Jean Harlow, the Marx Brothers, Charlie Chaplin, Walt Disney, Howard Hughes, Al Jolson, Gary Cooper, Carole Lombard, Mary Pickford, and Douglas Fairbanks, among the screen luminaries. The ushers who led them to their seats included Clark Gable, Fredric March, and playwright Moss Hart. Erich von Stroheim, who had been fired by Thalberg, came to pay his respects. Producers Louis B. Mayer, the Warner brothers, Adolph Zukor, and Nicholas Schenck sat together solemnly as Rabbi Magnin gave the eulogy.
Thalberg is buried in a private marble tomb in the Great Mausoleum at Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Glendale, California, lying at rest beside his wife Norma Shearer Arrouge (Thalberg's crypt was engraved "My Sweetheart Forever" by Shearer).
Over the following days, tributes were published by the national press. Louis B. Mayer, his co-founding partner at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, said he had lost "the finest friend a man could ever have", while MGM president Nicholas Schenck stated that "Thalberg was the most important man in the production end of the motion-picture industry. Leading producers from the other studios also expressed their feelings in published tributes to Thalberg:
David O. Selznick described him as "beyond any question the greatest individual force for fine pictures." Samuel Goldwyn called him "the foremost figure in the motion-picture industry ... and an inspiration." M. H. Aylesworth, Chairman of RKO, wrote that "his integrity, vision and ability made him the spearhead of all motion-picture production throughout the world." Harry Warner, president of Warner Bros., described him as "gifted with one of the finest minds ever placed at the service of motion-picture production." Sidney R. Kent, president of Twentieth Century Fox, said that "he made the whole world richer by giving it the highest type of entertainment. He was a true genius." Columbia president Harry Cohn said the "motion picture industry has suffered a loss from which it will not soon recover...". Darryl F. Zanuck noted, "More than any other man he raised the industry to its present world prestige." Adolph Zukor, chairman of Paramount, stated, "Irving Thalberg was the most brilliant young man in the motion picture business." Jesse Lasky said, "It will be utterly impossible to replace him."
Among the condolences that came from world political leaders, President Franklin D. Roosevelt wrote, "The world of art is poorer with the passing of Irving Thalberg. His high ideals, insight and imagination went into the production of his masterpieces."
Among the pictures that were unfinished or not yet released at the time of his death were A Day at the Races, The Good Earth, Camille, Maytime, and Romeo and Juliet. Groucho Marx, star of A Day at the Races, wrote, "After Thalberg's death, my interest in the movies waned. I continued to appear in them, but ... The fun had gone out of picture making." Thalberg's widow, Norma Shearer, recalled, "Grief does very strange things to you. I didn't seem to feel the shock for two weeks afterwards. ... then, at the end of those two weeks, I collapsed."
Legacy in the movie industry
Thalberg's legacy to the movie industry is "incalculable", states biographer Bob Thomas. He notes that with his numerous production innovations and grand stories, often turning classic literature and Broadway stage productions into big-screen pictures, he managed to keep "American movies supreme throughout the world for a generation". Darryl F. Zanuck, founder of 20th Century-Fox said that during Thalberg's brief career, he had become the "most creative producer in the history of films". Thomas describes some of his contributions:
Most of MGM's major films in the 1930s were, according to Flamini, "in a very real sense", made by Thalberg. He closely supervised the making of "more pictures than any other producer in Hollywood's history", and was considered the "archetype of the creative producer", adds Flamini. Upon his early death, aged 37, an editorial in The New York Times called him "the most important force" in the motion picture industry. The paper added that for the film industry, he "set the pace and others followed ... because his way combined style, glamour, and profit." He is described by Flamini as having been "a revolutionary in a gray flannel suit".
Thalberg refused to take credit as producer, and as a result, his name never appeared on the screen while he was alive. Thalberg claimed that "credit you give yourself is not worth having". He also said "If a picture is good, they'll know who produced it. If it's bad, nobody cares." His final film, released after he died, was The Good Earth (1937), which won numerous Academy Awards. Its opening screen credit was dedicated to Thalberg:
In 1938, the new multimillion-dollar MGM administration building in Culver City was named for Thalberg. The Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award, presented by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, also named for him, awards producers for consistently high production achievements.
Cultural legacy
The Last Tycoon
In October 1939, American novelist F. Scott Fitzgerald began writing The Last Tycoon, a fictionalized biography of Thalberg, naming the protagonist Monroe Stahr to represent Thalberg. "Thalberg has always fascinated me", he wrote to an editor. "His peculiar charm, his extraordinary good looks, his bountiful success, the tragic end of his great adventure. The events I have built around him are fiction, but all of them are things which might very well have happened. ... I've long chosen him for a hero (this has been in my mind for three years) because he is one of the half-dozen men I have known who were built on a grand scale."
Thomas notes that among the reasons Fitzgerald chose to write a book about a Thalberg-like character, was that "throughout his literary career, Fitzgerald borrowed his heroes from friends he admired, and inevitably a bit of Fitzgerald entered the characterizations." Fitzgerald himself writes that "When I like men, I want to be like them ..." Fitzgerald and Thalberg had real-life similarities: both were prodigies, both had heart ailments, and they both died at early ages.
According to biographer Matthew J. Bruccoli, Fitzgerald believed that Thalberg, with his "taste and courage, represented the best of Hollywood. ... [and] saw Thalberg as a model for what could be done in the movies." Fitzgerald died before the novel was completed, however. Bruccoli writes of Fitzgerald's book:
Although parallels between Monroe Stahr in the novel and Thalberg were evident, many who knew Thalberg intimately stated that they did not see similarities in their personalities. Norma Shearer said that the Stahr character was not at all like her former husband.
In the 1976 film version, directed by Elia Kazan, Monroe Stahr was played by Robert De Niro. Kazan, in his pre-production notes, described the Stahr character as he saw him:
In the 2016 television series based on the novel, Monroe Stahr is played by Matt Bomer.
Others
Fitzgerald also based his short story "Crazy Sunday", originally published in the October 1932 issue of American Mercury, on an incident at a party thrown by Thalberg and Shearer. The story is included in Fitzgerald's collection Taps at Reveille (1935).
Thalberg was portrayed in the movie Man of a Thousand Faces (1957) by Robert Evans, who went on to become a studio head himself.
Thalberg was portrayed by Bill Cusack in Young Indiana Jones and the Hollywood Follies (1994), a TV film based on The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles, in which Indiana Jones is depicted as taking part in Thalberg's conflict with Erich von Stroheim over Foolish Wives.
In 2020, Thalberg was played by Ferdinand Kingsley in the David Fincher film Mank
Thalberg, played by Tobey Maguire, is rumored to appear in the upcoming movie Babylon.
Filmography
Producer
Reputation (1921)
The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1923)
Merry-Go-Round (1923)
His Hour (1924)
He Who Gets Slapped (1924)
The Unholy Three (1925)
The Merry Widow (1925)
The Tower of Lies (1925)
The Big Parade (1925)
Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ (1925)
Torrent (1926)
La Bohème (1926)
Brown of Harvard (1926)
The Road to Mandalay (1926)
The Temptress (1926)
Valencia (1926)
Flesh and the Devil (1926)
Twelve Miles Out (1927)
The Student Prince in Old Heidelberg (1927)
London After Midnight (1927)
The Crowd (1928)
Laugh, Clown, Laugh (1928)
White Shadows in the South Seas (1928)
Show People (1928)
West of Zanzibar (1928)
The Broadway Melody (1929)
The Trial of Mary Dugan (1929)
Voice of the City (1929)
Where East Is East (1929)
The Last of Mrs. Cheyney (1929)
The Hollywood Revue of 1929 (1929)
Hallelujah (1929)
His Glorious Night (1929)
The Kiss (1929)
Anna Christie (1930)
Redemption (1930)
The Divorcee (1930)
The Rogue Song (1930)
The Big House (1930)
The Unholy Three (1930)
Let Us Be Gay (1930)
Billy the Kid (1930)
Way for a Sailor (1930)
A Lady's Morals (1930)
Inspiration (1931)
Trader Horn (1931)
The Secret Six (1931)
A Free Soul (1931)
Just a Gigolo (1931)
Menschen hinter Gittern (1931), German-language version of The Big House (1930)
The Sin of Madelon Claudet (1931)
The Guardsman (1931)
The Champ (1931)
Possessed (1931)
Private Lives (1931)
Mata Hari (1931)
Freaks (1932)
Tarzan the Ape Man (1932)
Grand Hotel (1932)
Letty Lynton (1932)
As You Desire Me (1932)
Red-Headed Woman (1932)
Smilin' Through (1932)
Red Dust (1932)
Rasputin and the Empress (1932)
Strange Interlude (1932)
Tugboat Annie (1933)
Bombshell (1933)
Eskimo (1933)
La Veuve Joyeuse (1934) French-language version of The Merry Widow
Riptide (1934)
The Barretts of Wimpole Street (1934)
The Merry Widow (1934)
What Every Woman Knows (1934)
Biography of a Bachelor Girl (1935)
No More Ladies (1935)
China Seas (1935)
Mutiny on the Bounty (1935)
A Night at the Opera (1935)
Riffraff (1936)
Romeo and Juliet (1936)
Camille (1936)
Maytime (1937)
A Day at the Races (1937)
Broadway Melody of 1938 (1937)
The Good Earth (1937)
Marie Antoinette (1938)
Writer
The Trap (1922)
The Dangerous Little Demon (1922)
Awards
Academy Awards
Notes
Further reading
Books
Flamini, Roland. Thalberg: The Last Tycoon and the World of M-G-M (1994)
Marx, Samuel. Mayer and Thalberg: The Make-believe Saints (1975)
Thomas, Bob. Thalberg: Life and Legend (1969)
Vieira, Mark A. Irving Thalberg's M-G-M. New York: Harry N. Abrams, 2008.
Vieira, Mark A. Irving Thalberg: Boy Wonder to Producer Prince. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2009.
Articles
Starman, Ray. "Irving Thalberg", Films In Review, June/July 1987, p. 347–353
External links
Irving Thalberg at TCM
Cinemagraphe Review of the Roland Flamini biography of Thalberg: The Last Tycoon and the World of MGM
Irving Thalberg at Virtual History
Irving Thalberg profiled in Collier's Magazine (1924)
Videos
1899 births
1936 deaths
American film producers
Film producers from California
Producers who won the Best Picture Academy Award
American film studio executives
American male screenwriters
Cinema pioneers
Silent film directors
Silent film producers
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer executives
Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences founders
Businesspeople from Los Angeles
Hollywood history and culture
California Republicans
New York (state) Republicans
USC School of Cinematic Arts faculty
20th-century American businesspeople
Screenwriters from California
Screenwriters from New York (state)
People from Brooklyn
American anti-communists
American people of German-Jewish descent
Deaths from pneumonia in California
Burials at Forest Lawn Memorial Park (Glendale)
20th-century American male writers
20th-century American writers
Jewish American writers
20th-century American screenwriters | false | [
"During the 2006–07 English football season, Barnsley F.C. competed in the Football League Championship.\n\nSeason summary\nDuring the early stages of the season, Ritchie was approached by Sheffield Wednesday about their vacant manager's position, following the sacking of Paul Sturrock in October 2006. However, the request was turned down by the club. Ritchie was sacked by Barnsley on 21 November 2006, with the team in the relegation zone of the League Championship.\n\nSimon Davey was then appointed caretaker manager following Ritchie's dismissal. After a successful start he was given the job on a permanent basis at the end of the year, and later led the club to a successful fight against relegation at the end of the season.\n\nFinal league table\n\nResults\nBarnsley's score comes first\n\nLegend\n\nFootball League Championship\n\nFA Cup\n\nLeague Cup\n\nSquad\n\nLeft club during season\n\nReferences\n\n2006-07\nBarnsley",
"Michael Turian is a successful professional player of Magic: The Gathering. He won Pro Tour New York with Team Potato Nation. Turian also won two Grand Prixs. In 2008 Mike Turian was voted in the Hall of Fame. He was inducted during the World championship in Memphis.\n\nCareer \nMike Turian qualified for Pro Tour (PT) Chicago 1997 at a PTQ in Akron, Ohio. He finished 27th at PT Chicago, winning money and automatically qualifying for the next PT in Mainz. An 11th place at Mainz was followed by several Pro Tour money finishes (Top 64 at the time). Eventually he won Pro Tour New York 2000 with teammates Gary Wise and Scott Johns. A 5th place at the World championship in Toronto in the season followed.\n\nThe next season started off well with a win Grand Prix Montreal 2001, but other than that some less successful seasons followed for Turian. Eventually the 2003–04 season became his most successful with final day appearance at PT Boston, Amsterdam, and San Diego. He also won another Grand Prix at Columbus.\n\nHe left the Pro Tour in 2004, to take a job as developer at Wizards of the Coast.\n\nAccomplishments\n\nOther accomplishments:\n Member of the 2008 Hall of Fame\n\nReferences\n\nLiving people\nAmerican people of Armenian descent\nAmerican Magic: The Gathering players\nPeople from Seattle\nYear of birth missing (living people)"
]
|
[
"Irving Thalberg",
"Universal Studios",
"Did he work for universal?",
"He found work as an office secretary at Universal Pictures' New York office,",
"Did he have other jobs with universal?",
"later became personal secretary to the studio's founder and president, Carl Laemmle.",
"What did he do at universal?",
"Thalberg's duties were transcribing and editing notes that Laemmle had written during screenings of his films.",
"What happened to him while at universal?",
"Laemmle told Thalberg to remain and \"keep an eye on things for me.\" Two months later, Laemmle returned to California,",
"Why did Laemmle go to California?",
"partly to see how well Thalberg was able to handle the responsibilities he was given. Thalberg gave him suggestions,",
"What did Thalberg suggest?",
"\"The first thing you should do is establish a new job of studio manager and give him the responsibility of watching day-to-day operations.\"",
"What other responsibilities did he have?",
"Laemmle told him to take charge of the Los Angeles studio, which he did in early 1919.",
"What did he do after taking charge?",
"Thalberg became responsible for immediately overseeing the nine ongoing film productions and nearly thirty scenarios",
"Was he successful at the job?",
"I don't know."
]
| C_7b8dcb999ce54951992e991787a236a9_0 | What else happened in his new position? | 10 | What else happened in Irving Thalberg's new position aside from overseeing film productions? | Irving Thalberg | He found work as an office secretary at Universal Pictures' New York office, and later became personal secretary to the studio's founder and president, Carl Laemmle. Among Thalberg's duties were transcribing and editing notes that Laemmle had written during screenings of his films. He earned $25 weekly, becoming adept at making insightful observations, which impressed Laemmle. Laemmle took Thalberg to see his Los Angeles production facility, where he spent a month watching how movie production worked. Before returning to New York, Laemmle told Thalberg to remain and "keep an eye on things for me." Two months later, Laemmle returned to California, partly to see how well Thalberg was able to handle the responsibilities he was given. Thalberg gave him suggestions, which impressed Laemmle by his ability to understand and explain problems. Thalberg suggested, "The first thing you should do is establish a new job of studio manager and give him the responsibility of watching day-to-day operations." Laemmle immediately agreed, "All right. You're it." In shock, Thalberg replied, "I'm what?" Laemmle told him to take charge of the Los Angeles studio, which he did in early 1919. At age 20, Thalberg became responsible for immediately overseeing the nine ongoing film productions and nearly thirty scenarios then under development. In describing the rationale for this early appointment as studio manager, film historian David Thomson writes that his new job "owed nothing to nepotism, private wealth, or experience in the film industry." He reasons that despite "Thalberg's youth, modest education, and frail appearance . . . it is clear that he had the charm, insight, and ability, or the appearance of it, to captivate the film world." Thalberg was one among the majority of Hollywood film industry workers who migrated from the East Coast, primarily from New York. Some film actors, such as Conrad Nagel, did not like the 5-day train trip or the sudden warmth of the California climate. Neither did Marion Davies, who was not used to such "big wide spaces." Samuel Marx, a close friend of Thalberg's from New York, recalled how easily Thalberg adapted to Southern California, often standing outside his doorway during moments of contemplation to enjoy the scenery. "We were all young," said comedian Buster Keaton. "The air in California was like wine. Our business was also young--and growing like nothing ever seen before." CANNOTANSWER | Thalberg was one among the majority of Hollywood film industry workers who migrated from the East Coast, | Irving Grant Thalberg (May 30, 1899 – September 14, 1936) was an American film producer during the early years of motion pictures. He was called "The Boy Wonder" for his youth and ability to select scripts, choose actors, gather production staff, and make profitable films, including Grand Hotel, China Seas, A Night at the Opera, Mutiny on the Bounty, Camille and The Good Earth. His films carved out an international market, "projecting a seductive image of American life brimming with vitality and rooted in democracy and personal freedom", states biographer Roland Flamini.
He was born in Brooklyn, New York, and as a child was afflicted with a congenital heart disease that doctors said would kill him before he reached the age of thirty. After graduating from high school he worked as a store clerk during the day and to gain some job skills took a night class in typing. He then found work as a secretary with Universal Studios' New York office, and was later made studio manager for their Los Angeles facility. There, he oversaw production of a hundred films during his three years with the company. Among the films he produced was The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1923).
In Los Angeles, he partnered with Louis B. Mayer's new studio and, after it merged with two other studios, helped create Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM). He was made head of production of MGM in 1925, at the age of twenty-six, helping MGM become the most successful studio in Hollywood. During his twelve years with MGM, until his premature death at the age of 37, he produced four hundred films, most of which bore his imprint and innovations, including story conferences with writers, sneak previews to gain early feedback, and extensive re-shooting of scenes to improve the film. In addition, he introduced horror films to audiences and coauthored the "Production Code", guidelines for morality followed by all studios. During the 1920s and 1930s, he synthesized and merged the world of stage drama and literary classics with Hollywood films.
Thalberg created numerous new stars and groomed their screen images. Among them were Lon Chaney, Ramon Novarro, Greta Garbo, John Gilbert, Lionel Barrymore, Joan Crawford, Clark Gable, Jean Harlow, Wallace Beery, Spencer Tracy, Luise Rainer, and Norma Shearer, who became his wife. He had the ability to combine quality with commercial success, and was credited with bringing his artistic aspirations in line with the demands of audiences. After his death, Hollywood's producers said he had been the world's "foremost figure in motion-picture history". President Franklin D. Roosevelt wrote, "The world of art is poorer with the passing of Irving Thalberg. His high ideals, insight and imagination went into the production of his masterpieces." The Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award, given out periodically by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences since 1937, has been awarded to producers whose body of work reflected consistently high quality films.
Early years
Thalberg was born in Brooklyn, to German Jewish immigrant parents, William and Henrietta (Haymann). Shortly after birth, he was diagnosed with "blue baby syndrome", caused by a congenital disease that limited the oxygen supply to his heart. The prognosis from the family's doctor and specialists was that he might live to the age of twenty, or at most, to thirty.
During his high school years in Brooklyn, he began having attacks of chest pains, dizziness and fatigue. This affected his ability to study, though until that time he was a good student. When he was 17 he contracted rheumatic fever, and was confined to bed for a year. His mother, in order to prevent him falling too far behind other students, brought him homework from school, books, and tutors to teach him at home. She also hoped that the schoolwork and reading would distract him from the "tantalizing sounds" of children playing outside his window.
With little to entertain him, he read books as a main activity. He devoured popular novels, classics, plays, and biographies. His books, of necessity, replaced the streets of New York, and led to his interest in classical philosophy and philosophers, such as William James.
When Thalberg returned to school, he finished high school but lacked the stamina for college, which he felt would have required constant late-night studying and cramming for exams. Instead, he took part-time jobs as a store clerk, and in the evenings, to gain some job skills, taught himself typing, shorthand and Spanish at a night vocational school. When he turned 18, he placed an advertisement in the local newspaper hoping to find better work:
Career as producer
Universal Studios
He found work as an office secretary at Universal Pictures' New York office, and later became personal secretary to the studio's founder and president, Carl Laemmle. Among Thalberg's duties were transcribing and editing notes that Laemmle had written during screenings of his films. He earned $25 weekly, becoming adept at making insightful observations, which impressed Laemmle.
Laemmle took Thalberg to see his Los Angeles production facility, where he spent a month watching how movie production worked. Before returning to New York, Laemmle told Thalberg to remain and "keep an eye on things for me." Two months later, Laemmle returned to California, partly to see how well Thalberg was able to handle the responsibilities he was given. Thalberg gave him suggestions, and thus impressed Laemmle by his ability to understand and explain problems.
Thalberg suggested, "The first thing you should do is establish a new job of studio manager and give him the responsibility of watching day-to-day operations." Laemmle immediately agreed: "All right. You're it." In shock, Thalberg replied, "I'm what?" Laemmle told him to take charge of the Los Angeles studio, which he did in early 1919. When aged 20, Thalberg became responsible for immediately overseeing the nine ongoing film productions and nearly thirty scenarios then under development.
In describing the rationale for this early appointment as studio manager, film historian David Thomson writes that his new job "owed nothing to nepotism, private wealth, or experience in the film industry." He reasons that despite "Thalberg's youth, modest education, and frail appearance ... it is clear that he had the charm, insight, and ability, or the appearance of it, to captivate the film world."
Thalberg was one among the majority of Hollywood film industry workers who migrated from the East Coast, primarily from New York. Some film actors, such as Conrad Nagel, did not like the five-day train trip or the sudden warmth of the California climate. Neither did Marion Davies, who was not used to such "big wide spaces". Samuel Marx, a close friend of Thalberg's from New York, recalled how easily Thalberg adapted to Southern California, often standing outside his doorway during moments of contemplation to enjoy the scenery. "We were all young", said comedian Buster Keaton. "The air in California was like wine. Our business was also young—and growing like nothing ever seen before."
Confrontation with Erich von Stroheim
He quickly established his tenacity as he battled with well-known director Erich von Stroheim over the length of Foolish Wives (1922). Biographer Roland Flamini notes that the film was Universal's most expensive "jewel" ever in production, and its director and star, von Stroheim, was taking the film way over budget. Thalberg, now Universal's general manager, was forced to have the director quickly finalize production before the studio's working capital was used up. Flamini describes the situation:
Thalberg had von Stroheim come to his office, which he did still wearing his film costume as a Russian Imperial Guard and escorted by members of his production team. Thalberg calmly told him, "I have seen all the film and you have all you need for the picture. I want you to stop shooting", to which von Stroheim replied, "But I have not finished as yet." "Yes, you have", said Thalberg. "You have spent all the money this company can afford. I cannot allow you to spend any more."
Thalberg quietly explained that the director worked under the producer, and it was his responsibility to control costs. Von Stroheim, surrounded by his assistants, then confronted Thalberg: "If you were not my superior, I would smash you in the face." Thalberg, unflinching, said "Don't let that stop you." The result was that Thalberg soon afterward removed the cameras from von Stroheim's studio and took over editing. The uncut footage was pared down from five-and-a-half hours to three hours, to von Stroheim's deep dissatisfaction.
A similar problem developed with von Stroheim's next film, Merry-Go-Round (1923). Although he had promised Thalberg to remain within budget this time, he continued production until it went to twice the agreed length and was not yet near completion. Flamini speculates why this happened:
Thalberg again called von Stroheim to his office, handed him a long letter written and signed by himself, describing the problems, and summarily fired von Stroheim as of that moment. Thalberg's letter stated among the reasons,
totally inexcusable and repeated acts of insubordination ... extravagant ideas which you have been unwilling to sacrifice ... unnecessary delays ... and your apparent idea that you are greater and more powerful than the organization that employs you.
His dismissal of von Stroheim was considered an "earthquake in movie circles", notes Flamini. Producer David O. Selznick said that "it was the first time a director had been fired. It took great guts and courage ... Von Stroheim was utterly indifferent over money and could have gone on and spent millions, with nobody to stop him.". The opinion was shared by director Rouben Mamoulian, who said that the "little fellow at Universal", in one bold stroke, had "asserted the primacy of the studio over the director" and forever altered the balance of power in the movie industry.
Effects of his young age
According to Flamini, his youth was a subject of conversation within the movie community. Executives from other studios, actors, and film crew, often mistook him to be a junior employee. Movie columnist Louella Parsons, upon first being introduced to him, asked, "What's the joke? Where's the new general manager?" After five minutes of talking to Thalberg, however, she later wrote about "Universal's Boy Wonder": "He might be a boy in looks and age, but it was no child's mind that was being asked to cope with the intricate politics of Universal City." Novelist Edna Ferber responded the same way, writing that "I had fancied motion-picture producers as large gentlemen smoking oversized cigars. But this young man whose word seemed so final at Universal City ... impressed me deeply."
The male actors in the studio had a similar reaction. Lionel Barrymore, who was nearly twice his age, recalled their meetings:
Thalberg likewise gained the respect of leading playwrights, some of whom also looked down on him due to his youth. George S. Kaufman, co-author of Dinner at Eight, several Marx Brothers films, and two George Gershwin plays, came from New York to meet with Thalberg. Afterward he confided to his friend, Groucho Marx: "That man has never written a word, yet he can tell me exactly what to do with a story. I didn't know you had people like that out here."
Actress Norma Shearer, whom he later married, was surprised after he greeted her at the door, then walked her to his office for her first job interview: "Then you're not the office boy?" she asked. He smiled, as he sat himself behind his desk: "No, Miss Shearer, I'm Irving Thalberg, vice-president of the Mayer Company. I'm the man who sent for you."
His younger-than-normal age for a studio executive was usually mentioned even after he left Universal to help start up MGM. Screenwriter Agnes Christine Johnson, who worked with Thalberg for years, described his contribution during meetings:
The same quality was observed by director and screenwriter Hobart Henley: "If something that read well in conference turns out not so good on the screen, I go to him and, like that—Henley snaps his fingers—he has a remedy. He's brilliant." Another assistant producer to Thalberg explains:
His youth also contributed to his open-mindedness to the ideas of others. Conrad Nagel, who starred in numerous Thalberg films, reported that Thalberg was generally empathetic to those he worked alongside: "Thalberg never raised his voice. He just looked into your eyes, spoke softly, and after a few minutes he cast a spell on you." Studio attorney Edwin Loeb, who also worked to create AMPAS, explained that "the real foundation of Irving's success was his ability to look at life through the eyes of any given person. He had a gift of empathy, and almost complete perspective." Those opinions were also shared by producer Walter Wanger: "You thought that you were talking to an Indian savant. He could cast a spell on anybody."
His talent as a producer was enhanced by his "near-miraculous" powers of concentration, notes film critic J. Hoberman. As a result, he was never bored or tired, and supplemented his spare time with reading for his own amusement, recalls screenwriter Bayard Veiller, with some of his favorite authors being Francis Bacon, Epictetus, and Immanuel Kant.
Film projects at Universal
Biographer Bob Thomas writes that after three years at the studio, Thalberg continually proved his value. Universal's pictures improved noticeably, primarily due to Thalberg's "uncanny sense of story." He took tight control over many key aspects of production, including his requirement that from then on scripts were tightly constructed before filming began, rather than during production. Thomas adds that he also "showed a remarkable capacity for working with actors, casting them aptly and advising them on their careers."
After producing two films that were in production when he began work at Universal, he presented Laemmle with his idea for a film based on one of his favorite classic stories, The Hunchback of Notre Dame. Rather than just a horror picture, Thalberg suggested turning it into a spectacle which would include a replica of the Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris. He had Lon Chaney play the hunchback. The film became Universal's most profitable silent film and established Chaney's career as a top-flight star.
After nearly three years with Universal, Thalberg had supervised over a hundred movies, reorganized the studio to give more control to the managers, and had "stopped the defection" of many of their leading stars by offering them better, higher-paying contracts. He also produced a number of Universal's prestige films, which made the company profitable. However, he decided it was time to find a studio in Los Angeles more suitable to his skills, and spread word that he was available.
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM)
Cecil B. DeMille was the first who wanted to hire him, telling his partner Jesse Lasky, "The boy is a genius. I can see it. I know it." Lasky opposed the hire, stating, "Geniuses we have all we need." Thalberg then received an offer from Hal Roach, but the offer was withdrawn because Thalberg lacked experience with slapstick comedy films. In late 1922, Thalberg was introduced to Louis B. Mayer, president of a small but dynamic and fast-growing studio. At that first meeting, Thalberg "made a deep, immediate impression on Mayer", writes Flamini. After Thalberg had left, Mayer said to studio attorney Edwin Loeb: "Tell him if he comes to work for me, I'll look after him as though he were my son."
Although their personalities were in many ways opposite, Mayer being more outspoken and nearly twice the younger man's age, Thalberg was hired as vice president in charge of production at Louis B. Mayer Productions. Years later, Mayer's daughter Irene Mayer Selznick recalled that "it was hard to believe anyone that boyish could be so important." According to Flamini, Thalberg was hired because, although Mayer was an astute businessman, "what he lacked was Thalberg's almost unerring ability to combine quality with commercial success, to bring artistic aspiration in line with the demands of the box office." Mayer's company subsequently merged with two others to become Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM), with the 24-year-old Thalberg made part-owner and accorded the same position as vice president in charge of production. Three years after the merger, MGM became the most successful studio in Hollywood.
During his twelve years at MGM, Thalberg supervised the production of over four hundred films. Although Thalberg and his colleagues at MGM knew he was "doomed" to not live much past the age of 30 due to heart disease, he loved producing films. He continued developing innovative ideas and overseeing most of MGM's pictures. Under Thalberg's management, MGM released over 40% more films yearly than Warner Brothers, and more than double Paramount's releases. From 1924 until 1936, when Thalberg died at the age of 37, "almost every film bore Thalberg's imprint", wrote Mark Vieira.
Production innovations
Thalberg's production techniques "broke new ground in filmmaking", adds Vieira. Among his contributions at MGM was his innovation of story conferences, sneak previews and scene retakes. He introduced the first horror films and coauthored the Production Code, the set of moral guidelines that all film studios agreed to follow. Thalberg helped synthesize and merge the world of stage drama and literary classics with Hollywood films.
MGM thereby became the only movie studio to consistently show a profit during the Great Depression. Flamini explains that the equation for MGM's success depended on combining stars, a Broadway hit or popular classic, and high standards of production. This combination at the time was considered a "revolutionary approach" in the film industry, which until then assumed a star was all that was needed for success, regardless of the story or production quality. The other studios began following MGM's lead with that same formula.
Production techniques
Thalberg generally followed a system in managing his productions. According to one of his assistants, Lawrence Weingarten, who later became a producer, "Thalberg directed the film on paper, and then the director directed the film on film."
Thalberg was generally opposed to location shooting overseas where he could not oversee production and control costs, as happened with Ben Hur. Thus, he kept hundreds of back-lot carpenters at work creating realistic sets, as he did for fifteenth-century Romeo and Juliet (1936), or with China Seas (1935), to replicate the harbors of Hong Kong.
Vieira points out that Thalberg's "fascination with Broadway plays" often had him create and present stories visually. For China Seas, for instance, he described for the screenwriters, director and others, exactly how he wanted the film to appear on screen:
To be certain of achieving the desired effects, Thalberg made sure his cinematographers were careful in their use of light and shadow. Vieira observes that "more than any other producer or any other studio, Thalberg and MGM manipulated lenses, filters, and lighting instruments to affect the viewer." As a result, he notes, "most of Thalberg's films contain moments such as these, in which cinematic technique transcends mere exposition and gives the viewer something to treasure."
Thalberg was supported by most of the studio in these kinds of creative decisions. "It was a big family," notes Weingarten. "If we had a success, everybody—and I mean every cutter, every painter, every plasterer—was excited about it, was abuzz, was in a tizzy about the whole idea of picture making."
Taking risks with new subjects and stars
In 1929, MGM released fifty films, and all but five showed a profit. Of those that failed, Hallelujah was also a gamble by Thalberg. When King Vidor, the film's producer and director, proposed the idea to Thalberg of a major film cast, for the first time, exclusively with African Americans, he told Thalberg directly, "I doubt that it will make a dollar at the box office." Thalberg replied, "Don't worry about that. I've told you that MGM can afford an occasional experiment."
By the early 1930s, a number of stars began failing at the box office, partly due to the Great Depression that was now undermining the economy, along with the public's ability to spend on entertainment. Thalberg began using two stars in a film, rather than one, as had been the tradition at all the studios, such as pairing Greta Garbo with John Gilbert, Clark Gable with Jean Harlow, and William Powell with Myrna Loy. After experimenting with a few such films, including Mata Hari (1931), which were profitable, he decided on a multi-star production of another Broadway play, Grand Hotel (1932). It had five major stars, including Garbo, Joan Crawford, John Barrymore, Lionel Barrymore, and Wallace Beery. "Before Thalberg," writes Vieira, "there was no Grand Hotel in the American consciousness." The film won the Oscar for Best Picture in 1932.
Thalberg went against consensus and took another risk with The Great Ziegfeld (1936), costarring Luise Rainer. Although Louis B. Mayer did not want her in the role, which he felt was too minor for a new star, Thalberg felt that "only she could play the part", wrote biographer Charles Higham. Shortly after shooting began in late 1935, doubts of Rainer's acting ability emerged in the press. However, despite her limited appearances in the film, Rainer "so impressed audiences with one highly emotional scene" that she won the Academy Award for Best Actress.
After her winning role in The Great Ziegfeld, Thalberg wanted her to play a role that was the opposite of her previous character, for The Good Earth (1937). For the part as a Chinese peasant, she was required to act totally subservient to her husband, being perpetually huddled in submission, and barely spoke a word of dialogue during the entire film. Rainer recalls that Mayer did not approve of the film being produced or her part in it: "He was horrified at Irving Thalberg's insistence for me to play O-lan, the poor uncomely little Chinese peasant." However, she again won the Oscar for Best Actress, becoming the first actress to win two consecutive Oscars, a feat not matched until Katharine Hepburn's two Oscar wins thirty years later.
Grooming new stars
Besides bringing a distinctive high quality "look" to MGM films and often recreating well-known stories or plays, Thalberg's actors themselves took on a characteristic quality. Thalberg wanted his female actors to appear "cool, classy and beautiful," notes Flamini. And he strove to make the male actors appear "worldly and in control." In general, Thalberg movies and actors came to be "luxurious," "glossy," and "technically flawless." By doing so, he made stars or boosted the careers of actors such as Lon Chaney, Ramon Novarro, John Gilbert, Greta Garbo, Joan Crawford, Clark Gable, Helen Hayes, Jean Harlow, Marie Dressler, Wallace Beery, John Barrymore, Lionel Barrymore and Luise Rainer.
Greta Garbo
In 1925, a young Greta Garbo, then twenty, and unable to speak any English, was brought over from Sweden at Mayer's request, as he saw how she looked in still photos. A Swedish friend thought he would help her by contacting Thalberg, who then agreed to give her a screen test. According to author Frederick Sands, "the result of the test was electrifying." Thalberg was impressed and began grooming the new starlet the following day: "the studio arranged to fix her teeth, made sure she lost weight, and gave her an English tutor."
Joan Crawford
Joan Crawford's first role was a Thalberg production at MGM and she became one of their leading stars for the next thirty years. Crawford was somewhat jealous of Norma Shearer as she thought she was given the better material by her husband Thalberg out of nepotism. Nevertheless, she felt that his contribution to MGM was vital to the film industry. Not long after his early death, she recalls her concerns: "Thalberg was dead and the concept of the quality 'big' picture pretty much went out the window."
Marie Dressler
Thalberg also realized that old stars few had heard of could be made into new ones. Marie Dressler, a fifty-nine-year-old early vaudeville and movie star, who had played the top-billed lead, above Charles Chaplin and Mabel Normand), in the first feature-length comedy, Tillie's Punctured Romance (1914), was unable to get any roles in films after leaving show business for some years, finally working as a maid. MGM screenwriter Frances Marion suggested to Thalberg that she might fit well in a starring role for a new film, and was surprised that he knew of her prior successes. Thalberg approved of using her without a screen test and offered his rationale:
By 1932, shortly before she died, Dressler was the country's number one box office star.
Wallace Beery
Marie Dressler was paired twice, in Min and Bill (1930) and Tugboat Annie (1933), with Wallace Beery, another major silent star who had been struggling to get work in sound pictures until Thalberg cast him. Beery had enjoyed a hugely successful silent film career dating back to 1913, but had been fired by Paramount shortly after sound pictures appeared. Thalberg cast him in the role of "Machine Gun Butch," which had been meant for recently deceased Lon Chaney, in The Big House (1930), an energetic prison picture that became a huge hit. Beery was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actor for his performance, and his burgeoning career at MGM had transformed him into the studio's highest paid actor within two more years, during which time he won the Oscar for The Champ and had become a phenomenal box office draw as a result of Thalberg's foresight.
Getting audience feedback and reshooting
According to Vieira, MGM had few failures during this period, and numerous blockbusters. Among the reasons was Thalberg's unique system of developing a script during story conferences with writers before filming began, and later giving "sneak previews" followed by audience feedback through written questionnaires. Often, where he felt improvement was needed, he arranged for scenes to be reshot. As Thalberg once stated, "The difference between something good and something superior is often very small."
Bad decisions and missed opportunities
Thalberg felt he had his "finger on the pulse of America. I know what people will do and what they won't do," he said. His judgment was not always accurate, however. Thalberg's bringing Broadway productions to the screen to develop higher picture standards sometimes resulted in "studied" acting or "stagey" sets, notes Flamini. In 1927, after the successful release of the first full-length talking picture, The Jazz Singer (1927), he nevertheless felt that talking pictures were a fad. Thalberg likewise did not think that color would replace black-and-white in movies.
When an assistant protested against a script that envisioned a love scene in Paris with an ocean background, Thalberg refused to make changes, saying "We can't cater to a handful of people who know Paris." A more serious distraction to Thalberg's efforts was his obsession with making his wife Norma Shearer a prominent star, efforts which sometimes led to "overblown and overglamous" productions. Thalberg himself admitted to his obsession years later when he told a fellow producer: "You're behaving like I did with Norma. I knew positively that she could play anything. It's a kind of romantic astigmatism that attacks producers when they fall for an actress."
Important films at MGM
Ben Hur (1925)
One of the first pictures he took charge of, Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ, was inherited and already in production by another studio when MGM was formed. The film was turning into a disastrous expense with cost overruns already in the millions due to its lavish sets and location shooting in Rome. Most studio executives chose to terminate the film to cut their losses. Thalberg, however, felt differently, and thought the film would affect movie audiences, due to its classic literary source, and would highlight MGM as a major new studio.
He, therefore, discarded much of the original footage shot in Italy and recreated the set on MGM's back lots in Culver City, which added more millions to the production, yet gave him more control over production. The new set also included a replica of Circus Maximus for the dramatic chariot race scenes. Flamini notes that Thalberg's "gamble paid off," drawing international attention to MGM, and to Thalberg within the movie industry for his bold action.
Mutiny on the Bounty (1935)
Mutiny on the Bounty was the studio's next most expensive film after Ben Hur, with some now calling it "Thalberg's masterpiece." He initially had difficulty convincing Mayer that he could make the film without making heroes of the mutineers. He achieved that by instead making a hero of the British Royal Navy, whereby the officers and shipmates would from then on display their mutual respect. Thalberg also had to convince Clark Gable to accept the role against his will. He pleaded with Gable, eventually promising him that "If it isn't one of your greatest successes, I'll never ask you again to play a part you don't want." The film's other main stars were Charles Laughton and Franchot Tone. The film was nominated for six Academy Awards, including Best Actor, and winning it for Best Picture. Thalberg accepted the award as producer from Frank Capra.
Thalberg and Mayer partnership
At first, Thalberg and studio chief Louis B. Mayer got along splendidly; however, they had different production philosophies. Thalberg preferred literary works, while Mayer preferred glitzy crowd-pleasing films. A clash was inevitable, and their relationship grew decidedly frosty. When Thalberg fell ill in the final weeks of 1932, Mayer took advantage of the situation and replaced him with David O. Selznick and Walter Wanger. Thalberg's reputation by that time for working long hours was widely known, and rumors about the related strain on his fragile health had become front-page news in entertainment trade publications. The Hollywood Reporter in January 1933 updated its readership about his condition and addressed growing concerns that he might be forced, despite his young age, to quit the business:
Once Thalberg recovered sufficiently from his bout with the "flu" and was able to return to work later in 1933, it was as one of MGM's unit producers, albeit one who had first choice on projects as well as preferential access to all the studio's resources, including over casting its stars. Thalberg's good relationship with Nicholas Schenck, then president of Loew's Incorporated, proved to be an ongoing advantage for him. Loew's was the corporate parent of MGM, so Schenck was the true power and ultimate arbiter at the studio; and he usually supported Thalberg's decisions and continued to do so whenever disagreements about projects or production needs arose. As a result, Thalberg also continued to produce or coproduce some of MGM's most prestigious and critically acclaimed ventures in this period, such as The Barretts of Wimpole Street (1934) starring his wife Norma Shearer, China Seas (1935), A Night at the Opera (1935), San Francisco (1936), and Romeo and Juliet (1936).
Personal life
During his few years with Universal while living in New York, Thalberg had become romantically involved with Carl Laemmle's daughter, Rosabelle. Still in his early twenties and later spending most of his time in Los Angeles, his feelings toward her were no longer as strong. Flamini suspects that this may have affected his position at Universal and partly caused his decision to leave the company. "The Laemmles prayed that Irving would marry Rosabelle", notes Flamini. "They wanted their sons to be educated and their daughters to marry nice Jewish boys."
Less than a year after he and Mayer took charge of the newly created MGM studios, and still only twenty-five years old, Thalberg suffered a serious heart attack due to overwork. Mayer also became aware of Thalberg's congenital heart problems and now worried about the prospect of running MGM without him. Mayer also became concerned that one of his daughters might become romantically involved, and told them so:
Thalberg, aware of Mayer's feelings, made it a point of never giving too much attention to his daughters at social events.
One of Thalberg's traits was his ability to work long hours into the night with little sign of fatigue. According to Vieira, Thalberg believed that as long as his mind was active in his work and he was not bored, he would not feel tired. Thalberg, who often got by with only five hours of sleep, felt that most people could get by with less than they realized. To keep his mental faculties at peak, he would read philosophical books by Bacon, Epictetus, or Kant. "They stimulate me. I'd drop out of sight in no time if I didn't read and keep up with current thought—and the philosophers are brain sharpeners."
During the early 1930s, Thalberg was ambivalent about political events in Europe. While he feared Nazism and the rise of Hitler, he also feared Communism. At the time, notes Vieira, "given a choice between communism and fascism, many Americans—including Thalberg—would prefer the latter." Thalberg stated his opinion:
When others suggested that many Jews could die in Germany as a result of Nazi anti-Semitism, he replied that in his opinion "Hitler and Hitlerism will pass." On one occasion, Catholic Prince Löwenstein of Germany, who himself had almost been captured before fleeing Germany, told him: "Mr. Thalberg, your own people are being systematically hunted down and rooted out of Germany." Thalberg suggested that world Jewry should nevertheless not interfere, that the Jewish race would survive Hitler. Within a few years, American film distribution was "choked off" in Germany. Led by Warner Brothers, all American studios eventually closed their German offices.
Thalberg began dating actress Norma Shearer a few years after he joined MGM. Following her conversion to Judaism, they married on Thursday, September 29, 1927, in a private ceremony in the garden of his rented house in Beverly Hills. Rabbi Edgar F. Magnin officiated at the event, with Shearer's brother Douglas Shearer giving the bride away, and Louis B. Mayer serving as best man. The couple drove to Monterey for their honeymoon and then moved into their newly constructed home in Beverly Hills.
After their second child was born, Shearer considered retiring from films, but Thalberg convinced her to continue acting, saying he could find her good roles. She went on to be one of MGM's biggest stars of the 1930s. Their two children were Irving Jr. (1930–1987) and Katharine (1935–2006).
Death
Thalberg and Shearer took a much-needed Labor Day weekend vacation in Monterey, California, in 1936, staying at the same beachfront hotel where they spent their honeymoon. A few weeks earlier, Thalberg's leading screenwriter, Al Lewin, had proposed doing a film based on a soon-to-be published book, Gone with the Wind. Although Thalberg said it would be a "sensational" role for Gable, and a "terrific picture," he decided not to do it:
Besides, Thalberg told Mayer, "[n]o Civil War picture ever made a nickel". Shortly after returning from Monterey, Thalberg was diagnosed with pneumonia. His condition worsened steadily and he eventually required an oxygen tent at home. He died on September 14, at the age of 37.
Sam Wood, while directing A Day at the Races, was given the news by phone. He returned to the set with tears in his eyes and told the others. As the news spread "the studio was paralyzed with shock", notes Thomas. "Work stopped and hundreds of people wept", with stars, writers, directors, and studio employees "all sharing a sense of loss at the death of a man who had been a part of their working lives", states Flamini.
His funeral took place two days later, and when the services began the other studios throughout Hollywood observed five minutes of silence. Producer Sam Goldwyn "wept uncontrollably for two days" and was unable to regain his composure enough to attend. The MGM studio closed for that day.
Services were held at the Wilshire Boulevard Temple that Thalberg had occasionally attended. The funeral attracted thousands of spectators who came to view the arrival of countless stars from MGM and other studios, including Greta Garbo, Jean Harlow, the Marx Brothers, Charlie Chaplin, Walt Disney, Howard Hughes, Al Jolson, Gary Cooper, Carole Lombard, Mary Pickford, and Douglas Fairbanks, among the screen luminaries. The ushers who led them to their seats included Clark Gable, Fredric March, and playwright Moss Hart. Erich von Stroheim, who had been fired by Thalberg, came to pay his respects. Producers Louis B. Mayer, the Warner brothers, Adolph Zukor, and Nicholas Schenck sat together solemnly as Rabbi Magnin gave the eulogy.
Thalberg is buried in a private marble tomb in the Great Mausoleum at Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Glendale, California, lying at rest beside his wife Norma Shearer Arrouge (Thalberg's crypt was engraved "My Sweetheart Forever" by Shearer).
Over the following days, tributes were published by the national press. Louis B. Mayer, his co-founding partner at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, said he had lost "the finest friend a man could ever have", while MGM president Nicholas Schenck stated that "Thalberg was the most important man in the production end of the motion-picture industry. Leading producers from the other studios also expressed their feelings in published tributes to Thalberg:
David O. Selznick described him as "beyond any question the greatest individual force for fine pictures." Samuel Goldwyn called him "the foremost figure in the motion-picture industry ... and an inspiration." M. H. Aylesworth, Chairman of RKO, wrote that "his integrity, vision and ability made him the spearhead of all motion-picture production throughout the world." Harry Warner, president of Warner Bros., described him as "gifted with one of the finest minds ever placed at the service of motion-picture production." Sidney R. Kent, president of Twentieth Century Fox, said that "he made the whole world richer by giving it the highest type of entertainment. He was a true genius." Columbia president Harry Cohn said the "motion picture industry has suffered a loss from which it will not soon recover...". Darryl F. Zanuck noted, "More than any other man he raised the industry to its present world prestige." Adolph Zukor, chairman of Paramount, stated, "Irving Thalberg was the most brilliant young man in the motion picture business." Jesse Lasky said, "It will be utterly impossible to replace him."
Among the condolences that came from world political leaders, President Franklin D. Roosevelt wrote, "The world of art is poorer with the passing of Irving Thalberg. His high ideals, insight and imagination went into the production of his masterpieces."
Among the pictures that were unfinished or not yet released at the time of his death were A Day at the Races, The Good Earth, Camille, Maytime, and Romeo and Juliet. Groucho Marx, star of A Day at the Races, wrote, "After Thalberg's death, my interest in the movies waned. I continued to appear in them, but ... The fun had gone out of picture making." Thalberg's widow, Norma Shearer, recalled, "Grief does very strange things to you. I didn't seem to feel the shock for two weeks afterwards. ... then, at the end of those two weeks, I collapsed."
Legacy in the movie industry
Thalberg's legacy to the movie industry is "incalculable", states biographer Bob Thomas. He notes that with his numerous production innovations and grand stories, often turning classic literature and Broadway stage productions into big-screen pictures, he managed to keep "American movies supreme throughout the world for a generation". Darryl F. Zanuck, founder of 20th Century-Fox said that during Thalberg's brief career, he had become the "most creative producer in the history of films". Thomas describes some of his contributions:
Most of MGM's major films in the 1930s were, according to Flamini, "in a very real sense", made by Thalberg. He closely supervised the making of "more pictures than any other producer in Hollywood's history", and was considered the "archetype of the creative producer", adds Flamini. Upon his early death, aged 37, an editorial in The New York Times called him "the most important force" in the motion picture industry. The paper added that for the film industry, he "set the pace and others followed ... because his way combined style, glamour, and profit." He is described by Flamini as having been "a revolutionary in a gray flannel suit".
Thalberg refused to take credit as producer, and as a result, his name never appeared on the screen while he was alive. Thalberg claimed that "credit you give yourself is not worth having". He also said "If a picture is good, they'll know who produced it. If it's bad, nobody cares." His final film, released after he died, was The Good Earth (1937), which won numerous Academy Awards. Its opening screen credit was dedicated to Thalberg:
In 1938, the new multimillion-dollar MGM administration building in Culver City was named for Thalberg. The Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award, presented by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, also named for him, awards producers for consistently high production achievements.
Cultural legacy
The Last Tycoon
In October 1939, American novelist F. Scott Fitzgerald began writing The Last Tycoon, a fictionalized biography of Thalberg, naming the protagonist Monroe Stahr to represent Thalberg. "Thalberg has always fascinated me", he wrote to an editor. "His peculiar charm, his extraordinary good looks, his bountiful success, the tragic end of his great adventure. The events I have built around him are fiction, but all of them are things which might very well have happened. ... I've long chosen him for a hero (this has been in my mind for three years) because he is one of the half-dozen men I have known who were built on a grand scale."
Thomas notes that among the reasons Fitzgerald chose to write a book about a Thalberg-like character, was that "throughout his literary career, Fitzgerald borrowed his heroes from friends he admired, and inevitably a bit of Fitzgerald entered the characterizations." Fitzgerald himself writes that "When I like men, I want to be like them ..." Fitzgerald and Thalberg had real-life similarities: both were prodigies, both had heart ailments, and they both died at early ages.
According to biographer Matthew J. Bruccoli, Fitzgerald believed that Thalberg, with his "taste and courage, represented the best of Hollywood. ... [and] saw Thalberg as a model for what could be done in the movies." Fitzgerald died before the novel was completed, however. Bruccoli writes of Fitzgerald's book:
Although parallels between Monroe Stahr in the novel and Thalberg were evident, many who knew Thalberg intimately stated that they did not see similarities in their personalities. Norma Shearer said that the Stahr character was not at all like her former husband.
In the 1976 film version, directed by Elia Kazan, Monroe Stahr was played by Robert De Niro. Kazan, in his pre-production notes, described the Stahr character as he saw him:
In the 2016 television series based on the novel, Monroe Stahr is played by Matt Bomer.
Others
Fitzgerald also based his short story "Crazy Sunday", originally published in the October 1932 issue of American Mercury, on an incident at a party thrown by Thalberg and Shearer. The story is included in Fitzgerald's collection Taps at Reveille (1935).
Thalberg was portrayed in the movie Man of a Thousand Faces (1957) by Robert Evans, who went on to become a studio head himself.
Thalberg was portrayed by Bill Cusack in Young Indiana Jones and the Hollywood Follies (1994), a TV film based on The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles, in which Indiana Jones is depicted as taking part in Thalberg's conflict with Erich von Stroheim over Foolish Wives.
In 2020, Thalberg was played by Ferdinand Kingsley in the David Fincher film Mank
Thalberg, played by Tobey Maguire, is rumored to appear in the upcoming movie Babylon.
Filmography
Producer
Reputation (1921)
The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1923)
Merry-Go-Round (1923)
His Hour (1924)
He Who Gets Slapped (1924)
The Unholy Three (1925)
The Merry Widow (1925)
The Tower of Lies (1925)
The Big Parade (1925)
Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ (1925)
Torrent (1926)
La Bohème (1926)
Brown of Harvard (1926)
The Road to Mandalay (1926)
The Temptress (1926)
Valencia (1926)
Flesh and the Devil (1926)
Twelve Miles Out (1927)
The Student Prince in Old Heidelberg (1927)
London After Midnight (1927)
The Crowd (1928)
Laugh, Clown, Laugh (1928)
White Shadows in the South Seas (1928)
Show People (1928)
West of Zanzibar (1928)
The Broadway Melody (1929)
The Trial of Mary Dugan (1929)
Voice of the City (1929)
Where East Is East (1929)
The Last of Mrs. Cheyney (1929)
The Hollywood Revue of 1929 (1929)
Hallelujah (1929)
His Glorious Night (1929)
The Kiss (1929)
Anna Christie (1930)
Redemption (1930)
The Divorcee (1930)
The Rogue Song (1930)
The Big House (1930)
The Unholy Three (1930)
Let Us Be Gay (1930)
Billy the Kid (1930)
Way for a Sailor (1930)
A Lady's Morals (1930)
Inspiration (1931)
Trader Horn (1931)
The Secret Six (1931)
A Free Soul (1931)
Just a Gigolo (1931)
Menschen hinter Gittern (1931), German-language version of The Big House (1930)
The Sin of Madelon Claudet (1931)
The Guardsman (1931)
The Champ (1931)
Possessed (1931)
Private Lives (1931)
Mata Hari (1931)
Freaks (1932)
Tarzan the Ape Man (1932)
Grand Hotel (1932)
Letty Lynton (1932)
As You Desire Me (1932)
Red-Headed Woman (1932)
Smilin' Through (1932)
Red Dust (1932)
Rasputin and the Empress (1932)
Strange Interlude (1932)
Tugboat Annie (1933)
Bombshell (1933)
Eskimo (1933)
La Veuve Joyeuse (1934) French-language version of The Merry Widow
Riptide (1934)
The Barretts of Wimpole Street (1934)
The Merry Widow (1934)
What Every Woman Knows (1934)
Biography of a Bachelor Girl (1935)
No More Ladies (1935)
China Seas (1935)
Mutiny on the Bounty (1935)
A Night at the Opera (1935)
Riffraff (1936)
Romeo and Juliet (1936)
Camille (1936)
Maytime (1937)
A Day at the Races (1937)
Broadway Melody of 1938 (1937)
The Good Earth (1937)
Marie Antoinette (1938)
Writer
The Trap (1922)
The Dangerous Little Demon (1922)
Awards
Academy Awards
Notes
Further reading
Books
Flamini, Roland. Thalberg: The Last Tycoon and the World of M-G-M (1994)
Marx, Samuel. Mayer and Thalberg: The Make-believe Saints (1975)
Thomas, Bob. Thalberg: Life and Legend (1969)
Vieira, Mark A. Irving Thalberg's M-G-M. New York: Harry N. Abrams, 2008.
Vieira, Mark A. Irving Thalberg: Boy Wonder to Producer Prince. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2009.
Articles
Starman, Ray. "Irving Thalberg", Films In Review, June/July 1987, p. 347–353
External links
Irving Thalberg at TCM
Cinemagraphe Review of the Roland Flamini biography of Thalberg: The Last Tycoon and the World of MGM
Irving Thalberg at Virtual History
Irving Thalberg profiled in Collier's Magazine (1924)
Videos
1899 births
1936 deaths
American film producers
Film producers from California
Producers who won the Best Picture Academy Award
American film studio executives
American male screenwriters
Cinema pioneers
Silent film directors
Silent film producers
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer executives
Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences founders
Businesspeople from Los Angeles
Hollywood history and culture
California Republicans
New York (state) Republicans
USC School of Cinematic Arts faculty
20th-century American businesspeople
Screenwriters from California
Screenwriters from New York (state)
People from Brooklyn
American anti-communists
American people of German-Jewish descent
Deaths from pneumonia in California
Burials at Forest Lawn Memorial Park (Glendale)
20th-century American male writers
20th-century American writers
Jewish American writers
20th-century American screenwriters | true | [
"An Englishman in Auschwitz is a 2001 book written by Leon Greenman, a Holocaust survivor. The book details his experiences in the Auschwitz concentration camp.\n\nThe book is a result of the commitment of English-born Greenman to God \"that if he lived, he would let the world know what happened during the war\". In short, the book describes the reminiscences of his days of imprisonment in six concentration camps of the Nazis. Greenman describes the arrival of his family (consisting of himself, his wife, Esther, a Dutchwoman, and their three-year-old son, Barney) at the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp in these words: The women were separated from the men: Else and Barny were marched about 20 yards away to a queue of women...I tried to watch Else. I could see her clearly against the blue lights. She could see me too for she threw me a kiss and held up our child for me to see. What was going through her mind I will never know. Perhaps she was pleased that the journey had come to an end.\n\nReferences\n\n2001 non-fiction books\nPersonal accounts of the Holocaust",
"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"
]
|
[
"Sérgio Mendes",
"Middle career"
]
| C_bb7e626fb3cc46159c5006e7a70787f7_0 | What albums did he do | 1 | What albums did Sergio Mendes do? | Sérgio Mendes | Mendes' career in the U.S. stalled in the mid-1970s, but he remained very popular in South America and Japan. His two albums with Bell Records in 1973 and 1974 followed by several for Elektra from 1975 on, found Mendes continuing to mine the best in American pop music and post-Bossa writers of his native Brazil, while forging new directions in soul with collaborators like Stevie Wonder, who wrote Mendes' R&B-inflected minor hit, "The Real Thing." In 1983, he rejoined Alpert's A&M records and enjoyed huge success with a self-titled album and several follow-up albums, all of which received considerable adult contemporary airplay with charting singles. "Never Gonna Let You Go", featuring vocals by Joe Pizzulo and Leza Miller, equalled the success of his 1968 single "The Look of Love" by reaching No. 4 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart; it also spent four weeks atop the Billboard adult contemporary chart. In 1984 he recorded the Confetti album, which had the hit songs "Olympia", which was also used as a theme song for the Olympic games that year and "Alibis". The '80s also found Mendes working with singer Lani Hall again on the song "No Place to Hide" from the Brasil '86 album, and as producer of her vocals on the title song for the James Bond film Never Say Never Again. By the time Mendes released his Grammy-winning Elektra album Brasileiro in 1992, he was the undisputed master of pop-inflected Brazilian jazz. The late-1990s lounge music revival brought retrospection and respect to Mendes' oeuvre, particularly the classic Brasil '66 albums. CANNOTANSWER | self-titled album and several follow-up albums, | Sérgio Santos Mendes (; born February 11, 1941) is a Brazilian musician. He has over 55 releases, and plays bossa nova heavily crossed with jazz and funk. He was nominated for an Oscar for Best Original Song in 2012 as co-writer of the song "Real in Rio" from the animated film Rio.
Mendes is a unique example of a Brazilian musician primarily known in the United States, where his albums were recorded and where most of his touring took place.
Mendes is married to Gracinha Leporace, who has performed with him since the early 1970s. Mendes has also collaborated with many artists through the years, including The Black Eyed Peas, with whom he re-recorded in 2006 a version of his breakthrough hit "Mas que Nada".
Biography
Early career
Mendes was born in Niterói, Brazil, the son of a physician. He attended the local conservatory with hopes of becoming a classical pianist. As his interest in jazz grew, he started playing in nightclubs in the late 1950s just as bossa nova, a jazz-inflected derivative of samba, was emerging. Mendes played with Antônio Carlos Jobim (regarded as a mentor) and many U.S. jazz musicians who toured Brazil.
Mendes formed the Sexteto Bossa Rio and recorded Dance Moderno in 1961. Touring Europe and the United States, Mendes recorded albums with Cannonball Adderley and Herbie Mann and played at the Carnegie Hall. Mendes moved to the U.S. in 1964 and cut two albums under the Sergio Mendes & Brasil '65 group name with Capitol Records and Atlantic Records.
Mendes became full partners with Richard Adler, a Brooklyn-born American who had previously brought Bossa Trés plus two dancers, Joe Bennett and a Brazilian partner, to appear on The Ed Sullivan Show in 1963. He was also accompanied by Jobim; Flavio Ramos, and Aloísio de Oliveira, a record and TV producer from Rio who used to be a member of Carmen Miranda's backing group Bando da Lua. The Musicians Union only allowed this group to appear on one TV show and make one club appearance (Basin Street East) before ordering them to leave the U.S. When the new group Brasil '65 was formed, Shelly Manne, Bud Shank and other West Coast musicians got Mendes and the others into the local musicians union. Adler and Mendes formed Brasil '65, which consisted of Wanda Sá and Rosinha de Valença, as well as the Sergio Mendes Trio. The group recorded albums for Atlantic and Capitol.
Brasil '66
All of Mendes' jazz albums for Atlantic Records, through Nesuhi and Ahmet Ertegun, had low sales. Richard Adler suggested that Mendes and the group sing in English, as well as Portuguese as Mendes had demanded, and Adler sought new English-based material such as "Goin' Out of My Head" by Teddy Randazzo and Bobby Weinstein. In order to sing these songs properly in English, Adler suggested that the group find two American girl singers who would sing in both English and Portuguese. Adler called his friend Jerry Dennon and A&M Records founders Herb Alpert and Jerry Moss, and arranged for an audition for Mendes' new group, which was dubbed "Brasil '66.'" Alpert and Moss signed Mendes and his group to A&M Records. Adler then went to the Ertegun Brothers at Atlantic Records and sought to have them release Mendes from his Atlantic Jazz contract. Ahmet agreed to allow him to record albums under the name "Sergio Mendes and Brasil '66" with A&M. Mendes was not at this meeting, only Adler and Ahmet Ertegun. Alpert took over as producer for the A&M albums, and the group became a huge success with their first single, "Mas que Nada", by writer Jorge Ben.
The first album on A&M was Herb Alpert Presents Sergio Mendes & Brasil '66, an album that went platinum based largely on the success of the single "Mas que Nada" (a Jorge Ben cover) and the personal support of Alpert, with whom Mendes toured.
The original lineup of Brasil '66 was Mendes (piano), vocalists Lani Hall (later Alpert's wife) and Sylvia Dulce Kleiner (Bibi Vogel) (1942 - 2004), Bob Matthews (bass), José Soares (percussion) and João Palma (1943 - 2016) (drums). John Pisano (1931 - ) played guitar. This new line-up then recorded two more albums between 1966 and 1968 (including the best-selling Look Around LP), before there was a major personnel change for their fourth album Fool on the Hill.
Mendes often changed the lineup. Vocalist Kleiner (Bibi Vogel) was replaced by Janis Hansen, who in turn was replaced by Karen Philipp. Veteran drummer Dom Um Romão teamed with Rubens Bassini to assume percussionist duties. Claudio Slon joined the group as drummer in 1969, and went on to play with Mendes for nearly a decade. Sebastião Neto took over on bass and Oscar Castro-Neves took on guitar. These changes gave the group a more orchestral sound than before. In the early 1970s, lead singer Hall pursued a solo career and became Alpert's second wife. Some accounts claim that Mendes was upset with Alpert for years for "stealing" Hall away from his group.
Though his early singles with Brasil '66 (most notably "Mas que Nada") met with some success, Mendes really burst into mainstream prominence when he performed the Oscar-nominated "The Look of Love" on the Academy Awards telecast in April 1968. Brasil '66's version of the song quickly shot into the top 10, peaking at No. 4 and eclipsing Dusty Springfield's version from the soundtrack of the movie Casino Royale. Mendes spent the rest of 1968 enjoying consecutive top 10 and top 20 hits with his follow-up singles "The Fool on the Hill" and "Scarborough Fair". From 1968 on, Mendes was arguably the biggest Brazilian star in the world and enjoyed immense popularity worldwide, performing in venues as varied as stadium arenas and the White House, where he gave concerts for presidents Lyndon B. Johnson and Richard Nixon. The Brasil '66 group appeared at the World Expo in Osaka, Japan in June 1970.
Middle career
Mendes' career in the U.S. stalled in the mid-1970s, but he remained popular in South America and Japan. His two albums with Bell Records in 1973 and 1974 followed by several for Elektra from 1975 on, found Mendes continuing to mine the best in American pop music and post-Bossa writers of his native Brazil, while forging new directions in soul with collaborators like Stevie Wonder, who wrote Mendes' R&B-inflected minor hit "The Real Thing".
In 1983, he rejoined Alpert's A&M records and enjoyed success with a self-titled album and several follow-up albums, all of which received considerable adult contemporary airplay with charting singles. "Never Gonna Let You Go", featuring vocals by Joe Pizzulo and Leeza Miller, equalled the success of his 1968 single "The Look of Love" by reaching No. 4 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart; it also spent four weeks atop the Billboard adult contemporary chart. In 1984, he recorded the Confetti album, which had the hit songs "Olympia", which was also used as a theme song for the Olympic Games that year and "Alibis" which reached #5 on the A/C chart and #29 on the Hot 100. The 1980s also saw Mendes working with singer Lani Hall again on the song "No Place to Hide" from the Brasil '86 album, and as producer of her vocals on the title song for the James Bond film Never Say Never Again.
By the time Mendes released his Grammy-winning Elektra album Brasileiro in 1992, he was the undisputed master of pop-inflected Brazilian jazz. The late-1990s lounge music revival brought retrospection and respect to Mendes' oeuvre, particularly the classic Brasil '66 albums.
Later career
Timeless features a wide array of neo-soul and alternative hip hop guest artists, including The Black Eyed Peas, Erykah Badu, Black Thought, Jill Scott, Chali 2na of Jurassic 5, India.Arie, John Legend, Justin Timberlake, Q-Tip, Stevie Wonder and Pharoahe Monch. It was released February 14, 2006 by Concord Records.
The 2006 re-recorded version of "Mas que Nada" with The Black Eyed Peas had additional vocals by Gracinha Leporace (Mendes' wife); this version is included on Timeless. In Brazil, the song is also well known for being the theme song for the local television channel Globo's Estrelas. The Black Eyed Peas' version contains a sample of their 2004 hit "Hey Mama". The re-recorded song became popular on many European charts. On the UK Singles Chart, the song entered at No. 29 and rose to and peaked at No. 6 on its second week on the chart.
He makes an appearance dancing along for one of the segments Pharrell Williams' 24 hour of happy.
Mendes served as co-producer on the soundtrack albums for two animated films about his homeland: 2011's Rio and its 2014 sequel.
Discography
1961: Dance Moderno (Philips)
1962: Cannonball's Bossa Nova (Riverside/Capitol Records)
1963: Você Ainda Não Ouviu Nada! (a.k.a., The Beat of Brazil) (Philips)
1964: The Swinger from Rio (a.k.a., Bossa Nova York) (Atlantic)
1965: In Person at El Matador (Atlantic)
1965: Brasil '65 (a.k.a. In The Brazilian Bag) (Capitol)
1965: The Great Arrival (Atlantic)
1966: Herb Alpert Presents: Sergio Mendes & Brasil '66 (A&M)
1967: Equinox (A&M)
1967: Quiet Nights (Philips)
1967: Look Around (A&M)
1968: Fool on the Hill (A&M)
1968: Sergio Mendes' Favorite Things (Atlantic)
1969: Crystal Illusions (A&M)
1969: Ye-Me-Lê (A&M)
1969: The Story of... Sérgio Mendes and Brasil '77 (a.ka., Italia - Brazil (A&M)
1970: Live at the Expo (A&M)
1970: Stillness (A&M)
1971: País Tropical (A&M)
1971: Giorno (A&M)
1972: Four Sider (A&M, double compilation album)
1972: Primal Roots (a.k.a., Raízes - Brazil) (A&M)
1973: Love Music (Bell)
1974: Vintage 74 (Bell)
1975: Sérgio Mendes (a.k.a., I Believe - Brazil) (Elektra)
1976: Homecooking (Elektra)
1977: Sergio Mendes and the New Brasil '77 (Elektra)
1977: Pelé (Atlantic)
1978: Brasil '88 (Elektra)
1979: Alegria (a.k.a., Horizonte Aberto - Brazil) (WEA)
1979: Magic Lady (Elektra)
1980: The Beat Of Brazil (Atlantic)
1983: Sérgio Mendes (A&M)
1984: Confetti (A&M)
1986: Brasil '86 (A&M)
1989: Arara (A&M)
1992: Brasileiro (Elektra)
1993: Oceano (Verve)
1999: Matrix (Concord)
2006: Timeless (Concord)
2007: Encanto (Concord)
2009: Bom Tempo (Concord)
2014: Magic (Okeh)
2020: In the Key of Joy (Concord)
Awards
Academy Awards
Grammy Awards
Latin Grammy Awards
References
External links
Official website
Sergio Mendes interview by Pete Lewis, 'Blues & Soul' July 2008
"Sergio Mendes & Brasil '66/'77/etc. The Sérgio Mendes Discography." brasil66.com, 2006.
The Sounds and Colours of Brazil: An Interview with Sergio Mendes 'Sounds and Colours' June 25, 2012.
"Sérgio Mendes." The Brazilian Sound: Brazil's Music & Culture, July 13, 2008.
July 2009 Interview with L.A. Record
1941 births
Living people
20th-century Brazilian musicians
20th-century pianists
21st-century Brazilian musicians
21st-century pianists
A&M Records artists
Atlantic Records artists
Bossa nova pianists
Brazilian jazz composers
Brazilian jazz musicians
Brazilian jazz pianists
Brazilian male composers
Brazilian record producers
Brazilian songwriters
Capitol Records artists
Concord Records artists
Grammy Award winners
Latin Grammy Award winners
Latin Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award winners
Latin jazz pianists
Latin music composers
Latin music record producers
Latin pop pianists
Música Popular Brasileira pianists
Musicians from Rio de Janeiro (city)
People from Niterói
Sergio Mendes and Brasil '66 members
20th-century jazz composers
21st-century jazz composers | true | [
"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",
"Sarah Vaughan Sings George Gershwin is a 1958 studio album by Sarah Vaughan, of the music of George Gershwin.\n\nVaughan would release another all-Gershwin album, Gershwin Live!, in 1982.\n\nTrack listing\n \"Isn't It a Pity?\" – 3:53\n \"Of Thee I Sing\" – 3:10\n \"I'll Build a Stairway to Paradise\" (Buddy De Sylva, George Gershwin, Ira Gershwin) – 2:39\n \"Someone to Watch over Me\" – 3:58\n \"Bidin' My Time\" – 3:01\n \"The Man I Love\" – 3:34\n \"How Long Has This Been Going On?\" – 3:58\n \"My One and Only (What Am I Gonna Do?)\" – 3:13\n \"Lorelei\" – 2:32\n \"I've Got a Crush on You\" – 4:00\n \"Summertime\" (G. Gershwin, I. Gershwin, DuBose Heyward) – 2:51\n \"Aren't You Kinda Glad We Did?\" – 3:27\n \"They All Laughed\" – 2:23\n \"Looking For a Boy\" – 3:38\n \"He Loves and She Loves\" – 3:24\n \"My Man's Gone Now\" (G. Gershwin, I. Gershwin, Heyward) – 4:22\n \"I Won't Say I Will\" (DeSylva, G. Gershwin, I. Gershwin) – 3:24\n \"A Foggy Day\" – 3:24\n \"Let's Call the Whole Thing Off\" – 2:22\n \"Things Are Looking Up\" – 3:33\n \"Do It Again\" (DeSylva, I. Gershwin) – 3:13\n \"Love Walked In\" – 3:06\n 1999 Cd reissue bonus tracks not included on the original 1958 release:\n \"Of Thee I Sing\" – 3:23\n \"Summertime\" \t\n \"Things Are Looking Up\" – 3:21\n \"I Won't Say I Will\" (Buddy DeSylva, G. Gershwin, I. Gershwin) – 0:18\n \"I Won't Say I Will\" – 3:21\n \"I Won't Say I Will\" – 1:21\n \"I Won't Say I Will\" – 2:50\n \"I Won't Say I Will\" – 7:49\n \"Of Thee I Sing\" – 1:35\n \"Of Thee I Sing\" – 2:25\n \"Of Thee I Sing\" – 2:16\n \"Of Thee I Sing\" – 4:02\n \"My One and Only (What Am I Gonna Do?)\" – 1:47\n \"My One and Only (What Am I Gonna Do?)\" – 3:11\n \"My One and Only (What Am I Gonna Do?)\" – 4:34\n\nAll songs composed by George Gershwin with lyrics by Ira Gershwin, unless otherwise indicated.\n\nPersonnel \n Sarah Vaughan – vocals\n Hal Mooney – arranger\n\nReferences\n\n1958 albums\nSarah Vaughan albums\nAlbums arranged by Hal Mooney\nEmArcy Records albums\nAlbums produced by Bob Shad"
]
|
[
"Sérgio Mendes",
"Middle career",
"What albums did he do",
"self-titled album and several follow-up albums,"
]
| C_bb7e626fb3cc46159c5006e7a70787f7_0 | Did he have any hit songs | 2 | Did Sergio Mendes have any hit songs | Sérgio Mendes | Mendes' career in the U.S. stalled in the mid-1970s, but he remained very popular in South America and Japan. His two albums with Bell Records in 1973 and 1974 followed by several for Elektra from 1975 on, found Mendes continuing to mine the best in American pop music and post-Bossa writers of his native Brazil, while forging new directions in soul with collaborators like Stevie Wonder, who wrote Mendes' R&B-inflected minor hit, "The Real Thing." In 1983, he rejoined Alpert's A&M records and enjoyed huge success with a self-titled album and several follow-up albums, all of which received considerable adult contemporary airplay with charting singles. "Never Gonna Let You Go", featuring vocals by Joe Pizzulo and Leza Miller, equalled the success of his 1968 single "The Look of Love" by reaching No. 4 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart; it also spent four weeks atop the Billboard adult contemporary chart. In 1984 he recorded the Confetti album, which had the hit songs "Olympia", which was also used as a theme song for the Olympic games that year and "Alibis". The '80s also found Mendes working with singer Lani Hall again on the song "No Place to Hide" from the Brasil '86 album, and as producer of her vocals on the title song for the James Bond film Never Say Never Again. By the time Mendes released his Grammy-winning Elektra album Brasileiro in 1992, he was the undisputed master of pop-inflected Brazilian jazz. The late-1990s lounge music revival brought retrospection and respect to Mendes' oeuvre, particularly the classic Brasil '66 albums. CANNOTANSWER | "Never Gonna Let You Go | Sérgio Santos Mendes (; born February 11, 1941) is a Brazilian musician. He has over 55 releases, and plays bossa nova heavily crossed with jazz and funk. He was nominated for an Oscar for Best Original Song in 2012 as co-writer of the song "Real in Rio" from the animated film Rio.
Mendes is a unique example of a Brazilian musician primarily known in the United States, where his albums were recorded and where most of his touring took place.
Mendes is married to Gracinha Leporace, who has performed with him since the early 1970s. Mendes has also collaborated with many artists through the years, including The Black Eyed Peas, with whom he re-recorded in 2006 a version of his breakthrough hit "Mas que Nada".
Biography
Early career
Mendes was born in Niterói, Brazil, the son of a physician. He attended the local conservatory with hopes of becoming a classical pianist. As his interest in jazz grew, he started playing in nightclubs in the late 1950s just as bossa nova, a jazz-inflected derivative of samba, was emerging. Mendes played with Antônio Carlos Jobim (regarded as a mentor) and many U.S. jazz musicians who toured Brazil.
Mendes formed the Sexteto Bossa Rio and recorded Dance Moderno in 1961. Touring Europe and the United States, Mendes recorded albums with Cannonball Adderley and Herbie Mann and played at the Carnegie Hall. Mendes moved to the U.S. in 1964 and cut two albums under the Sergio Mendes & Brasil '65 group name with Capitol Records and Atlantic Records.
Mendes became full partners with Richard Adler, a Brooklyn-born American who had previously brought Bossa Trés plus two dancers, Joe Bennett and a Brazilian partner, to appear on The Ed Sullivan Show in 1963. He was also accompanied by Jobim; Flavio Ramos, and Aloísio de Oliveira, a record and TV producer from Rio who used to be a member of Carmen Miranda's backing group Bando da Lua. The Musicians Union only allowed this group to appear on one TV show and make one club appearance (Basin Street East) before ordering them to leave the U.S. When the new group Brasil '65 was formed, Shelly Manne, Bud Shank and other West Coast musicians got Mendes and the others into the local musicians union. Adler and Mendes formed Brasil '65, which consisted of Wanda Sá and Rosinha de Valença, as well as the Sergio Mendes Trio. The group recorded albums for Atlantic and Capitol.
Brasil '66
All of Mendes' jazz albums for Atlantic Records, through Nesuhi and Ahmet Ertegun, had low sales. Richard Adler suggested that Mendes and the group sing in English, as well as Portuguese as Mendes had demanded, and Adler sought new English-based material such as "Goin' Out of My Head" by Teddy Randazzo and Bobby Weinstein. In order to sing these songs properly in English, Adler suggested that the group find two American girl singers who would sing in both English and Portuguese. Adler called his friend Jerry Dennon and A&M Records founders Herb Alpert and Jerry Moss, and arranged for an audition for Mendes' new group, which was dubbed "Brasil '66.'" Alpert and Moss signed Mendes and his group to A&M Records. Adler then went to the Ertegun Brothers at Atlantic Records and sought to have them release Mendes from his Atlantic Jazz contract. Ahmet agreed to allow him to record albums under the name "Sergio Mendes and Brasil '66" with A&M. Mendes was not at this meeting, only Adler and Ahmet Ertegun. Alpert took over as producer for the A&M albums, and the group became a huge success with their first single, "Mas que Nada", by writer Jorge Ben.
The first album on A&M was Herb Alpert Presents Sergio Mendes & Brasil '66, an album that went platinum based largely on the success of the single "Mas que Nada" (a Jorge Ben cover) and the personal support of Alpert, with whom Mendes toured.
The original lineup of Brasil '66 was Mendes (piano), vocalists Lani Hall (later Alpert's wife) and Sylvia Dulce Kleiner (Bibi Vogel) (1942 - 2004), Bob Matthews (bass), José Soares (percussion) and João Palma (1943 - 2016) (drums). John Pisano (1931 - ) played guitar. This new line-up then recorded two more albums between 1966 and 1968 (including the best-selling Look Around LP), before there was a major personnel change for their fourth album Fool on the Hill.
Mendes often changed the lineup. Vocalist Kleiner (Bibi Vogel) was replaced by Janis Hansen, who in turn was replaced by Karen Philipp. Veteran drummer Dom Um Romão teamed with Rubens Bassini to assume percussionist duties. Claudio Slon joined the group as drummer in 1969, and went on to play with Mendes for nearly a decade. Sebastião Neto took over on bass and Oscar Castro-Neves took on guitar. These changes gave the group a more orchestral sound than before. In the early 1970s, lead singer Hall pursued a solo career and became Alpert's second wife. Some accounts claim that Mendes was upset with Alpert for years for "stealing" Hall away from his group.
Though his early singles with Brasil '66 (most notably "Mas que Nada") met with some success, Mendes really burst into mainstream prominence when he performed the Oscar-nominated "The Look of Love" on the Academy Awards telecast in April 1968. Brasil '66's version of the song quickly shot into the top 10, peaking at No. 4 and eclipsing Dusty Springfield's version from the soundtrack of the movie Casino Royale. Mendes spent the rest of 1968 enjoying consecutive top 10 and top 20 hits with his follow-up singles "The Fool on the Hill" and "Scarborough Fair". From 1968 on, Mendes was arguably the biggest Brazilian star in the world and enjoyed immense popularity worldwide, performing in venues as varied as stadium arenas and the White House, where he gave concerts for presidents Lyndon B. Johnson and Richard Nixon. The Brasil '66 group appeared at the World Expo in Osaka, Japan in June 1970.
Middle career
Mendes' career in the U.S. stalled in the mid-1970s, but he remained popular in South America and Japan. His two albums with Bell Records in 1973 and 1974 followed by several for Elektra from 1975 on, found Mendes continuing to mine the best in American pop music and post-Bossa writers of his native Brazil, while forging new directions in soul with collaborators like Stevie Wonder, who wrote Mendes' R&B-inflected minor hit "The Real Thing".
In 1983, he rejoined Alpert's A&M records and enjoyed success with a self-titled album and several follow-up albums, all of which received considerable adult contemporary airplay with charting singles. "Never Gonna Let You Go", featuring vocals by Joe Pizzulo and Leeza Miller, equalled the success of his 1968 single "The Look of Love" by reaching No. 4 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart; it also spent four weeks atop the Billboard adult contemporary chart. In 1984, he recorded the Confetti album, which had the hit songs "Olympia", which was also used as a theme song for the Olympic Games that year and "Alibis" which reached #5 on the A/C chart and #29 on the Hot 100. The 1980s also saw Mendes working with singer Lani Hall again on the song "No Place to Hide" from the Brasil '86 album, and as producer of her vocals on the title song for the James Bond film Never Say Never Again.
By the time Mendes released his Grammy-winning Elektra album Brasileiro in 1992, he was the undisputed master of pop-inflected Brazilian jazz. The late-1990s lounge music revival brought retrospection and respect to Mendes' oeuvre, particularly the classic Brasil '66 albums.
Later career
Timeless features a wide array of neo-soul and alternative hip hop guest artists, including The Black Eyed Peas, Erykah Badu, Black Thought, Jill Scott, Chali 2na of Jurassic 5, India.Arie, John Legend, Justin Timberlake, Q-Tip, Stevie Wonder and Pharoahe Monch. It was released February 14, 2006 by Concord Records.
The 2006 re-recorded version of "Mas que Nada" with The Black Eyed Peas had additional vocals by Gracinha Leporace (Mendes' wife); this version is included on Timeless. In Brazil, the song is also well known for being the theme song for the local television channel Globo's Estrelas. The Black Eyed Peas' version contains a sample of their 2004 hit "Hey Mama". The re-recorded song became popular on many European charts. On the UK Singles Chart, the song entered at No. 29 and rose to and peaked at No. 6 on its second week on the chart.
He makes an appearance dancing along for one of the segments Pharrell Williams' 24 hour of happy.
Mendes served as co-producer on the soundtrack albums for two animated films about his homeland: 2011's Rio and its 2014 sequel.
Discography
1961: Dance Moderno (Philips)
1962: Cannonball's Bossa Nova (Riverside/Capitol Records)
1963: Você Ainda Não Ouviu Nada! (a.k.a., The Beat of Brazil) (Philips)
1964: The Swinger from Rio (a.k.a., Bossa Nova York) (Atlantic)
1965: In Person at El Matador (Atlantic)
1965: Brasil '65 (a.k.a. In The Brazilian Bag) (Capitol)
1965: The Great Arrival (Atlantic)
1966: Herb Alpert Presents: Sergio Mendes & Brasil '66 (A&M)
1967: Equinox (A&M)
1967: Quiet Nights (Philips)
1967: Look Around (A&M)
1968: Fool on the Hill (A&M)
1968: Sergio Mendes' Favorite Things (Atlantic)
1969: Crystal Illusions (A&M)
1969: Ye-Me-Lê (A&M)
1969: The Story of... Sérgio Mendes and Brasil '77 (a.ka., Italia - Brazil (A&M)
1970: Live at the Expo (A&M)
1970: Stillness (A&M)
1971: País Tropical (A&M)
1971: Giorno (A&M)
1972: Four Sider (A&M, double compilation album)
1972: Primal Roots (a.k.a., Raízes - Brazil) (A&M)
1973: Love Music (Bell)
1974: Vintage 74 (Bell)
1975: Sérgio Mendes (a.k.a., I Believe - Brazil) (Elektra)
1976: Homecooking (Elektra)
1977: Sergio Mendes and the New Brasil '77 (Elektra)
1977: Pelé (Atlantic)
1978: Brasil '88 (Elektra)
1979: Alegria (a.k.a., Horizonte Aberto - Brazil) (WEA)
1979: Magic Lady (Elektra)
1980: The Beat Of Brazil (Atlantic)
1983: Sérgio Mendes (A&M)
1984: Confetti (A&M)
1986: Brasil '86 (A&M)
1989: Arara (A&M)
1992: Brasileiro (Elektra)
1993: Oceano (Verve)
1999: Matrix (Concord)
2006: Timeless (Concord)
2007: Encanto (Concord)
2009: Bom Tempo (Concord)
2014: Magic (Okeh)
2020: In the Key of Joy (Concord)
Awards
Academy Awards
Grammy Awards
Latin Grammy Awards
References
External links
Official website
Sergio Mendes interview by Pete Lewis, 'Blues & Soul' July 2008
"Sergio Mendes & Brasil '66/'77/etc. The Sérgio Mendes Discography." brasil66.com, 2006.
The Sounds and Colours of Brazil: An Interview with Sergio Mendes 'Sounds and Colours' June 25, 2012.
"Sérgio Mendes." The Brazilian Sound: Brazil's Music & Culture, July 13, 2008.
July 2009 Interview with L.A. Record
1941 births
Living people
20th-century Brazilian musicians
20th-century pianists
21st-century Brazilian musicians
21st-century pianists
A&M Records artists
Atlantic Records artists
Bossa nova pianists
Brazilian jazz composers
Brazilian jazz musicians
Brazilian jazz pianists
Brazilian male composers
Brazilian record producers
Brazilian songwriters
Capitol Records artists
Concord Records artists
Grammy Award winners
Latin Grammy Award winners
Latin Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award winners
Latin jazz pianists
Latin music composers
Latin music record producers
Latin pop pianists
Música Popular Brasileira pianists
Musicians from Rio de Janeiro (city)
People from Niterói
Sergio Mendes and Brasil '66 members
20th-century jazz composers
21st-century jazz composers | true | [
"Return of the 1 Hit Wonder is the fourth album by rapper, Young MC. The album was released in 1997 for Overall Records and was Young MC's first release on an independent record label. While the album did not chart on any album charts, it did have two charting singles; \"Madame Buttafly\" reached No. 25 on the Hot Rap Songs and \"On & Poppin\" reached No. 23. The title refers to Young MC's only Billboard Hot 100 top 10 hit, \"Bust A Move\".\n\nTrack listing\n\"One Hit\" \n\"Freakie\" \n\"On & Poppin'\" \n\"You Ain't Gotta Lie Ta Kick It\" \n\"Madame Buttafly\" \n\"Lingerie\" \n\"Coast 2 Coast\" \n\"Fuel to the Fire\" \n\"Bring It Home\" \n\"Intensify\" \n\"Mr. Right Now\" \n\"On & Poppin'\" (Remix)\n\nReferences\n\nYoung MC albums\n1997 albums",
"\"Happy Song\" is a 1983 hit single by Italian disco music act Baby's Gang. The single became a European hit single when covered by German band Boney M. the following year.\n\nBoney M. version\nAfter Boney M.'s return to the charts with a cover of the Italian hit \"Kalimba de Luna\", producer Frank Farian rushed back into the studio to cover another Italian hit single. He invited Boney M.'s original dancer Bobby Farrell to join the group along with a group of children from Rhein-Main Air Base Elementary and Jr. High, credited as The School Rebels, who did the lead vocals together with Reggie Tsiboe. While Bobby Farrell did a rap, original singers Liz Mitchell and Marcia Barrett did not participate in the recording. Session vocalists La Mama (Patricia Shockley, Madeleine Davis and Judy Cheeks) did the additional female vocals. The single gave the group their final German Top 10 hit single (#7), their first in nearly four years.\n\nReleases\n7\" Single\n\"Happy Song\" - 4:18 / \"School's Out\" (Vocal version) (Farian, Kawohl, Reuter) - 3:15 (Hansa 106 909-100, Germany)\n\n12\" Single\n\"Happy Song\" (Club Mix) 8:30 / \"School's Out\" (Instr.) - 3:04 (Hansa 601 555-213, Germany)\n\nReferences \n\n1983 singles\nBoney M. songs\nItalo disco songs\nSong recordings produced by Frank Farian\nHansa Records singles\nSongs about happiness\n1983 songs"
]
|
[
"Sérgio Mendes",
"Middle career",
"What albums did he do",
"self-titled album and several follow-up albums,",
"Did he have any hit songs",
"\"Never Gonna Let You Go"
]
| C_bb7e626fb3cc46159c5006e7a70787f7_0 | What other songs were popular | 3 | Bssides "Never Gonna Let You Go", what other Sergio Mendes songs were popular | Sérgio Mendes | Mendes' career in the U.S. stalled in the mid-1970s, but he remained very popular in South America and Japan. His two albums with Bell Records in 1973 and 1974 followed by several for Elektra from 1975 on, found Mendes continuing to mine the best in American pop music and post-Bossa writers of his native Brazil, while forging new directions in soul with collaborators like Stevie Wonder, who wrote Mendes' R&B-inflected minor hit, "The Real Thing." In 1983, he rejoined Alpert's A&M records and enjoyed huge success with a self-titled album and several follow-up albums, all of which received considerable adult contemporary airplay with charting singles. "Never Gonna Let You Go", featuring vocals by Joe Pizzulo and Leza Miller, equalled the success of his 1968 single "The Look of Love" by reaching No. 4 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart; it also spent four weeks atop the Billboard adult contemporary chart. In 1984 he recorded the Confetti album, which had the hit songs "Olympia", which was also used as a theme song for the Olympic games that year and "Alibis". The '80s also found Mendes working with singer Lani Hall again on the song "No Place to Hide" from the Brasil '86 album, and as producer of her vocals on the title song for the James Bond film Never Say Never Again. By the time Mendes released his Grammy-winning Elektra album Brasileiro in 1992, he was the undisputed master of pop-inflected Brazilian jazz. The late-1990s lounge music revival brought retrospection and respect to Mendes' oeuvre, particularly the classic Brasil '66 albums. CANNOTANSWER | CANNOTANSWER | Sérgio Santos Mendes (; born February 11, 1941) is a Brazilian musician. He has over 55 releases, and plays bossa nova heavily crossed with jazz and funk. He was nominated for an Oscar for Best Original Song in 2012 as co-writer of the song "Real in Rio" from the animated film Rio.
Mendes is a unique example of a Brazilian musician primarily known in the United States, where his albums were recorded and where most of his touring took place.
Mendes is married to Gracinha Leporace, who has performed with him since the early 1970s. Mendes has also collaborated with many artists through the years, including The Black Eyed Peas, with whom he re-recorded in 2006 a version of his breakthrough hit "Mas que Nada".
Biography
Early career
Mendes was born in Niterói, Brazil, the son of a physician. He attended the local conservatory with hopes of becoming a classical pianist. As his interest in jazz grew, he started playing in nightclubs in the late 1950s just as bossa nova, a jazz-inflected derivative of samba, was emerging. Mendes played with Antônio Carlos Jobim (regarded as a mentor) and many U.S. jazz musicians who toured Brazil.
Mendes formed the Sexteto Bossa Rio and recorded Dance Moderno in 1961. Touring Europe and the United States, Mendes recorded albums with Cannonball Adderley and Herbie Mann and played at the Carnegie Hall. Mendes moved to the U.S. in 1964 and cut two albums under the Sergio Mendes & Brasil '65 group name with Capitol Records and Atlantic Records.
Mendes became full partners with Richard Adler, a Brooklyn-born American who had previously brought Bossa Trés plus two dancers, Joe Bennett and a Brazilian partner, to appear on The Ed Sullivan Show in 1963. He was also accompanied by Jobim; Flavio Ramos, and Aloísio de Oliveira, a record and TV producer from Rio who used to be a member of Carmen Miranda's backing group Bando da Lua. The Musicians Union only allowed this group to appear on one TV show and make one club appearance (Basin Street East) before ordering them to leave the U.S. When the new group Brasil '65 was formed, Shelly Manne, Bud Shank and other West Coast musicians got Mendes and the others into the local musicians union. Adler and Mendes formed Brasil '65, which consisted of Wanda Sá and Rosinha de Valença, as well as the Sergio Mendes Trio. The group recorded albums for Atlantic and Capitol.
Brasil '66
All of Mendes' jazz albums for Atlantic Records, through Nesuhi and Ahmet Ertegun, had low sales. Richard Adler suggested that Mendes and the group sing in English, as well as Portuguese as Mendes had demanded, and Adler sought new English-based material such as "Goin' Out of My Head" by Teddy Randazzo and Bobby Weinstein. In order to sing these songs properly in English, Adler suggested that the group find two American girl singers who would sing in both English and Portuguese. Adler called his friend Jerry Dennon and A&M Records founders Herb Alpert and Jerry Moss, and arranged for an audition for Mendes' new group, which was dubbed "Brasil '66.'" Alpert and Moss signed Mendes and his group to A&M Records. Adler then went to the Ertegun Brothers at Atlantic Records and sought to have them release Mendes from his Atlantic Jazz contract. Ahmet agreed to allow him to record albums under the name "Sergio Mendes and Brasil '66" with A&M. Mendes was not at this meeting, only Adler and Ahmet Ertegun. Alpert took over as producer for the A&M albums, and the group became a huge success with their first single, "Mas que Nada", by writer Jorge Ben.
The first album on A&M was Herb Alpert Presents Sergio Mendes & Brasil '66, an album that went platinum based largely on the success of the single "Mas que Nada" (a Jorge Ben cover) and the personal support of Alpert, with whom Mendes toured.
The original lineup of Brasil '66 was Mendes (piano), vocalists Lani Hall (later Alpert's wife) and Sylvia Dulce Kleiner (Bibi Vogel) (1942 - 2004), Bob Matthews (bass), José Soares (percussion) and João Palma (1943 - 2016) (drums). John Pisano (1931 - ) played guitar. This new line-up then recorded two more albums between 1966 and 1968 (including the best-selling Look Around LP), before there was a major personnel change for their fourth album Fool on the Hill.
Mendes often changed the lineup. Vocalist Kleiner (Bibi Vogel) was replaced by Janis Hansen, who in turn was replaced by Karen Philipp. Veteran drummer Dom Um Romão teamed with Rubens Bassini to assume percussionist duties. Claudio Slon joined the group as drummer in 1969, and went on to play with Mendes for nearly a decade. Sebastião Neto took over on bass and Oscar Castro-Neves took on guitar. These changes gave the group a more orchestral sound than before. In the early 1970s, lead singer Hall pursued a solo career and became Alpert's second wife. Some accounts claim that Mendes was upset with Alpert for years for "stealing" Hall away from his group.
Though his early singles with Brasil '66 (most notably "Mas que Nada") met with some success, Mendes really burst into mainstream prominence when he performed the Oscar-nominated "The Look of Love" on the Academy Awards telecast in April 1968. Brasil '66's version of the song quickly shot into the top 10, peaking at No. 4 and eclipsing Dusty Springfield's version from the soundtrack of the movie Casino Royale. Mendes spent the rest of 1968 enjoying consecutive top 10 and top 20 hits with his follow-up singles "The Fool on the Hill" and "Scarborough Fair". From 1968 on, Mendes was arguably the biggest Brazilian star in the world and enjoyed immense popularity worldwide, performing in venues as varied as stadium arenas and the White House, where he gave concerts for presidents Lyndon B. Johnson and Richard Nixon. The Brasil '66 group appeared at the World Expo in Osaka, Japan in June 1970.
Middle career
Mendes' career in the U.S. stalled in the mid-1970s, but he remained popular in South America and Japan. His two albums with Bell Records in 1973 and 1974 followed by several for Elektra from 1975 on, found Mendes continuing to mine the best in American pop music and post-Bossa writers of his native Brazil, while forging new directions in soul with collaborators like Stevie Wonder, who wrote Mendes' R&B-inflected minor hit "The Real Thing".
In 1983, he rejoined Alpert's A&M records and enjoyed success with a self-titled album and several follow-up albums, all of which received considerable adult contemporary airplay with charting singles. "Never Gonna Let You Go", featuring vocals by Joe Pizzulo and Leeza Miller, equalled the success of his 1968 single "The Look of Love" by reaching No. 4 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart; it also spent four weeks atop the Billboard adult contemporary chart. In 1984, he recorded the Confetti album, which had the hit songs "Olympia", which was also used as a theme song for the Olympic Games that year and "Alibis" which reached #5 on the A/C chart and #29 on the Hot 100. The 1980s also saw Mendes working with singer Lani Hall again on the song "No Place to Hide" from the Brasil '86 album, and as producer of her vocals on the title song for the James Bond film Never Say Never Again.
By the time Mendes released his Grammy-winning Elektra album Brasileiro in 1992, he was the undisputed master of pop-inflected Brazilian jazz. The late-1990s lounge music revival brought retrospection and respect to Mendes' oeuvre, particularly the classic Brasil '66 albums.
Later career
Timeless features a wide array of neo-soul and alternative hip hop guest artists, including The Black Eyed Peas, Erykah Badu, Black Thought, Jill Scott, Chali 2na of Jurassic 5, India.Arie, John Legend, Justin Timberlake, Q-Tip, Stevie Wonder and Pharoahe Monch. It was released February 14, 2006 by Concord Records.
The 2006 re-recorded version of "Mas que Nada" with The Black Eyed Peas had additional vocals by Gracinha Leporace (Mendes' wife); this version is included on Timeless. In Brazil, the song is also well known for being the theme song for the local television channel Globo's Estrelas. The Black Eyed Peas' version contains a sample of their 2004 hit "Hey Mama". The re-recorded song became popular on many European charts. On the UK Singles Chart, the song entered at No. 29 and rose to and peaked at No. 6 on its second week on the chart.
He makes an appearance dancing along for one of the segments Pharrell Williams' 24 hour of happy.
Mendes served as co-producer on the soundtrack albums for two animated films about his homeland: 2011's Rio and its 2014 sequel.
Discography
1961: Dance Moderno (Philips)
1962: Cannonball's Bossa Nova (Riverside/Capitol Records)
1963: Você Ainda Não Ouviu Nada! (a.k.a., The Beat of Brazil) (Philips)
1964: The Swinger from Rio (a.k.a., Bossa Nova York) (Atlantic)
1965: In Person at El Matador (Atlantic)
1965: Brasil '65 (a.k.a. In The Brazilian Bag) (Capitol)
1965: The Great Arrival (Atlantic)
1966: Herb Alpert Presents: Sergio Mendes & Brasil '66 (A&M)
1967: Equinox (A&M)
1967: Quiet Nights (Philips)
1967: Look Around (A&M)
1968: Fool on the Hill (A&M)
1968: Sergio Mendes' Favorite Things (Atlantic)
1969: Crystal Illusions (A&M)
1969: Ye-Me-Lê (A&M)
1969: The Story of... Sérgio Mendes and Brasil '77 (a.ka., Italia - Brazil (A&M)
1970: Live at the Expo (A&M)
1970: Stillness (A&M)
1971: País Tropical (A&M)
1971: Giorno (A&M)
1972: Four Sider (A&M, double compilation album)
1972: Primal Roots (a.k.a., Raízes - Brazil) (A&M)
1973: Love Music (Bell)
1974: Vintage 74 (Bell)
1975: Sérgio Mendes (a.k.a., I Believe - Brazil) (Elektra)
1976: Homecooking (Elektra)
1977: Sergio Mendes and the New Brasil '77 (Elektra)
1977: Pelé (Atlantic)
1978: Brasil '88 (Elektra)
1979: Alegria (a.k.a., Horizonte Aberto - Brazil) (WEA)
1979: Magic Lady (Elektra)
1980: The Beat Of Brazil (Atlantic)
1983: Sérgio Mendes (A&M)
1984: Confetti (A&M)
1986: Brasil '86 (A&M)
1989: Arara (A&M)
1992: Brasileiro (Elektra)
1993: Oceano (Verve)
1999: Matrix (Concord)
2006: Timeless (Concord)
2007: Encanto (Concord)
2009: Bom Tempo (Concord)
2014: Magic (Okeh)
2020: In the Key of Joy (Concord)
Awards
Academy Awards
Grammy Awards
Latin Grammy Awards
References
External links
Official website
Sergio Mendes interview by Pete Lewis, 'Blues & Soul' July 2008
"Sergio Mendes & Brasil '66/'77/etc. The Sérgio Mendes Discography." brasil66.com, 2006.
The Sounds and Colours of Brazil: An Interview with Sergio Mendes 'Sounds and Colours' June 25, 2012.
"Sérgio Mendes." The Brazilian Sound: Brazil's Music & Culture, July 13, 2008.
July 2009 Interview with L.A. Record
1941 births
Living people
20th-century Brazilian musicians
20th-century pianists
21st-century Brazilian musicians
21st-century pianists
A&M Records artists
Atlantic Records artists
Bossa nova pianists
Brazilian jazz composers
Brazilian jazz musicians
Brazilian jazz pianists
Brazilian male composers
Brazilian record producers
Brazilian songwriters
Capitol Records artists
Concord Records artists
Grammy Award winners
Latin Grammy Award winners
Latin Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award winners
Latin jazz pianists
Latin music composers
Latin music record producers
Latin pop pianists
Música Popular Brasileira pianists
Musicians from Rio de Janeiro (city)
People from Niterói
Sergio Mendes and Brasil '66 members
20th-century jazz composers
21st-century jazz composers | false | [
"What More Can I Ask? is a popular song written in 1932 with lyrics by A. E. Wilkins and music by Ray Noble.\n\nRecordings\n\nReferences \n\n1932 songs\nSongs written by Ray Noble\nAl Bowlly songs",
"\"Cock a doodle doo\" (Roud 17770) is a popular English language nursery rhyme.\n\nLyrics\nThe most common modern version is:\nCock a doodle do!\nMy dame has lost her shoe,\nMy master's lost his fiddlestick, \nAnd knows not what to do.\n\nOrigins\nThe first two lines were used to mock the cockerel's (rooster in US) \"crow\". The first full version recorded was in Mother Goose's Melody, published in London around 1765. By the mid-nineteenth century, when it was collected by James Orchard Halliwell, it was very popular and three additional verses, perhaps more recent in origin, had been added:\n\nCock a doodle do!\nWhat is my dame to do?\nTill master's found his fiddlingstick,\nShe'll dance without her shoe.\n\nCock a doodle doo!\nMy dame has found her shoe,\nAnd master's found his fiddlingstick,\nSing cock a doodle do!\n\nCock a doodle do!\nMy dame will dance with you,\nWhile master fiddles his fiddlingstick,\nAnd knows not what to do.\n\nNotes\n\nEnglish nursery rhymes\nSongwriter unknown\nYear of song unknown\nEnglish folk songs\nEnglish children's songs\nTraditional children's songs"
]
|
[
"Sérgio Mendes",
"Middle career",
"What albums did he do",
"self-titled album and several follow-up albums,",
"Did he have any hit songs",
"\"Never Gonna Let You Go",
"What other songs were popular",
"I don't know."
]
| C_bb7e626fb3cc46159c5006e7a70787f7_0 | What else did he do in this time | 4 | Aside from Sergio Mendes hit song, "Never Gonna Let You Go" what else did he do in his middle career? | Sérgio Mendes | Mendes' career in the U.S. stalled in the mid-1970s, but he remained very popular in South America and Japan. His two albums with Bell Records in 1973 and 1974 followed by several for Elektra from 1975 on, found Mendes continuing to mine the best in American pop music and post-Bossa writers of his native Brazil, while forging new directions in soul with collaborators like Stevie Wonder, who wrote Mendes' R&B-inflected minor hit, "The Real Thing." In 1983, he rejoined Alpert's A&M records and enjoyed huge success with a self-titled album and several follow-up albums, all of which received considerable adult contemporary airplay with charting singles. "Never Gonna Let You Go", featuring vocals by Joe Pizzulo and Leza Miller, equalled the success of his 1968 single "The Look of Love" by reaching No. 4 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart; it also spent four weeks atop the Billboard adult contemporary chart. In 1984 he recorded the Confetti album, which had the hit songs "Olympia", which was also used as a theme song for the Olympic games that year and "Alibis". The '80s also found Mendes working with singer Lani Hall again on the song "No Place to Hide" from the Brasil '86 album, and as producer of her vocals on the title song for the James Bond film Never Say Never Again. By the time Mendes released his Grammy-winning Elektra album Brasileiro in 1992, he was the undisputed master of pop-inflected Brazilian jazz. The late-1990s lounge music revival brought retrospection and respect to Mendes' oeuvre, particularly the classic Brasil '66 albums. CANNOTANSWER | had the hit songs "Olympia", which was also used as a theme song for the Olympic games | Sérgio Santos Mendes (; born February 11, 1941) is a Brazilian musician. He has over 55 releases, and plays bossa nova heavily crossed with jazz and funk. He was nominated for an Oscar for Best Original Song in 2012 as co-writer of the song "Real in Rio" from the animated film Rio.
Mendes is a unique example of a Brazilian musician primarily known in the United States, where his albums were recorded and where most of his touring took place.
Mendes is married to Gracinha Leporace, who has performed with him since the early 1970s. Mendes has also collaborated with many artists through the years, including The Black Eyed Peas, with whom he re-recorded in 2006 a version of his breakthrough hit "Mas que Nada".
Biography
Early career
Mendes was born in Niterói, Brazil, the son of a physician. He attended the local conservatory with hopes of becoming a classical pianist. As his interest in jazz grew, he started playing in nightclubs in the late 1950s just as bossa nova, a jazz-inflected derivative of samba, was emerging. Mendes played with Antônio Carlos Jobim (regarded as a mentor) and many U.S. jazz musicians who toured Brazil.
Mendes formed the Sexteto Bossa Rio and recorded Dance Moderno in 1961. Touring Europe and the United States, Mendes recorded albums with Cannonball Adderley and Herbie Mann and played at the Carnegie Hall. Mendes moved to the U.S. in 1964 and cut two albums under the Sergio Mendes & Brasil '65 group name with Capitol Records and Atlantic Records.
Mendes became full partners with Richard Adler, a Brooklyn-born American who had previously brought Bossa Trés plus two dancers, Joe Bennett and a Brazilian partner, to appear on The Ed Sullivan Show in 1963. He was also accompanied by Jobim; Flavio Ramos, and Aloísio de Oliveira, a record and TV producer from Rio who used to be a member of Carmen Miranda's backing group Bando da Lua. The Musicians Union only allowed this group to appear on one TV show and make one club appearance (Basin Street East) before ordering them to leave the U.S. When the new group Brasil '65 was formed, Shelly Manne, Bud Shank and other West Coast musicians got Mendes and the others into the local musicians union. Adler and Mendes formed Brasil '65, which consisted of Wanda Sá and Rosinha de Valença, as well as the Sergio Mendes Trio. The group recorded albums for Atlantic and Capitol.
Brasil '66
All of Mendes' jazz albums for Atlantic Records, through Nesuhi and Ahmet Ertegun, had low sales. Richard Adler suggested that Mendes and the group sing in English, as well as Portuguese as Mendes had demanded, and Adler sought new English-based material such as "Goin' Out of My Head" by Teddy Randazzo and Bobby Weinstein. In order to sing these songs properly in English, Adler suggested that the group find two American girl singers who would sing in both English and Portuguese. Adler called his friend Jerry Dennon and A&M Records founders Herb Alpert and Jerry Moss, and arranged for an audition for Mendes' new group, which was dubbed "Brasil '66.'" Alpert and Moss signed Mendes and his group to A&M Records. Adler then went to the Ertegun Brothers at Atlantic Records and sought to have them release Mendes from his Atlantic Jazz contract. Ahmet agreed to allow him to record albums under the name "Sergio Mendes and Brasil '66" with A&M. Mendes was not at this meeting, only Adler and Ahmet Ertegun. Alpert took over as producer for the A&M albums, and the group became a huge success with their first single, "Mas que Nada", by writer Jorge Ben.
The first album on A&M was Herb Alpert Presents Sergio Mendes & Brasil '66, an album that went platinum based largely on the success of the single "Mas que Nada" (a Jorge Ben cover) and the personal support of Alpert, with whom Mendes toured.
The original lineup of Brasil '66 was Mendes (piano), vocalists Lani Hall (later Alpert's wife) and Sylvia Dulce Kleiner (Bibi Vogel) (1942 - 2004), Bob Matthews (bass), José Soares (percussion) and João Palma (1943 - 2016) (drums). John Pisano (1931 - ) played guitar. This new line-up then recorded two more albums between 1966 and 1968 (including the best-selling Look Around LP), before there was a major personnel change for their fourth album Fool on the Hill.
Mendes often changed the lineup. Vocalist Kleiner (Bibi Vogel) was replaced by Janis Hansen, who in turn was replaced by Karen Philipp. Veteran drummer Dom Um Romão teamed with Rubens Bassini to assume percussionist duties. Claudio Slon joined the group as drummer in 1969, and went on to play with Mendes for nearly a decade. Sebastião Neto took over on bass and Oscar Castro-Neves took on guitar. These changes gave the group a more orchestral sound than before. In the early 1970s, lead singer Hall pursued a solo career and became Alpert's second wife. Some accounts claim that Mendes was upset with Alpert for years for "stealing" Hall away from his group.
Though his early singles with Brasil '66 (most notably "Mas que Nada") met with some success, Mendes really burst into mainstream prominence when he performed the Oscar-nominated "The Look of Love" on the Academy Awards telecast in April 1968. Brasil '66's version of the song quickly shot into the top 10, peaking at No. 4 and eclipsing Dusty Springfield's version from the soundtrack of the movie Casino Royale. Mendes spent the rest of 1968 enjoying consecutive top 10 and top 20 hits with his follow-up singles "The Fool on the Hill" and "Scarborough Fair". From 1968 on, Mendes was arguably the biggest Brazilian star in the world and enjoyed immense popularity worldwide, performing in venues as varied as stadium arenas and the White House, where he gave concerts for presidents Lyndon B. Johnson and Richard Nixon. The Brasil '66 group appeared at the World Expo in Osaka, Japan in June 1970.
Middle career
Mendes' career in the U.S. stalled in the mid-1970s, but he remained popular in South America and Japan. His two albums with Bell Records in 1973 and 1974 followed by several for Elektra from 1975 on, found Mendes continuing to mine the best in American pop music and post-Bossa writers of his native Brazil, while forging new directions in soul with collaborators like Stevie Wonder, who wrote Mendes' R&B-inflected minor hit "The Real Thing".
In 1983, he rejoined Alpert's A&M records and enjoyed success with a self-titled album and several follow-up albums, all of which received considerable adult contemporary airplay with charting singles. "Never Gonna Let You Go", featuring vocals by Joe Pizzulo and Leeza Miller, equalled the success of his 1968 single "The Look of Love" by reaching No. 4 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart; it also spent four weeks atop the Billboard adult contemporary chart. In 1984, he recorded the Confetti album, which had the hit songs "Olympia", which was also used as a theme song for the Olympic Games that year and "Alibis" which reached #5 on the A/C chart and #29 on the Hot 100. The 1980s also saw Mendes working with singer Lani Hall again on the song "No Place to Hide" from the Brasil '86 album, and as producer of her vocals on the title song for the James Bond film Never Say Never Again.
By the time Mendes released his Grammy-winning Elektra album Brasileiro in 1992, he was the undisputed master of pop-inflected Brazilian jazz. The late-1990s lounge music revival brought retrospection and respect to Mendes' oeuvre, particularly the classic Brasil '66 albums.
Later career
Timeless features a wide array of neo-soul and alternative hip hop guest artists, including The Black Eyed Peas, Erykah Badu, Black Thought, Jill Scott, Chali 2na of Jurassic 5, India.Arie, John Legend, Justin Timberlake, Q-Tip, Stevie Wonder and Pharoahe Monch. It was released February 14, 2006 by Concord Records.
The 2006 re-recorded version of "Mas que Nada" with The Black Eyed Peas had additional vocals by Gracinha Leporace (Mendes' wife); this version is included on Timeless. In Brazil, the song is also well known for being the theme song for the local television channel Globo's Estrelas. The Black Eyed Peas' version contains a sample of their 2004 hit "Hey Mama". The re-recorded song became popular on many European charts. On the UK Singles Chart, the song entered at No. 29 and rose to and peaked at No. 6 on its second week on the chart.
He makes an appearance dancing along for one of the segments Pharrell Williams' 24 hour of happy.
Mendes served as co-producer on the soundtrack albums for two animated films about his homeland: 2011's Rio and its 2014 sequel.
Discography
1961: Dance Moderno (Philips)
1962: Cannonball's Bossa Nova (Riverside/Capitol Records)
1963: Você Ainda Não Ouviu Nada! (a.k.a., The Beat of Brazil) (Philips)
1964: The Swinger from Rio (a.k.a., Bossa Nova York) (Atlantic)
1965: In Person at El Matador (Atlantic)
1965: Brasil '65 (a.k.a. In The Brazilian Bag) (Capitol)
1965: The Great Arrival (Atlantic)
1966: Herb Alpert Presents: Sergio Mendes & Brasil '66 (A&M)
1967: Equinox (A&M)
1967: Quiet Nights (Philips)
1967: Look Around (A&M)
1968: Fool on the Hill (A&M)
1968: Sergio Mendes' Favorite Things (Atlantic)
1969: Crystal Illusions (A&M)
1969: Ye-Me-Lê (A&M)
1969: The Story of... Sérgio Mendes and Brasil '77 (a.ka., Italia - Brazil (A&M)
1970: Live at the Expo (A&M)
1970: Stillness (A&M)
1971: País Tropical (A&M)
1971: Giorno (A&M)
1972: Four Sider (A&M, double compilation album)
1972: Primal Roots (a.k.a., Raízes - Brazil) (A&M)
1973: Love Music (Bell)
1974: Vintage 74 (Bell)
1975: Sérgio Mendes (a.k.a., I Believe - Brazil) (Elektra)
1976: Homecooking (Elektra)
1977: Sergio Mendes and the New Brasil '77 (Elektra)
1977: Pelé (Atlantic)
1978: Brasil '88 (Elektra)
1979: Alegria (a.k.a., Horizonte Aberto - Brazil) (WEA)
1979: Magic Lady (Elektra)
1980: The Beat Of Brazil (Atlantic)
1983: Sérgio Mendes (A&M)
1984: Confetti (A&M)
1986: Brasil '86 (A&M)
1989: Arara (A&M)
1992: Brasileiro (Elektra)
1993: Oceano (Verve)
1999: Matrix (Concord)
2006: Timeless (Concord)
2007: Encanto (Concord)
2009: Bom Tempo (Concord)
2014: Magic (Okeh)
2020: In the Key of Joy (Concord)
Awards
Academy Awards
Grammy Awards
Latin Grammy Awards
References
External links
Official website
Sergio Mendes interview by Pete Lewis, 'Blues & Soul' July 2008
"Sergio Mendes & Brasil '66/'77/etc. The Sérgio Mendes Discography." brasil66.com, 2006.
The Sounds and Colours of Brazil: An Interview with Sergio Mendes 'Sounds and Colours' June 25, 2012.
"Sérgio Mendes." The Brazilian Sound: Brazil's Music & Culture, July 13, 2008.
July 2009 Interview with L.A. Record
1941 births
Living people
20th-century Brazilian musicians
20th-century pianists
21st-century Brazilian musicians
21st-century pianists
A&M Records artists
Atlantic Records artists
Bossa nova pianists
Brazilian jazz composers
Brazilian jazz musicians
Brazilian jazz pianists
Brazilian male composers
Brazilian record producers
Brazilian songwriters
Capitol Records artists
Concord Records artists
Grammy Award winners
Latin Grammy Award winners
Latin Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award winners
Latin jazz pianists
Latin music composers
Latin music record producers
Latin pop pianists
Música Popular Brasileira pianists
Musicians from Rio de Janeiro (city)
People from Niterói
Sergio Mendes and Brasil '66 members
20th-century jazz composers
21st-century jazz composers | true | [
"What Else Do You Do? (A Compilation of Quiet Music) is a various artists compilation album, released in 1990 by Shimmy Disc.\n\nTrack listing\n\nPersonnel \nAdapted from the What Else Do You Do? (A Compilation of Quiet Music) liner notes.\n Kramer – production, engineering\n\nRelease history\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links \n \n\n1990 compilation albums\nAlbums produced by Kramer (musician)\nShimmy Disc compilation albums",
"Fiction is the Comsat Angels' third album, released in August 1982 on Polydor Records. The album has been reissued on CD three times: in 1995 by RPM Records, in 2006 by Renascent and in 2015 by Edsel Records, with different track listings (see below). The album peaked at No. 94 in the UK charts in September 1982.\n\nFiction was less gloomy than the Comsats' previous album, Sleep No More. Frontman Stephen Fellows said of the change: \"I certainly didn't want to make another record as intense as Sleep No More — at least not immediately. Sleep No More was so dark that I felt it skewed things a bit — possibly even mentally for me. I just felt if we carried on in that direction it'd lead to madness or maybe even something worse\".\n\nFellows was satisfied with many of the songs on Fiction, including \"What Else!?\", \"Pictures\" and \"After the Rain\", but felt that the album as a whole could have been better. \"We were a bit short of tunes when we recorded it\", he said. \"We were touring quite a bit after Sleep No More and there wasn't as much time to write as I would have liked\".\n\nTrack listing (1982) \nAll tracks written by Fellows/Glaisher/Bacon/Peake.\n\n\"After the Rain\"\n\"Zinger\"\n\"Now I Know\"\n\"Not a Word\"\n\"Ju Ju Money\"\n\"More\"\n\"Pictures\"\n\"Birdman\"\n\"Don't Look Now\"\n\"What Else!?\"\n\nTrack listing (1995) \nAll tracks written by Fellows/Glaisher/Bacon/Peake.\n\n\"After the Rain\"\n\"Zinger\"\n\"Now I Know\"\n\"Not a Word\"\n\"Ju Ju Money\"\n\"More\"\n\"Pictures\"\n\"Birdman\"\n\"Don't Look Now\"\n\"What Else!?\"\n\"It's History\"\n\"After the Rain\" (Remix)\n\"Private Party\"\n\"Mass\"\n\nTrack listing (2006) \nAll tracks written by Fellows/Glaisher/Bacon/Peake.\n\n\"After the Rain\"\n\"Zinger\"\n\"Now I Know\"\n\"Not a Word\"\n\"Ju Ju Money\"\n\"More\"\n\"Pictures\"\n\"Birdman\"\n\"Don't Look Now\"\n\"What Else!?\"\n\"(Do The) Empty House\"\n\"Red Planet Revisited\"\n\"It's History\"\n\"Private Party\"\n\"For Your Information\"\n\"After the Rain\" (Remix)\n\"(Do The) Empty House\" (Live)\n\"What Else!?\" (Live)\n\nTrack listing (2015) \nAll tracks written by Fellows/Glaisher/Bacon/Peake.\n\nDisc 1\n\"After the Rain\"\n\"Zinger\"\n\"Now I Know\"\n\"Not a Word\"\n\"Ju Ju Money\"\n\"More\"\n\"Pictures\"\n\"Birdman\"\n\"Don't Look Now\"\n\"What Else!?\"\n\nDisc 2 – bonus tracks\n\"(Do The) Empty House\"\n\"Red Planet Revisited\"\n\"It's History\"\n\"Private Party\"\n\"For Your Information\"\n\"After the Rain\" (Remix)\n\nJohn Peel Session\n\"Now I Know\"\n\"Ju Ju Money\"\n\"Our Secret\"\n\"Goat of the West\"\n\nPersonnel \nThe Comsat Angels\nStephen Fellows – vocals, guitar, artwork\nAndy Peake – synthesizer, vocals\nKevin Bacon – bass guitar\nMik Glaisher – drums\n\nReferences \n\n1982 albums\nThe Comsat Angels albums\nPolydor Records albums"
]
|
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